The essay is here
QUESTIONS
Write 300 words answering these questions. What are the different parts of this essay, and how do they go together? Also, how does CJ Hauser establish a voice in this piece? Please be specific.
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This essay is composed of 4 parts. It starts off with why CJ Hauser left to study the whooping crane in the first place. Secondly, she introduces all the people she has met on a research trip. After that, she breaks down why she left her soon to be husband. Finally, she found what she needed. It all comes together with the topic of the Japanese folklore of “The Crane Wife”. The story is about “a crane who tricks a man into thinking she is a woman so she can marry him”, which relates to her life in terms of her unhappy self. Because she isn’t getting the love she deserves but hadn’t built up the courage to leave.
In this piece, Hauser establishes a soothing yet troubled voice. She ends it in a sigh of relief. She does it by explaining her thought process in detail. Also by describing her emotions very well. For instance, she states “Even now I hear the words as shameful: Thirsty. Needy. The worst things a woman can be. Some days I still tell myself to take what is offered, because if it isn’t enough, it is I who wants too much. I am ashamed to be writing about this instead of writing about the whooping cranes, or literal famines, or any of the truer needs of the world.”. In her writing, she talks about her raw feelings. She doesn’t hide behind the norm, or the fact women can’t talk about their feelings cause then they’ll be considered as “needy”. As for her thought process, she really breaks down the many reasons why her fiance was horrible and how she felt about it. For example, Hauser wrote “Said yes even though he turned our proposal into a joke by making a Bachelor reference and giving me a rose. I am ashamed of all of this.”. What helped me connect more to her piece was the great detail of everything, even to the last rose.
There are basically two main parts of this essay written by CJ Hauser. She shifts between these two parts constantly throughout the essay. One of the part relates to the toxic relationship the author had with her fiancé which caused her to call off the engagement and the other relates to the amazing time she was spending in studying the whooping crane on the gulf coast of Texas just after she called off her engagement. The essay gives me a movie like vibe in which the scene changes. At a point she compares the toxic part of her life with the part she is enjoying and how instead of being sad, the people surrounding her in the trip keeps her happy.
I agree with my colleague Karla that “Hauser establishes a soothing yet troubled voice”. Hauser described her emotions very well. She talks about how patient she was while handling her relationship and it was not the matter of cheating that made her call the engagement off, but it was a lot more than that she had to go through. She didn’t want much from her fiancé, but she still had to hear the things any girl would consider as nightmare. “Even now I hear the words as shameful: Thirsty. Needy. The worst things a woman can be.” She constantly feared telling her fiancé about how she wanted her relationship to be and how she wanted him to care about her. But now she is loving how the scientists and people in her trip is treating her in a completely opposite manner. Even though the matter related to her ex-fiancé haunts her at times which she reflects in her writing, the time she is spending with the group is something that is shadowing it.
In CJ Hauser’s essay, “The Crane Wife,” there are two main parts, the past and the present. The past describes moments of CJ Hauser’s life with her soon to be husband, who she left ten days before her wedding. The present follows moments of Hauser’s trip, a scientific expedition to study the whooping crane. She brings the parts together by relating the things she sees on the trip with moments of her life with her ex fiance. For example, when they were observing the whooping cranes, Hauser was surprised to find that they spent more time observing the things that the whooping crane needs to survive than looking at the actual cranes. She states, “You look at the things it relies on to live instead,” and “ The difference between sustaining life and not having enough was that small.” She also writes, “There are ways to be wounded and ways to survive those wounds, but no one can survive denying their own needs. To be a crane-wife is unsustainable.” The crane wife refers to the japanese story in which a crane plucks out her own feathers to marry a man, and keeps plucking them to stay with him. What Hauser realizes is that you can live without acknowledging your needs, but not forever. She saw on her trip that the cranes would not be able to survive if they didn’t have enough berries or enough water to drink. She saw herself in the cranes, she would not have been able to stay with her ex fiance anymore than she did because he did not fulfill her own needs.
In her piece, Hauser establishes a reflective voice. This is especially evident in the last sentence of her piece where she states, “I realized it was not that remarkable for a person to understand what another person needed.” After reflecting on parts of her relationship with her soon to be husband and moments of her expedition observing whooping cranes, Hauser realized that it is okay to acknowledge your needs, and that you need those needs to survive. She discovers that it is normal to have needs and also have those needs fulfilled. All in all she realized that being needy is not the same as being selfish.
In her essay The Crane Wife, CJ Hauser jumps between moments from the past to moments occurring in the present. She seamlessly transitions between the two as she depicts a story of tragic pain, torment, and betrayal contrasting it with episodes of bliss and peace. When referring to the past Hauser utilizes the words “crying” and “yelling” at several points throughout her essay which paints a troubling picture by demonstrating the suffering she endured while she was with this man. She contrasts this with the moments of happiness from her scientific expedition, describing how her group and herself would look after and analyze these cranes. She discussed the trip with positive terminology with words like “laughed” and she even goes on to remark “I was happy.” This is with a stark contrast to how she was feeling before as she felt unloved by her husband but now Hauser was enjoying herself and having a good time.
CJ Hauser utilizes words in order to create an honest voice and connect with the reader. She remarks about how she feels like she should be sitting sadly at home after calling off her engagement instead of preparing to go on a scientific expedition which helps her form a connection with the person reading as this sentence gives an insight to her thought processes at the time. She then goes on to mention how she pleaded with her fiance in order to have him tell her that he loves her which illustrates her honesty as many would not admit to their acts of desperation. Hauser, on the other hand, is an open-book in this case and she details how her fiance had little to no regard for her feelings by not being nice to her and her honesty leaves her vulnerable and establishes a better connection to the reader.
As I read further. It seems this essay is split into two parts who have multiple distinguishing characteristics. These are the present, which is filled with excitement and achievement, and the past. Which is gloomy and reflects the sad reality. In addition, the present/future seems to focus on others, both their positive and negative characteristics but overall with an optimistic point of view. Meanwhile, the past focuses on herself and her emotions/feelings towards her fiance’s lack of apparent affection towards her. A final comparison that I was able to notice that showed the two different parts of this piece. Was that the past was emotional, and the present/future was factual. It shows how she moved forward in life and didn’t let someone else have the remote control on her confidence and other essential factors. “That I wouldn’t even let myself imagine receiving as much as I’d hoped for.” She said this when referring to how many pigs they would see. But I feel like this future realization helped her understand the past and why she was trapped in a toxic situation.
Reading this story actually made me very sad. There are people trapped in terrible situations, but they don’t feel like it is an issue. Whereas anyone from an outside perspective would immediately recognize the problem. In this piece, the author tells about herself developing her voice. Going from being inside her head and not expressing and acting on her desires “This wasn’t what I hoped he would say. But it was what was being offered. And who was I to want more?” Even after all the buildup with her Fiance, and her not changing anything about their relationship. She took the leap, and changed her life “Lindsay said it was brave not to do a thing just because everyone expected you to do it.” I cannot respect her enough for canceling the wedding, not only was it a toxic relationship. But she was also being nudged into a familial role that she was not comfortable with. Although her voice shifts for the better as time goes on, she tells the true story of how we must always strive for the best. If you whisper today, try singing tomorrow.
This essay is divided in two main parts. The author shifts between these two parts very often throughout the piece. One part tells the reader everything that happened before the end of the relationship and the other part is useful in order to understand how the author was able of going through and overcome such a bad moment. The two part of the essay are related to find the differences of the author’s personality before and after the relationship. Love is complicated and it can drives a person in doing things that he would never think of. I really like the way the author is able to describe her story with many references to the past without obscuring the present. She underlines how stupid she felt when she tried to have a reasonable conversation with her boyfriend and every time she had to convince herself that she was the wrong one and not him. Even though she was the one that was cheated on, she decided to stay with him only for one reason:love. Unfortunately, she was the only one who was truly in love with the other person and not vice versa. The most important thing that permits a relationship to last was missing and she never find it out. She is one of the many women in the world that experience this situation but she was strong enough to end this toxic relation that was just making her suffer. For this reason, I think that the author establishes a voice in this piece and suggests to all the woman of the world to put herself first before everything else. After reading this piece I came to the conclusion that the purity of love is not well comprehended and its definition has changed throughout the years.
In the piece “The Crane Wife”, there are two significant parts, these includes: the present and the past. Throughout the article we can see how Hauser alternate between the present and the past. In the past tense the speaker talks about her ex-fiancé. She speaks about the cancellation of their weddings and the events leading up to it. Not only that but she reflects on how reactions to these events. While in the present tense relates to her being on a trip at Aransas studying the whooping cranes. I think these two parts of the article go together well, because though the situations may be different, they give the same meaning. Being in a relationship with her fiancé, the speaker realized that her needs were not being satisfied, however, she tried to need less but sooner or later she realized that she cannot live without her needs and her fiancé wasn’t satisfying them. Therefore, she had to leave. Similarly, while studying the whooping cranes, she realized that they cannot survive without their needs which are food and water. In a sense, she feels as though she and the whooping cranes are relatable because they both cannot live without their needs.
Hauser establishes a voice in the article by expressing the speaker’s vulnerability in the past and how much she has grown from it. She establishes an emotional and straight-forward voice. It was emotional because she mentions how embarrassing it is to have to explain why the wedding was called off because she did not even leave him when he cheated on her. She also tells us how hurt she was that her fiancé wasn’t showing her the affection that she needed. The straight-forward voice comes to play throughout the entire article, she tells her truth even though she thought it was embarrassing and we can see how she has matured from the situation. This allows us to engage with the article well and understand the speaker’s situation.
CJ Hauser divided her piece into two parts. She successfully alternates between her traumatic experience with her ex-fiancé and her escape at an Earthwatch expedition. She smoothly intertwines two critical moments of her life. However, before she jumped to each event, she carefully adds the symbol “*” to signal that a transition is about to occur. Both parts are important to the storyline since they reveal her aspiring mental glow up.
Another interesting point, is that she changes her voice to match the mood in the story. Her lighthearted tone matches her tales about her pleasant time with her new friends, her voice is very positive and appreciative. Furthermore, the use of terms such as “loved”, “laughed”, “happy” describes her emotional state, she’s ecstatic to be there. However, this feeling of pure joy is contrasted by the unfortunate events with her ex. When she remembers the hell she went through with him, the atmosphere becomes gloomy and her voice is filled with pain and betrayal. Her endless questions, like “Who am I to be choosy?”, ooze of self-doubt. Finally, another way she was able to establish a voice is by directly addressing the reader: “Reader, I almost married him”. You can sense a rude awakening from her delusions, her own disbelief of what would have happened if she nurtured her toxic relationship. She was lost and now she found herself. This newly gained confidence radiates through her writing “I took the wheel”, for the first time she decides to regain control of her life and stops trying to please her ex to feel accepted in his family. She throws away the mask she’s been hiding behind, finally free from her insecurities, her doubts, her low self-esteem and all the pain she went through.
In her essay “ The Crane Wife”, CJ Hauser tells us about her life by providing an insight into her feelings and thoughts after she canceled her own wedding. However, the true meaning behind this story is not just about the marriage but rather about the never settling question of what does it really mean to be happy. Of course, most people would argue that the true definition of happiness is to love and be loved by others, but how much should do we need to sacrifice to achieve the great feeling of Amour, and do we need to sacrifice anything at all?
The author invites us to think about it and create our own answers to these questions. Although CJ expresses her opinion throughout the text, she doesn’t make any judgments at the end of the piece and allows us to form our own conclusion once we finish reading it. What is even more remarkable, the narrative is constantly changing its focus from the description of the author’s relationship with her fiancee to the peaceful description of the wild. The timeless nature, with all its vivid scenes, funny little birds, and rapid water streams, directly contradicts a stressful relationship which made the author limit herself in many simple needs and made her swallow some very humiliating events just to stay with her partner. Such shifts in the narration allow CJ to express her mixed feelings better and keeps the reader wonder how the drama will end as the author starts talking about birds again.
From the very beginning of the text, we hear the strong author’s voice. This is the voice of an uncertain, worried person. A person who found herself caught in the long-lasting cycle of asking a question: “Did I make the right choice?” This voice keeps mumbling the same idea of a woman not demanding too much and accepting many things that normally should not be accepted. However, as the story develops, the voice changes – when the author achieves harmony with the wild and gets over a toxic relationship, it now sounds filled with reassurance and the joy of long-awaited certainty, and the reader can finally breathe out with relief.
CJ Hauser has written an amazing piece, one I might take a few weeks to get over. Her essay comprised of two parts, one describing the present and the other mesmerizing the past. Throughout her writing, CJ Hauser transitions between the two, the past portraying an event related to a toxic relationship and the present showing excitement and productivity. In my eyes, the Author achieves two things by this. Firstly, she grasps the attention of the reader, and secondly, her fluctuating thoughts bring us into her mind. They make her writing feel organic. As she refers to the past, Hauser stresses on words depicting stressfulness, like ” cry”. I feel like every time she mentions a piece of her past and relates it to the present, she exposes the emotional affect the break-up had on her. She shows the emotional connection and the disappointment that came along with it. However, during her scientific expedition, she shows signs of happiness and enjoyment, a more optimistic perspective.
Throughout this essay, Hauser expresses a troubled yet soothed voice, a cry for help yet a voice of relief, pleasure. She uses the most basic terminology and puts down her inner voice, and through that, she builds a connection with the reader. She expresses how everything made her think of her fiance but at the same time lives in the moment of enjoyment with the people she was around. When she says, ” Surely, a person who calls off a wedding is meant to be sitting sadly at home, reflecting on the enormity of what has transpired..”, She shows the reality she is going through. She puts out what society expects, and the development of that thought helps the reader fall into her shoes. Her writing aims towards an optimistic end, she puts a message of encouragement to do better and be better, that setbacks don’t mark the end. I recall a famous politician, Malcolm X saying something along the same lines, ” Stumbling is not falling.”
While reading through CJ Hasuer’s piece, it is easy to infer that she composed her essay in two separate parts. Hauser begins by illustrating her initial reasoning for venturing off to learn the whooping crane. Hauser then discusses all the different types of figures she interacted with along her research trip. Following this, she goes into the reasoning for abandoning her up and coming husband. Hasuer seems to be torn by two opposing forces in her life. In summary she is constantly shifting back and forth between her problematic relationship with her fiancé and her fanaticism/enjoyment with the whooping crane.
I believe that CJ Hauser’s voice in this piece, more than any other essay we have read, is clearly heard and understood. Many people that are in a bad relationship, or even a bad setting feel like there is no way out. Yet, what Hauser depicts is a message we all can relate to. She is a women who understands that she is in a bad environment and takes action. She finds her self super happy being involved in the whooping crane study, and comprehends she does not need to stick with the toxic actions of her fiancé. Just like the average person, Hasuer at first questioned her actions, asking herself “Did I make the right choice?” Still, she prevailed and continued on. This ultimately leading her to not feel that sense of uncertainty in her undertakings. She is confident that she made the right choice, and that message is most definitely heard in her writing. Hauser states that she finally “took the wheel”, allowing her to finally feel free and more importantly happy. I think everyone can learn from CJ and no longer let oneself be kept down by negativity. One has to be both resilient and confident in their choices and know what truly brings them happiness.
The voice from the past. The reminiscence. CJ Hauser quite masterfully inserts the flashbacks from her own past into her main story participating in the scientific research of the endangered bird species on the gulf coast of Texas. She intertwines two different story lines that she could have essentially broken up into a prequel and a sequel, but instead she makes the most out of a flashback style of the narration where the reader is captivated by the flow of the back and forth story. It’s comparable to an adventure where as you go along, you can’t wait to see what is behind that next corner. And the next. And then the next.
CJ Hauser uses two distinctly different voices in her essay. The flashback voice is of an unsure and a lost young woman who is doubting herself and her every decision that she had made in the past. CJ incorporated this sentence in her flashback narrative when describing the gift she received from her soon to be mother-in-law: “When I looked at that mouse with her broom, I wondered which one of us was wrong about who I was.”. This was a powerful statement used to establish her voice in the flashback narrative as of an overwhelmed with self-doubt person. Her voice in the main narrative is much more mature and decisive. She sounds like a person who knows exactly what she wants and stands behind her own decisions. What’s more important, CJ Hauser is using her present time narrative as a sort of therapeutic tool to erase the shadows and doubts of the past. As she goes along the journey of bird observation she compares and contrasts the similarities between her own survival and the survival of the bird species. CJ takes a holistic approach to preserving her own identity as a woman, just as a scientist would look at the whole ecosystem to save endangered bird species.
CJ Hauser develops her voice in this story through two different stories, two different life options she’s had. The first: Hauser has an unpleasant relationship with her fiancée, who she ends up leaving before the marriage. The second: after Hauser makes a life-changing decision she embarks on a biology research trip where she studies animals on an island–it’s her way of coping after breaking up with her boyfriend of three years.
This essay is powerful as she transitions from different timelines all throughout the story. What’s even more unique is that Hauser purposely switches back and forth each story in a way that each excerpt/scene/flashback correlates with each other. For example, the same time Hauser talks about how studying species is heavily studying what that species relies on to survive—food, water, shelter, environmental conditions. Similarly, Hauser felt as if she wasn’t able to survive as a wife to her fiancée as she wasn’t getting all the necessary resources to maintain her love for him.
Furthermore, through each excerpt and transition Hauser does, she also adds in a lesson she has learned through it. A reflection on her many experiences with a non-affectionate fiancée and leaving him and going on an adventurous expedition. An important lesson she learns on her expedition is that she doesn’t deserve to survive on little—little affection, interaction, acknowledgment. She realises that she wasn’t asking for much from her fiancée and that she was able to survive on less in her relationship. Because when she goes on the island, she has good friends and colleagues to spend time with and a plethora of biological knowledge to delineate. I believe Hauser felt most alive in her entire three-year relationship when she left her fiancée and went on the expedition. Because she was being true to herself. She realized she didn’t need to be crying or rolled up in a blanket, depressed, she can enjoy her life.
Additionally, Hauser uses the transitions between different timelines to show distinctive mental states she was in. The first was when she was doubtful and hesitant of her self and what to do. The second is a woman who wants to enjoy life and looks at the bigger picture rather than stressing and focusing on things.
Through temporal transitions, meaningful symbolization of her actions and experiences, Hauser develops her voice in this essay.
I really enjoyed this piece for it was filled with so much symbolism, which is tricky in writing. No one wants to read a story that is attempting to get across multiple big ideas through representation because it gets messy. Hauser does it nicely because all the symbols are interconnected. All these symbols work together to demonstrate the narrators identity.
I liked the tone of voice throughout the work because it is from her perspective, which almost seems like confessions, which is relatable because everyone has had a moment or time where they feel guilty for feeling that they do. Sometimes this is hard to put into words but Hauser did this effectively. I especially like when she talks about the character she wanted sewn onto her stocking, she didn’t’t know at the time that this character was almost foreshadowing her own life, the fox looses it’s tail because of its pride. This is a direct parallel to her breaking off her engagement.
The author goes back and forth between her past and present, contrasting the various differences between those two points in her life.
She was living a miserable and gloomy life, stuck in an unhappy relationship with someone who clearly didn’t value her as much as she did him. She describes, in excruciating detail, how her own thoughts tortured her. Like any human being, she craved empathy and connection; she wanted to feel loved and wanted, and she wanted her significant other to reciprocate her feelings. Only there were no such feelings to speak of. What stared back at her was a void, and all her efforts to find companionship in that void proved futile. She felt guilty for feeling “needy”, and felt like she was weak for desiring happiness. He constantly flaunted his disregard for their relationship, and she went along making excuses for him and trying to rationalize his behavior, all because she was afraid of life without him.
In stark contrast to this melancholy tale of gloom and despair, is her current situation. She accurately describes how exactly she found a way to get over this mentally and emotionally taxing period of her life. To a layman, the notion that studying whooping cranes helps you get over past trauma would sound absurd, but she lays it out for us. The best cure for things like this? Distraction.
The way she has delved into this new venture has consumed her, and now every aspect of her life revolves around bird-watching. Sleeping a species of bird going extinct is a grueling endeavor, and you don’t really have time to reminisce about the past when every second counts, and you it is absolutely imperative that you count berries and crabs, or measure water salinity and wind speed.
She uses two voices. One voice is looking for affirmation from the outside, and the other voice is more in touch with her inner self, and seems to be open to giving herself unconditional positive regard. By repeatedly going back and forth, she was processing her past while immersing herself in her present experiences.
The essay, “The Crane Wife” is split into two primary parts, in which the author, CJ Hauser, jumps frequently from the present and the past. She is trying to tell the story of how and why she found the courage to leave her ex-finance by carefully weaving parts of her present to show how she has changed from the past. The first few words “ten days after I called off my engagement” foreshadows what the whole essay is about because it’s her journey to rediscovering herself after being in a mentally and emotionally draining relationship with her ex-finance. At first, Hauser talks first about the present, about her upcoming expedition in trying to save the whooping crane species, describing her journey and the people she’s about to embark on her journey with. However, before she can get further into the piece, she begins talking about the events that led up to why she called off her wedding. She uses things that she has learned from researching and studying whooping cranes to illustrate a lesson that’s reflective in her own life. The way that she goes back and forth go well together because every time she goes back to talking about her expedition, she transitions back to a lesson that she had learned applying that to her past. She does not want the focus to be on either her present or her past, but rather how contrasting those two points of her life are. Hauser shows tremendous courage for choosing to set her own path. She changes her voice frequently in this piece to match her emotions during that time. She sounds timid when she talks about how scared she was to leave her ex-fiancée to how happy and free she feels to no longer be suffocated in that relationship, and you can see the shift in her word choice to reflect that transition. She is able to unveil herself as somebody who has grown so much stronger from making her own identity for herself and realizing what she needs as a woman.
See, these aren’t so annoying, are they? Oh, don’t answer that…