Allende's And of Clay Are We Created

I'd like to start by addressing the title of this short story. When Allende says that we are all created by clay, the implication is that we are all fragile and can break, just like pieces of clay. One of the characters, Rolf Carle, feels this vulnerability and intense emotion. When he is staring at the girl head deep in mud, he realizes that he is looking at a mirror image of himself; that he too feels hardships and and suffered as a child; he too feels as fragile as clay. In addition, I think talking about clay relates to the earth, and that all humans are products of the world. The story had a very naturalistic feel. When it began to rain, Azucena, said that "The sky was weeping." When Rolf Carle began to realize he was hiding behind the camera to avoid hardships, the story said, "all the torrent of all that had lain hidden in the deepest and most secret layers of memory poured out." This gives me the imagery of the deep layers of the earth. Another idea I think was central to the story was juxtaposing media and nature. The quick transition from talking about what people saw on screens and how Rolf was feeling, made me think about the content of things I see on the news. Many times, I view something and just barely begin to realize its magnitude, I just see it as "news. " I thought this story touched on many profound ideas that could be written about in a 10 page paper, not just a short blog!

-s.sacks


HERES SOME LINKS I'D WANT TO POTENTIALLY WRITE ABOUT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/travel/diy-africa.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opinion/sunday/civilizations-starter-kit.html

Chopin's The Story of an Hour

In this short story, a woman with heart disease ends up dying of shock not because her husband died, but from realizing that he was alive. This, although a seemingly interesting response to the death of a loved one, was probably quite appropriate for the time period in which this was written (late 1800's). Ms. Mallard felt trapped in her marriage by her husband and finally felt free when he was supposedly killed. Living in the 21st century, however, I find this reaction startling and unsettling. Marriages should be joyful and filled with love, and this relationship encapsulates neither of those aspects.

-s.sacks