IOC Moons of Jupiter

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Boys and Girls IOC

https://sites.google.com/site/iocfilesenglish/mp3

or

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0O8VSCwWTSh

Reflection on Class Discussion and Alice Munro

During our class discussion on Thursday, the question on how to define women's literature was very hard to word Many people said that women's literature was written for the women and by the women. I believe that to some extent, that statement is true however, I don't agree with the fact that women's literature is written for women solely. Women's literature definitely relates to the female audience at a deeper level but on the other hand, I feel like it acts as an epiphany to many of those people unaware or just simply ignorant. For example, Alice Munro states in her interview that the loss of her middle child was a big deal and she also stated that the loss of children for mothers in other countries may not be that big of a deal simply because it's common. Reading women's literature from all around the word gives these different perspectives and makes people, not only women, aware of what the world of women is like in different places. Also, in order to raise awareness and to achieve a purpose such as gender equality, the audience needs to be everyone. 

I believe that there are quite a few reasons as to why we study literature. Some of the prominent ones are: better understanding of current culture as a whole and greater sensitivity and understanding to different perspectives. Better understanding to different cultures is quite relevant as our society is a lot more mobile now and understanding the different perspectives is likely to keep greater harmony in our mobile global community. 

 The themes and values of social realism were very significant during the 1950s-1980s  as that was the period of second wave feminism. Essentially, second wave feminism was a fight to raise the women from their secondary roles and give them equal opportunity for primary roles- this was after basic rights were achieved. In one of Munro's works, the Runaway, Grace is portrayed as someone who dislikes the given gender roles of women at that time and because many women, like Grace, didn't agree with the gender role of women as people only really capable of secondary roles, there was second wave feminism. 

I think Munro's work has contributed to gender equality in terms of reaching out to a large audience. She doesn't only develop the main character, the subsidiary characters are just as well developed so anyone reading the book can always relate to aspects of a character. Many times, the reader can also relate to different aspects of different characters at the same time so that makes the text of the stories more engaging. Additionally, no character is shown in a completely bad light meaning that there's no 'good' or 'bad' character so no reader really gets put off and they can see for themselves the position they are at in terms of gender equality/inequality.

Word count: 476

Creative Task: What’s Your Story?

Characters:

Daughter: Lana

Lana’s Dad: Bob                                         

Monarchial President: Draco

Opposition Party: Ray Party

Party in power: Congress Party

Plot (Inclusive of Literary elements, techniques and devices)

What happens in the story?

In the story, the narrator (Lana) is the daughter of a political leader, Bob. Bob is the political leader of the opposition party. Additionally, the party’s aim is to be fair and just to the entire population of the country so all the people in that party are supposedly good- hearted human beings. The country Lana lives in right now is a democratic monarchy, meaning that the elected leader, Draco, of the country stopped the upcoming elections after his time so he could stay in power. Draco made monarchial rules such as the people in his party have privileges however, his rules were created in a way that it was hard to pinpoint why they were unfair. For example, one of the rules were: ‘the children and family of the Congress party members have reservation in the government job industry because they all come from low- income families.’ That wasn’t true, both parties had almost the same number of low-income families. The Congress Party stays in power for 16 years, since the birth of Lana until an incident happens that leads to the downfall of that party. Bob digs deep into Draco’s past and finds out that Draco’s dad is not the real dad because his mother had a relationship with the brother right before she god married. Bob knows that if he reveals this to the public, there will be dispute amongst the Congress party itself because at that time period, the 1980s, having an affair was a huge matter of shame. Bob decides to tell everyone in the country about it however, to make the situation even worse, Bob twists the story and he says that Draco’s mother was in a relationship with the brother while she was married. When this twisted truth is disclosed, there’s mayhem in the Congress party; they decide to take down Draco so then the country has no official leader. Bob sees this as an opportunity, which he created for himself, to take upon the role of the country’s president. He justifies this action to the public by saying that: ‘this country can’t have a party in power, which isn’t unified and is built upon lies (referring to Draco’s parents’ dilemma). This country needs a party which is honest and fair.’ Lana knows about the whole situation and she is appalled by the fact that her father would twist the truth since his life motto was always about being honest. She started seeing her father as an opportunist. Lana was made the Vice President of the country by her father and she didn’t want to be in that position because the means her father got to his current role as a president was unfair, according to her. She felt like the whole situation and the whole environment was oppressive. She couldn’t disclose her father because then, that would lead to altercation in the Ray party and Lana believes that if she does that, she’d be doing the exact same thing as her father, Bob, did to Draco. Lana spends weeks thinking about how to make things right and one night she seems to have a panic attack from all the overthinking. Her father takes her to the hospital and the doctor recommends antidepressants. Lana then realizes that she can’t do anything about her father being president through unfair means because if she exposes her father, there will be disagreements amongst the Ray Part, which could lead to Bob losing his seat as a President and it’s not like the people of the Congress are deserving and if she stays quiet, then she is letting wrong acts get by; either way is a losing situation for her. She eventually convinces herself that ignorance is bliss and that she will lose her mind if she contemplates more in this issue so she just accepts the fact that she is the vice president of the country and that people will always be opportunists. The last chapter (30 years into the future) is from a third person perspective and it shows how Lana is now leading a luxurious life and after her father dies; she becomes the president of the country. The third person narrator also hints upon how Lana was always subconsciously an opportunist because in that lose-lose situation she had when her father disclosed Draco’s past, she chose the option that favored her and her family.

Theme:

à What do readers learn about the theme from the story?

The main theme of this short story is oppression. This theme digs deep into mental oppression rather than the idea of oppressor VS oppressed characters. In this case, the situation the narrator is put into a situation where they observe the people of the community as oppressed and the environment as oppressor. The sub theme of this story is acceptance. This theme is an out come of the main theme. This theme shows that in many situations ignorance is truly bliss. The environment is so overpowering that any retaliation will lead to chaos.