Author: anonymous

Audre Lorde, a black lesbian feminist poet, became an ultimate symbol of liberation and radical social change for women across America. Throughout her childhood, she explored poetry as a form of communication.  Lorde’s poetry focused on many controversial topics related to disability, race, lesbian feminism, and exploration of identity. In her 1978 essay “The Erotic as a Power,” Audre Lorde exhibits a message of empowerment through promoting the power of the word erotic and its many other meanings that exist yet lack existence in our society. 

In her essay, Lorde explores how societal norms are shaped through patriarchal views in our society.  As a lesbian feminist, eroticism can be unpacked to explore how the power the word holds is shaped by society but how it can be used in non-sexual ways.  As Lorde takes away the sexual power of the word erotic, she allows women to feel empowered to fight against the sexist ideologies in America for ages. 

Women have been sexualized for generations, whether for what they wear, how they are portrayed in media, or how men believe they should behave. The strength of the male gaze has influenced the power of the word erotic to be more often used or thought of with sexual connotations. Lorde defines erotic as “an assertion of the life force of woman; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our lives.”  In defining the word like this, Audre Lorde gives power back to women and empowers them to believe that it is more than okay to go against social norms. 

The essay not only gives power to women but lesbian women as well.  Speaking to feminism, she promotes the idea that women have “non-rational” knowledge that women only believe is “non-rational” due to the social norms that have been curated for them by men.  She writes, “We have been warned against it all our lives by the male world, which values this depth feeling enough to keep women around in order to exercise it in the service of men, but which fears this same depth too much to examine the possibility of it within themselves” (Lorde 54).  This section of the essay explores how men have overpowered women’s beliefs as a means of controlling them to benefit themselves. 

 

First Published in 1980, Audre Lorde’s memoir Cancer Journals follows her experience with Breast Cancer. In writing this as a journal, we see the ins and outs of her suffering, and her journalistic writing style makes the reader feel a personal connection to her process. The female body is a beautiful thing, and Breast Cancer is a sickness that threatens all of us. Throughout our lives, we are informed of the dangers of Breast Cancer and need to do scans to check for it within our bodies. The fact that this is something all women grow up with and can potentially suffer from makes this journal all more real as we read about her journey through it. All bodies are sacred, and one of the terrifying things is altering your body to prevent sickness. I’m drawn to Audre Lorde because I can relate to the fears of being a woman and the struggles of illness. It is difficult to know that you are dying and for something that may not even be your fault. Cancer is most literally defined as “a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body.” The critical aspect of this definition is the fact that it is uncontrolled. Lourde focuses her story on every aspect of this process, leaving the reader with a sense of fear, sympathy, and overall perseverance when faced with extreme adversity. 

 As Lorde writes about her one-breasted mastectomy in chapter two, the reader sympathizes with the struggles of feeling feminine in your own body.  This struggle of identity arises after removing something that society recognizes as an essential part of the feminine body. She talks about how lonely the process feels to be fighting alone because everyone around her cannot relate. She expresses a lack of ability to have anyone to turn to and led to her pondering the idea of the identity crisis that led to it. She began to question how she would tackle this adversity or if she could even tackle it all. This all ties together with her feeling concerned about her attractiveness and how her lover will perceive her. As mentioned above, the female body in all its beauty is unique as we were all created in God’s image. With such a strong sense of how we look, it is easy to assume that any change made to our appearances will be detrimental to our identity and self-esteem. 

In chapter three, Lorde discusses her strength and independence. She shows the reader this, opting out of a prosthesis after her right breast was removed. I found this incredibly powerful; even with such a drastic change to her image, she decided to show the world that she is proud of who she is and what she went through. Her courage is incredibly admirable, and I have learned so much from her struggle and strength. I admire how she would not let medicine or society determine anything about who she was. As she put it, the prosthesis would make her feel “empty,” like she was given a new body, but she wanted to keep the one she already had. 

 

In Beloved,  Morrison sets her novel up in a particular way so the reader can follow right along. Using flashbacks she captures the moment of the speaker expressing his/her feelings of event while narrating them. This use of patterns and motifs creates a seamless telling of the story so that the flashbacks of the memory do not separate the reader from the character. Instead, it synthesized the two so that both felt the same effect together.  This style indirectly allows the reader to identify with the character and the action at the same time to weave the character together in order for the reader to associate with the feelings that each character felt during that time period. Morrison uses a rhetorical element of colors to introduce the reader to the political connotations between black and white and more importantly the social reality of this time period.  Morrison uses color to show feelings or lack thereof is through Baby Sugg’s. She is the mother-in-law of Sethe and also was affected by the horrifying death of Beloved. After this incident, Baby Sugg’s “was suspended between the nastiness of life and meanness of the dead. Her life was anything but forgetfulness, she used the little energy left for pondering color”. Similar to Sethe, Baby Sugg’s was stripped of her rights. Her life revolved around giving and not taking. Hence, when the whites demanded Beloved, Sethe’s reaction was to protect the child. After the death of Beloved, Sethe and Baby Sugg’s become vulnerable to their frightening world through the lack of color. Objects become blurred or uncolorful. As a result, Baby Sugg’s died “ starved for color” and Sethe continued to confront the reality of survival and subjugation.

Morrison incorporates political realities through the use of color and the character Paul D. Color connotes many expressions and feelings for Paul D. Unlike Sethe and Baby Sugg’s, Paul D. never knew about the death of Beloved. Therefore, he never understood the outrages the ghost had in the house on Bluestone Road. His appearance was welcomed by Sethe and Denver. However, as he strode through the house, a reflection of a light appears before his eyes. This aura was the shadow of death haunting Sethe and Denver. For Paul D, it was a remembrance of him being a slave. The red symbolizes power in society and this “pulse of red light hadn’t come back and Paul D. had not trembled since 1856 and then for 83 days in a row” .For the first time in seventeen years Paul D. felt this red light of fear penetrating through his legs. Usually his hands would shake of fear, but his reaction this time was trembling in the legs. This power is the abuse Paul D. ran from when he was a slave. This illusion of red makes the reader remember this history of slavery and Morrison wants the reader not to forget the unacceptable. The function of color describes the pain Paul D confronted everyday of his life.  Indirectly, Morrison provides his emotions and the influence of white supremacy through the penetrating color of red.

 

 

 

 

The Third Book of Songs begins by referencing a recurring motif of youth and old age through the Greek God Zeus. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Zeus” as the chief god of the ancient Greeks (OED), and is known throughout Greek mythology as the god of men. Michael Field could be potentially using Zeus and Greek mythology as a way to capture the readers rather than using Christianity and the bible.

In the first Stanza we see words next to each other like “useful day” and “all waxed gray,” which introduces the idea of growing from being naïve to wise.  When we grow up, society begins to mold different beliefs about sexuality and social norms. More specifically, when we see children, we often perceive them as innocent and not having such mature thoughts. One example of when we see this motif is when the stanza compares the young and old; the line states, “the tiny hand in eld’s weak palm.” I see this as the connection between the youthful life and the old life as it elaborates on the imagery of a life cycle. In the next stanza, another line states “we had never had one heart: by time set a space apart.” In this stanza that it could be showing how in this life we are following and have never found love. This could relate back to the authors speaking to their sexuality and never being able to love who they love because society does not allow it.

When we examine the author we can see this story carries a deeper meaning. While the story was written under Michael Newfield, the writers were actually two women. When we learn about our authors, we can see how they felt a need to hide their gender and sexual identities through the text and their own lives. More specifically, when we look deeper into the text, we see that the authors used religion as a way to express their prejudices. In this story about Greek mythology we see undertones of homophobia being shined through with religious practices.  This relates back to their lives and struggles being lesbians in a time where homosexuality was not accepted.