Gabi’s English Blog

 I found the way that the complex family dynamics are portrayed in this story very interesting. In most media that I’ve seen, both parties are genuinely trying their best, and there’s usually some kind of generational trauma at play. Even when they aren’t and one party is pretty clearly abusive, like in “Wildwood”, this is often the case from what I’ve seen. However, in this story the mother is straight up cruel for no real reason. Even at the moment when she falls and we think that she will start showing that she actually cares about Lola, it was just a trick. The resolution of the story was that Lola had to move completely away from her mother into a different country to heal from what she did to her, which is an unusual ending for a story.

 After I read this piece, I was very reminded of the Theatre of the Absurd, and especially the premise of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot - I’ve never read or seen the play, but I do know of it. The premise is that two men are sitting and talking while waiting for someone named Godot to arrive, which never actually happens. This piece seems very similar to it - two people are sitting and talking while waiting for a train that never actually arrives. It was also interesting in that works from the Theatre of the Absurd are known for being circular, which “White Elephants” also is - the whole story is talking around the subject of the woman’s pregnancy and potential abortion without actually coming to a resolution about what they would do about it, ending in the same place they began. On the other hand, the feeling that I got about Waiting for Godot  was that nothing that happened actually had any impact, while here they are discussing what is a very real and important issue to them, e

 When we discussed this poem in class, I mentioned how Bishop specifically used words that made the hat shenanigans seem taboo and forbidden - words and phrases like "transvestite twist" (line 4), "exhibitionistic" (line 12), and "perversities" (line 20). This had the effect of making the hat exchanges seem much more important and significant than they likely were, as well as exaggerating how unacceptable it probably actually was, in this context. What is interesting is that it assigns a lot more meaning to what would otherwise be just a fun poem about hat swapping. Bishop says, using one of the phrases i used earlier, that "we share your slight transvestite twist" (line 4). This makes it seem like it is not just about the hats - it seems almost like she is saying that she thinks that everyone wants to know what the other gender is like, not just mess around with hats. In my opinion, the overly intense language she uses supports this. It makes me

 Reading this story was a bit of an experience because I was cringing at the blatant ableism of the narrator throughout the whole thing. The way that he didn’t seem to think that Robert could have a fulfilling life or that those who cared about him could have fulfilling relationships with him was pretty upsetting. Even the author showed some ableism, with what was meant to be a positive thing, the recounting of Robert touching the narrator’s wife’s face, is pretty offensive to blind people, despite the trope’s popularity.  I appreciated how the narrator’s revelation at the end wasn’t because Robert was actively trying to get through to him. A lot of the time, it seems like the disabled person or person of color or what have you is actively trying to teach the protagonist about what they’re wrong about in this kind of story, which can be its own kind of problematic because it removes the responsibility of learning from the privileged person and puts the responsibility of teaching on the

 This poem was interesting to me because despite already knowing about it I had never actually read it before. It’s one of those kinds of classic literature where practically everyone knows a specific part of it - in this case the first two lines - but none of the context. Whenever I’ve seen this poem referenced it’s always been in the way of having escaped death. Something along the lines of getting through a near-death experience and then quoting the lines. But that isn’t really what the poem is about - the narrator does die in the end, it seems. The last two lines say, “I first surmised the Horses’ Heads/Were toward Eternity” (lines 23-24), which to me indicates that the ride that she’s taking is just a metaphor for death. It’s just always interesting to me how some things can be completely stripped of their context. Another thing that I found interesting about the poem is how Death is portrayed. The narrator says that “He kindly stopped for me” (line 2), that “He knew no haste” (li