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OVERVIEW: We've read examples of poetry and nonfiction. This week, we are reading a selection of short fiction. I think it's useful to read short fiction because a lot of what students read in K-12 ELA classrooms is short fiction--and you don't really read it all that often beyond K-12 unless you take an actual class on the short story.
FOR THIS WEEK'S BOOK CLUB: I want us to explore how writing about character can help a reader/writer to understand the story more broadly. Student readers almost always like or don't like a book based on a character. Identify one character from the short story "She Said It Like She Meant It" and identify the role they play in elucidating a possible theme for the text. BECAUSE THIS IS AN ASYNCHRONOUS BOOK CLUB: it's necessary that you respond to one or more of your classmates. Identify, very specifically, places you agree with a colleague's reading or disagree. Identify portions of the text or read differently the portions of the text that colleague uses to make his/her point.
17 Comments
Sarah Egan
6/15/2021 06:20:06 am
The narrator starts off by saying that there is a cemetery in Kabul running out of space. A group of boys and one girl take car of the cemetery. She prays for a phone and this makes the narrator think a lot about the power of prayer. The graves that have writing on them belong to men and a lot of women go to the cemetery because they are not allowed to attend the burial of their husband. The boys tell the girl that her dad is never coming home. The girl prayers for the phone but in reality she is praying for her father to come home. The narrator is trying for a baby but continues to have miscarriages, she feels confused. An Afghani mother’s so died because of suicide. She has a reoccurring nightmare that the grave catches on fire so she always sprinkles water on his grave. In her dream, she throws water on the fire and it does not go out. When she visits, she drinks a water bottle and sprinkles the rest on his grave. The narrator keeps bringing up her fear of multitasking as a mother. She also mainly discusses loss. I believe that author has a difficult time with the acceptance of the loss of a loved one. She mentions how her friend passed away and she doesn’t visit her grave, but still celebrates her birthday each year. The author is afraid that someone’s death will be more real if she acknowledges it. The author continues to experience loss as she is trying to have children. Though a mother’s love is forever, the feeling of grief and guilt never goes away.
Lauren Wrigley
6/15/2021 11:09:09 am
I like the point you made about the author’s fear of acknowledging death as a way of avoiding the reality of it. I agree with your assumption that the author is having a difficult time with accepting the loss of a loved one. When I read this, I focused on the little girl maintaining the cemetery and read her character as a representation of hope (hoping her dad would come home), but after reading your response, I can see how this character really sparks a connection between the narrator and others that avoid the reality of a bad situation, such as loss or abandonment.
Alexis Medeiros
6/15/2021 11:36:20 am
That's how I saw the purpose of the article. Death is a scary thing and this article is for the purpose of those who grapple with the fear of death because they are directly interfered with death, meaning that they have suffered a loss in their life. it's hard because simply no one has ever come back from the dead to tell us their experience with death. People are scared but I also think it's important that we don't dwell on that fact but instead live each of our days to the fullest because simply we don't know how many days we have left. Loss is hard for everyone but especially hard for a mother. It is sad when you carry something within you yet it will never be able to take a breathe. I agree, a mother's love if forever. It's eternal and it's special and I truly believe that mother's are the only one that understanding this eternal unwavering love.
Elizabeth Cheesman
6/15/2021 10:02:00 am
Jennifer Blackman’s short story had a variety of distinct characters that contributed to the tone and mood. It is important to note that whether a story has one or many characters, this element plays a significant role in creating a message or theme. Blackman’s story is almost considered to be a mourning or memorial piece to honor Kabul. Though the cemetery as the setting creates a sense of tension and sadness for some readers, the building of characters contributes to the theme of grief as well. With more than one specific character, Blackman provides readers with several opportunities to guess or place characteristics into potential themes. One character may have also brought the message of time passing and how it is hard to let go of loved ones. Blackman's choice to bring multiple characters made this message stronger throughout the story. One character that stands out is the Afghani mother who lost her son by suicide. Her nightmares with fire and water elude to the theme of loss. Specifically, when she carries buckets of water and the flames don’t die elude to the harsh reality that grief is never ending. She could pour water on the fire as much as she wanted but the flames never went away. This constant fire represents her pain and suffering from grief which compliments the accumulating of theme for the text. Grief and fear is all around in Kabul throughout the day but also when people are sleeping or subconscious. What does this tell us? You can leave the cemetery, but the loss of people pushes inescapable fear and resistance to accept their death.
Lauren Wrigley
6/15/2021 11:00:39 am
In Jennifer Blackman’s short story “She Said It Like She Meant It”, the little girl from the New York Times piece stuck out to me the most. The story opens with the author reflecting on this piece and the impressions it left on her. She goes into detail about this one girl, among a group of boys who taunt her for having faith in her father’s return. She reflects on the girl’s prayers for a Galaxy as a representation of her desire for his actual presence and a relationship. This scene paints a picture of an innocent girl with great hopes and expectations for life in a society where her future seems bleak. Blackman uses this character as a symbol of hope; She recalls the young girl’s prayers as a reminder of ‘the power of prayer’-- the strength that evolves from the hope that prayer has power. Possible themes for this text could involve hope, strength, or perhaps overcoming grief, and the character of this young girl that opens this story plays a role in probing these themes.
Gabriel El Khoury
6/15/2021 12:06:21 pm
Great observation of possible themes, Lauren. I hadn't thought of including themes like "hope, strength" or "overcoming grief" as potential themes, and I am glad that you have now brought them to my attention. Are there any sections in the story where you feel as though either one of the themes you mentioned fail to apply? Here, I am mainly thinking about the example I gave in my response, that being the Afghani mother who attempts to put out hell flames with well water. If this ritual which troubles her so is her way of overcoming grief, then might there be healthier and unhealthier ways of overcoming this feeling? If so, this Afghani mother's mother surely qualifies as unhealthy, seeing as how she is often beset by nightmares and her "lifelong multitasking," which sounds exhausting...
Alexis Medeiros
6/15/2021 11:32:02 am
Book Club: “She Said it Like She Meant it” by Jennifer Blackman.
Gabriel El Khoury
6/15/2021 12:01:15 pm
Jennifer Blackman’s “She Said it Like She Meant It” is a scattered collection of accounts, each one of them in some way pertaining to death. Bookended by Kabul, the stories sandwiched in between are highly varied, ranging from cockfighting advice to the gruesome hunting habits of the American kestrel. One line that immediately jumped out at me (and I want to document it for future reference): “A mother’s love is forever, but so are plastic bottles.” Death, or at the very least a loss of some kind, runs through each of the nine seemingly unrelated stories; death thematically unites them all.
Emma Healy
6/15/2021 12:54:42 pm
Gabriel,
Emma Healy
6/15/2021 12:44:54 pm
Jennifer Blackman’s, “She Said it Like She Meant it” use of characters demonstrates how they can alter the views or themes of a text. Characters have the capabilities to make or break a text in the sense that readers can either understand and appreciate a character, or completely disregard them as pointless to a story. One character that stood out for me was the friend who died after childbirth. This type of death is traumatic because the mother’s life has been taken away, but also new life has beautifully been born. The narrator expresses she cannot physically or emotionally visit the grave as it brings too much pain as a reminder. She explains she goes back to her hometown for certain occasions which always brings back the memory of saying goodbye to her dearly loved friend who shouldn’t have died. I interpret her not speaking to her friend’s mother too often because it is still a fresh wound that hasn’t been properly healed. Even though it may be close to impossible to resurface those memories of a friend’s death, it reminds the mother that her daughter’s life isn’t forgotten, even if it’s just a phone call to celebrate her birthday. A possible theme through the friend’s death could be to not repress those feelings of agony and deep sadness, but to celebrate a life for what it was. By pushing away feelings of grief, it will inevitably make moving forward in life impossible. By the narrator acknowledging her deceased friend, she is finding peace rather than running from it.
Aliyah Pires
6/15/2021 03:31:32 pm
I agree with the theme you have stated. I was reading through the characters as a theme of accepting the grief and turning it into a positive outlook and having hope or faith. I feel like this can connect to your thinking of a theme as they both discuss the ways characters can go about handling the grief they encounter in a positive outlook.
Elizabeth Cheesman
6/15/2021 01:18:18 pm
You talked about celebrating life like birthdays instead of focusing on sadness. One way to ease sadness is to flip the situation into a celebration. I wish I had thought of that while reading. This shows that we may have different interpretations of characters in every text. You’re right that some reading thinks some characters are unnecessary, but I think we should think about if there is an underlying reason why the character was chosen to be there. Chances are it is not a coincidence! I agree that if one does not accept death it will make healing impossible.
Elizabeth Cheesman
6/15/2021 01:19:04 pm
^ reply to Emma's post
Aliyah Pires
6/15/2021 03:28:16 pm
Throughout Jennifer Blackman's short story the use of characters and their stories bring about many different symbols and themes. It allows the readers to be able to paint a picture for what is happening and be able to understand the story as a whole. For me, I particularly enjoyed the description of the first character, a little girl who was taunted by a group of boys. For me, I enjoyed the symbolism of her to hope. She prayed for her fathers return and had continued to believe that he would,. She had faith to carry her through and that is what she embodied through her character. A theme of this reading could be having hope to overcome grief and she portrays that.
Sarah Egan
6/15/2021 05:13:08 pm
Hi Aliyah,
David Golden
6/15/2021 07:15:33 pm
Aliyah I agree with you that this short story is one of hope. All of these characters in the story are all dealing with their own grief and are trying to manage it. I believe that Blackman was trying to say that it is okay to remember the pain that these deaths have caused. Remembering that pain means you truly loved them and that living for them is a hopeful feeling. I think that you are spot on with your points.
David Golden
6/15/2021 07:12:10 pm
Jennifer Backman's short story "She Said It Like She Meant It" starts by stating that the cemetery in Kabul is running out of space. The women are not permitted to attend the burials and are forced to show up the next morning and mourn for the people that they have lost. Backman tells the story of multiple women who have all experienced pain and suffering. These characters all have suffered and the reader is given insight into exactly what it is like for these women. One character that stuck out to me was the story of the mother who lost her son to suicide. The mother dreams of her son twisting in flames. She tries to sprinkle water on him, but it is futile. In her nightmares, she tries to absolve him by wetting her hands and praying for him, but the flames never die. The short story is one of guilt. The mother feels guilty that she was not able to save her son and must suffer through his death every time she has a nightmare. This grief can be managed but it will be with her forever. All of the characters have suffered in one way or another. They are all dealing with trauma and are grief-stricken. Backman's trying to convey that grief can't be forgotten. That pain is useful as a memory, but you can not let it control you. You have to control your own life and remember those that you have lost, but also live for their memory. Leave a Reply. |
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