Category: Feminist and Gender

My second revision of the gender studies paper finally feels right, and Pennington must’ve thought so too because it’s ready for my portfolio! You know what that means…

Four essays down, two to go!

After my near breakdown in my last blog post, I decided to forgo mentioning Adele in the essay because I was worried it would cause me to lose focus with the main ideas. What I ended up doing is adding in more textual evidence to show the eroticism of the sea throughout the novel so that my claim that the sea is a symbol of lesbian love wasn’t so outlandish (although, I do still need to work on this for my final draft). I also took out some parts that were too general and polished up some little details.

Overall, I’m very happy with how this essay turned out, and I think it might be my best one so far. It was a lot of work, but I think it definitely paid off. So here, have a celebratory gif from my favorite soccer player:

In other news, there are only four weeks of the semester left, and oh my goodness am I feeling the stress. With the New Historicism draft due date coming up, a short story draft due, SNC Times articles due, piano juries on the horizon, and preparing for a huge speech, I’m swimming in stress (ooh, that would be a good band name). Four weeks feels like a lifetime when I want nothing more than to be done.

BUT. I will keep pressing on, because really, what other choice do I have? These final four weeks will be difficult, but it will feel so good when they’re over. I’ve worked harder this semester than I have in any other semester so far, and I can’t stop now. In the wise, wise words of Miley Cyrus: “Can’t stop, won’t stop.”

Well, I was right. Pennington said that I focused a bit too much on LeBlanc’s argument of the “metaphorical lesbian” instead of making my own claim strong enough. But besides that, my first draft was pretty strong, so I can’t complain!

Pennington suggested that I bring in Edna’s relationship with Adele Ratignolle since there are also homoerotic undertones to it. I’m conflicted about whether to include Ratignolle or not because I really wanted to focus just on Mademoiselle Reisz and Edna, but it could make my argument stronger to bring in Adele. Stay tuned.

I’m also a little worried that my thesis makes too strong of a claim by saying that the sea in The Awakening is a symbol of lesbian love. I think I have to do a lot more work to convince the reader/other critics about that. Many feminist critics think that Edna’s suicide is a return to the womb, but with all the sensual language associated with the sea throughout the novel, I view the sea as more of a lover than a mother, especially when paired with Edna’s relationship with Reisz. Gah, I don’t know.

I do feel that I have a good start with this essay, but there’s just something missing or not quite right. With one or two more revisions, I know I’ll have it figured out, but I have to think about it a bit more.

Excuse me while I just let my brain explode onto this webpage. Maybe there’s a way to include Adele without having to write an entire paragraph about her? I could include a few remarks about her within my paragraphs about Reiz? Showing that Edna had a sensual relationship with more than one woman would make my argument stronger, but would it take away from the main focus? Do these questions even matter? What is life?

Ugh, I need to go to bed.

Listen, I’m not a huge fan of Ariana Grande, but you’re so mistaken if you thought I wasn’t going to use this song in a blog post about feminism and gender studies. Like, really? I have to.

This is the first essay since the Close Reading assignment that I’ve felt completely lost. After finally completing the first draft, I think this could be my best paper yet or my worst paper yet. So there’s that.

Even though I felt totally lost, it wasn’t as stressful as the Close Reading essay because I knew what I was doing, but I just had so much information to sift through. I’m worried that Pennington’s comments will be that I’m using too many quotes from sources and not enough of my own analysis. But the sources I have are just so good and so quotable that it’s hard not to use them a lot.

Me while writing this essay:

I think my argument is solid? I think my analysis of the story is done well? I think my thesis is strong enough? But also maybe not? I really have no idea, but I guess that’s the fun of being in this class, right?

I will say this, though: I really enjoyed writing this essay. And yes, I enjoy writing most essays because I’m weird and like writing essays, but getting the option to do a gender studies paper using queer/LGBTQ theory was great. It was an easy choice to write my essay on this topic, and I had a lot of fun researching and coming up with my argument.

After analyzing Edna and Mademoiselle Reisz, two women from the Victorian era, a time teeming with heteronormativity, I was reminded of this gif:

And I’ll leave it at that.