Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother

The book I read was “The Adoration of Jenna Fox” by Mary E. Pearson. The signpost I identified is Aha moment, the part is when jenna figures out what happened in the accident. “I stare at the screen absorbing word by word a sliver of my life that changed everything” (Pearson 177).This is an example of Aha moment because it is right when Jenna figures out what happened in “the accident.” this revealed how little Jenna actually knew about “the accident.”

A “Black Man and Public Space,” by Brent Staples was written in 1951 about his experience of being a black man in different public areas. Staples throughout the story makes it a point to emphasize the gender and race of the different people he encounters. He uses the word victim to describe his first encounter which has a very racial and stereotypical feel towards him. The issue Staples has with this is that as a reader I, a Caucasian/Mexican female, relates more to the white woman or the victim.

"A mother 's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity; it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path. " This quote by Agatha Christie is a perfect way to express the incredible bond that mothers feel with their children and it holds true that our mothers are special in our lives. Our presents for mums are our simple way of expressing the way we feel about them.

Reading Log – 2 1. Pages 87-171, read on 1.19.18; characters involved: Imogene Scott, Lindy Scott, Chad Price, Jeremy White, Lillian Eugene, Omar, Mike, Pari Singh. 2. In the books The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos, the theme that is taking the most shape is self-discovery. Throughout these 6 chapters, it has the most evidence and support through the pages.

As a photographer myself, the theory of punctum is not unknown to me; however, the application of the concept of punctum towards the perfomativity of a photograph is unchartered territory. The photograph I chose to analyze is Dorothea Lange’s renowned portrait Migrant Mother, which is a Great Depression-era photograph featuring a migrant farmer, and is among the most famous photographs from this turbulent chapter of American history. The raw emotion in the mother’s face, paired with her body language and grimy appearance, captivates viewers; however, it is not the mother that makes this image so powerful to me, but rather, the turned away children framing their mother. This detail adds a new dimension to the portrait for me.

The great depression was the worst economic recession in the history of the industrialized world. Majority of the population was homeless and starving. People were running out of food and there were very limited number of jobs. Whenever a job came available, people were forced to move to support their families. The struggles and adversities citizens were obligated to face was unreal.

Sympathy, the feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune, can push an unwanted burden onto the shoulders of a reader.  When reading different stories, antagonists might provoke sympathetic thoughts.  A character that has the ability to spring the feeling of pity upon a reader can force a mixed perception of the activities during a story.  Antagonists have had the unnoticeable trait of creating a lenity for themselves.  Polyphemus, the antagonist Cyclops from the epic poem

In the passage “What is poverty?”, the author Jo Goodwin Parker, describes a variety of things that she considers to portray the poverty in which she lives in. She seems to do this through her use of first-person point of view to deliver a view of poverty created by a focused use of rhetorical questions, metaphors, imagery, and repetition to fill her audience with a sense of empathy towards the poor. The author’s use of first person point of view creates the effect of knowing exactly what she is feeling. “The baby and I suffered on. I have to decide every day if I can bear to put my cracked hands into the cold water and strong soap.”

Internal vs External Experiences: The Evolution of Human Thought Human thoughts are formed when neurotransmitters are sent through the dendrites of one microscopic cell to the axon terminal of another. Memories are when the neurotransmitters that were sent during a particular thought or experience are sent again. Unfortunately, signals cannot be resent in exactly the same way, therefore altering what we remember. Eventually, if one remembers something enough times, that memory is completely altered; nothing like what originally had happened. People have been trying to fight this inevitable loss of memory since the beginning of our existence.

hinting at the superficiality of society by including “replica” as one of the descriptors (7-9). Despite being told entirely in the eyes of the mother, the story is extremely tangible, especially in maintaining the dynamic relationship between two genuine characters in a time of hardship and daily chaos. Not only does Olsen’s attentive diction keep her readers attuned, but the use of both visual, kinesthetic, and organic imagery also work to develop the epitome of motherhood. The imagery that Olsen chooses to produce is simple, yet profound, starting with Emily’s physical and emotional well-being. “She ate little.

After reading Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, what stood out to me the most was how Amy would always do her best to help her mother. From making a phone call and speaking to health professionals, she did the best she could to help her mother get out of uncomfortable and frustrating situations. This was a personal essay because Amy Tan used a personal experience involving her life and her mother's life. Tan used ethos, logos, and pathos in her essay. She used ethos because she was identifying herself to the reader.

“A sense of inadequacy often informs the question around ‘Who am I?’”. An article written by Mel Schwartz for Psychology Today explores the idea of identity and what it means to an individual. The information presented in this article can be connected to characters in the novels The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. In each of these stories, characters are faced with a lack of sense of self, not knowing who they are because they think that they mean nothing to the world and are even worthless at times. This lack of identity due to the feeling of inadequacy affects Max in The Book Thief relationally and Lily in The Secret Life of Bees emotionally, while also creating better character development.