is it crazy to want to unravel

I see this story as much more than just the words that are on the page. Wendy Rose is talking about when winter comes and everything living pretty much disappears. For example animals or plants die and are no longer visible in the winter months. But i believe this is about much more than that.
To me, this poem is about leaving a lasting impact on people even after you're gone. People should not just be content with going unknown or unnoticed and this poem i believe is relaying a message of this sort without actually saying it. When she says, "a women was just standing there and now poof she is gone" i feel like she is trying to say that there are to many people that are content with just blending in and going unnoticed to people throughout there life time. This was a very strong poem to me because of the message i got out of it.

Anthony DiChristopher
post-10

Truganinny

This poem was a very strong, moving poem. Truganinny was the last Tasmanian person left, she was a "mixed breed" women. Her dying wish was to be buried by the sea and rest in piece, instead her husband had her stuffed and mounted for display to make extra money.
Many people to this day say that money is what makes people happy. In this case it did bring happiness but only to one person, Truganinny's husband. But his act of selfishness caused much pain for many of Truganinny's people because she wanted to lay in piece and he went against her wish just for the money. This brings up the question, does money really make people happy?

Anthony DiChristopher
post-9

My name is What?

In "Naming Power" the thirty year old woman has no name because she is looked down upon by everyone. She is not sure who she is because she even describes herself as a piece of pottery with multiple colors on it. She is the same as Julia because she would be sold for a few dollars as stated in the poem just for the merchant to make a quick buck on her. The woman can not tell a story about her own life because since she has no name she has no life of her own to tell. All this woman can say is how she has been searching and waiting for her name in order to start her life. She can move and dance like everyone, but since she has no name it is meaningless.
In the last stanza the woman explains how she has been searching to find her name but has given up and is giving herself back to the earth. She has let her feet sink into what seems to be rust of a casket. I believe this because it says where her mother has been. The description also is described as a rainbow between 2 points which could represent the arc from one end of a casket to the other. It makes me think she is in a way ready to die the way she is because its not worth being alive not having a name or almost a true purpose.
Kevin Ostempowski Post 2

The Name Game

Naming power is a poem that has a lot of significance to it. When it talks about a name given to them, the one who usually names the child is the mother. The mother plays an important role in a child's life. They raise their child up to be who they want them to be. The more the mother cares for her child the more likely their child grows up to be successful. A child's name is the most important thing to them because it is their identity. When some calls them by their name they respond to them because it is them that is being called upon. Without their name no one would know who a person is and no one would know what to call them so they won't be called upon them at all.

At the end when it says a thirty year old woman is waiting for her name, I believe that she had a name but she forgot who she was. In order to find her identity, she had to look inside herself and find who she was and what she was about. This is why it was hard for her and she had a tough time through life because she never found out who she really was. Once you find yourself it makes life a lot easier because you know where you fit in. Identity is obviously very important to her so this is why it was hard to cope with life. Thirty years without a name is difficult for anybody to live with. (Mason Post 10)

Julia-Open Your Eyes

In "Julia" the woman in my opinion went with what she was given in life instead of trying to go against what everyone else thought or did. Even though she was born with the deformities of looking very old and growing hair everywhere on her body. These 2 problems which as stated in "Julia" gave her the nicknames of lion woman and the world's ugliest woman. As written in the poem Rose writes, "And I was there in the mirror and I was not." This shows that Julia is not being true to herself and just going through all of the motions of what her life is giving her. Instead of seeing her true self she sees someone else who is in her body. She more or less just needs to open herself up to pain and going against what everyone else labels her as or how they try to limit her.
When she married her husband, she did so because he was the closest person to her. When she sees him in the poem after she is dead she sees he just used her for money and fame. In the poem she is looking back at her life and sees finally what she allowed to happen to herself. This is why she was hoping it was just a trick or joke that she was seeing. At the end of the poem Rose writes, "It scares me so to be with child, lioness with cub." This represents to me almost the guilt she feels with letting her and her sons life end like this.
Kevin Ostempowski Post 1

Truganinny-Social Injustice?

"Truganinny" is a poem by Wendy Rose which reaches out to the identity struggle experienced by “half-breeds” or “outcasts” in other races. The poem tells a story about Truganinny who was the last Tasmanian. Her husband stuffed, mounted, and put her on display. Although it was her dying wish that her body be be placed in a far out sea or mountain. Her husband ignored this dying wish and placed her on display for over eighty years just so he could put more money in his pocket.

The way the poem is written made me feel almost like I was experiencing her dying wish. The author uses words that make it seem very personal and powerful almost like she is encouraging the reader to come in close and listen to what she has to say. Yet as we read we find out that her request goes un-honored because of her selfish husband. To go along with the other readings we have done in class it makes we want to believe that this is somehow a symbol or further implication of silencing cultures (Native Americans for example) along with women. It reminds me of the social injustices that Rachel faced in "The Girl That Fell From the Sky." (Shawn Parkhurst, 10)

Big Vs Little In the End

"End of The Line" by Aimee Bender is an interesting story in that it is a fantasy that takes place in our very real world. It tells of the struggles faced by not only the little people in our society, but the "normal" big people too. The more important message that I got from the reading was the struggles of an average man living in our society. He didn't belong to any clique or social group, he was a loner that didn't want to be the one that was hurting anymore. I think this is the biggest reason he bought the little man from the store.

By torturing the little man and holding him against his will it transferred the pain of the big man to the little man. The big man was no longer alone or the only one feeling pain. The little man didn't belong in the big people society he belonged with his own kind, his family. It is my belief that the big man envied the little man because he did fit in with his own people and that's all the big man wanted. The last 2 pages explain a lot when the big man offers to guard the gates for the little people and asks to joins their society. It sums up all of the feelings and emotions of the big man. He only wants a place to fit in. (Shawn Parkhurst, 9)

Little/Big Dreams

In the story, "End of the Line," the big man I think was jealous of the little man. The big man bought the little man for fun. The big man was obviously lonely, and had no one to entertain him besides himself, and the women on TV. The little man was captured and taken from his family. I think when he told this to big man, he got jealous.

Big man had his dreams of not being lonely, and little man had his dreams that he was back with his family. He was captured and never to return. I think this hit little man when big man let him free. He was alone in an unknown world. He saw other little people but it was not the same. I think the other little people that lived around the big people were released. I feel this way because they were all so scared. (Nicole Butzke, Post 10).

Last Words

In the poem, Truganinny, the women is dying. She tells whoever is close what her dying wish is. She hardly has a breathe and within her last words, she wanted to be buried in the mountain or in the distant sea. I get the feeling she was left alone, and there was only one person that knew her dying wish. That would be the person who she told, which I believe is her husband. She was the last of the Tasmanians.

Tasmanian is an island of Australia. She wanted no one to find her so she was not put on display. The people were waiting for her to die, and were going to take her. The line "we old ones take such a long time" symbolizes how she took awhile to die, and they have been waiting. "Put me where they will not find me" was the last line of the poem. That did not happen though she was stuffed and mounted and put on display for over eighty years according to Paul Coe. (Nicole Butzke, Post 9).

Big vs. Little

“End of the Line” was an interesting story, involving two men, one little and one big. At first, the two men got along reasonably well, but the little man began to tell stories about his family and his experiences. The big man did not have any experiences like these, nor did he have any family. He was not the smartest man, and he was kind of a brute. Frankly, the big man was jealous of everything this little man had managed to accomplish, so he started to torture and beat the little man.

This jealousy is one of the big emotions in the story, and we all experience this kind of emotion at one time or another in our lives. I think that is why this story read like it was real to me, despite the obvious fantastical parts. The emotions in this story are everyday emotions, that all people experience. While we might not resort to beating on the person we are jealous of, we might certainly feel like we should.

The big man is a bully. Whenever anything went wrong in his life, like being turned down by a woman that he liked at work, he would come home and humiliate and beat the small man. The little man soon learned that he wasn’t afraid of the pain anymore, and started standing up to the big man. Like any typical bully, the big man backed down when stood up to because he was just making up for his lack of self esteem by making someone feel worse than he did. The big man soon let the little man go and return to his family.

The title also plays a major role in this story. When I first related it to the story, I thought of the bus, and how the big man rode it all the way to the end of the line to try to find the little people’s village. But when looking at it a little more, I think that it also applies to how far one human being can push another, little or big, until one party breaks. The big man pushed the little man in almost every way, and yet he is the one that ended up the weaker of the two. The little girl at the end of the story pities the big man because without the little man, he doesn’t have anyone. That is all the big man wanted, to belong to someone, or some group of people.

(Sarah Jaworowicz, Post 10)

Julia vs. Rachel

Since I was not prepared for the Aimee Bender story today I decided I would try and compare Julia's story to Rachel's. We learn that Julia has a facial deformity. I don't like that word, but not really sure how else to describe it. This facial hair caused Julia to be an oddity that was viewed as a freak. She lived in a world where she was never seen as a woman but as an object to gawk at. In death she was still objectified in the glass case where people stared never truly seeing the real person except for maybe the Author. Now lets take a look at Rachel a light- skinned girl with one black parent and one white parent and on top of that she has blue eyes. In the Girl Who Fell From the Sky we could say Rachel's blue eyes were viewed as her deformity. We could also say that because of her mixed background we could also say she was viewed as a freak or someone who didn't belong. So as we can see these two women had some similarities and in many ways had similar stories.

I wonder how Rachel may have been objectified in the early 1900's or late 1800's. Do think back then if she would've died would she have been put in a glass case to gawk at? I think even in today's society we would still view both of these woman as somewhat odd. Yes we've grown a bit when it comes to children of mixed culture, but I think there would still be those looks just like Julia would still get today. These women along with many other people with something alittle different will always be viewed as freaks to a degree. So in these way I would say both these stories are very similar and we could learn a lot about ourselves from both of them.
Thomas Moss (post 9)

Similarities

When I was working on my presentation, I came across the definition that Wendy Rose gave to explain the title of The Halfbreed Chronicles, and it really resonated with me that Wendy really identifies with these people. The actual quote was “By halfbreed I’m meaning something that transcends genetics. It’s a condition of history, of society, of something larger than any individual” (pg 86 of interview). Earlier on in the interview I read, the interviewer asked Rose if she had anything new that she was working on. Rose responded that she and several other writers had come across the idea of writing about groups of people that were not of their ethnicities, but the authors somehow identified with them. The “halfbreeds” was the group that Rose identified with. This is entirely evident in the two poems, “Truganinny” and “Julia”.

Neither of the two women are mixed racially like Rose is, but according to her definition, the “Halfbreed” title transcends genetics. It is more based on society and history. These two women in the poems fit into the both of those categories. Julia was cast outside of society because of her appearance. Her husband made the difference between Julia and “normal” people that much bigger by displaying her as a “freak”. Her differences were purely surface deep. Inside, she was a woman who wanted to be loved, a woman with feelings, but her husband treated her as a possession, as an object.

Truganinny was the last of her kind. All she wanted was to be left in peace for the rest of her life, and to be buried somewhere that had meaning to her. But, as she was the last of her kind, people disregarded her last wishes, and instead, prepared her for display in some sort of museum or other place. Truganinny classifies as a halfbreed in more of the historical sense. She was the only Tasmanian left, and the people couldn’t let the history go. They needed to remember her and her people, but the only way they could do that was to display her body instead of a picture or displaying some of her possessions.

Rose also fits into the society part of the definition. Even though she was biracial, she was treated as an outsider to every society that she came in contact with. Her father’s tribe wouldn’t consider her as a full member of the tribe because her father connected her to the tribe, not her mother. Her mother’s side of the family ignored her because she didn’t look like them. Her mother blamed her for things that she didn’t have any control over, like the ending of her marriage. Our society cast her out when she became an addict.

There was one more similarity between these three women that I thought was very interesting. In “Neon Scars,” Rose mentions how she “went on display” when she sold Indian crafts at Yosemite (page 96). I wonder if this is why she chose two women who were literally put on display after they died.

(Sarah Jaworowicz, Post 9)

Wishing to be Little

"End of the line" by Aimee Bender is definitely a strange story but i think it show us a good lesson.
We see in the story from the start to the end, the giant show signs of loneliness. Though it is shrouded by the torturing and abuse he gives the little man, he still is crying for help. The severity of the problem is projected by the author in his size of the man. On one hand because he is big it represent the big problem in his life and the enormous problem for the little man too.

The author describes his longing for a family in several ways. (1) he buys the little man, which gives hints that he wants some company. (2) He puts the little man in a doll house of some sorts that has a couch. This conves the idea that he wants a friend , a home with some one in it and not just himself. Last is (3) He tells the little man to take him to his family, which he kept bugging and bugging him to show where he lived. And he said to the little man at the end " I don't want to harm you!" " I just want to be a part of your society". therefore showing that though the little man was nothing compared to him, but he had something he want much, a family.

Silence has a Voice

Wendy Rose poems and autobiography were great pleasure to read. Her life speakes volumes in her poems, especially her motavations for writing them. I especially see this in her poems Truganinny and Julia. two different people, seen as outcast of society, and not truly see as people at all but things to examine in order to exercise human beings curiosity and hunger for profit.

Wendy has also felt like an out cast, calling herself a halfbreed. Also like the two poem the women voice were not hear and so she felt in hers. Here poems are a way to give a voice to the silent, to protest against the morphing human being into animals that neither have the right to choose or live. Her poems in power these women story and bring them figuratively back from the silence of death. Therefore giving life to here own voice and giving it power to be heard.

Julia

In the poem "Julia" by Wendy Rose, it talks about a woman who was born with facial deformations. She was put on display for everyone to see in a circus, where everyone could make fun of her and call her names such as "the worlds ugliest woman" and sometimes "lion lady" because of the long hair growing from her face. This poem is about a woman who is going through great personal despair. Having a husband say he loves her only for the money, he didn't really love her.

He really just wanted to keep her around to make money off of people who just want to stare at her. It really shows how much he did not car for her when he had her body and the body of their 6 hour old child put on display all because he didn't want to lose all the money he could be making from her. This poem is really disturbing to, you can really get a good glimpse just from reading these two poems the kind of stories Wendy Rose writes about, she really knows how to knock you off your chair when you read these.Its another case like in Truganinny, where a body is put on display just for the entertainment of others.

Cali Simmons (post 10)

What Goes Around Comes Around

In the short story "End of the Line," Aimee Bender demonstrates the age old axiom; what goes around comes around. The big man treats the little man as an inferior being. He tortures, drugs, abuses and humiliates the little man. His treatment of the little man is so horrible that it causes the the little man to feel completely helpless. At the beginning of his stay at the big man's house, the little man would speak of his family and how much he missed them. After weeks of being beat he no longer spoke of his family. He gave up on any hope to see them again, and therefore awaited his death. This however, did not stop the big man from continuing his torture.

Finally, the big man decides to set the little man free. After doing so he follows the little man back home. This is when the big man truly realizes the vastness of his loneliness. He states, "I just want to be part of your society" (26). The big man is so lonely and companionless that he is now desperate to become part of a society that he once treated as lesser than he. At the very end the roles reverse with the little girl's reaction towards the big man's desperate attempts to be accepted. Her pity for the big man portrays Bender's moral; what goes around comes around.

Cailee Januszkiewicz-5

Truganniny

In this poem "Truganninny" by Wendy Rose, it talks about a tasmanian woman, and how she was left to watch her husbands dead body be put on display for everyone to see and stare at and make sun of. She then says that she hopes for herself when she dies that this injustice does not happen to her, she wants to be buried in the ground, as she states under the bulk of a mountain or in the distant sea. Where her body cannot be put on display for everyone to see.
I think that this is ind of disturbing, because I don't know of anyone who worries about being on display when they die. It almost seems like you have to get something in written form with the persons permission to do that. Like they do now., when some people offer their body to science when they die.I just do not think this is right and I cant believe that this could happen to someone.

Cali Simmons (post 9)

Tru-Gan-Inny

In reading this poem, it is obvious that the mood in this poem was very sympathetic. Truganinny's dying wish was to be buried in the outback or at sea and instead her husband had her stuffed and put on display for over eighty years just to make some money. This wasn't fair to his wife who thought that her husband really cared about her and cared about her feelings. He obviously didn't put himself in her shoes and thought about how he would feel if he was stuffed and put on display. His actions towards his wife were very disrepectful and should have thought better to give her the proper burial that she had wanted. Reading some of the words in this poem like "put me under the bulk of a mountain or in the distant sea" showed how much she did not want to be put on dsplay. She would be open up to almost every other option just not the one that went through. The worst part is that she is dead and she can't stop her husband from doing anything that he wants.

I feel like there were other ways that the husband could've made money other than putting his wife on display. If money was the only thing that was on his mind, he could've put his wife's clothes on display or different items that she owned that could've worth a lot. He could've at least made if wife rest in peace rather than putting her on display for the whole world to see. This whole poem is about how she did not like being a show and how she is a person with feelings not some display act. In my opinion, any husband that would do that to his wife does not have a heart and never loved her in the first place. This is what she was afraid of that her husband never loved her and that she wanted to remember her husband as somebody who did. In the end it showed what kind of a man he really was. (Mason post 9)

Disappearing Forever

When I read the poem "Is it Crazy to Want to Unravel," I was sympathetic to the emptiness the author feels. Her other poems where about other characters and giving them a voice to tell their stories. I believe this poem is more from a time where Wendy Rose actually felt like disappearing. In Neon Scars, the passage on 96, about the facts of her life, she tries to convey how unhappy she is. She talks about abuse, neglect, being sick, addiction, and most importantly a sense of being alone in the world. This poem is in turn a cry for what she would have really liked to do, disappear. The poem states many ways that she could disappear or dissolve in a sense.

Looking at the poem in a closer perspective she talks about the way winter begins. When I think of winter I think of plants and trees dying and disappearing. The way she incorporated winter in the poem it really brings to life her message. She talks about the moth getting harder as one way to go but then the other way is to just dissolve and become obediant like the women in the bible. She is not sure of the way she wants to disappear and die, whether it is to get hard or dissolve. She could evaporate or dissolve is another unique comparision. I am not sure I completely understand the real intentions of the poem but it is very deep and gives you the same impression of her other poems. It is a feeling of lonliness and emptiness that nothing ever fills. Whether she is trapped in a glass case or disappearing no one really notices her.
(Kelcey Summers, 10)

Lost

"Naming Power" was hard to interpret at first, but a common theme was conveyed throughout the poem. It would frequently say "There has to be someone to name you," which seems to be rather odd to be repeated over and over again. However, it seems that poem is meant to display a sense of confusion in that the story is about someone who is unsure about themselves. That there is always someone that helps to take care of you in a way not just in health, but in all necessary means of life. In other words, there has to be someone to give you a meaning in life. It is hard to comprehend, but it just seems like this person is trying to find that someone who will complete them.

There were a couple choice words that could suggest what this poem is all about. In the last verse, it mentions that "I dance my body through a dozen shapes and search for the sky for pollen." This could possibly demonstrate how the woman in the poem is now grown up, that she her body has changed over the years until now she is a grown woman. She could also be searching for a husband when she says that she is searching for her "pollen." That way she can acquire a new name through marriage and thus give birth to a child who will in turn recieve a name. Her life is always dependent upon someone else's existence, and that she herself will give a name to someone else.
(David Roberts, Post 10)

Frozen in Time

The story of Julia Pastrana or "The World's Ugliest Woman" as she came to be known as, is sad and depressing to read. The fact that she was even given the title as "The World's Ugliest Woman" is degrading in one aspect, and the fact that she was stuffed and put on display is horrible. Despite her facial abnormalities, she is still a human being, one who experiences pain, joy, and all the emotions that we experience throughout our lifetimes. To be put on display even after death is creepy to think about because no matter what you cannot escape the pains of this world even though your soul has left. Julia is able to see that her body is put into a glass display case along with her child, and both can be talked about although they are no longer living. It would be like living in a silent film where there is nothing you can say to defend yourself because you no longer have a voice, but then again did Julia even have a voice to begin with when she was alive? Julia was considered to be a "freak" and as society has displayed, outsiders are usually ignored.

The fact that Julia was stuffed was bad enough, but realizing that it was her husband that had her stuffed in the first place was just plain sick. One would think that marriage is a binding ceremony in trust that one's spouse is in love with them. However, it appears that her husband (also manager) was just in it to make a quick buck. He did not want to give up his money just because his wife had passed away, no instead he would stuff his wife and keep her on display for many more years to come. This is really disturbing, because there is no respect for the dead what so ever, and throughout the poem it seems like Julia is trying to convince herself that her husband really did love her. She wants to believe that this whole thing is just a dream and wants to hear that her husband loved her for her own satisfaction, but obviously her husband was just trying to make money off of her. He didn't care about her feelings, which is very deceitful.
(David Roberts, Post 9)

Behind the Glass

What if we really never totally pass on? What if our souls remain in our bodies? What if even though we were dead we could still see our surroundings? This is what is is being portrayed in the story of Truganinny. We go to museums and zoos. We go to circuses. I mean who hasn't gone to the fair and seen the freak shows? I think this story is more of an insight into what we do then what Truganinny sees through her glass box. I think it's unfair to look at the husband as a villain if people didn't pay to see her he wouldn't have used her to make money. We don't think about the family of the woman or the person in the box. We think " What a freak. What's wrong with her?". Is ever so different from what she would've been through while she was alive? So who is the author really speaking to? Is it just a story about what Truganinny would be saying if she could see herself and whats going on around her? Or is it more of a question to us the reader. Do we think of this freak show as a person or something to gawk and stare at? Do we truly understand what she had to endure and is still enduring inside her box? I think this piece can be used for a past, present and future look at the state of which we treat people especially those who are different from us.
Who of us have not gone to the museum and looked at the stuffed animals and corpses? How many of us went to the Erie county fair and haven't paid the dollar to go into one of the side show huts? I know I have. Many may argue it's just for entertainment or scientific research. Well who has done the scientific research on how it has affected these people? I bet no one. Today we don't need to go to a traveling circus to see these oddities we now have them shown to us in a daily basis on the television. We all watch. We watch real-life television shows now. The question I'd like to post to you, is staring at our glass boxes (t.v.'s) in our homes watching reality unfold on t.v. really any different nowadays from staring into the glass case of a dead woman?
Thomas Moss (post 8)

The Real Story of Julia Pastrana

Intrigued by our discussion in class about the life of Julia Pastrana, I went online and did some research about her. It is said that Julia, while she was alive, always stated how happy and content with her life she was. When we look back at the events that occurred after her death, this is when we become horrified. I am disgusted by the way her husband treated her especially when it is said that she was infatuated with him. After she died her husband sold her corpse and the baby's corpse to a Professor at a university in Moscow. Her husband found out that the mummified bodies of his wife and son were making a lot of money being on display so he wanted them back. He started making the money off them by putting them up on display for everyone to look that. Mr. Lent, Julia's husband re-married a woman with the same condition that Julia had and gained more money by telling people that it was Julia's sister. He had a breakdown and had to be institutionalized. The mummies were traded between many people for many years. They aren't even sure where the mummies are today because the place they were being stored was broken into and the baby mummy was ripped apart. They believe Julia is in the basement of a building in Oslo.

This is a shortened version of all the history this woman and her baby's body had to go through. I believe this is very wrong. It doesn't matter if someone is different physically or mentally their body should be buried through a ceremony to keep the spiritual meaning. Unfortunately Julia was not buried or given any kind of special ceremony she was displayed across the world. The only time anyone should not have a proper burial is if the person them self donates their body to science. It is not right to ever display someone's body to the public after they are deceased. Could you imagine if that person happened to see how their body was being used, it would be completely intolerable.
(Kelcey Summers 9)

The website I used to look up the history was http://thehumanmarvels.com/?p=33.