24.9.07 post

Overall I had difficulty understanding both major works that we read. I don’t quite understand what difference it makes on how an intellectual is made or how they are categorized makes a difference in how literature is made, or interpreted. Beyond influence I don’t understand how this has to do with literature. I understand the concept of hegemony which Gramsci refers too and that term directly correlates to the reading about Christmas and the reading by Kincaid. In the piece by Kincaid, named “Girl”, the piece, in my opinion, is about how to raise a daughter. The piece is mainly fragmented and I think it is done on purpose because doing it in this context makes it almost like a list giving it a surreal but also enlightening effect on the reader. While reading it I though it was rather bland until the line “this is how to make a button-hole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming.” I thought this line is the most provocative line in the text because it gives a characteristic which then brings up a value, in her being a person bent on being a slut, and it also shows that the girl wants to become a slut. This piece could also be seen as rules, in which these rules and mediated by the larger force of the society or media. This is more blatant in the fact that the writer tells you that these systems for consumerism are in place and that we are subjected to them, unknowingly, and we abide by them. It also shows how something as innocent as Rudolph can actually be a very powerful tool to make certain that these systems stay in place.