“We sing along to a tune about a woman who rings like a bell through the night. Neither of us knows what that means, but we’re in favor of it. We want to ring like bells, we want our hair to act right, we want to go out with guys who wear boots with turned-up toes and worn down heels.” — Cousins p.6, Jo Ann Beard
Right after reading this specific part of the piece, I teared up. I’m not even sure I can explain exactly why this passage invoked such an emotional response from me, but I’ll do my best. Beard has such a beautiful progression in this story where she juxtaposes the relationship she has with her cousin with the relationship between their mothers. Sisters and their daughters, who become like sisters themselves. These lines come at the point of time when Beard and her cousin are growing up; they are becoming women themselves, and yet their girlhood still remains. Throughout the story, she interposes these scenes with the two pairs together, following a progression beginning with her childhood all the way until her cousin becomes pregnant and her mother passes away. In the last scene, her mother and aunt contemplate if it will be a girl, her mother is stuck on it even through the haze of her illness. It seems implied that Wendell (the cousin) is indeed having a daughter, and continuing this cycle of mother-sister-daughter and the careful narrative Beard has painted for us throughout the story. Her use of non-linear memory, dialogue, and imagery (the trout/baton) creates a masterful full circle ending. To me, this passage is at the cusp of this change. This passage comes at a turning point. They are still girls, but also women who are out on the town for the night—they represent all that is young, wild, and free.
Our house was in rural Pennsylvania and was not really a house at all but a wild castle built into the ruins of a nineteenth-century silk mill. Our back yard was not a regular yard but a meandering meadow, with wild geese and a creek running through it. (The Lamb Roast, Gabrielle Hamilton)
This was one of the first lines in Hamilton’s piece and I feel like this line sets up her entire story. There is a certain sense of clarity in this line that comes across so clearly to the reader. Here, Hamilton understands that what might be her normal, may be completely jarring for a person who has not shared a similar experience. For most people, a house would never be a house like Hamilton’s: a castle with bones of a silk milk. A backyard would just be a lovely lawn with maybe some flowers or a vegetable patch. No one would call or think of their backyard as a meadow with streams and wild animals running through it. The fact that Hamilton acknowledges the grandeur and opulence of her childhood home from the beginning interested me and showed how the piece was still rooted in a sense of realism. I also like how the titular subject of the piece “The Lamb Roast” was such a simple family event, but was juxtaposed throughout the story with either the description of the home or the sheer amount of people who came for this event.
“My father tells me as we walk the dog one night that I am an extension of him, that we are hardly different at all” (Sloan, pg. 3)
Sloan expresses this line as a form of wanting to deviate from her father’s path. Her tone does not show remorse or resentment, but a sense of wanting to be different and not resemble him. It is difficult to explain, but the father feels a connection with her as if she would deal with the same societal issues in her life (LGBTQ+)— as if imposing the burden of being like him onto her. Her father is creating an illusion of his daughter, despite how distinct they are from each other. Sloane uses this contradicting statement: one which her father can view in a positive light, but to her it is negative, hence elaborating on how she wishes she looked ‘different’. Essentially, this creates a dual perspective and interpretation of phrases that can result in a change in POV later in the story. Likewise, it perks curiosity in how their relationship dynamics as father and daughter work and why she might express her dislike for her father.
“Six years since I’ve heard her voice. I could almost kill something small, feel it crumble in my hands” (Sloan, pg.7, para.3)
I think this line is one of those lines that are able to capture perfectly in words a feeling that everyone feels but doesn’t really know how to name. At the same time, I think that in doing this, it allows the reader to understand fully the weight of betrayal and internal conflict Sloan is feeling in this moment. Where the betrayal of a friendship as deep and sacred as theirs had been might otherwise have been too big and abstract to fully grasp, the line kind of scales it down into a tangible act. The suggestion of killing something small elicits a very visceral reaction, and the language automatically conjures a very particular image–one that differs depending on the reader and their particular contexts, yes, but one that evokes the same feelings of terror, guilt, pity, and overwhelming sadness, no matter who you are (personally, I was reminded of the picture that “Abstract” from Unreal, Unearth paints for me–any other Hozier fans?). And when she writes “feel it crumble in my hands” she’s adding a level of sensory detail and texture that makes an formless emotion like betrayal somehow a tactile experience. Thinking too, about the death of that something, and how the words small and crumble make me imagine something innocent and, if not fragile, then that at least needed protecting, I have to think about (1) of course, the death of their friendship, but (2) also in many ways the death of Sloan’s childhood and innocence. And then again from there, when I think about how it is Sloan who wants to kill that thing, I think about the theme in the story of being tough, of how her childlike ability to “feel and see” had been something her father had wanted her to ignore in order to spare herself hurt, and how this feels like a moment where she’s understanding this and acting on it. At the same time, talking about the death of something, even as she’s in the middle of its–not exactly rekindling, but as she’s in the middle of a moment that proves that that something could never truly be dead, and a moment that in fact brings back to life for her a whole different world of memory–to me advances very effectively everything that the story has so far been saying about complexity, emotion, and to me I guess also permanence and change, allowing for the ending, “We are all of these things,” to really hit home.
“listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act.” (Didion)
I think this quote is why I often feel separated from reading. I find myself reading fantasy or romances to create my own picture and let my mind wander. Reading denser or “more mature” books to “become better” makes me feel like I’m somehow doing life wrong. Didion writes that writing can be aggressive and hostile, even if someone tries to make it less intimidating. I especially see this idea of a “correct way” in academia. Oftentimes authors are trying to persuade or change a mind and honestly, it’s what makes reading so hard for me. I think it’s also why I feel writing is so much harder for me. I want people to draw their own conclusions and let their minds continue working ideas out. I often hear in STEM classes to get rid of your voice in writing and honestly to me that’s impossible. Because of that, I feel as though I struggle even more because I can’t fathom getting rid of my voice, especially when it’s something I created or ran trials of.
” I long for a different father, one who’s normal and shares Cheerios instead of caviar…” (Sloan, pg 3)
This evoked a comedic feeling due to the comparison of cheerios with caviar. Eliot was able to express such a dichotomy of social class with simple objects. This contrast creates a desire for me to continue with the story to learn more about her father and their relationship. Also, this sentence teaches me that I can use simple comparison to express complex ideas.
“I look at the paintings by Van Gogh and dream of summer, the taste of raspberries and scratches on my arms from crawling through the bushes.” The Green Room, Eliot Sloan, pg 4.
The dichotomy of “raspberries and scratches” encompases the narrator’s feelings on her father’s queerness in relation to her own adolescence and identity, connected by the sibilance at the end of “rasberries” and around “scratches”. Sloan effectively compares “the taste of raspberries,” the decadence of fruit in relation to her “dream of summer,” with the harshness of the “scratches on [her] arms from crawling through the bushes.” The act of crawling is present, the idea of having to muscle through pain and obstacles, that the bush that bears the fruit is in and of itself dangerous, guarded. The bushes seem to reflect the social and societal norms she is subjected to where she feels as though she should be ashamed of having a gay father. Her relationships with her identity and with her father seem to be represented in the fruit, the idea that she comes to terms with her father’s desire to be with men. I think it can also be read as a moment of her beginning to understand her dad’s sexuality– she wanted the raspberries enough to crawl through the obstacles that harm her physically. I like the way that Sloan presents her situation in an almost allegorical way through this small moment of remembering the temptation of summer fruit.
“His boyfriends fuss over me as if I’m a diva, buying me Hermes scarves though I’m only in eight grade, teaching me how to make a martini. They share a part of my father that I will never touch, but I know that I have what they really want: his heart.” (Sloan, pg 3 para 23)
Here Sloan describes her interactions with her fathers men growing up. It seems as though they forced her to grow up too fast. She seems to recognize the failed attempts of connection by these men as they disregarded they were interacting with a kid. Yet as she speaks of the men, her father, and herself it is though she felt like an obstacle for their love. I was very struck by this line as it felt like the first moment the author was no longer overlooked or shadowed. To be the only one that has his heart, that is power. For most of the story Sloan describes what she has lost, her father figure, her family, her normalcy, all at the expense of her fathers love endeavors. However, at this moment Sloan finally takes ownership for what she has with her father and recognizes the weight that comes with it.
“Two sisters are fishing together in a flat-bottomed boat on an olive green lake. They sit slumped like men, facing in opposite directions…Without their lipstick they look strangely weary, and passive, like pale replicas of their real selves.”
Although the essay is titled ‘Cousins’ it would be more coherent with the overall theme and message if it were ‘Sisters’. The repeating emphasis on sisterly bonds begins as early as the second sentence of the first paragraph, where the author paints the picture of two sisters fishing on a lake. I notice that throughout the story, there is a clear distinction between what is feminine and what is not feminine. It’s almost as if the narrator is consciously deciding the degree of femininity of things she associates with and judging herself based on it. For example, she emphasizes how the sisters slump like men and fish without their lipstick. The stories continue to describe the distinction between the feminine and masculine by describing the different activities men and women participate in at the festivals and in daily life. Additionally, girls pursue men in the story- actively seeking their attention and affection even if they are not really there. The sisterly relationship between the narrator and her cousin serves as a parallel to the narrator’s mother and aunt. I believe that this parallel and the emphasis on the feminine serve to underline the the strong camaraderie women form with each other.
“His father had seemed so tired, so pale, the last bastion of old Russia, his steps too slow, his accent too heavy, the flour caked under his nails humiliating” (Sloane, pg. 5, para. 4).
This line, the last sentence of a long paragraph describing the nature of Sloan’s father’s mother (grandmother), is one of the few lines in the text with characterization of her father’s father (grandfather); it is also the last. An air of embarrassment, or arguably resentment, represents itself in each negative description. His behavior seems too lackluster regarding the luxury and status the father longs for in life, given his job. Context implies he is a baker. Long, laborious hours to contribute to a life for a small family, and yet there’s no common ground between father and son to spark any sort of bond. Not only does the description imply disappointment, but the lack of further mention throughout the rest of the text shows how easily such an important person in one’s life can be forgotten based on attitude, whether that’s due to a longing for stature, or a rejection of what one may deem beneath them. I believe Sloan included this to reflect the nature of the father’s tendency towards the extravagant, but to also have a representation of an integral part of his life that he may be running from. As a writer, I believe this is a great example of how less is more, with minimal mention of the grandfather but precise description, as it gives the reader ample information on the significance (or lack thereof) this man has in the course of the text.
“‘I am afraid I will not say goodbye to my father before he dies,’ she says.
‘I am afraid that my father will get sick and won’t tell me,’ I say.” (Sloan p. 1)
This exchange, set in the first section of the work, lay the framework for the details that are slowly laid out as the story progresses. It essentially serves as exposition where the reader is given no other context but learns volumes from the simple confessions; this story is about paternal relationships and the complexities and difficult losses that can follow them. Something else that stands out to me about these lines has to do with the structure of the piece as a whole – it is notably not in chronological order and details are revealed to the reader in a fashion that allows the reader to connect the dots and gain a deeper understanding of what each individual moment means to the characters. These lines kick off that process, granting the small concession that paternal loss is a fear of these two characters, but withholding specifics and complications to great effect.
“What he hated were those looks she’d give him at dinner sometimes, her eyes silently begging for time with him alone.” (Sloan pg. 6, par. 4)
In the paragraphs before this line, Sloan builds up the ‘love’ between her parents. The tone shifts to a hopeful one, which reflects her father’s once naïve dreams about his relationship. It’s absolutely jarring to the reader when they read the line above, which ends much differently than expected. Most readers would reasonably anticipate that the ‘looks’ Sloan’s mother directs towards her father at dinnertime are ones of contempt (since he hated it). But really, they were looks of desperation and love. They were silent pleas for affection. I feel as if this sentence flips a switch in how the father is portrayed, where he morphs from being an unhappy daydreamer into a quixotic manipulator.
“We sing along to a tune about a woman who rings like a bell through the night. Neither of us knows what that means, but we’re in favor of it. We want to ring like bells, we want our hair to act right, we want to go out with guys who wear boots with turned-up toes and worn down heels.” — Cousins p.6, Jo Ann Beard
Right after reading this specific part of the piece, I teared up. I’m not even sure I can explain exactly why this passage invoked such an emotional response from me, but I’ll do my best. Beard has such a beautiful progression in this story where she juxtaposes the relationship she has with her cousin with the relationship between their mothers. Sisters and their daughters, who become like sisters themselves. These lines come at the point of time when Beard and her cousin are growing up; they are becoming women themselves, and yet their girlhood still remains. Throughout the story, she interposes these scenes with the two pairs together, following a progression beginning with her childhood all the way until her cousin becomes pregnant and her mother passes away. In the last scene, her mother and aunt contemplate if it will be a girl, her mother is stuck on it even through the haze of her illness. It seems implied that Wendell (the cousin) is indeed having a daughter, and continuing this cycle of mother-sister-daughter and the careful narrative Beard has painted for us throughout the story. Her use of non-linear memory, dialogue, and imagery (the trout/baton) creates a masterful full circle ending. To me, this passage is at the cusp of this change. This passage comes at a turning point. They are still girls, but also women who are out on the town for the night—they represent all that is young, wild, and free.
Our house was in rural Pennsylvania and was not really a house at all but a wild castle built into the ruins of a nineteenth-century silk mill. Our back yard was not a regular yard but a meandering meadow, with wild geese and a creek running through it. (The Lamb Roast, Gabrielle Hamilton)
This was one of the first lines in Hamilton’s piece and I feel like this line sets up her entire story. There is a certain sense of clarity in this line that comes across so clearly to the reader. Here, Hamilton understands that what might be her normal, may be completely jarring for a person who has not shared a similar experience. For most people, a house would never be a house like Hamilton’s: a castle with bones of a silk milk. A backyard would just be a lovely lawn with maybe some flowers or a vegetable patch. No one would call or think of their backyard as a meadow with streams and wild animals running through it. The fact that Hamilton acknowledges the grandeur and opulence of her childhood home from the beginning interested me and showed how the piece was still rooted in a sense of realism. I also like how the titular subject of the piece “The Lamb Roast” was such a simple family event, but was juxtaposed throughout the story with either the description of the home or the sheer amount of people who came for this event.
“My father tells me as we walk the dog one night that I am an extension of him, that we are hardly different at all” (Sloan, pg. 3)
Sloan expresses this line as a form of wanting to deviate from her father’s path. Her tone does not show remorse or resentment, but a sense of wanting to be different and not resemble him. It is difficult to explain, but the father feels a connection with her as if she would deal with the same societal issues in her life (LGBTQ+)— as if imposing the burden of being like him onto her. Her father is creating an illusion of his daughter, despite how distinct they are from each other. Sloane uses this contradicting statement: one which her father can view in a positive light, but to her it is negative, hence elaborating on how she wishes she looked ‘different’. Essentially, this creates a dual perspective and interpretation of phrases that can result in a change in POV later in the story. Likewise, it perks curiosity in how their relationship dynamics as father and daughter work and why she might express her dislike for her father.
“Six years since I’ve heard her voice. I could almost kill something small, feel it crumble in my hands” (Sloan, pg.7, para.3)
I think this line is one of those lines that are able to capture perfectly in words a feeling that everyone feels but doesn’t really know how to name. At the same time, I think that in doing this, it allows the reader to understand fully the weight of betrayal and internal conflict Sloan is feeling in this moment. Where the betrayal of a friendship as deep and sacred as theirs had been might otherwise have been too big and abstract to fully grasp, the line kind of scales it down into a tangible act. The suggestion of killing something small elicits a very visceral reaction, and the language automatically conjures a very particular image–one that differs depending on the reader and their particular contexts, yes, but one that evokes the same feelings of terror, guilt, pity, and overwhelming sadness, no matter who you are (personally, I was reminded of the picture that “Abstract” from Unreal, Unearth paints for me–any other Hozier fans?). And when she writes “feel it crumble in my hands” she’s adding a level of sensory detail and texture that makes an formless emotion like betrayal somehow a tactile experience. Thinking too, about the death of that something, and how the words small and crumble make me imagine something innocent and, if not fragile, then that at least needed protecting, I have to think about (1) of course, the death of their friendship, but (2) also in many ways the death of Sloan’s childhood and innocence. And then again from there, when I think about how it is Sloan who wants to kill that thing, I think about the theme in the story of being tough, of how her childlike ability to “feel and see” had been something her father had wanted her to ignore in order to spare herself hurt, and how this feels like a moment where she’s understanding this and acting on it. At the same time, talking about the death of something, even as she’s in the middle of its–not exactly rekindling, but as she’s in the middle of a moment that proves that that something could never truly be dead, and a moment that in fact brings back to life for her a whole different world of memory–to me advances very effectively everything that the story has so far been saying about complexity, emotion, and to me I guess also permanence and change, allowing for the ending, “We are all of these things,” to really hit home.
“listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act.” (Didion)
I think this quote is why I often feel separated from reading. I find myself reading fantasy or romances to create my own picture and let my mind wander. Reading denser or “more mature” books to “become better” makes me feel like I’m somehow doing life wrong. Didion writes that writing can be aggressive and hostile, even if someone tries to make it less intimidating. I especially see this idea of a “correct way” in academia. Oftentimes authors are trying to persuade or change a mind and honestly, it’s what makes reading so hard for me. I think it’s also why I feel writing is so much harder for me. I want people to draw their own conclusions and let their minds continue working ideas out. I often hear in STEM classes to get rid of your voice in writing and honestly to me that’s impossible. Because of that, I feel as though I struggle even more because I can’t fathom getting rid of my voice, especially when it’s something I created or ran trials of.
” I long for a different father, one who’s normal and shares Cheerios instead of caviar…” (Sloan, pg 3)
This evoked a comedic feeling due to the comparison of cheerios with caviar. Eliot was able to express such a dichotomy of social class with simple objects. This contrast creates a desire for me to continue with the story to learn more about her father and their relationship. Also, this sentence teaches me that I can use simple comparison to express complex ideas.
“I look at the paintings by Van Gogh and dream of summer, the taste of raspberries and scratches on my arms from crawling through the bushes.” The Green Room, Eliot Sloan, pg 4.
The dichotomy of “raspberries and scratches” encompases the narrator’s feelings on her father’s queerness in relation to her own adolescence and identity, connected by the sibilance at the end of “rasberries” and around “scratches”. Sloan effectively compares “the taste of raspberries,” the decadence of fruit in relation to her “dream of summer,” with the harshness of the “scratches on [her] arms from crawling through the bushes.” The act of crawling is present, the idea of having to muscle through pain and obstacles, that the bush that bears the fruit is in and of itself dangerous, guarded. The bushes seem to reflect the social and societal norms she is subjected to where she feels as though she should be ashamed of having a gay father. Her relationships with her identity and with her father seem to be represented in the fruit, the idea that she comes to terms with her father’s desire to be with men. I think it can also be read as a moment of her beginning to understand her dad’s sexuality– she wanted the raspberries enough to crawl through the obstacles that harm her physically. I like the way that Sloan presents her situation in an almost allegorical way through this small moment of remembering the temptation of summer fruit.
“His boyfriends fuss over me as if I’m a diva, buying me Hermes scarves though I’m only in eight grade, teaching me how to make a martini. They share a part of my father that I will never touch, but I know that I have what they really want: his heart.” (Sloan, pg 3 para 23)
Here Sloan describes her interactions with her fathers men growing up. It seems as though they forced her to grow up too fast. She seems to recognize the failed attempts of connection by these men as they disregarded they were interacting with a kid. Yet as she speaks of the men, her father, and herself it is though she felt like an obstacle for their love. I was very struck by this line as it felt like the first moment the author was no longer overlooked or shadowed. To be the only one that has his heart, that is power. For most of the story Sloan describes what she has lost, her father figure, her family, her normalcy, all at the expense of her fathers love endeavors. However, at this moment Sloan finally takes ownership for what she has with her father and recognizes the weight that comes with it.
“Two sisters are fishing together in a flat-bottomed boat on an olive green lake. They sit slumped like men, facing in opposite directions…Without their lipstick they look strangely weary, and passive, like pale replicas of their real selves.”
Although the essay is titled ‘Cousins’ it would be more coherent with the overall theme and message if it were ‘Sisters’. The repeating emphasis on sisterly bonds begins as early as the second sentence of the first paragraph, where the author paints the picture of two sisters fishing on a lake. I notice that throughout the story, there is a clear distinction between what is feminine and what is not feminine. It’s almost as if the narrator is consciously deciding the degree of femininity of things she associates with and judging herself based on it. For example, she emphasizes how the sisters slump like men and fish without their lipstick. The stories continue to describe the distinction between the feminine and masculine by describing the different activities men and women participate in at the festivals and in daily life. Additionally, girls pursue men in the story- actively seeking their attention and affection even if they are not really there. The sisterly relationship between the narrator and her cousin serves as a parallel to the narrator’s mother and aunt. I believe that this parallel and the emphasis on the feminine serve to underline the the strong camaraderie women form with each other.
“His father had seemed so tired, so pale, the last bastion of old Russia, his steps too slow, his accent too heavy, the flour caked under his nails humiliating” (Sloane, pg. 5, para. 4).
This line, the last sentence of a long paragraph describing the nature of Sloan’s father’s mother (grandmother), is one of the few lines in the text with characterization of her father’s father (grandfather); it is also the last. An air of embarrassment, or arguably resentment, represents itself in each negative description. His behavior seems too lackluster regarding the luxury and status the father longs for in life, given his job. Context implies he is a baker. Long, laborious hours to contribute to a life for a small family, and yet there’s no common ground between father and son to spark any sort of bond. Not only does the description imply disappointment, but the lack of further mention throughout the rest of the text shows how easily such an important person in one’s life can be forgotten based on attitude, whether that’s due to a longing for stature, or a rejection of what one may deem beneath them. I believe Sloan included this to reflect the nature of the father’s tendency towards the extravagant, but to also have a representation of an integral part of his life that he may be running from. As a writer, I believe this is a great example of how less is more, with minimal mention of the grandfather but precise description, as it gives the reader ample information on the significance (or lack thereof) this man has in the course of the text.
“‘I am afraid I will not say goodbye to my father before he dies,’ she says.
‘I am afraid that my father will get sick and won’t tell me,’ I say.” (Sloan p. 1)
This exchange, set in the first section of the work, lay the framework for the details that are slowly laid out as the story progresses. It essentially serves as exposition where the reader is given no other context but learns volumes from the simple confessions; this story is about paternal relationships and the complexities and difficult losses that can follow them. Something else that stands out to me about these lines has to do with the structure of the piece as a whole – it is notably not in chronological order and details are revealed to the reader in a fashion that allows the reader to connect the dots and gain a deeper understanding of what each individual moment means to the characters. These lines kick off that process, granting the small concession that paternal loss is a fear of these two characters, but withholding specifics and complications to great effect.
“What he hated were those looks she’d give him at dinner sometimes, her eyes silently begging for time with him alone.” (Sloan pg. 6, par. 4)
In the paragraphs before this line, Sloan builds up the ‘love’ between her parents. The tone shifts to a hopeful one, which reflects her father’s once naïve dreams about his relationship. It’s absolutely jarring to the reader when they read the line above, which ends much differently than expected. Most readers would reasonably anticipate that the ‘looks’ Sloan’s mother directs towards her father at dinnertime are ones of contempt (since he hated it). But really, they were looks of desperation and love. They were silent pleas for affection. I feel as if this sentence flips a switch in how the father is portrayed, where he morphs from being an unhappy daydreamer into a quixotic manipulator.