likes & confusion

I like the way Dorothy Allison and Tim Gautreaux write their stories. There is detail enough to paint a detailed picture and almost feel yourself in the setting. I enjoyed reading Kate Chopin and even Flannery O’Conner too, but their writings were not quite as detailed and Allison and Gautreaux.

The way Gautreaux writes reminds me slightly like Edgar Allen Poe, but not quite as extensively detailed. Allison also gives detailed descriptions too, but what I like is her ability to incorporate senses into the story. She very distinctively pin points every smell the character can sense from the heat outside, to the many smells of her family members.

Kate Chopin and Flannery O’Conner focus more so on the actual story. The main event or line. They do not particularly focus on getting the reader to be one with the characters or feel the way they feel. Still the stories are great and have great plots, but speaking strictly about detailing they seem to lack in that department.

Switching over to Allison’s story, I did not quite understand the plot from only reading the first two chapters. I could not really understand the characters really. Red and blonde headed Indians with blue eyes and black eyes. I understand there is a deeper plot behind the father and the mother’s history though.

I cannot really see how it is classified as southern gothic. Yes the Carolinas are considered the south and yes it was deep summer. I do not really see how it was gothic in any way either. If it is because it is placed in the south, the daughter does not know her dad, and she has a huge family living in the hot summer then I suppose. Like I said though I probably should have read the whole novel to get the full essence, and maybe I will.

I can almost imagine the rest of the story though. Ann will grow up to be this beautiful young lady. She will look nothing like her other family members and seek out her father.

She will finally get the true story of her mother and father from

-her grandmother because of some event like a sickness or some stressful even

-her mother when something stressful happens

-the guy who is gaga eyes over her mother tries something with her (Ann) and the story takes a nose diving twist…

I just do not feel like the south and north are really that different. No it does not snow here but snows in higher up states. Sure we make gumbo and have boiled seafood, but everyone can experience food almost anywhere because traveling has been made so easily, especially with franchises. We talked in class, a lot, about other cultures and being raised in the north and south and how manners are different and colloquialisms are different. I like to think it is more of a nature verses nurture type of thing as to how a person grows up…of course there are chemical reactions to consider too. An argument against myself could be made that people are raised differently because of where they come from. Not because they live in the north or south but because of where their original origins are from and have settled.