July 12

A PAIR OF SILK STOCKINGS

"But she went on feeling the soft, sheeny luxurious things - with both hands now, holding them up to see them glisten, and to feel them glide serpent-like through her fingers" (65).

This short story, at first, really reminded me of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". The mother stretching her fifteen dollars as far as she can to provide new clothes and shoes for her children made me feel sad and spoiled. She has so little money and she wants to spend it on making her family look brand-spanking-new. However, I almost felt guilty when she spent so much of the $15 on herself. I wanted to tell her "Stop! That's for your family!". But then, I realized that she had already done so much for her family, her children, that I couldn't help but understand why she bought herself a good day. The new silk stockings represented what she had given up in her own life to become a devoted mother. By the time I realized she was rewarding herself by having a spoiled afternoon, I didn't feel so guilty anymore. In fact, I felt like she deserved an afternoon to feel like a beautiful woman instead of an underappreciated, overworked mother. "Her stockings and boots and well fiting gloves had woked marvels in her bearing - had given her a feeling of assurance, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed multitude" (66).


DAYSTAR

"She wanted a little room for thinking;
but she saw diapers steaming on the line,
a doll slumped behind the door." (300)

Once again, I felt immense sympathy for this mother. She is exhausted, frustrated, and in desperate need of some alone time. She tries to escape the trials of motherhood when she puts her children down for a nap, knowing that she only has about an hour to just be, not be 'someone'. I loved that at night she dreams of her hour alone, that she "think[s] of the place that ws hers/for an hour - where/she was nothing/pure nothing, in the middle of the day" (301). I feel for this woman; I can't say I fully understand how trying motherhood can be, but I can say that this woman just needs time to be nothing to anybody once in a while.


WHY I WANT A WIFE

"Not too long ao a male friends of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce. He had one child, who is, of course, with his ex-wife. He is obviously looking or another wife. As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I, too, would like to have a wife" (375).

I had mixed feelings about this text. At first, I was angry and could feel my estrogen burning in the back of my mind, proclaiming "Men are bastards!!". But, after seeing when it was written (1971), I didn't feel so angry anymore. Of course, there has been an issue of women losing their identities as 'women' to become 'wives' and 'mothers', but my generation has found a decent medium, I believe. I understand Syfers frustration with the double-standard of divorce and child-care, but I can't necessarily agree that wives and ex-wives today take the assumed position of 'woman scorned', or 'loving mother'. There are increasingly more single fathers (myself a product of one) who must provide for their children and spouses. I think had I read this in 1971 it would have evoked more frustration and anger in me, but I have seen the evolution of families first-hand enough to know that we're slowly expanding our horizons and re-defining what we know as 'family'. This text, to me, is the literary creation of a frustrated wife and mother, struggling to identify herself again without having to refer to herself as a 'wife and mother'. Sad...if she were in the same position today, her husband my have been bathing the kids while she drinks a beer after a long day at the zoo and a birthday party. How times have changed :)