The Robber Bride Discussion Question

1. In The Robber Bride Tony says that people like Zenia don't get into your life unless you invite them in. What devices does Zenia use to first gain entry into the lives of Tony, Charis, and Roz? How does she alter her techniques to attract and control men?

Throughout the book, we get many flashbacks. Each of the three women gets a section in the book in which they have a specific flashback about their childhood/their relationship with their parents. They also get a flashback in which they discuss in length how Zenia came into their lives.
Based on the flashbacks the reader gets about Tony, Charis, and Roz's childhoods, it becomes very clear that Zenia uses what she knows about their pasts in order to manipulate them.

For example, Zenia knows about Tony's mother leaving her and her father's suicide and at first uses these facts to antagonize her. She spins a story about how her own mother made her sell her body during the war. She specifically mentions war because she is aware of Tony's fascination with it, but she also makes out like Tony's hatred of her mother is not as justified as her own.

With Charis, Zenia knows that she is a deeply spiritual person. She comes to her in a place of illness and neediness, something that Charis can relate to. Zenia is able to appear weak in order to weasel her way into Charis' life. At first, she is kind and complacent. When she gets Charis alone, however, she says things Charis does not want to hear and instead becomes this spiteful, angry person which upsets the aura Charis feels.

Zenia first appears as a waitress when Roz and Mitch are out to lunch. Roz asks her what she's doing there and Zenia tells her that she's doing undercover research on sexual assault. Zenia presents herself as confident and prideful, personality traits in a woman that Roz looks up to and wants for herself. She seeks out Zenia because she craves that deeper friendship, only she gets more than she bargained for.

As far as attracting and controlling the men in their lives, Zenia manipulates them in a similar way as she does the women. She presents herself in a way that she knows they like. They find vulnerable, thus desirable. Just as a quick example, Zenia manipulates West and Tony's love for West in order to get her way. When it wasn't enough to just take Tony's money, Zenia had to come and take West from her not once, but twice because she knows that's how she can hurt the three women the most: by taking their love.

Stephanie Lenox Response

I was a part of the editing and publishing workshop so I was at the reading Stephanie and Heather did Thursday (11/12/15).

I really enjoyed getting to hear them read their poetry aloud because it made me think about poetry as a performance.

In Stephanie's poem Employees Must Wash Hands, I got a good sense of rhythm. I have always been taught poetry a certain way and I have tended to think of poetry as this very one-sided thing. I used to go into it having an idea of what it would be like and I've always been wrong. Poetry always surprises me. The way that Stephanie managed to turn this poem into a sort of chant captivated me. She took a traditional poetry trope (rhyming) and turned it into something that was almost magical.

Hearing her and Heather read their poems made me see them in a new light. Sometimes it's hard to understand what the author wants you to feel until you hear them read. Poetry is musical when it's read aloud and I liked that I got to see that during this night.

Short Stories: A Temporary Matter

I'm choosing to write this blog entry on the short story we read titled A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Out of all the short stories we've read so far in class, this one stuck out to me the most. I've read Interpreter of Maladies in the past and I am familiar with Jhumpa Lahiri in that sense.

I wanted to focus on how very real this story is. There is such deep, personal subject matter taking place here. Shoba and Shukumar show the reader the reality of a marriage. We see what it's like to have a relationship dwindle after a tragedy. I have not had anything like this happen in my life, but the loss of a child is something that many couples struggle with.

We get a better sense of each character's individuality by not only the way they deal with their grief, but the way they deal with each other. It is clear that Shoba and Shukumar struggle to find much in common after this happens. They end up resenting each other.

Shukumar's perspective is the focus of this story and the reader gets a good idea of how his feelings and opinions of his wife have changed over time. He says that she once used to be beautiful and interesting and now he does not regard her this way. When she was pregnant, Shukumar didn't find Shoba desirable and I think that in itself is the turning point of their relationship. After the death of their son, Shukumar turns the baby's room into his office and he becomes irritated when Shoba interrupts him and intrudes into his new, designated space.

Although this story is through Shukumar's perspective, we also get how Shoba feels about Shukumar through her actions. She no longer wants to cook, she leaves her shoes and her bag on the floor, she doesn't put an effort into her appearance, she's constantly staying late to work and she never wants to talk to Shukumar when she is home.

What really intrigued me are the scenes where their power is shut off and they begin to tell each other secrets in the dark. The reader almost feels like these candlelit confessions will be what saves their marriage, but it does not happen. Shoba tells Shukumar that she is moving out and it is truly the end. Their sudden trust in each other only happens because they don't have their work to busy themselves with and, most likely, because it's easier to tell someone you care about a piece of information you've been hiding if they can't see you clearly. It's only temporary.