Parody  #1

      My name is Emily Rose and I was born into a religious cult in 1995.  My mother gave birth to me at the age of sixteen.  Oftentimes I think of her more as an older sister than as my mother.  The majority of my time is spent alongside her, cooking and tending to the house.  My favorite cookbook was written by Martha Stewart.  Boy does she know how to bake a mean pecan pie.  I wish I were allowed to have more of Martha Stewarts books, but very few outside book are allowed here.   When I ask my mother who my father is she gets very quiet.  She tells me she does not know who my true father is.  I know her too well to believe this however, I can see the fear and sadness in her eyes every time I ask.  I think my father is a cruel man who never treated my mother the way he should have.  Even now, I know he lives among us yet has never taken the time to get to know me.  

     The women here are all slaves to the men.  Even I am a slave to boys much younger than I.  In school the other day a boy three years younger than I whipped me with a ruler until I bled for ignoring his pestering questions.  My teacher stopped class and had everyone watch me wither under the sting of the ruler as a lesson.  The pain I could handle, but the continuing torment from my peers is what eats me up inside.  She told us that we must never ignore a man for that will only anger him, and an angry man is not responsible for his actions.  Yet, us women seem to always be responsible for our actions and are punished accordingly.  We must comply to anything a man asks of us.  I do not argue because it seems like the right thing to do, though I do not believe this wholeheartedly.  The men are much smarter and stronger than us women; they only tell us what to do for our and our communities benefit.   They tell us stories of the outside world; of war, poverty, and corruption to keep our minds at ease in regards to our own lives.

     Sometimes my best friend Georgia and I sneak off into the woods and talk of running away from this place.  We bring with us a magazine Georgia once found while walking along the road.  It is titled, "Seventeen."  When we read this magazine filled with advertisements of Ed Hardy, True Religion, and Chanel, the outside world does not seem so cruel to us.  Just more fashionable.  In these pages we see images of boys giving girls flowers, and holding their hand.  These images look more pleasant than anything I have seen in my town.  We oftentimes plan our escape together after reading this magazine.  Georgia and I both know however that we would never make it more than ten miles from here.  The men would notice we were missing far to soon and would catch up with us quickly.  I don't even want to think about how many lashings we would receive after they found us.  That is why I am holding hope that maybe, someday,  I will be able to escape from this place and start a new life.

Meta-Commentary

     My above parody is based from the writings of Harriet Ann Jacobs in her novel, Incidents In The Life of A Slave Girl.  This novel holds aspects of both a captivity narrative and a slave narrative.  In my parody I mimicked this idea of writing in a style parallel to that of a captivity narrative and slave narrative.  In my parody my character, along with all the other women, are slaves to the men in the cult.  This was my way to make my parody a modern version of Jacob's novel.  One aspect of a slave narrative, found on Campbell's website, which was evident in Jacobs novel was, "emphasized the cruelty of individual slave owners" (Campbell).  You can find an explanation of slave narratives here, http://public.wsu.edu/%7Ecampbelld/amlit/slave.htm.  Jacob's describes many different scenes of her owners harming and disrespecting their slaves.  The following is an example from her novel, " If I ever know of your speaking to him, I will cowhide you both; and if I catch him lurking about my premises, I will shoot him as soon as I would a dog" (Jacobs).  This is an example of emotional cruelty, Jacob's was denied the right to continue seeing the man she wanted to marry.  I mimicked this idea of emotional cruelty in my parody as well.  When Emily was struck repeatedly by her teacher she explains that it is not the pain itself that causes her misery, it is the continuing torment from her peers.  So while this is physical cruelty it is also an emotional cruelty for Emily.  One aspect of captivity narrative that is prevalent in Jacob's novel and my own parody, as found on Donna Campbells website, is "yearns for freedom, yet fears perils of escape" (Campbell). More information on captivity narratives can be found here, http://public.wsu.edu/%7Ecampbelld/amlit/captive.htm.  Jacob's writes of escaping to the north and to freedom quite frequently in her novel.  She does fear the dangers of escaping but also feels that her life is too miserable to not try.  In my parody Emily speaks of planning her escape with her best friend Georgia.  Yet, they know they would never make it far.  Emily also fears the consequences of running away and later being found. 

     The theme of Jacob's novel I believe is that no women should ever be victimized the way in which she was growing up.  Young slave girls were oftentimes raped by their white slave owners.  Later, after giving birth, their baby was taken and sent away to somewhere the mother could not reach.  My character, Emily, is also victimized as a women.  This was the same for every women in their cult.  Emily was struck when she ignored a boy in her class.  She also goes on to say that all women in their cult must do anything the men ask of them.  If not, they will be punished.  Emily says that she does not believe wholeheartedly that this is justifiable.  She later goes on to talk about the images of boys giving girls flowers and holding hands in her magazine.  She realizes through this that women should be shown the same respect as men.

     The voice of both my parody and Jacobs novel is hopeful.  Jacobs speaks all the time about knowing someday she will be free and no longer a slave.  She holds strong while in the worst conditions.  Near the ending of my parody we find out that Emily is also hopeful that one day she will be able to escape from the cult and begin a new life.

When I Heard the Master Historian - Parody #2

When I heard the master History Channel historian,

When the dates, the television propaganda, were organized in displays before me,

When I was shown the 3D maps and interviews, to explain, stereotype, and

     justify them,

When I laying heard the historian where he talked through my flat-screen with much

     appraise from his colleages,

How soon unexplainable I became weary and distressed,

Till shifting and rising up I ascended to my step-dads attic,

In the dusty dense attic air, and from now and then,

Gaze'd up in perfect appreciation of the American flag

Meta-Commentary

     The author and poem I choose to base my parody from was Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer."   For my parody I really wanted to capture a tone, or voice, parallel to that of Walt Whitman.  In the first half of Walt Whitman's poem he mostly introduced the reader to the idea of astronomy.  For my poem I changed this up and introduced my readers to the idea of history.  The tone, or voice, here is deliberate; Whitman describes very specific normality’s associated with the learning experience.  The following line is an example of this, "When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and/measure them" (Whitman ll. 3-4).  I too replicated this idea and described what a person would experience when watching a History Channel historian.  The second half of Whitman's poems is written differently and changes tone/voice.  The voice here turns to appreciation.  The character in the poem grows bored of these normality’s and craves something more.  He yearns for something more tangible and real.  Only when the character, "Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars" does he truly appreciate what the astronomer was teaching him in the first place (Whitman l. 10).  I replicated this same voice for my poem.  My character also grew tired of the historian on the television and yearned for something more meaningful to justify the teachings.  I think this also relates to the theme of the poem.  That only once the lessons can be applied to something greater does it seem to hold significance.  I choose to use an American flag instead of the stars for this significance.  When my character looked at the flag, the history teachings came to life.  He truly appreciated the flag for it was a symbol of everyone that helped to build America, just as the stars are a symbol for everything in our universe and astronomy in general.  Professor Ed Folson and Professor Kenneth Price state in their biography of Walt Whitman, found at www.whitmanarchive.org/...index.html, that Whitman "abruptly abandoned conventional rhyme and meter."  This literary style of writing was evident in his poem, "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer."  I kept this literary style of writing in mind when I wrote my parody.  There are absolutely no rhyming words in either Whitman's poem or my parody.  There are also no signs of meter included in Whitman's poem or my parody.  I came up with the idea to make my parody's content be about history and the American flag because I found that Whitman's brother had been in the Civil War.  I found this on one of Walt Whitman's biography pages written by the Academy of American Poets, which can be found here www.poets.org/126. It states, "He then traveled to Washington, D.C. in December 1862 to care for his brother who had been wounded in the war" (Academy of Am. Poets). I figured Whitman would have been very proud of his brother and would have looked up to the flag in appreciation, which is why I wrote my final sentence the way I did.