Is anyone else looking at this in their review? The stories in The Bloody Chamber turn traditional gender roles or expectations upside down and many feature strong female protagonists. I’m not sure if my essay would still be a “review” if I focused solely on this issue (actually what I’m writing about is the undermining of feminism in “The Lady of the House of Love”) but right now it’s sort of taking over. Are you guys focusing on a few aspects of a story in your reviews, or are you writing an overarching/all-inclusive critique?
I understand what you mean when you say that one issue seems to overtake your paper. I’m trying to write an all-inclusive review on “The Werewolf” and “The Company of Wolves” but I’m having a hard time not focusing on specific aspects of the tales.
I think it’s important to focus on this. All of her tales seem to tackle this issue and some of them flip the typical role of females in fairy tales on their heads. However, it is still a review, I think we should talk about the story as a whole. Certainly you should say how the portrayal of women affects the story, and how effective this change is. I’m having the hardest time getting out of my essay writing voice. It was hard for me to write a good essay again and I think I was just starting to get better, and suddenly I have to change. Oh well, at least it doesn’t have to be that long.
I’m having a hard time with this too. I am looking at feminism in “The Bloody Chamber” as well, and it does seem to dominate the review. I’m not sure if there’s supposed to be a specific focus of the review or not. I’m also having a difficult time finding the right voice for the paper.
In my review as well, i also happen to focus on the company of wolves. and mostly about her portrayal of women and empowering them. But i used that to talk about how i felt the story had a disturbing effect for me and the way she conveys her message, through such disturbing details seem to overshadow the power of her message. and in the end, I am felt feeling unnerved and a slight confused.
My essay initially starts out as a focus on “The Tiger’s Bride”. I tried discussing how it is a new invention of an old fairytale. I then went on to talk about the current issue with fairytales, how they are edited, and how they should be interpreted in today’s context. I am a little worried, because once again, my paper is not long enough, and it loses focus mid way. I hope that I can bring the paper better by next Friday.
Same kind of deal, I’m wondering if focusing on one topic of the story will make my review just a regular essay rather than a review. I’m still really unclear about this.
I don’t understand how to review the work as a whole without losing focus. Reviewing just one aspect of the tale seems to make the review over-simplified and doesn’t do the story justice, but it is really hard to write multiple aspects of the story. I am lost like everyone else.
I’m not writing particularly on feminism, I think I’m going to talk about the beast within theme found in most of the stories. I do see feminism as an important part of the stories, but Dara gave me a cryptic message about how some critics don’t think this is true, so I think I’ll just avoid the subject so I don’t have to read too many other reviews.