Author Archives: Suzieee

So as a stated in class I wanted to work on Audre Lorde’s “Good Mirrors Are Not Cheap”.

For the essay I have going to write something about beauty and self reflection.I think I’m going to write about how society creates the definition of beauty through its media. We, as individuals, shouldn’t blame others or ourselves for who we are not but we should blame the media for creating these “distorted mirrors”.

In the Digital Essay, I hope to portray this idea through a cartoon animation. The animation will follow the words of the poem  through a character. The character [still debating on whether it should be girl or boy] will be looking at a mirror until a light flickers and he/she will see a flaw in him/herself. After the character punches the mirror, they will enter into a realm of distorted illusions and mirrors. I’m not sure how the ending will be yet…

Also, I will be working with Ling Ling and Vivian Zhu. Vivan is also working on the same poem but Ling will be working on Audre Lorde’s “Contact Lens”. I’m thinking about incorporating both the ideas of the two poems together since they do have some similarities. Now that i think about it, I could probably make the character put on glasses and enter the realm and in the end put on contact lens. The problem is… how do i do that with animations and do i have enough time to do that?

I just realized we had an assignment due on Friday, April 22 x.x
I know this is late but for the sake of putting my ideas across I will post this blog anyways.

So for the Digital Essay, I had many ideas that came to mind.
First, I love editing videos (even though I am not good at it).
I hope in this Digital Essay I have a chance to do that.
Second, I’ve always wanted to do something with claymation or a flash animation.

I have made a claymation once in Junior High School, which was really fun. Interesting enough, it was for History Class, my worst subject! I’ll have to say, my History teacher was one of the best history teacher there was because she made the class creative and fun.
Flash animation was something I did in High School but also not very good at it. I’m not sure I can actually make a flash animation for this digital essay because animations take a lonnnnnnngggggggggggggg time to make. =(

Anyways, I’m really excited about this digital essay. I wonder what other people have in mind and what they will be doing.
I’m also wondering what we’ll learn on the day we get back from this break.

I’m still a little confused about how we are going to connect the paper assignment with the digital essay if we are making the digital essay in groups. Does the digital essay have to relate to both our paper assignments? Or is it two separate things?



“The Birthmark” and “The Hills like White Elephants”

Despite the different message that these two stories portray, both story convey the same concept that women are inferior to men. Both stories show the female characters, Jig and Georgiana as females whose happiness is achieved through satisfying their husband’s demands. The reason behind this has to do with the time period of the story. “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne was written in the 1800s where females had no rights. They were only housewives whose goal in life was only to bore children and tend to their husbands, which is obviously wrong! “The Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway was written a lot later, in the 1900s. At this time, women were beginning to fight for their rights and equality.

I believe Georgiana and Jig have a lot in common despite their different characteristics. Georgiana, regardless of what other people say, decides to remove her birthmark because of her husband’s constant criticism and insults. Jig decides to get an abortion because she wants her life to be the same with her “husband”. It feels as though both stories are trying to say that women’s only means of happiness is through satisfying their husbands desire.

Now I can’t really understand the concept of achieving happiness through satisfying others. Would a person really be happy in their life if they kept doing what other people told them to do? I understand that some people feel happy when they are able to make other people happy but is sacrificing your own body necessary? Was Georgiana happy after she removed her birthmark because she can finally be seen as beautiful and perfect in her husband’s eyes? Was Jig really happy to hear the train arrive because she was finally getting an abortion?

ANYWAYS, while searching for pictures of birthmarks, i came across this cartoon. I thought it was cute.

Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

When I was reading I imagined a scenery of a small railroad station in the midst of a deserted area. Inside the station is two Americans waiting for the train to come. The two American’s didn’t seem happy at all. Their conversations were dull, their thoughts were dull and even what they were doing seemed dull. I could imagine a young lady with a fancy dress sitting along side a men wearing a classic tuxedo. The man was at the lady’s service. Whatever the lady did, the man followed. Whatever the lady said, the man agreed. Whatever the lady commanded, the man fetched for her. It was like chivalry.

I noticed in the text that these two people don’t have an ordinary relationship. They seem very close to each other yet they are sitting around talking about the hills and wine. It feels as though the lady is suffering from some sort of pain and the man is trying to be as tender as possible. There conversations were very vague but it seems as though the lady was having a “simple” [Hemingway 167] surgery to “just let the air in”. [Hemingway 167] I wonder what procedure could that be? Could it be a surgery and what kind of surgery?

Afterward, it sounded as though their conversations changed into marriage. The man seemed to be indirectly proposing to the lady saying that ” I don’t want anybody but you” [Hemingway 169]  I think the lady didn’t really want to go through with it and that the man was being clingy to the lady. When the train finally arrived it seemed as though the lady was happy. Was it because she is leaving the man? Or is it because she is not nervous anymore about the procedure that they were talking about? Or is it because she is finally getting married? To me, it felt like the lady was happy to leave because the man was too clingy. He was too attached to the lady, more suitable to be a servant instead of a husband.

While I was reading, I realized that I kept imagining things. Instead of concentrating on the bigger picture I kept thinking about the small details. I tried to imagine myself in both characters point of view. While reading, I was forming two characters; a young lady who spoiled, stubborn and play but she is also kind and well mannered and a well dressed man who was rich and seemed to care a lot about the lady. After reading, I felt confused but also curious about what the story could really mean. There seemed to be a lot of different ways to interpret the conversations between the two since they spoke vaguely.

Suzan Liang