"An Inner Monologue" for The Vagina Monologues

Below is an actual thought process that followed after just finishing reading Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. It's written in a frantic, thought-to-thought pattern with little continuity, just as it happened. I was hoping to capture the struggle that as a guy, I face; the struggle between who I was raised and want to be and what society and peers tell me to be.

I just read the monologues,
finished 'em in one sitting, I did.
With forty-five minutes until class starts,
I'll walk over and wait outside the room,
There's a girl ahead of me
her thong peeks up and winks at me from atop her waist
Stop it, Steven, stop it!
I was born to a single mother,
I was raised in a hair salon, I work in one,
Women have always been everywhere
Stop it Steven, Stop it
But the TV tells me I want that,
She needs to be a notch in my bedpost
and the scratches on my back
Look at that ass, I need as much as I can get
My sex life? No, I'm a guy, that couldn't possibly be private,
I need as much as I can get, and I need to tell everyone about it.
I'll tell everyone about her ass.
I'll do just what the tube says,
Stop it, Steven, stop it.

The Vagina Monologues and Reaction

            Eve Ensler wrote The Vagina Monologues with the intent to not only celebrate femininity and raise awareness of the mistreatment of women, but to maybe incite feelings of shock and other reactions. This is clear in not only the language Ensler uses, such as words as controversial as "cunt", and the advertising endorsed for the performances of the monologues. Ensler posted the word "Vagina" in vibrant, large red lettering on buses, billboards, and other forms of advertising to stir up any audience who would see it. And all this occurs before one even indulges in the novel.
            The Vagina Monologues epitomizes the type of book that is described by the cliche, "unable to put down" while reading. Ensler's novel is entertaining because of its content and especially its shock value. Its scandalous nature easily peaks interest in its audiences, much as we saw illustrated by our own class in discussions of the novel. Many shared reactions of discomfort, shock, humor, and a jubilee of others. Regardless of what was being felt, the point remains that Ensler was able to incite true emotion in her readers, and more so, effectively get across and communicate the points she wished to.
         Personally, when I read some of the monologues, as alien as some of the concepts were to me, being a teen male, however, they were communicated in such a shocking way, I was able to still somehow relate through my inability to initially relate. By forcing me to feel shock, Ensler was also coercing me to understand that I did not understand the material, and look more deeply into it and try to be empathetic towards the entire female population. Without summoning genuine reactions from her audiences, Ensler may not have had the success she did with The Vagina Monologues and the V-Day movement.

The Vagina Monologues Analyzation

        Rather than writing a novel, Eve Ensler wrote The Vagina Monologues as verse to be performed. I believe this is relevant to the central theme of all the monologues in celebrating femininity. When writing such work to be performed, rather than quietly read to one's self, Ensler forces her audiences to be exposed to the naked vagina and react to it immediately, in front of other audiences, also reacting. I believe Ensler takes on a sort of "protestant" stance on women's oppression through her explicit depictions of intimate woman's parts and the universal stories that accompany them in each monologue. For example, in the piece "Hair," she uses very vivid words that almost disturb the reader, such as puffy and prickly, to shed light on the hypocrisy of an unkempt man demanding his wife be shaved or else he go outside the marriage for sexual satisfaction. As a male reader, I realized I slipped right into the theme's Ensler was discussing. I found myself hiding my book in my lap, or making sure its title was never exposed. To further accompany the literature, I even looked up a few of the performances on Youtube, making sure of course my volume was down or I had headphones in, so that no one thought I was being perverted or strange watching women discuss the beauty of their own parts. I even found myself much too proud or perhaps even embarrassed to see the performance being put on at my own school, despite the relevance of the play. As I thought more of it, I realized Ensler arrived at a valid point. All humans, regardless of gender, has some sort of part we consider humbled or private, and to deny it, or be embarrassed of it is silly and is to deny the fact that we are human. And to discourage the celebration of one's own or even the opposite gender's masculinity or femininity is just as oppressive as discouraging an entire gender as a whole. Ensler made me really connect to her work, because I wasn't only analyzing what she wrote as I read it, as I often would, but I had inadvertently stumbled into the themes she was discussing and became not only part of her audience but a part of her message as well.

Krik? Krak! Assessment Story One

In Danticat’s first story, “Children of the Sea,” the language used when writing from both narrators vary significantly. The first speaker, the anonymous male figure, has a more formal, educated style of writing, characterized by his use of English only, whereas the female writer mixes her native French/Creole language and English in her more random , bursted, thought-like styling. The styles not only give insight on who the characters are past what they tell us directly but illuminate smaller details of each narrator’s character. For example, the male figure using English as he’s fleeing his homeland where English is not the primary language shows the readers his disdain for his home, namely its government in this case. The same can be said of the female writer as her influential father, a proud countryman who dislikes the male figure for his rebelliousness, clearly is somewhat responsible for her mixed use of language. However, though staying true to their original stylings, when the two address eachother in their writing, they take on a more poetic, heartfelt feel to their writing, allowing the reader to more clearly see the affection the two share.

Given the universality of a mutual love that can’t be expressed or even a shunned love, the anonymity of the two speakers makes the story more personal on an emotion level. The reader is invited to be empathetic and feel that which Danticat vividly describes the two are feeling for each other; reminiscent, heartbroken, hopeless, etc. At the same time, it can also be assumed that as Danticat uses contradictions often in her writing, the anonymity is yet another one. As it makes it easier to relate to the two lovers, it also makes it easier to place them as just another nameless love in a story, much as the two were seen as from their government and the girl’s father. The text, “lots of people in this world whose names don't matter to anyone but themselves" supports this thought. In essence, they are common citizens, despite the male’s radio taboos, and easily forgettable, reminding the reader, that tragedy, of both large and small scale, happens not only in Haiti, but everywhere and is hardly remembered or even read about. 

Shake The Dust - Anis Mogjani

This is for the fat girls,

this is for the little brothers,

this is for the school yard wimps,

this is for the childhood bullies that tormented them,

this is for the former prom queen, 

this is for the milk crate ball players,

this is for the Night Time cereal eaters,

and for the retired elderly Wal-Mart store front door greeters…

Shake the Dust.

This is for the benches and the people sitting on them,
for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns,
for the men who have to hold down three jobs simply to hold up their children, 

for the nighttime schoolers, and for the midnight bikers who are trying to fly

Shake the Dust
This is for the two year olds who can not be understood because they speak half English and half God, 

shake the dust,
for the girls whose brothers are going crazy!
For those gym class wall flowers and for the twelve year old kids afraid of taking public showers,
for the kid whose always late to class because he forgets the combination to his locker,
for a girl who loves somebody else shake the dust.
This is for the hard men...the hard men who want love but know it won't come...
For the ones who are forgotten,
for the ones the amendments do not stand up for,
for the ones who are told to speak only when spoken to and then are never spoken to.
Speak every time you stand so that you do not forget yourself,
never let a moment go by you that doesn't remind you that your heart beats 900 times a day...
That there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean.
Do not settle for letting these waves that settle and for the dust to collect in your veins.
This is for the celibate pedophile who keeps on struggling,

for the poetry teachers and for the people who go on vacation alone, 

and for the sweat that drips off of a Mick Jaggers singing lips, 

and for the shaking skirt on Tina Turner's shaking hips,

and for the heavens and for the hells for which Tina has lived. This!
Is for the tired and for the dreamers, 

for those families that want to be like the Cleavers,

 with perfectly made dinners with songs like Wally and the Beaver. 

This! Is for the big its, this is for the sexists, this is for the killers, this is for the Big House; 

pen sentenced cats becoming redeemers, 

and for the springtime that always shows up right after the winters,

 this is... This is for you...

Make sure that by the time the fishermen returns you are gone, because just like the days I burn at both ends, 

every time I write, every time I open my eyes I'm cutting out a part of myself to give to you. 

So Shake the Dust, and take me with you when you do none of this, none of this has fucking ever been for me, 

all that pushes and pulls,

pushes and pulls for you! 

So grab this world by it's clothes pins and shake it out again and again and jump on top for a spin 

and when you hop off shake it off for this is yours. 

 Make my words worth, make it not just another poem that I write not just like another poem like another night, 

make it like it's heavy above us all,

 walk into it, breath it in, let it crash through the halls of your arms,

 like the millions of years of millions poets coursing like blood pumping, 

pushing and making you live, 

shaking the dust!

So when the world knocks at your front door clutch the knob and open on up, 

running forward into it's wide spread greeting arms 

with your hands before you your fingertips trembling, 

though they may be.