Here are the guidelines:
- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 250 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
- From the "Comment As" drop-down menu, choose Anonymous, then click "Publish."
- Reading responses are due by midnight on the night PRIOR to our discussion of the required reading.
For the articles I really enjoyed reading about how there are ways depending on the author on how to push an emotion across. By describing the surrounding environment the author does not need to point out specific details. The example that was given dealing with the funeral was very helpful in that it allowed me to see what I was doing wrong in my own writing. In my writing I am telling and telling, at not one point do I use the environment to depict the situation my character is in. I did feel that the online article was a bit lengthy and at some points got a little confusing when it came to eh specific example using his own work. However over all it was a really good read and I would recommend future writers to read this. I did enjoy the article a little more due to its use of math. It is not often where there is a formula in writing where it allows the creative juices to flow like that one does.
ReplyDeleteFor Woman Hollering Creek, I really enjoyed reading it again for a second time. I had previously seen this work in American literature. Knowing what I knew from the article I read it in a new light. I especially liked the scene where she gets home from the hospital and she absolutely hates her home she has with her husband. I thought that was a very powerful description because it does not tell us what is wrong with the house it tells us what makes it just like any other house however hers is not that one that she wishes to be in.
Evelyn Lopez
I'd heard about the term objective correlative before, but did not learn much of its meaning or how to implement it in writing. I enjoyed reading the articles because they gave a good definition and various examples of what this tool can do in literature. While reading "What is Objective Correlative," I was able to see how natural it is to convey a message to our readers, and how we are able to give meaning to something, that in reality does not have as much meaning.
ReplyDeleteSomeone, I'm assuming a teacher or professor, once talked about Sandra Cisneros writing a story about La Llorona. I thought the story was going to be simple and cliche, but I was surprised to see how it developed. I liked that the story flowed from, what was supposed to be Cleofila's happily ever after, to a living nightmare she had to escape. The emphasis on the arroyo, and why they named it Woman Hollering Creek, was a way for Cisneros "to communicate universal concepts tastefully and subtley." She was able to present domestic violence and many of its consequences without having to narrate, she used the show and not tell method. Overall, this story was enjoyable, made me laugh and reflect on what many women experience when the prince turns back into a frog.
-Daniela Hernandez
Objective Correlative is a term familiar to me but I didn’t quite remember (shocker!) what it meant till I read these articles. I feel the articles go hand in hand with what LaPlante was saying in the chapter about emotions. We need to tie objects, events, or situations to a certain emotion, rather than just explicitly stating the emotion outright. As a result of not being a very descriptive writer, my writing can suffer as a result by not having the core emotions in a story being tied to objects or surroundings. Good news is it ca be tied to situations or characters, and I’m a little better at those. Going over this has helped me reflect on some of the images I present in one of my current projects. The way I see objective correlative is kind of like Pavlovian conditioning. Stimulus – response. Black umbrellas, rain – sadness. But that is precisely the point of the concept: to have the audience salivate whenever an emotional bell is rung.
ReplyDeleteI like how Cisneros uses the mundane images of the telenovela to show how Cleo imagines life should be, and how she is infatuated with the idea of happy ever after. She progresses the story well with the mundane images of domesticity to show the true nature of the marriage and that it is something Cleo must escape in the end. It was nice to see Cisneros use the image of La Llorona, but I think I see this image a little too much in Mexican-American literature.
Chano Martinez
Isaac J McCoy
ReplyDeleteReading One
Yet another writing tool which I, try to, use in my writings. I am actually trying to implement this specifically into my short story for class, though I am uncertain as to whether I am being “didactic or heavy handed” as one of the articles described. It truly is hard to not be too obvious in what we, the writers, are trying to convey, trying to convince, to the readers. I am hoping that my story. Specifically, is not too blatant in its underlying theme and that I successfully detailed the finer points of the minor themes and details so as to not make them stick out like a sore thumb. If I failed in this, then I suppose I am just in need of much more practice.
Reading Two
I liked the story despite my lack of understanding of it. I liked the way the author structured her sentences, mixing the past and present tense in a few of them really caught me off guard. However; I am monolingual, so I did not understand any of the Spanish used in the story. This made it pretty difficult to follow along for most of the time and at that end I am thoroughly uncertain as to what was going on or how it ended. I did understand the part about La Llorona, but only because myths and legends are a hobby of mine and it came up as a plot in one of the fantasy TV shows I watch off and on. I did like the imagery, it was easy to imagine what I could read. I also liked the variance between the narration and the descriptors; as it was, it was not too dense in any one style of script.
So the short story was quite interesting and complicated with all these images/ideas. Some of these images are what the articles call, “objective correlatives.” The articles mention that they can be a set of objects, situations, people etc. Therefore, I’m thinking the objective correlative is one of the characters, just not sure if Cleófilas or her husband. Maybe the idea of what is happening of this traditional marriage where Cleófilas lives in constant domestic violence. Really looking forward to the discussion to figure this one out. Anyhow, I really like the idea of using this objective correlative. I think I’ve used it, not on purpose, this is the first time I learn about this, but it’s really cool to use this to modify and give more life to one’s story. I think this whole idea plays an important role in each story. This entire idea has a lot of benefits to a story, but I think one of the most important one is: It also gives your story a lot of organizational power. The writer of this article points out how he adds an objective correlative before knowing what they are, this way the story is told quickly and with little expositional mess as possible. Which makes sense. I’ve thought about some stories to write, one in particular, and I think it’s only what the writer calls “expositional mess” because it’s really all over the place, and I cannot really think up what the objective correlative is. This was a good lesson.
ReplyDeleteLizbet Cantu
Objective correlative is a form of writing I’ve been trying to practice on. I think this is a strong style that develops characters without getting the message directly across, it keeps your readers intrigued and gets them guessing at the meanings. Reading the articles further enhanced my view on the importance of objective correlative. It gives your story and theme emotion through actions and references that the reader will know what to tie to, either through experience or the way a writer sets the scene up. With objective correlative, you can leave a lot of undertones subliminally throughout your essay through colors and objects, which is something I’ve strongly been attempting at in my essay for this class. Though, often times I do get strayed away from the objective, so reading these examples give me more ideas and techniques that I can use for my own writing.
ReplyDelete“Woman Hollering Creek” was an interesting read, though I get easily distracted I was able to focus on this piece through all its imagery. It seems like Cleofilas uses the telenovelas as a correlative of her dreams for her personal life, but reality is far from her dreams. The story circles around their setting of the creek, named “woman hollering” though Cleofilas’ narration keeps giving man the power in this story. It does relate to her struggles, her hollering is internal but it is evident that she is displeased with this life, as she ultimately runs away to freedom. Her neighbors also seemed pretty interesting to me, specifically their names, Soledad and Dolores. There was one line where she mentioned she had these neighbors in either side, but had to pick one or the other, either pain or solitude.
Jesus Pena
At first I thought the objective correlative was similar to a story's motif or its particular message, but the two essays helped me realize its so much more than that. I appreciated being able to see it explained in way that was formulaic because, though we don't (or shouldn't) write with a formula in mind it helps clear things up after the fact when we can divide the individual parts in that way. The two essays touched on what I've been attempting in my own writing, but now I feel I can make a proper go of it with this in mind.
ReplyDeleteThe writing style of Woman Hollering Creek took a while for me to get used to. I was disoriented for the first two pages, but when I re-read them with the full story in mind it stuck me as wonderful in its simplicity. I appreciated the POV shift on page 59 especially, despite my initial confusion about it, because it added a more solidified context to the situation.
I dislike when the quote marks are left out of a story. It's irritating to me as a reader and as a copy editor, but I think I can understand why Cisneros chose to write in that way. My theory, at least, is that it was meant to emphasize the narrator's isolated situation and the fact that she was often trapped in her own head, alone with her own thoughts, living in a house hold where speaking up was discouraged. The lack of quotation marks fit well with the objective correlative of the story, in other words. The story was dense as well and I had to read it twice in order to feel I fully understood everything that was being said. Most readers get irritated by that, but to me I think it shows that I'm reading a well put together story.
Andy De Llano
I found the firs reading very interesting and it is definitely something that I am going to work on to where I can successfully use it in my writing. The idea of object correlative is to reveal things about a story without telling. It's more showing than telling, which is ultimately what I want to do. I found the cemetery example very helpful for my understanding of object correlative.
ReplyDeleteThe theme of the story is never mentioned but, it wasn't difficult to insinuate that Cisneros was writing to bring attention to the mental and physical abuse that many women are subjected to. In the story, we find a woman who hopeful for a better future in America, but instead, ends up hopeless with an abusive husband with her second baby on the way. It is never said that the protagonist is miserable. Instead, we're given details so that we can infer on our own.
Michael Perez
In the passage, “What is the Objective Correlative”, I was pleased to see that the latter portion of the reading consisted of explaining that setting a scene is somewhat part of an entirety of a equation. Reason being is the left side of my brain likes to make patterns of anything that it absorbs, while my right side like to be creative and run wild a bit, just like most of our brains work. Thus, comes the writer’s dilemma in which we must utilize both sides of our brain to properly portray emotion in a scene. Essentially, if we want to create despair and sadness, we would “objectively” or logically use the right pieces of the puzzle to properly display the image that we want. This is where the black clothes, umbrellas, veil, and much more come into play. Also, even though the article does not seem to go into detail about the contrast in scenes it’s portraying, it is important to note that emotions may be emotionally evoked when this is put into action. This goes back to the passage since the scene literally and metaphorically has light shed on it, when the passage describes sunlight. Thus, the audience can relate to feeling the sadness with the scene, but also feel relieved when the sunlight enters and breaks through the clouds. In regards to the article by Jon Gingerich, not only does the aspect of objective correlation give a work organizational power, but it places another layer of deciphering for the reader. In addition, he mentions that repetition is a key tool that us writers can use to communicate different ideas and concept. This reminds me of the play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”. In the play, light is not only an inanimate object, but the repetition of it portrays that it is used to signify truth and the dispelling of lies.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the story, I love the contrasting events that partake from the introductory paragraphs, compared to the scenes that follow it. For example, it starts off at Cleófilas wedding, then talking about the telenovelas that she used to watch in which the significance is that love shall prevail through all obstacles, and then to the awaiting arrival of her moving to Texas. Essentially, there seems to be a reoccurring presence of the relationship between husband and wife. In addition, there seems to be correlation with the creek and Cleófilas, since she was fascinated to find the origin of the name of the creek and soon enough, the story jumps right to the scene to when she gets hit by her husband. Also, the telenovelas are mentioned to the point she says that life is nothing like how he viewed them when she was growing up.
Patricio Hernandez (P.J.)
Objective correlative sounded familiar, but it was like a math equation to me, I couldn't compute. All jokes aside, the writer refreshed my memory saying it is setting emotion without having to state the obvious, or spoon feed the reader the concluding feeling. I liked understanding the objective correlative, because the writer gave two good examples on how to use it. One was the benefit of showing, describing with figurative language, with objects, or settings. The other way to use it was as an organizational power. As a writer, I can build up the emotion I want to convey in the story. The objective correlative guides and makes a spine of emotions. I could use it more to attach emotions into objects, instead of flat out bombing the reader with the words like "sad" "angry" "nervous" which I feel like I might have in my recent story.
ReplyDeleteWoman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros fit with the readings. In the story, I never got the exact work that Cleofilas was scared or trapped or even controlled. She latched her emotions in her observations and description of the creek. She wanted to yell, and thought she would've done so, but she couldn't in the end. At the end when she runs off with one of the nurses to San Antonio, she is impressed and in awe of the woman who is driving because she lives for herself. The story covered the topic of abuse, but never tells me directly, but is understood with the objective correlative.
Kassandra Salas
Not knowing what to write is one of the most daunting challenges I face when I sometimes start to write. I like that LePlante describes this as a perfectly fine thing to feel, and that in fact this can help create some of the best works. She explained that even though we use familiar subjects close to us it is better to have unknowns that may interest readers. One does not need to have the actual experience to write about a subject, your emotional response are what matters when you write. My favorite part of this chapter was when she described every work of authors as their own worlds, and that it is our job to bring our worlds to other people. I didn’t like that she used a lot of poetry for her examples. I wish she would have used more short fiction that wasn’t poetry so that it could be easier to understand. Her given examples when she included poetry as examples, like triggering subject and real subject were the hardest for me to understand.
ReplyDeleteI loved the short story that was included in this chapter. “Woman Hollering Creek” tells us the story of Cleofilas as she becomes a victim of spousal abuse and her subsequent escape. The use of Spanish words and culture in this story helped develop Cleofilas’ character and her story. I especially loved that her neighbors were named solitude and pain in Spanish. The sentence “Soledad on one side, Dolores on the other” was my favorite because she really was surrounded by pain and loneliness.
Flavio Hernandez
These articles were great reads! Personally I love when there is a usage of an objective correlate. In fact, in my new short story draft, I have an objective correlative because they’re so fun to write about. The way I see it, the text (whether a book or short story, etc.) is a puzzle piece near completion but there is one piece missing, and the objective correlative is that missing puzzle piece that puts everything together. Nevertheless, because I am such a film geek, I love the example of the hypothetical film and it was much easier to understand how to properly execute an objective correlative. What I didn’t know is that the objective correlative could be a person or event as well, not just an object. It would be interesting to play around with that!
ReplyDeleteI love Sandra Cisneros. People know her mostly from The House of Mango Street, but I personally love her other work. So when I saw that the assigned reading is one of her works I was excited! Woman Hollering Creek is such an interesting story! La Llorona is something that is constantly seen in stories, but in this one, I think it is uniquely used. It shows how the protagonist is willing to give life another chance and not follow the route the Llorona did. This story reminds me of Junot Diaz’s Fiesta 1980 only because of the same technique of not including quotation marks. It didn’t bother me, although I had to re-read the sentence once again, but I think it is intentional. The arroyo, I think, is the objective correlative in this story. I might have missed some, but for sure the arroyo. It is a great read for this concept.
Emily D'Gyves
This is my response
ReplyDeleteIn what is the Objective Correlative, and Understanding the Objective Correlative they talk about the formula of emotion? In the quote given it says that “the only way of expressing emotion in form of art is by finding an “objective correlative”. I thought it was interesting when they say that it’s like an emotional algebra, like a combination to create a specific reaction. I found this reading very helpful, it was short but it gets to the point.
In understanding the Objective Correlative it talks about how you can use objective correlatives to help you tell less to your readers, but the reader still catches on without you having to write all the descriptive details. I have always wanted to write like this and I find this concept really interesting. The two readings are very helpful and gives us a clear view on how to use the objective correlatives. I feel like when you use object Correlative you don’t give your readers a step by step, and I feel like that is the boring stuff in writing. Get to the good stuff without all the mess.
In Woman Hollering Creek, I was interested in reading this short story because I heard really good things about her work, and I had yet to read anything of hers, until this piece. I really liked this reading when she started the essay talking about her father, and "el otro lado" right away I felt a connection. I guess because of the Mexican background. Everything she talks about from being a wife in an abusive relationship. It shows the machismo that as young Mexican Americans we hear about these stories from our older aunts and grandmothers. I love the structure and the language ofcourse since I can relate to the Spanish in this reading. I loved it.
Lizette Garcia