WonderWoman

When we were given the assignment to read wonder woman, I was very fascinated to find out that the same man who wrote wonder woman was also a scientist in charge of creating the lie detector. When we started hearing about his life in the book, It was very interesting for me to see a piece of wonder woman from each woman in his life. It made me think about my great grandmother, who at the time was one of the first women to get a master's in the early 1920’s. As well as a fighter for women’s right at the time. So when I was given the question of what kind of qualities would she have. I think if anything determination, a strong will, and a good heart are all things that I think are very valuable and important. 

When women are put in a hard spot and forced into suppression, it’s neither right now fair. But the willing power to fight it the system and overcome those uneasy odds is something is what makes history. 

My heroine’s name is Sony Soleil, she has been bullied at a young age, but when she was a teenager a classmate helped her overcome her obstacles. This inspired Sony, to be strong and to be determined even when people try to put you down. She tries to focus on a positive outlook on life, and turn negative into positive. 

She manifests her power through puppy cuddles and big hugs. These make her powers at their prime is seconds. 

I think the best way you can portray someone’s positivity is through their actions. For Sony, I see her trying to volunteer and to help a friend out when in need. 

True Grit

The True Grit novel was quite entertaining for me as a reader. I really enjoyed how sassy Mattie is and we see her go into this role that is consider unusual for a woman. 

We see Mattie put into this role, that she honestly has no control over. Her father is murdered and her mother is incapable of taking care of the household. So it’s up to Mattie to fix the mistakes and write the wrongs,It’s really interesting. 

La Boeuf was a great example of one, a man that goes under that stereo type of the american western. And two, being just fake. Just from day one with this guy he was so full of himself and you really just wanted to ignore everything he said. I did become satisfied when Mattie would basically resented his opinions. 

Marshall also didn’t fit the mold of the american western. He was old, lazy, and grumpy. He has this badass cooky grandpa charm that I love about him. 

Especially when he is around Mattie you feel their related sometimes and I guess thats because La Boeuf is such a contrast between the two. 

The american western has been this common ideology that we see far too common in movies these days and in books. But when reading this novel it was like a breath of fresh air to see a girl go into a situation she didn’t ask for. And she showed to me that, you have fight for what you want. Especially as a woman it made me realize that there will be people out there in the world, who will try to get me down for this kind of be be-foolery. Mattie did make me quite proud though, she kept her head high and persisted onward in what she needed to do to avenge her father and keep the family running. Mattie is a 10/10 of the coolest female protagonists on the list.

Pride and Prejudice

I really like to think of Jane Austin as one of the first feminist writers of the 19th century.

We see her pushing social norms of the time and even the expectations of women. 

We see Elizabeth as the fiercely independent woman who romanizes love and one wants to marry when she wants to and on her terms. 

It’s funny seeing the contrast between her parents but it’s so satisfying and charming. We see the mom as this over the top and is on the constant mission to make her daughters get married. While you have this chill father who thinks more like Elizabeth in the sense of she should marry who she wants and not necessarily for the money, but someone who will make her happy. 

Lucky for her though Mr. Darcy is both rich and is someone she loves. it’s funny to think about how true it is that Mr. Darcey is this fantasy that women even in the 21st century have the ideal male. Especially in lots of drama shows and romances, this formula Jane Austin has is genius.This a formula that is very used today in many rom-coms and tv shows. 

We also see this mythology that women are supposed to be gendered to stay at home, and need to be married. It’s refreshing to see a protagonist that takes her life into her own hands and see her decide her destiny. 

We also see the men in the novel trying to live up to this expectation they also have in society. I love how Mr. Collins is the complete opposite of that, and we see him as this awkward rather dull man. But he is still a good person but it’s interesting how almost none of the characters fit in the bubble of the “norm”. And if they do they’re rare or cocky about it being “better” than you. 

I also really think its amazing to see how even back in the 19th century we see female ideal that is hard to achieve. We see Jane Austin make fun of it when Elizabeth is spending the day with Mr. Darcey’s. I love how Elizabeth scoffs at him for these high expectations of women, but yet he barely can find any. 

Even in society today we see this high expectation on women to be pretty, this height, weight, has to be very well rounded. But in reality that is just crazy in general to have this expectation. 

We even see with lady Catherine that she even has this aspect in her head how and what a lady is supposed to do. And with a man, there is less responsibility but this idea that they need to be this masculine head of house that can fight, read, and lead the woman in any activity. 

This novel, in particular, is just a fun read, it’s hard at first to get into because of all the wording and the particular sentences formatting. But, this novel is a treat and I love the particular humor and modesty this book has. I’m definitely interested in reading the other interpretation of it in the future. 

I was thought it was interesting that Jane Austin seemed to right a lot of fantasies that maybe she wanted once, but could only came true in her novels… 

Prologue

Hello! 

My name is Katie Heady, I like to think of myself as a little adventurous grandmother reincarnated. I was born from my mother’s womb on the 30th of October. I have two elder siblings and I grew up rather comfortably. I’ve gone through a couple struggles in my life, but I feel like these struggles have allowed me to be a more well-rounded artist. One particular incident that has changed me the most is the death of my father. I was rather young when my father passed, he passed away to pancreatic cancer around 2001. This leads my mom in a hard patch dealing with three kids all on her own. And it didn’t help how angry I was all the time. But my mom always put up with me and was so patient with me even when I didn’t understand or wasn’t compelled to be patient with her. And for that even to this day, I feel so in debt to her patience and kindness for taking on a challenge of raising a hell storm like myself.

 One thing I really was fond of doing when I was younger was going in the forest by my house, there was a beautiful stream and one of the larger rivers in Maryland was just five mins away from my house. I remember I would always try to make that effort to go to the forest every so often. It really helped me enhance my imagination and having a forest behind your house is just mystical in itself.  

Even now I’m constantly curious when I explore new places. I remember going to Gettysburg last year, I drove there all by myself. It was an experience that was both new but also was refreshing. I didn’t have to be dependent on anyone or anything. To just rely on oneself is an odd pleasure but because no one is stopping that’s what makes it thrilling. I went on several trips afterward in the following months, when I returned back home in the summer from school.

 One trip in particular that I remember was going to Annapolis over the summer. I went to Annapolis when I was in fifth grade, I just remember coming into the capitol building, the tour guide would be poetically explaining the historical importance of the rooms all located throughout the building. I returned to the same building 8 years later; I’d been dreaming about going on this trip for years. I eventually gave myself an excuse to go all the way out to Annapolis, MD from Columbia, MD. All due to a cool warehouse book sale going on in Annapolis, was my “main” excuse aside from my second agenda, which was to explore Old Annapolis. The book sale was actually quite entertaining and they had a wonderful selection of Neil Gaiman’s novels and Stephen Kings. I remember browsing over an aisle dedicated to literature from other countries. I found a few French novels; I picked one up for a friend and studied through another one for myself. When I picked up the French novel, I was able to make sense of a few of the sentences and phrases. Languages have become a great interest to me the past couple years. I first became interested in them when I was watching anime. Later on when I got older I started watching Korean Television shows and foreign films for fun.

When I got to middle school, I decided to star learning French, unfortunately I dropped it early on in high school. I rekindle my love of languages in my senior year of high school, when I took Italian; I felt like it was clear to me how to conjugate and to break down a languages, particularly with French, Spanish, Italian, and Korean. It’s truly a fun portal into another culture when you can understand them and even learn something new about someone because of their heritage, language, etc, I think these interests have really helped me get out of my comfort zone, they pushed me to become a better more wholesome person because of my curiosity.

Thanks for listening,

Katie