Because creative nonfiction deals with personal events and emotions, it requires us to look “inward” and deeply explore our inner lives. However, it requires us to look “outward” as well, and see how we can connect with others through the personal. Dinty Moore gives us some good advice in “The Personal (Not Private) Essay’:
So remember, though personal, the essay is never meant to be private.
Privacy is for your diary.
Essays are for readers.
Brenda Miller has similar advice in “The Particular Challenges of Creative Nonfiction” on page 159:
Ironically, while creative nonfiction can be a tool of self-discovery, you must also have some distance from the self to write effectively.
Miller also reminds us not to position our readers as therapists (and thus not to position the writing itself as therapy), and that our personal essays about negative experiences should not be “revengeful’ or weighed down by our overwhelming emotions.
This advice doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write about your traumas, or about people you have wronged you, or other extremely emotional events. Traumas and relationships are actually the most commonly explored topics of the personal essay. However, when writing about trauma and relationships, the most important thing to remember is that the essay is not for you. The essay is for readers. Think of the personal essay as a room containing your memory; you must leave the door to the room ajar for your readers to enter.
Readers need you to carefully guide them through your most intimate memories, so they can see and feel what you saw and felt. As Moore writes,
Each of us has a miraculous mind full of associations, ideas, and richly remembered experiences. If we are writing out of our childhood, that childhood may be as vivid in our memory as a movie we have watched fifteen, twenty, or one hundred times. The old brown sofa, layered with blankets, which sat against the far wall of our grandparents’ living room, is available as a full and clear mental picture in an instant. So is the soothing lilt of our grandmother’s voice. The onion and olive oil smell of her kitchen.
We can see it. We were there.
Your readers were not there with you, and if you don’t help them to see it, they simply won’t. Be sure to provide us the contextual and sensory details we need to access your memories. Try your best to imagine yourself as a complete stranger when you set a scene for us. As a hypothetical reader of your own work, what would you need to know about the memory to “be there” imaginatively if you hadn’t been there literally?
Readers also need you to show them to the point or purpose of your essay; they need you to give your personal stories a greater significance. A common question asked in writing workshops is, “What’s at stake here?’ There are many essays floating around in the world, and there is only so much time in a life. This means that your essay needs to have a reason to exist beyond your personal confession and growth. Essays need to demand to be read. Why should your readers read your essay? What purpose does it serve in the world? What unique insights about the world, or human experience, can you share with them? Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter’ is a master class in giving meaning to individual traumas, and in making a personal story (literally) universal; look to her as a model.
Lastly, readers need you to keep your “drama’ out of it. An essay about your breakup shouldn’t be about getting back at your ex (or getting them back); it should be about what you learned through that relationship and/or breakup, and what you can teach those who may find themselves in a similar situation. Your essay about a death or traumatic event shouldn’t be about simply confessing it to others to relieve yourself of a burden; that’s what therapy is for. Instead, your essay about death or a traumatic event should go beyond your personal pain to say something more, such as an insightful observation about the nature of trauma, or resilience, or grief. For example, if you want to write about a death in your family, you need to do more than express your sadness; use your sadness to say something about grief, or mortality, or the nature of family. This requires you to sit with your memories and consider how they have changed you, and what they have taught you.
As you read “Striptease’ and “Love of My Life,’ consider how Slater and Strayed navigate the extremely personal in their work. Consider how they use these extremely personal experiences–an eating disorder, divorce (and more)–to say something that resonates with their readers. Consider how you connect with these pieces, regardless if you can relate to the writers’ experiences. What can we learn about using memory from these two essays? Try to address this question in your reading response below.
In the meantime, be sure to check the Weekly Agenda for upcoming tasks and deadlines.
katie hopper
Both of these pieces were gut-wrenching in their own ways. In thinking of writing about the personal rather than private I saw clearly that both Slater and Strayed remembered the reader. There were moments in each when I winced and thought they were brave for their vulnerability, but not vulnerable in the way that George grew to be with Slater. Both authors avoided the pity party that Tell It Slants warns against, something that I find myself struggling with. It’s so easy to slip into a “woe is me” attitude but that collapses your work and the experience you’re trying to unpack. These pieces seem like modes of healing, personal and societal. Slater deals with misogyny and the fear of the feminine as reflected in George’s life, her own, and their relationship. She uses these dark, twisted things to shine a light on darker, more twisted things. Strayed guts grief and leans into what it means to heal, the way culture copes with death and dying. I found a piece of peace in her departing paragraph: “Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it’s one thing and one thing only: it’s doing what you have to do.” A “small and ordinary and very burnt thing.” Oof. This feels almost nostalgic, ominous still in its inevitability. Both Slant and Strayed use memory and walk the line of personal versus private but in any moment that I felt they might be slipping too much towards private they pulled it back and let their memory weave readers into their pain, reflection, and, ultimately, growth.
Sarah corbett
Reading response (Love of My Life):
I was getting ready to start my shift this morning, and like I normally do, I was fitting in homework in my free moments. I chose to read through Love of My Life, and I was not prepared for it. The raw and aggressive way in which Strayed wrote was disarming. The way in which she unabashedly described the inappropriate situations she found herself in were both shocking and powerful. While it was NSFW, I don’t think that she broke the ‘pact’ that was discussed in Tell it Slant. I think in a way, she strengthened it. It may have been explicit, but she was honest about the form that grief took for her. She was honest about how deeply she was hurting, about how she coped. She wasn’t asking for help though, she wasn’t treating it like therapy; it was more like she was stating a fact. The fact being that some people suffer losses in extreme ways, and that you shouldn’t be always be expected to just ‘let it go’. I tend to fall into a sympathy type of narrating, not on purpose, and the most important thing I learned in this essay was that trauma can be written without it sounding like a pity party; though it is really hard to do. I can’t honestly say I related to her experiences though, I’ve never lost someone, and I’ve never felt grief so profound that I couldn’t live. I’ve suffered in my own way, but not in any way I could really connect to this essay.
Nadia Finley
I can appreciate the care and thought that went into these essays, but I have to say up front that I was very uncomfortable with the heavily sexual themes that this week’s readings presented.
I found Lauren Slater’s “Striptease” easier to read as the narrative did not place the reader directly in sensual scenes (excluding two cases that I can think of at the moment).
As mentioned earlier, I do appreciate the care and thought that went into the writing of this piece. Slater uses many vivid analogies: a cow’s udder on a gazelle; we were a cut cord, a swarm of static; strawberries lay like tongues of maidens; the wet Shih Tzu. The analogy I find to be most prominent, though, is the representative use of nakedness and the references to rape and bodily vulnerability. These visual terms help solidify the more abstract concepts of emotional shielding and vulnerability. Slater uses this analogy very powerfully.
Slater crafts her story, revealing more and more about her own past as we learn more and more about George’s past. Really, we are only given small insights into her own painful experience, leaving her more room to examine the greater subject of the essay, which was given through her trying to figure George out. She compares their situations–their similarities, their differences. Then, she expands on their cases, broadening the pointed subjects of their emotional distresses into a larger discussion of modern society’s view of the female from both a control hungry male’s and a control hungry female’s perspective. In not tunnel focusing on her own personal memories of anorexia, Slater opens the door to broader understanding on the larger topic of openness and trust throughout her reading audience.
Slater brings us along on a story of disorder. It’s grimy, it’s marred, it’s twisted, but it entertains the possibility of hope among distress through the virtues of trust and faith.
Personally, I became “connected” to the story the moment I saw hope, the moment the taught face broke into confusion and gave room to openness. I have been learning for myself that there is great emotional liberation in taking the time to simply sit down and talk everything about a problem out, so I was really rooting for George to open up to himself. To unpack that which would ultimately help him understand why he operates the way he does.
Aside from a slough of scenes and language I would like to forget, I walk away from “Striptease” admiring Slater’s use of analogy and metaphor. If there is anything about this piece that I would like to apply to my own work, it would be that.
Christy Barrett
In “The Love of My Life”, Strayed is very blunt from the start. She doesn’t leave the reader guessing; she comes out with it: “The first time I cheated on my husband…” As a reader, I appreciate that. She’s so brutally honest. For example, the reveal of the bruises on her knees and how she got them. How exposed she must have felt to share that. Even comparing the innocence in her marriage to an unfurling leaf, it was vulnerable. She shares private thoughts and opinions of this time in her life. It isn’t a diary, but she chooses to share these personal moments with us in a tender but raw way. Her experience with loving a man and appreciating his love for her while not wanting him to touch her was relatable to me. After the loss of my mother, I felt guilty when I experienced pleasure. That piece really hit home. And her coping skills of just skipping all the “steps” and running away from her emotions is exactly how I coped (and have been coping) with my father’s death.
I really thought I would like Strayed’s piece more as I am a fan of her writing, particularly her book “Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar”. That book made me laugh and cry, and I always recommend it to my girl friends when they need to get out of their own heads and read something moving. But Slater’s piece really struck me. Maybe it grabbed hold of me from the beginning because I am a psych major, and the material interests me more. Her work is relatable, too. She admits to feeling uneasy and that maybe it’s that nostalgic feeling from high school of hoping to be liked by the cool kids. She shares her client’s vulnerabilities alongside her own, and it is beautifully done.
In both pieces, the writers display their memories through feelings both physical and emotional. For example, Slater remembers the way she smelled as an anorexic. They detail very well how their counterparts in their stories made them feel in those moments. I definitely felt like I was there. I could smell that anorexic. Great essays.
Miranda Reynolds
While the themes of both pieces were monumental, I felt more drawn to the exploration of grief that Strayed details in “Love of My Life.” Her characterization choices struck me as intriguing when reading the narrative. The use of stereotypical phrases to describe the affairs that she had in the midst of grief gave them distance from herself that she would not have been able to achieve had she used sensory descriptions. In using stereotypes, she creates more general ideas—not yet fully fleshed out people—that are only shadows of her overall struggle. They allow the reader to fill in the character, giving a more overarching idea. When I think of the “Actually Pretty Famous Drummer Guy” I am probably not imagining anything close to the actual person but am instead better able to relate her memory to my own life.
However, I thought it particularly interesting that Strayed avoids giving much characterization to her mother or Mark, two much more important characters to the flow of the narrative; they are the catalysts of the action. It is almost as if she is attempting to hide the painful part of the narrative from herself, ignoring the pain by not acknowledging the characters. Her blatant disregard of her mother’s persona displays that this is not what really matters to her memories. Instead, by not dwelling on specific memories of her mother, Strayed suggests the person that we have all lost, purposefully vague to fit all types.
Moreover, I thought the added fixation on her mother’s ring helped further her inability to let go. The ring was a useful memento to convey the depth of her memories of her mother. Instead of describing specific details, she shows the reader her mother’s significance, first, when she moves the ring to her left finger, the spot of importance, and second, when she loses it in the river and must relive her grief over again. I think it would be interesting to experiment with an object of significance in my own writing and attempt to convey, like Strayed, the memory of the situation through it.
Adeline Knavel
The first sentence in “The Love of My Life” written by Cheryl Strayed is very blunt and upfront. I read that first sentence and was instantly pulled into wanting to read more. After reading “The first time I cheated on my husband” instantly caught all my attention, Cheryl Strayed didn’t have to leave me as a reader guessing to see what this was going to be about. I was not expecting or prepared to read “The Love of My Life” and find out it wasn’t a happy story written about her loved one but one that was so raw and aggressive and upfront. Cheryl Strayed wrote her piece with power and confidence, the way she writes about some of the inappropriate and incongruous situations she had gotten herself into was somewhat shocking. Strayed writes about how when her mother was first diagnosed with cancer she had an unspoken gap of sexual acts with her husband and then seven weeks later she could barely stand to be touched by him and after reading that small part of her writing I suddenly felt bad, I felt sad for her and her husband Mark. The death of her mother had brought on so much pain to her that she didn’t even want to be touched by her own husband. Cheryl Strayed wrote about her loss of her mother and the way she mourned and grieved, she didn’t look for help, she didn’t try to get help either. Strayed didn’t even deny what she was doing as wrong and hurtful, she admitted to her sexual acts and her “life as a slut” and mourning the death of her mother by doing these sexual things with men she hardly knew. After reading Cheryl Strayed’s writing I suddenly felt bad for her and her husband and wished she was happier and was able to mourn in a more peaceful way. One thing I learned from her reading is that trauma can affect everyone so differently, and the way people write about it are very different. I can’t relate to her writing in any way, I’ve never had the death of a loved one or mourned and grieved in the way she did. I’ve lived through my own trauma and experiences but none in the way she did or that could relate to her.
Kyleigh McArthur
Reading these two essays made me feel like I was looking directly into someones else’s life, which I assume is exactly what they were trying to accomplish. With “Striptease”, Lauren Slater wrote in a way that made me feel like I was reading something I shouldn’t be. She explained her experiences with a client who was a little bit too rough and vulgar with his words, and unfortunately, she responded in a way that somehow encouraged him. As I read through the essay I found myself almost listening to George tell me all the things himself. She was able to bring us readers into the room with them and feel what she felt, and in a way, feel what George was feeling. I found myself growing angry and frustrated with George, then I found myself feeling bad for him in the same way Slater was. I found myself drawn into her style of writing, I found myself enjoying being able to be made feel uncomfortable and angry and then sad and frustrated right afterwards. “The Love of My Life” was different. Cheryl Strayed began by talking about how mourning the loss of a loved one is extremely difficult. People respond to grief differently, and Strayed responded in a way that made me feel a little bit more than sad for her. I personally became a little bit annoyed with the fact that she was going out and purposefully cheating on her husband in order to distract herself from the pain of loss. I know I probably shouldn’t have felt annoyed, but I couldn’t stop myself. I do have to hand it to her though, she really wrote without holding back and didn’t try to write in a way as to make herself look better or rationalize for cheating. I admire this fearless writing, it’s rather impressive. Writing using memory can create scenes that are more real and can pull the reader into your work in a way that falsified stories cannot.
Ainsley Smith
Both essays, “The Love of My Life” and “Striptease” are amazingly crafted essays. You can tell that both Slater and Strayed embodied the role of a nonfiction writer. Neither of them got carried away in their memories or their storytelling. They presented their writing as essays, not as diary entries, which is an important key when writing nonfiction.
Not only did they tell the reader about their memories, they also shared realizations about themselves and also about the readers. As a reader, I related to each author. In Slater’s essay, I related to both George and Slater herself. I related to George in the sense that it feels near impossible to be vulnerable, especially to other people. I related to Slater when she said, “‘Does it occur to you that I am a woman here, that you just might be offending me?… What about me; am I not also attractive; do I not measure up to your standards; why not?'” It is a contradicting statement that I feel that everyone goes through. We want to be admired, but not offended. I feel as though she enhanced the use of sensory details in her essay; especially utilizing them during George’s descriptions of his intimate situations.
Strayed took a very blunt approach, telling the reader that she cheated on her husband. She explains through the essay that the source of her pain is the death of her mother, which leads to multiple affairs, addictions, and regrettable decisions. We learn that she is sexually involved with countless strangers, she goes through an abortion, heroin use, and a divorce to learn how to heal from her mother’s death. At the end of the essay, she loses her mother’s ring in a river and she realizes that the process of healing, is doing what you need to do; to take the bad with the good and live with it. She does a great job throughout the essay of helping the reader become aware of something important to her memory. For instance, when she was writing about her essay, “The Nose,” she later mentioned in the next stanza, “All that time that I’d been thinking, I cannot continue to live, I’d also had the opposite thought, which was by far more unbearable: that I would continue to live, and that everyday for the rest of my life I would have to live without my mother,” showing the reader her realizations about herself and her love for her mother.
Both Strayed and Slater helped me realize that I can use memory as a tool to not only tell a story, but also help the reader connect with the message. Using strong sensory details, emotional cues, attention to detail, to help show what those experiences taught me will help me become a better writer. The memories do not have to be traumatic, but I find that those memories can help the reader relate it to their own personal experiences, which can make a bigger impact.
Devin Byrd
Slater’s piece flows well with an even balance of imagery and reflection. She uses her memories as a foundation for her own introspection and musings, and the staggered order she does it in allows the reader to easily understand her evolving thoughts as she continues through her recollections.
Despite my best efforts to maintain an academic indifference while reading the piece, I believe my comprehension of it has been stymied by my own feelings on the subject matter. I have little compassion for those without, and although Slater’s patience and professionalism is admirable, her lenience towards her patient incites distracting disgust that makes assessing the piece based only on its literary value difficult. I wish I possessed the same mettle that allowed Slater to both calmly counsel her patient and create a well-written piece that I found almost too frustrating to finish reading.
Considering Slater’s ability to write about such distressing matters with great detail, and without compromising the quality of her work, I suppose she is someone to be seen as inspirational.
Curtis Wolfe
While reading these two essays you could see and feel how much of themselves they poured into them. They both used very detailed memories and realizations about themselves to pull the reader in. Although both were well written I found myself to enjoy the work of Cheryl Strayed a little bit more. I might not agree with how she handled her mothers death, but its hard to judge someones form of grief. I found myself enjoying they way she put herself out there in the essay with how open and vulnerable she was. It takes a lot to write something like that and then to be judged about past actions.
I believe that we can take away a few things from these two essays when regarding the use of memories. They both showed that if you want to grab the readers attention that you need a memory that was impactful on your life. When you find an impactful memory you then need to find a way to integrate past and present feelings with sense visuals. I’m not one to really open up, so writing our own essay for workshops should be a good challenge.
Johnny Bishop
For this reading response I focused more on striptease by Lauren Slater because for some reason it drew me in more. It could be because of the fact that more and more into my degree that I am working towards I am leaning towards the counseling setting. The way she introduces the character was like she could remember the way she met him to a T almost. The way she stood up to him when she got tired of the comments he made degrading women all speaks to her character not only as a woman but also as a counselor. Using memory in stories of nonfiction can make a clear picture on how the person feels and why they feel that way in that moment. I think Slater using her eating disorder in this case portrayed her as someone who at the time had some sort of control over a part of her life and makes it smoother transition into the simple fact that the first few sessions with George she didn’t have that control when he started the conversation until he was willing to open up when he came back in later on to see her.
Zofia Sheesley
Striptease was thought provoking but at the same time I felt it was scattered. I’m all for strung together memories and thoughts and streams of consciousness writing but something about this piece was hard to follow. I thought her comparisons of eating disorder mindset and misogyny mindset were really interesting, I’d never looked at it like that before but it makes so much sense. I think everything she talked about about her eating disorder helped out George’s feelings and thoughts and problems into words and thoughts and feelings that women, or other people that don’t have as much experience with his very, as she put it, typically male problems can easily understand. It was nice to hear about her eating disorder in the sense that it was something that was helping her later on in life in situations she otherwise wouldn’t have the same perspective in and because of that wouldn’t be successful in. I’ve had my share of eating disorders and I’ve also found that just having been there and felt it and been in that mindset, it really changes how you see the world, people, and people’s problems. Reading about her use it to help a man that was making her feel close to a relapse was powerful.
Timberly Kneebone
Both of these pieces were based around very personal stories. The writers for both of these pieces were extremely vulnerable and honest. Vulnerability is something that can either make or break a piece of writing, and I believe that in both pieces of writing it made the story more personal. These experiences are things that people go through everyday but are barely ever recognized. Being able to just admit to the experiences is already an accomplishment but writing an entire piece for someone else to read is a whole different level of openness. Both writers use the dark topics in order to shine light on the quiet unspoken parts of life. I was able to relate when the topic of eating disorders came up. I have suffered from multiple eating disorders and was able to personally relate to the writing. Her piece did an amazing job showing how hard it can be without it becoming private instead of personal. I have to say I was not able to personally relate to losing someone but the writing allowed me to almost see into the eyes of someone who has.
Gabriel Miller
Between “The Love of My Life” by Strayed and “Striptease” by Slater, Slater uses memory more symbolically than Strayed, and this is mostly due to the intent of each essay’s subject. Both at heart address people’s trauma, but Strayed focuses in particular on the coping mechanisms themselves and their impact, while Slater focuses more on the nature of these coping mechanisms in conjunction with societal causes. Strayed describes a much more literal account of her struggle to cope with the loss of her mother, and in the end manages to move past her mother by literally leaving her ring. Slater however develops a more symbolic look on trauma through comparing multiple traumas and past events, such as comparing the Shih Tzu to George to show the importance of image as a defense as well as social structure about gender. This makes the discussion of trauma much more dynamic because instead of focusing ways to overcome harmful coping mechanisms like in Stayed, Slater provides insight to why these coping mechanisms occur in the first place. This then shows that the use of memory is aided by a focus into aspects of memory rather than the retelling of memory in order to develop concepts.
Jewel Blanchard
I was quite excited to see that we were assigned to read a piece from Cheryl Strayed. She starts her piece, The Love of My Life, with being so completely honest. Her first line being an ugly truth of hers, “The first time I cheated on my husband, my mother had been dead for exactly one week.” This immediately caught my interest. I read her book, Wild, this past summer and that was what I was so drawn to, how blunt she is. She shares with us such vulnerability and articulates sensory details so well while being so straight forward. Even when it comes to describing herself and what she was doing, and that takes guts. In Striptease, by Lauren Slater, she does so well with expressing both how she and George feel and what it would feel like to be right there with them. An example of this from the piece was, “Teddy was up there; George positioned his head in place, kicked away the sticks, so all of a sudden Teddy swung, neck bunched in the noose… I was leaning forward in my seat. I thought I was going to throw up.” In that line she does so well telling his story of what happened and how she felt about it. While reading Slater’s piece I could feel myself being so disgusted with George but yet feel sorry for him. Both Slater and Strayed do so well in that sense of having you feel mad at the character but at the same time feel so bad for them.
Zachary Macintyre
In the essay Striptease, I felt a very strong sensation of trying to stay professional in a therapy situation. I feel like the essay in itself was an expression of the feelings which the author was avoiding expressing in her sessions with her patient. One thing that I really liked was how she talked about the stereotype for the type of person she was “supposed” to be, and the type of person George was “supposed” to be, and how both of them broke from those stereotypes. She did a very good job of guiding us through not only the situations she was describing, but her internal reactions to those situations. There is a certain detachment from one’s own feelings that is necessary in a clinical setting, and I like how she showed us that, but also dropped it for us, the readers, to see the feelings she had to detach herself from in her role as a therapist.
Andrew
Both authors write candidly about very difficult and sometimes taboo topics. Not only that, but they are the writers’ real, nonfiction life experiences. They both spare no detail– yet the authors seem unperturbed of the possibility of being judged by readers. This creates trust between the reader and the author, as if a close friend is confiding in you their darkest secrets. This trust makes us care about what is happening to the author, what will happen, and how they are feeling.
On the more technical side of things, I noticed both pieces are written in the first person. In first person, we witness events as the author perceives them. This is more immersive than third person, and more widely applicable than second person should you find yourself not relating to the events in the story. First person is the best way to put yourself in another person’s shoes, and become invested in the story even if you don’t have much in common with the main character.
Here is what I’ve gathered from the authors’ respective pieces:
1) If you want to recall personal memories in your story and keep people invested, first you must make them care about you.
2) If you want the reader to care about you, it is important to form a personal bond with the reader. This means being as candid as possible, and is most easily done in first person as it lets the reader know how you react to situations as they happen in real time.
Casey Fettterhoff
For me, I viewed the reality of the first person experiences and memories of both of these authors as being extremely influential not only in the way they wrote, but the way I perceived their writing as I read it. It’s one thing to read a story written in the first-person by somebody who has not had the experience but is trying to present as if they had, and it is another to read detail from a person who truly has experienced what they are writing about. While both stories are nonfiction, I think it actually applies to the fiction side of writing as well-A truly great fiction writer will be able to convince you that the tale they are telling (particularly in the first person) is nonfiction, and their real life experience.
Reading what my classmate Andrew wrote just above me, I really do have to agree with his takeaway that people will be much more invested in personal memories you have to share if they care about YOU as a person, not just as a character in the story. If the story is interesting, sure they will care, but if you can make them care about you-Then it is all the more potent as a way of sharing experience and memory.
Ta'Mariah Jenkins
Resonating. The goal of thousands of writers and the feeling that many readers try to find within most books. Surely, to read is something more than drama and reading on the plot. Elements that are a necessity but resonating with the readers is something more. Striptease is making nonfiction on forbidden topics. However, I question what makes it forbidden? Is it because it’s a sensitive topic and people involve the painful utilization of self-harm? But if middle schools can teach us about sex and the use of drugs, I wonder what makes the discussion of self-harm forbidden. Slater and Strayed message educates and informs us of the serious and relatable situations that resonate with the readers. Trying to feel what the narrator is explaining with self individualism of themself and George. What we can learn from the messages of both authors is the social structure we live in and how that affects us. The self individualism that makes us who we are and the journey that is instituted in finding it. Through the pains and scars of the past to the blessings that can come in the future.
Katherine Spencer
For this reading response I chose to read Striptease by Lauren Slater. Slater touched on quite a few very sensitive topics in this story including, but not limited, rape, self loathing, eating disorders, etc. The story, which is written in the first person narrative of the therapist, is a very vulnerable piece that gave me a few mixed feelings. The vulnerability and almost taboo topics is what drew me in. The narrators description of George makes me feel bad for him and hate him all in one go. On one had it is hard to not feel bad for him after learning what his father did to him, but the way he talks to the narrator and about Joanne makes me angry. I had to keep telling myself that it was a story and what he said wasn’t being said to me specifically. However, when Slater said “Does it not occur to you that I am a woman here, that you just might be offending me?” felt almost like a moment of power. She was finally defending herself, despite making some contradictory statements in the story as well. She wanted to be admired, which we all feel at some point but it also felt like a step backward to me. I can 100% understand wanting to be admired and I have faced some similar struggles she did in the past, but not at the expense of being offended. Otherwise the story, in all it’s vulnerability and openess, was amazing.
Anna Johnson
Both readings reveal a raw and vulnerable state of the authors. In “Love of My Life”, the author shares experiences that resemble her worst. Her story, while personal, allows the readers to connect to it and learn something from it. Her experience is what the readers learn from and can possibly relate to. While life is tough, you are discovering yourself and the truths that the ugly bring out. Strayed wasn’t only just a cheater, a broken human of grief, but a real person with real feelings. She exposed her story to help others learn something from it and that could be different for everyone.
In “Striptease”, we learn about a guy named George who is quite intense, to say the least. We also learn about the author with a background of anorexia. While mixing her experience of counseling George and her own experience we get this blend of an intriguing story. The author gave great detail as to who George is and what he is known for. Slater put images right into my head.
While using memory, we remember our experiences which allows us to write. Every person has a story and people share memories with the art of writing to tell their story and give a lesson to learn. There are endless ways to write a story by focusing on certain aspects of our memories. We will learn something even if we can’t relate to the story given. I couldn’t really relate to either author in their experience, but I learned their stories and how they wanted the reader to see their experience. Both pieces gave me a lot of insight into the characters in the stories and how being honest brings out the worst and best of people.
Corbin
I enjoyed reading both of the essays. I seemed to connect better with “Love of My Life” a little more than the other piece because it made me think of my mother. The thoughts of, “what would I do if my mother passed?” or, “I wonder how she is doing right now… We haven’t talked in a while.” They engulfed my mind as I was reading this passage. That is one of my biggest pet peeves; my mind won’t focus on the task at hand while I am reading something.
The “Striptease” essay had a lot of emotion throughout it. I could relate a little bit. I didn’t go through anything that George went through, but I was teased and bullied for being more on the sensitive side. That has definitely affected how I view things today through how I act and with how I raise my children. Towards the end of “Striptease”, I think I might have misinterpreted the ending a little bit. But, did anyone else feel that the therapist is the woman that George started seeing?
To answer the question: I feel as if once someone focuses on a memory, more of that memory is going to be shown. As it is being written down, the scene is going to open up more and it will further jog other details that may have been forgotten. That is kind of how “Love of My Life” seems to be written. There were some parts of her memory mentioned in previous paragraphs that she later goes into deeper details about it.