The Youngest Doll (finally)

At first reading, I was completely bewildered by the Youngest Doll. After class discussion, I re-read the story while keeping the theme of U.S. dominance in mind. Puerto Rico has historically been used as a trophy for the U.S., a testament to democracy in Latin America. The U.S. has come in and transformed the economy from subsistence farming to industrial, capitalized on tourism which further perpetuated inequality- where native Puerto Ricans were seen as either a spectacle or subjected to serve their white counterparts. While womens rights in the U.S were growing, the U.S. was diminishing rights of Puerto Rican women by testing birth control medication on unsuspecting participants. The doctor and his son can be seen as the U.S., exploiting the poor woman for their financial gain and public praise- the prawn that eventually makes its way out of the youngest doll’s eye sockets symbolizes the very force that harms the native population of Puerto Rico that grows into a karmic power that will somehow come to haunt the U.S.

Plans for this Week: Meet June 11 at 2:15--and urgent Message

Hi Everyone--

We are meeting in Rosemarie's Room of the English Department on Tuesday June 11--that is tomorrow at 2:15.  We will have pizza and soda if you bring it!

URGENT:

I am missing work from the following students:
Anna C: short story paper
Zhong: Final
Vanessa: Final
Yuka: Short Story paper
Brian: Short story, final, Oedipus
Anna T: short story paper
Andrew: short story paper
Diriana: multiple

If I have failed to enter a grade, please bring the essay to our meeting.  If you sent it, I did not receive it.

If you have not given the essay(s) to me, you must do so by our meeting tomorrow; if I do not have them by then they will be recorded as F's!

Your hardworking professor!

My very very belated post and reflection on "The Youngest Doll" by Rosario Ferre

(Quick note one why this post on “The Youngest Doll” is so late… I was absent on the day we were meant to discuss the short story, “The Youngest Doll” and when the blog post was due so I mistakenly thought that meant I did not have to do the post itself. I apologize for being so late with this blog post. I promise there was no lazy or bad intent regarding my being so late with this post)

Regarding “The Youngest Doll” by Rosario Ferre, I ended up deciding to read the story itself first, then reading the social and political background to the story after. I felt it would be interesting to see how the story affected me without prior knowledge (and then with that knowledge as well). While reading the story, the line that struck me the most was when the doctor told his son that, regarding the prawns that could have easily been fixed, “That’s true… but I just wanted you to come and see the prawn that has been paying for your education these twenty years”. Even without the knowledge of the actual history of Puerto Rico, I immediately understood the implication that these “doctors” were taking advantage of the woman simply for money and success. I also began trying to deduce what the symbolism was behind the prawn in the aunt’s leg. My theory was that it was meant to symbolize the waning agricultural business that was such a part of Puerto Rico’s history, yet not as important or viable as the times changed. The doctor’s (who could be considered “America”) could have helped fix that economy while letting the Puerto Ricans keep their identity. Instead, they let the problems of the Puerto Rican economy fester until they, like the aunt, became dependent on the doctor (the Americans). However, even as it was a problem, it was still the identity of Puerto Rico. So by having “out of the empty sockets of her eyes came the frenzied antennae of all those prawns”, Rosario Ferre was trying to   show that she desired that revenge would come from Puerto Rico’s own aggravated hands.

If I’m being honest I did not really gain much from reading the essay on the social and political background of the story. While I never knew the history of Puerto Rico, it’s quite similar to many moments within history where a country became dependent on another country so the themes were still easy to comprehend (with or without the essay). Hearing the history of Women’s rights and Ferre was very interesting though and it helped me connect to the story a bit more. I was honestly at first confused at the motivations of the aunt for creating these extremely realistic dolls for each girl as they married, but after reading the essay I related to the motivations much more easily. I realized that it was something similar to “be careful what you wish for”. These men effectively wanted dolls with no real emotions or motivations, but those dolls could end up fighting back and hurting the men at one point or another. 

Rosario Ferre "The Youngest Doll" reflection and response.

I personally really enjoyed reading "The Youngest Doll". It was a very mystical and symbolic way of showing how women were abused for generations. I really like that Ferre didn't give her female characters voices; They never spoke in presence of other men. I feel like that showed the true hierarchy. I also can tell that the prawns were a symbol for something. Because it continuously reappears throughout the text. I thought it was cool that it eventually started to ooze out of the niece. I feel like the prawn represented a curse that befell upon women in puerto rico, whom were exploited by men, and the curse continues to eat the women alive generations later, side to side with men.

Now I can't say I fully understood the context of this short story until I read the back story of Ferre and Puerto Rico. Now it all makes sense to me. I feel like the prawns represented the economic changes that were occurring in PR in her time. And men who rode on that change and started control over everything. Women had no choice but to be taken over by the new authorities. And thus their status in society continued to stay in the same place for many generations to come. The prawns had infested their lives and procreated through their blood for decades.

Bibliography: Keston

Du Fang, Canadian social science, vol 3. no.4 2007 18-24
Who makes a devil out of a fair lady?An analysis of the social causes of Emily's tragedy in a rose for Emily.Print

I chose this article because it gave me a better insight of how women were treated at the time A rose for Emily was taken place. Du Fang gave me a better understanding about why Emily's social environment could've  been one of the leading causes of the murder taken place.

May, Charles. E, Masterplots, Fourth Edition, November 2010,p1-3, Work Analisys
A brief synopsis and critical analysis of Edgar Allen Poe's The tell tale Heart.-.Print


This article was chosen because it broke down every aspect of the narrators mind, it helped me see the short story very differently from when I read it by breaking down the story in great detail.

Short story: Thesis

Edgar Allen Poe’s “The tell-tale heart and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” shares a similar theme in obsession leading to death. The narrator in “the tell-tale heart is fixated on the old man’s eye so much that it drives him to kill, even though he said himself,  “I loved the old man” . This is a very keen similarity to the character Emily in “A rose for Emily” who killed Homer Barron, even though they were friends and was believed to be lovers by people in the town. Both characters shared similarities, but there were also differences. The narrator in “The tell-tale heart” took pride in killing the old man; it almost seemed as if he got pleasure during the entire process. Emily took a different approach by gaining pleasure after the death of Homer Barron, sleeping by his side as if he was a significant other.

Annotated Bibliography

Gordon, Sarah. "New Georgia Encyclopedia: Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)." New Georgia Encyclopedia: Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964). N.p., 3 Mar. 2009. Web. 28 May 2013. I used this source to give me biographical information about Flannery O’Connor and her motive for writing this story. I learned that was a devoted Christian and this theme was evident in her description of the characters. 

Magistrale, Tony. "O'Conner's The Lame Shall Enter First." Abstracts in Social Gerontology. EBSCO, 2002. Web. 29 May 2013. This article focused on the symbolism that plays out through "The Lame Shall Enter First" although it was directly relevant to my theme in the essay it helped me understand Sheppard's motive more clearly. 

Mullen, Vincent. "Narcissism and Spirituality in O'Conner's Stories." American Journal Of Psychotherapy 57.4 (2003): 537-50. Print. This article gave me great psychological insight into the character of Sheppard. Being that I focused on Psychoanalysis in the theme of Gothic literature it was a great help. I learned how his behavior was an accurate depiction of a narcissist. 

Robinson, Arthur. "University of California Press." Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" 19.4 (1965): 369-78. JSTOR. Web. 29 May 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2932876.pdf?acceptTC=true>. This article discusses the internal conflict that the murderer faces throughout the story. It discusses how he refuses to accept his madness on account of his ability to logically plan the murder.  

 Vincent Buranelli. Twayne's United States Authors Series 4. Boston: Twayne, 1977. p22-38. COPYRIGHT 1977 Twayne Publishers, COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning 

This article was exceptional useful to give me background information on Edgar Poe. I learned the approach of how he used dreams in his work. It helped me explain this influence in the tall tale heart.