Read “Moving On,” by Diane Cook, in The Best American Short Stories 2015, and respond to the prompt below in a 200-300-word response.
- In 200-300 words, write your initial response to this story. There’s no specific question to answer here. You’ve just read the story, write whatever comes into your mind about it after reading it. Moments of greatest “fire,” thoughts, things it reminds you of (other stories, books, movies, etc.), questions, things you don’t understand, things you liked about it, disliked, emotions it brought up in you, etc.. Just write 200 words as quickly as you can in response to this story. Anything goes.
- The same Plus / Check / Minus criteria for Reading Responses applies. In your response be sure to reference or cite one or two specific moments from the story and avoid a simple plot summary. I’m looking for your unique initial response to this text.
To respond, click on “leave a reply” (written below). You’ll have to sign in with your WordPress account (or enter your name and email). Write your response. Please write your full name at the bottom of your response so I can identify you. Click on “post comment.” You will not see your comment. You’ll likely get a message saying something like: “Your comment is being held for moderation.” Please post it only once. Do not email me asking if it posted.
Copy and paste your response onto a Word document and save a copy for yourself, just in case. You don’t need to print it and bring it to class. In case of any technical issue, you can hand in the hard copy at a later date. In terms of technical issues, benefit of the doubt will always go to the student.
Contemporary American Fiction 
The beginning of the story is absolute fire because I was drawn into this sadness that has now become this woman’s life. I immediately wanted to know more about her and her story. ” They let me tend to my husband’s burial and settle his affairs. Which means I can stay in my house, pretend he is away on business while I stand in the closet and smell his clothes.” I find it sad how this woman is ordered to replace every memory of her husband with a false sense of reality to “save herself the pain” of grieving over her husband. Trying to forget about a loved one ever existed once they are gone won’t make it any easier to get out of bed every morning or make the pain go away any faster. “I’m supposed to replace my husband’s face in my memory with this man’s face while being careful not to get too attached; the man in the photo won’t be my new husband.” I sympathize with this woman because she doesn’t know how to live her life without her husband. She has no idea where to go from here and that’s okay. Not knowing and facing uncertainty is okay.
Her love for her husband will always be in her heart but more than anything she has this need to feel wanted by another man. “I loved my husband. I mourn his tenderness. I have to believe that someone out there is feeling a kind of tenderness for me. I’ll take it any way I can.” Everyone believes that once your married, nothing will come in between you and the other person, except death. But no one ever expects death to come and take away the love of your life.
Morgan Kane
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Some interesting passages. I especially like how you talk about her needing to feel wanted by another man. Be careful to not offer moral judgments in these responses (saying something is “sad”, or “okay.”). Otherwise, there a couple of interesting discoveries here.
Check.
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This story is filled with bitterness, confusion and emptiness as the narrator must deal with her late husband’s death. From the very beginning it shocked me to see the extent in which she tries to detach herself from the situation and make it an almost impersonal matter. She lets the small things occupy her thoughts: “The least I could have done is take the yard one last time. I told my husband I would (Cook 45). Her mind wandered to different places and her thoughts were truly disordered. She continually brings up the Manuel, which tells her how to feel, when to feel it and what to do with that feeling. Any sort of emotion that isn’t included in this book is considered wrong and supposedly sets her back in her process of moving on. This reminds me of the societal pressure that one feels when mourning and grieving over a loved one, and how the world doesn’t wait for them to move on. There is a strict and rushed timeline on her emotions, which is somewhat seen in our world where people undergo the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The narrator yearns to feel wanted, whether it be by the man in the window or from the women she used to live with. This is a basic human desire; however, the authorities attempt to repress this and tell her to “be sensible” (53). Additionally, this story draws many parallels with animal shelters, where animals must be “chosen” and then “placed” with new owners. After being separated from their initial owners, they’re immediately put in this shelter with no understanding of what’s to come next. Once chosen, they must learn to adapt to a new life with unfamiliar surroundings. Everything they once loved, such as their old toys, treats or walking areas are now gone and will eventually become nothing but a distant memory. Similarly, the narrator claims that one day, she’ll “barely remember that (she) even knew (her) first husband” (54). But is this what moving on is really about, completely erasing someone from your memory?
Emily Sarid
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Loads of great ideas in here. I love the comparison to animal shelters. There is a definite questioning of our animal natures in this story, which is something that could be explored further in a paper.
Plus.
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I think out of all the stories we read so far, this one is the one that made me react the most. Just from reading the first page or the story, I was shocked. The fact that the main character talks about the loss of her husband with so much openness and without any filter really made me feel the pain she felt we she lost him and the pain she still goes through to get over her loss. What marked me the most about this story is her willingness to move on and to continue her life although she could not get her husband off her mind. She constantly keeps on talking about her husband even when she knows it was not the time nor the place to talk about him: “He asks me how I feel about kids. I answer that I’ve always wanted them.” We’d been planning,” I say. There is an awkward silence. I have broken a rule already. I apologize. He’s embarrassed but say it’s fine” (54).
Another “fire” moment in the story as the widow shelter. I was surprised places like this actually exist. After reading the story, I did a research and I was actually really surprised to see that there is shelters in India. After digging a little more, I found out that a lot of women get married at a very young age and their husbands are much older than them. Their husband ends up dying and they cannot remarry. They are then sent to shelters for the rest of their life. The situation is not the same in the story but after finding out about the situation in India I felt terrible for these women that had to do the rest of their life in shelters. The widows in the story are very lucky to have a second chance in life because sadly, not everyone have the same possibility,
Denisha Fleury
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The research about the women’s shelter in India is fascinating. I had no idea about this. Really productive to do research like this. For these responses, though, I do expect you to engage closer with the actual story. You could have gone into more detail for the quote you provided (it’s a good one), or perhaps included another one.
Check.
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The story “Moving On”, by Diane Cook, shows the process of widow mourning the loss of her husband to how she, as the title suggests, moves on find a new person to love and care about. One way it attempts to portray this is through the use of fire moments to capture the emotions of our main character.
In the beginning of the story, we can see that it is very difficult for the main character to just move on from the unfortunate death of her husband. We can tell that she had a great and loving relationship and, for that reason, it is very hard for her to just let go of those memories. One indication of this is when she says tries to savor the memories of him, like it is her coping mechanism:
“They let me tend to my husband’s burial and settle his affairs. Which means I can stay in my house, pretend he is away on business while I stand in the closet and smell his clothes, (44)”.
It paints a very depressing and sad portrait that made me feel very sorry, as she clearly has lost an important figure in her life that gave her happiness and true love. Another reason why I felt sorry for her also is because I cannot imagine losing someone that close to me and it would completely devastate me the same way she was. The moment that I, personally, believe brings the most sadness is the following one because it’s as if it she is reminded of a happier time only for her to be brought back to her sad reality and she is trying desperately to move on:
“… I imagine my husband lying beside me, warming the rubber-coated mattress… Then I have to picture him dissolving into the air like in a science-fiction movie… (48)”
When she meets a new man (from what I understand) in the compound, they seem to have a great connection. Ever since they waved to each other through their windows, it is as if they had the other each other on their minds at all time. When she first met him up close and personal
“He sat next to me. Close up I found him handsome. He clowned around, pushed the bingo chips off my board whenever I wasn’t looking… He said ‘I’m going to tell you ten bad jokes in a row,’ and he did… not pausing for my laughter, which made me laugh through the whole thing, (49)”
This shows how she is not hinking about her husband not being there with her (though she does throughout the story), but instead building a new connection with a man that she could possibly have a future with. Unfortunately for her, he ends up leaving his compound. After that, for a while she would “… scrape other women’s leftovers… (53)” and “…barter for snacks with some rougher women… (53)” which shows how many people when they are in a state of depression will eat junk food in order to feel better. But when she is told to exercize and she realizes that it is a good idea, I believe that can be symbolic for people trying to move on with life and change for the better.
While there are more parts I could discuss, I wanted to examine the fire parts of the story that I thought were important sections of the story.
I was very confused as to why to why the main character described the pen as if it were a slave plantation or a prison. The parts that had me asking myself this was, firstly, when she sees a group of women as “they form a human shield around a woman on her knees. She is digging into the ground with a serving spoon from the cafeteria” (47)”, as it heavily reminded me of many cartoons that had a prison themed episode, and how the pen is fenced off and the main character describes her room as a cell as a “small cinder-block room” (48), which is very close to a prison cell. Could this be symbolic for her torment of trying to get over the loss of her husband? The msot I can say is: perhaps.
-Justin Aquino
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Lots of good ideas in here. Your question is productive, as is the comparison to cartoons you’ve seen. For the quotes you provide, try to look a little deeper beneath the surface by looking at specific words or images in the citation. Don’t explain what a quote literally means.
Check.
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As I read this story, I am extremely confused about the series of events that have occurred in the story. I absolutely do not believe the woman was in the proper mental state to be placed in this shelter. Judging by how she was speaking and acting throughout the story, she was certainly not over her late husband’s death and was nowhere near ready to change her entire way of life: “In bed, I imagine my husband lying beside me, warming the rubber-coated mattress, beneath the thin sheet so many women have slept under before me”(48). I also find the whole “manual” concept at the shelter very unrealistic. I understand that their intention is to give one a sense of comfort regarding one’s behavior following a death, but at a certain point humans are unique, and they do not react the same way in a common circumstance. However, I do believe there was one great benefit of this shelter, which was that she had company from others on her floor and this helped her during a very lonely period in her life. She enjoyed baking with these women as well, which helped pass the time while she was struggling with her emotions. A moment in the story where I really felt “fire” was when this woman met her window friend: “Something very special has happened. I met my window friend (…) the darkness of his hair and the general line of his brow. The nights we have become important to me. It’s nice to be seen by a man”(49). The manner in which she was speaking about him made me feel like this was probably the first time since her late husband passed away that she was able to distance herself from the sadness of losing her husband and feel a sense of happiness. I found this story very hard to relate to, as it has been two years since my grandfather passed away, and till this day the sadness resonates with my grandmother on a daily basis and no clear answer or explanation could rationalize how she feels, and no shelter could ever be the answer to her loneliness.
Chad Levett
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Good response. Lots of good ideas. Important: characters and institutions in stories don’t need to have a “positive” reason for doing things. There are bad people in stories who do bad thing. The entire point is that humans are unique, and so this shelter is a chilling and scary place. Great discoveries.
Plus.
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I felt heavy while reading this story. The woman thought of herself incapable of running away. She thought of herself too “domestic” for it. This either reveals that she is being honest about her abilities or that she doesn’t think much of herself. I wonder if social construct influenced her thoughts. She seems like she needs constant validation. She wants to feel loved; by her floor-mates, the man across her window, and the authorities in the women’s shelter. People determined her worth. She even said that “what [she] preferred is no longer of concern” (p.46).
What shocked me was the fact that she knew. She knew that conforming to the rules wouldn’t make her happy. “We smooshed our heads together and my husband held the camera out and snapped the picture. We looked distorted, ecstatic” (p.48). Looking “distorted” made them somehow look overwhelmed with joy. She is aware that life goes beyond the fact of being “chosen”. I wonder why the author decided to use the word “chosen”. Is that a reflection of how we go about living our lives; waiting to be chosen by a job, a spouse, a friend, a grade, etc.
Sometimes I felt the need to be there for her. To tell her that hurt is a part of life. That it is okay to grieve. To let it be.
-Sindy Ann Fernando
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Great response. You manage to pack a lot of interesting ideas into a short space. It’s on the verge of being too short. You just made it over the word count.
Plus.
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From the first- person point of view, ‘Moving On’ conveys a tragic story of a widowed woman, trying to move on from the death of her husband. The woman in this story must live in a place with other widowed women, until she is finally capable of moving on. Throughout the story, she always tries to hide or tell herself that she is coming to term with her husband’s death. However, now and then she tells the audience a small update (like on page 48: In bed, I imagine my husband… I practice not to feel a thing) that losing the one that means most to you in the world is not easy. The moment that shook everyone, the moment that has the greatest “fire” has to be on page 52: “I read it. (…) leaves in our backyard”. It was the moment that filled with sadness, sorrow and pain. It would be impossible for any reader to not feel sympathetic for her lost. That is when she’s writing a letter to her window buddy, another man who she thought could help her get through the pain. When the man left, and as she was half asleep, she wrote him a letter. From a letter to another man, to a letter directing at her ex-husband. She begs, she displays her great sadness and her despair in a single letter. A letter that tells the world that, she would do anything to get back the love of her life.
James Dinh
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You want to offer more than a summary of the story. Also, when you include quotes, include everything that is relevant. I don’t understand the backyard quote.
Minus.
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I was immediately captured by the story “Moving On”. This story has both an immense amount of sadness and an immense amount of hope and acceptance. The main character lost her husband, someone who she truly loved and had a connection with. She is put in a place with other women who are without a husband and are waiting to be chosen for a new one. It’s sad to me that the women and even men were placed somewhere where they are to forget their past lives to be able to start a new one. I think that the life someone had, the experiences you go through are what shape who you are, are what make you who you are. So, when the manual said, “in order to move forward we must change” (51), I think it is implying that she has to forget who she was and become someone completely different, someone who hasn’t gone through the heartache of losing their significant other. When her case manager said, “that’s a respectable amount of time” (54), I was not only surprised but almost insulted. Is there really a respectable amount of time to grieve about someone? Why is there even a respectable amount of time? I would think that just by being able to move past the grief, being able to accept that someone you have loved is taken away from you and being able to accept that you have lost time together is incredible. But to have to forget, to move past it as if nothing has happened is truly sad. I also felt that the main character had a lot of hope and accepted that the future she expected to have is not what she is going to have. She said that “[her] husband is gone. So [her] future will be something much quieter. It won’t be some dramatic feeling in the wild unknown. There are other ways to be happy. [She] read that in the manual. [She is] trying them out” (54). I think that’s very mature of her to accept that her future is no longer what she thought it would always be, but that she doesn’t have a choice to accept because it has now been changed.
Emilie Cohen
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This is a great look at really interesting contrast in this story: sadness and hope. This is an interesting dichotomy that could be explored further.
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I found the story intriguing in its unique, cynical approach to how society expects us to mourn. The idea of shelters and herding grieving widows like cattle comes off as very dystopian, which makes sense after learning that the inspiration for the story came from a dog being given away after its owner’s death.
As I saw it, the shelter system of the story is an exaggeration of the way our consumerist society profits from women who feel lost and need a voice of reason in their lives. The way the shelter gives schedules, rules and suggestions for improving one’s life, as well as classes in cooking, sewing, gardening, conceiving, child-rearing and other traditional behaviors and purposes of women comes off as something from a women’s self-help magazine. The idea of having classes based around conceiving and child-rearing sounds especially ridiculous until you realize that sex and motherhood are incredibly common themes in media pandering towards women.
One element of the story that I found to be unnerving was the change in the narrator’s perspective. At first, she wants to believe that the women of the shelter can one day have what they want separate from what the manual says, but deep down she knows that escaping the system is impossible. This change is shown after she is chosen by her next husband; “…I won’t turn my back on it. As the manual often states, it’s my future. And it’s the only one I get” (Cook 88). In an ominous final scene, the narrator accepts that her fate will not allow her to keep the memory of her husband, a future she dreads, yet she is willing to accept it.
In a way, the narrator’s compliance to this strict system is upsetting, reminiscent of the breaking of Winston’s character at the end of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Metaphorically, we could see this scene in a positive perspective, as an acceptance of her husband’s passing and her gaining the ability to move on with her life. But the setup of this hollow, artificial system of recycling widows and widowers leads me to think that the narrator’s jolting start to a new life after eight months of trying to forget her husband’s existence will leave her more lost than she was before.
Kaela-Rose LeBlanc
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This is a beautiful response. You’re really locking in with some deep emotions inside this story. You move eloquently from idea to idea, and you look at the story in a unique and original way.
Plus.
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This story immediately intrigued me and kept me interested throughout it. I was at first wondering if it was set in some dystopian society of some sort (which technically it could be). Women in this story are separated and forced to live in what is described as a “black market for left behind women” (45). This was the first bit of fire that I encountered while reading this story. I had originally thought that this story would’ve been about bringing widows in and getting them back into the routine of cooking, cleaning, and gardening but I was really surprised to find that the same type of shelter was available for men. Both are forced to come to terms with their grief over their dead or divorced spouse, and can only be whisked away if they can repress enough of those feelings to put on a nice face and start a new life. Case Managers, “can’t put [their] name on any list until [they’ve] shown that [they’re] moving on” (53). Grieving should not be forced and rushed, as it is in this story. This is something that really frustrated me while reading. The people managing these shelters are not sympathetic at all. These people are not being given the chance to grieve over their loved ones and their old life. The narrator’s experience with this process is saddening. When she spoke about the picture of her husband that she secretly kept, it was evident that she loved him, and it was heartbreaking to read that it had been confiscated from her. It’s a horrible thought, to have to, “practice not feeling a thing” (48).
Kaylyn Riccucci
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There are a lot of great ideas that come from your frustration with this story. The theme of repression is one that really stands out.
Plus.
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What I found to be most intriguing in this story is the repetition of the phrase ‘the manual says’ (51) or ‘the manual often states’ (55). It seems to me that the protagonist completely suppresses her feeling and tries to feel what the manual tells her to feel. How can a manual possibly instruct these individuals, who have lived through completely different life experiences, how to behave or feel a certain way? It is wrong to feel certain ways other than the ones indicated in the manual? Case Managers sure seems to believe so and clearly dictate that it’ll only set you back through your process of recovery. This very much reminds me of the way society has its way of dictating how you should behave and what you should feel in certain situations. It also saddens me that throughout the story, she never really had the chance to mourn the death of her beloved husband. Only days after her husband’s death, she is sent to this rehabilitation center in order to be brainwashed, in hopes of being chosen once more to be someone’s partner. It is expected of her, as well as all the members in this so called shelter, to neglect and suppress any type of affection left for their ancient partner and follow these classes/seminars to become the ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect’ partner. This, right here, is fire. I find it completely ridiculous that these people have to wait and only hope to be chosen like some kind of shelter animal waiting desperately to be adopted. Everything about this story seems somewhat fake to me. Her love for her late husband was indeed passionate and true, but her recovery process and her relationship with her new husband just seem superficial.
Andy Nhieu
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Interesting point about the “manual says” repetition. It would be interesting to explore the idea of repetition in this story in greater detail.
Plus.
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This is the first time that the beginning of the first paragraph of a story is able to truly trigger a deep feeling inside me that I cannot explain. In fact, the opening of this story is a fire moment in its entirety: ‘‘They let me tend to my husband’s burial and settle his affairs. Which means I can stay in my house, pretend he is away on business while I stand in the closet and smell his clothes. I can cook dinner for two and throw the rest away, or overeat, depending on my mood’’ (44). We can truly feel her sadness and her despair through these lines. I usually need time in order to really connect with a story but it just came to me in an emotional way. The word ‘‘pretend’’ is really important, the whole idea of the story revolves around the concept of pretending, pretending that you are over someone, pretending that you’re strong and pretending that forgetting someone you have been with for years in an easy ‘‘process’’. Another thing that triggered me in the story is that society tends to see the process of mourning someone as being a system, that there are steps to follow in order to be over someone, like a manual, but no, this is not the reality. Forgetting someone can take months and even years, no one is never prepared to that.
This story gives us a very good moral, anyone is never prepared to face the loss of a loved one in our lives, no one can teach or tell us how to react and behave through difficult times except ourselves. We must be at peace with ourselves first in order to be at peace in our life.
Marie-Claude Champoux
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Great response. I like how you focus on the idea of pretending: “the whole idea of the story revolves around the concept of pretending.” So true, and an idea that could eve be explored further.
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The shelter where all of these unwanted men and women were sent to was a very lonely and confined place. They were practically forced to do everything that they were told to do or else they would get punished for not doing so: “There are so many handouts and packets. We have been given schedules and rules and also suggestions for improving our lives and looks” (Cook 45). Although the purpose of this place was to help these men and women to move on with their lives, it seemed to me that they were doing the exact opposite. For instance, when we look at the situation of the main character, instead of helping her deal with her problem (her mourning her husbands sudden death because of his health condition) they are practically forcing her not to think about it by keeping her busy and obey orders by her “Case Manager” if they did not follow their instructions they would not be able to get chosen by someone and will possibly never get out of that shelter. One of the other ways that these people used to help them “move on” was to rethink of all of the good memories that they have spent with their loved ones and change them to make them bad ones: “ if I let myself sit down and spill his water, instead of him laughing in our hands tangling in the nervous cleanup, I should picture him yelling at me for my clumsiness.” (Cook 46) I found this method completely ridiculous. How is the best way of moving on from someone to force yourself in thinking that they were a bad person? It seems like the people who control this shelter are brainwashing these people into forgetting about their current lives and being ready to start from zero once someone finally chooses them. The thing that appalled me the most in this story was how the main character did not seem to fight back with what was happening to her or the others. She would simply go with the flow and follow exactly what she’s told to do and had no faith in herself: “ I don’t think I could do it. I’m too domestic for that kind of thing” (Cook 47). Her lack of confidence and the fact that she did not believe in herself irritated me because she could have gotten herself out of that place if she really wanted to! On the other hand, when we evaluate her situation and how she has lost everything (her husband, her house, her life) it is sad and that could be the reason why she has lost hope in everything and is allowing herself to be manipulated by anything or anyone.
Sahar Jaleel
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Some interesting discoveries in here. You say the following: ” Her lack of confidence and the fact that she did not believe in herself irritated me because she could have gotten herself out of that place if she really wanted to!” Is this true? How? You have some interesting discoveries in here, but at the same time, perhaps you are oversimplifying the story a bit. On first glance, it appears she can’t leave, she’s locked in. People have to escape. So, you have good ideas, but be sure to read the story as closely as possible.
Check.
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I found the short story “Moving On” really fascinating. It made me feel several feelings while I was reading it. First of all, I felt really sad for the main character since she lost her husband, someone who she really connected with, which is why she felt so lost without him. By burying her husband, she also buried the hope to have the future she wanted: “[Her] husband is gone. So [her] future will be something much quieter. It won’t be some dramatic feeling in the wild unknown” (54). What I understood about this quote is that, she accepted the fact she will probably have a boring future since the loss of the man she deeply loved. The loss of her husband is sad in this story, but another thing that made me feel heavy is the fact that she had to be placed in a facility with other widows and widower waiting to be chosen by other women and men. That facility and their rules put me in an extremely uncomfortable situation. Indeed, those people have to let go all their experiences and memories from their past to be able to find someone new and so, to have a new life. I don’t like this way of thinking, because our past makes us who we are and so, those women and men are trying to be someone else for them to find happiness once more. In other words, their grieving is forced upon them by the people working in these shelters which makes me feel really sorry for all of them, because I know how grieving can be difficult.
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You make some true statements here. But, try to offer more than a broad summary in these responses.
Minus.
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The story starts right away with the weight of all the problems of the main character being dropped on to your shoulders. It seems to play with your empathy because it grabs your heart strings so quickly. Right in the second paragraph that’s where my empathy for the character truly started: “The placement team orders me to pack two bags of essentials, […] they take the keys to our house, our car.” (Cook, 44). When I place myself in her shoes, it is not only losing a loved one but also being stripped of almost all your belongings and taken away from the life you once had. As the story describes the Placement Compound and what it truly is, I began to realize that it is closer to a prison compared to a rehabilitation center. The court yard was surrounded by a huge fence with barbed wire and had two watch towers, but what really made me think that it is really a prison was when it said: “They form a human shield around a woman on her knees. She is digging into the ground with a serving spoon from the cafeteria” (Cook, 47). I believe that they keep the people there because they feel like they need to be ready move on and they don’t want people who can’t support themselves financially living alone or with children. Throughout the entire time that the prisoners are there they are trying to brain wash the women into becoming the perfect wife for the next guy, as explained when the main character arrives: “We have been given schedules and rules and also suggestions for improving our lives and looks. It’s like a spa facility on lockdown” (Cook, 45). As the story goes on, she starts to think less and less of her husband, turning her into their view of what she needed to be, not who she wanted to be. They do this kind of prosses when the person is weak after losing a loved one and they make it seem like they are helping them get back on their feet. I’m not sure what to think of the ending, if she is forcing herself to be happy, maybe because it’s better than being alone or if she is generally happy that she is now with Charlie.
Kyle Smith
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Good response. Some great thoughts, especially about the ending. Try not to summarize the story, which you do for about half of the response.
Check.
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From the very beginning I was interested in understanding what was going on in the story I could sense that it would be filled with, love, confusion, and lost. “They let me tend to my husband’s burial and settle his affairs. Which means I can stay in my house, pretend he is away on business while I stand in the closet and smell his clothes”. This woman clearly lost someone she loved dearly and this made me feel empathetic towards her because we could see how losing her husband affected her and how she wasn’t ready to say goodbye. While I was reading, I came up with the question that I don’t think anyone can be mentally prepared to have to say good bye too someone you loved so dearly. She was not allowed to go through the grieving process , she was directly put in a shelter to be chosen by a new man and be his new wife. When she lost her husband I think she knew she wouldn’t be able to grieve his death. This is also inhumane because every human being should be allowed to have the time needed to grieve and move on. However, I do think this character could move if they had time to heal , but I don’t think forgetting someone you shared a life with is healthy. He was part of her life , they shared memories and love .I don’t think losing someone should ever be erased form someone’s memory. In the shelter they are given a manual to follow in order to better themselves and get a better a chance of being chosen. “ she says that if I can hold on to it and skip over the bewildering grief that follows , I’ll be better off. The grief-stricken spend more time here. Years , in some cases. Practice, practice, practice, she always says”. She is being forced to skip the healing and grieving process by trying to convince herself that she needs to stop thinking of him. She never truly thought like the other women she never wanted to run away of felt rushed to be chosen. What she felt was the actual reality for many people because she had just lost her husband why would she be ready to be with someone else.
Pamela Rochefort
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Good response. Your writing is much more careful than on the first response, which is great. Next challenge: you have some great ideas, but you repeat yourself quite a bit. When you say something once, try not to say it again. You repeat that she was not allowed to grieve several times. This is true, but try to go deeper: what does grieving really mean? Who was not letting her grieve? Does everyone grieve in the same way? Etc. But, this is an improvement, which is positive. You’re on the right track.
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“Moving On” by Diane Cook was a very perplexing short story because though it is quite absurd, the themes are relevant to our society. The widow has very natural feelings after her husband’s death but this society forces her to change her point of view. I feel that this is similar to our life on how society places certain ideologies that we are conditioned to think even if we are conflicted to it. I find that a passage that truly awoken my interest is when she explains “the children are like phantom limbs that ache on a mother’s body. I wouldn’t know, but I’m good at imagining” (Rao 44,45). This passage shows that society has conditioned her what to think and feel which ultimately makes her very passive in her point of view. Perhaps if she did have children, maybe she would feel or act differently on this whole situation.
This short story also reminds me of our society because of the pressure that is enforced with relationships. In the short story, there is no choice and everyone must be matched to have a future (Rao 55). This is exactly like our culture because there are always certain notions being placed on people depending on what their social status is. I feel this was very powerful where the women in the program are completely separated from the men and are required to take all these classes that are recognized as female activities (Rao 45). All the women are being fabricated in one way so they can be appropriate for marriage. These strenuous activities can relate to what is pressured on women in our world so they can be ideal for someone else. This spoke to me because reading a story where the society seems so brutal and restricted is basically the truth of many moral codes in our world being explored explicitly.
Jessica Rupnik
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Some excellent connections between this story and our world.
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I love how this story contradicts itself. In the beginning of the story, when the main character is describing the shelter, she defines it as:” […] a spa facility on lockdown.” (p. 45). This expresses the fact that even though the shelter has all the classes, activities, friends and seminars, it is still a prison, with guards and fences. Similarly, it is contradictory because on some of the floors in the building, it is peaceful and happy. It is a home full of women who get along, cook together, drink tea together… Whereas on other floors, things are violent, women hate each other and hurt one another. One of the women was “Slashed across the cheek with a razor blade” (p.47). This passage stood out to me because the author seems calm and collected in the story when so many violent things are happening around her. I also believe these contradictions have a deeper meaning to them. Moreover, in the beginning of her journey, when the woman is new to the facility, she often wonders “what [her] new husband will be like” (p.45). Even though she is against the idea of replacing her deceased husband, and she is sure that she will never be able to move on, she has hope and she wonders about someone new. However, at the very end of the short story, when she has met the chosen new husband, she believes if she tries hard to love this man, and try to forget her husband, she will be able to. But, “[she] is not looking forward to [that] day” (p.55). This moment was significant to me because the woman is trying to build a new life for herself and move on because that is what she is ‘supposed to do’. But in reality, does she really have to obey the manuals rules and listen to society’s requirements?
Nareh Sarkissian
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First-rate response. I love how you highlight some key contradictions in this story. This is an idea that could be explored further in a paper. Excellent work.
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This story made me really intrigued and sad to think that women were only needed for men and it reminded me of some of the rights that were opposed on women in the past. A woman could barley make a living for herself and they needed a man to deal with the money, while the woman only having to worry about looking good, cooking and cleaning. The shelter was like societies rules and norms in the 50’s and 60’s. It reminded me of the television series Madman which is more or less a realistic look on that time period, where any women dreaded being divorced by her husband because it was so hard to be independent. If they would get divorced or be widowed they were on the look for another man that can take care of her and her family because they felt that they could only be “domestic”. In the late 60’s women started to want their rights and wanted to “run away and flee” a traditional lifestyle where a man brought home the money. “The money will go into my dowry, and then hopefully, another man will marry me” (Cook 44). Women in this story couldn’t even own anything unless a man was attached to it. The shelter also reminds me of the society of women; we look and see which one gets swept up by a man and we compare who has more interesting characteristics that appeal to men. As if we need a man’s opinion and gratification for a reason. I have so many questions for this story. Did she fall in love with her first husband or was it arranged as well. What time period did this take place? “No guarantee of food or money or comfort or love” (Cook 51). This also describes how turing into an adult feels like today it’s so open with opportunities and that freedom is just as exciting as it is terrifying, like the women running away from the shelter felt like. The idea of the not knowing of the future is what holds so much hope and happiness to anyone living their life always thinking “it will get better”. The “manual” from the women shelter is basically the rules that society has been placed on women even still today, and how they have to feel and react to certain situations.
Martika Vilar-Oliveira
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Excellent response. So many great ideas in here that could be explored further. I like how you compare the oppression of this shelter to the oppression women can feel in a marriage. I also like the Mad Men comparison. Great stuff.
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Unfortunately, you’re not on the attendance sheet for Sep. 18, so you’re not eligible for a grade on this.
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The women in the shelter all grieve loss in the same way. Instead of recognizing and cherishing the moments they had with their deceased husbands, they are being encouraged to forget them completely, disappear them from their minds. It forces the widow to imagine many scenarios with her husband, because her heart still needs to think about him. “I imagine my husband lying beside me, warming the rubber coated mattress, beneath the thin sheet so many women have slept under me”(49)
The women on the bottom floor are described to have more problems getting along with one another and even seems to plan for escape. The widow describes her floor as safe and fun, comfortable. I think this can represent two aspects of herself while grieving for her husband. She is hurting so much by her loss and it is so repressed because of the methods of grief she’s being taught, however she is comforted by the women and somewhat happy. Through the story, this process of grieving and moving on seems to be handled as if every step of human emotion is like a manual. “Even though there is uncertainty in being chosen, it seems more uncertain to remain among the women, a sentiment I’ve also seen expressed in the manual.” (51) This following of the “manual” seems to disappear when she is running a away with her widow friend as she is breaking the rules of the system and setting herself free from this “manual” (structural) way of coping.
I was deeply confused by the ending. What kind of society is it for it to be accepted to be “chosen” to marry a random man, as if the previous marriage had never existed? Perhaps is all a process, and it was the next step toward completing the “manual” on how to solve your problems. It is strange how they try to replace something so important like a husband, as if their main goal is to have a perfect life and family with kids. She can only “imagine” the reality that she wants and never live it due to the world she lives in. Her actual reality is that life isn’t perfect and human emotions can’t ever be resolved that way.
Michaela Teolis
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Lots of great ideas and explorations in here.
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The story Moving on made me feel a lot of emotions all at once. At first, of course I felt sadness because we are introduced to a woman who is mourning the death of her husband. However, as the story progresses I felt more frustration regarding the shelter she goes to. The ways that they use to try to make the women move on is on the complete opposite of what should be done. They are isolated from the rest of the world with no way out much like an asylum, and they are brainwashed to forget their past with their husband: “I am supposed to pretend our wedding day was lonely, and rather than love and happiness, I felt doubt, dread” (46). It is not possible in my opinion to simply erase or forget love. Forcing someone to forget only makes them remember more because it makes them think about it. It is impossible to force someone to move on from love by telling them to pretend as if the love never existed. It made me angry when the people that worked there didn’t let the woman and her “window friend be together even though they had a real connection. With him, something inside her lit up and she felt perhaps the beginning of something that could have turned into love: I felt us quake like small animals that have been discovered somewhere they shouldn’t be and have no time to run, or no place to run to” (50). The people in those shelters are forced into a life that isn’t theirs, promised to find happiness but then they are forbidden to feel real happiness and emotions. One passage that really made me sad was the letter she wrote to the man when she was fantasising about the possibility of running away with him and starting a life with him, but then she realizes that she wasn’t truly writing to him: “Of course, I’m writing to my husband. […] Here is my love letter, my apology: please come home” (53). The ending of that passage really made me emotional. Mourning is a very human thing to do and we all do it differently. In this shelter, the loss of a close person is treated as an illness which I don’t think it is. There are also some things about the story that I don’t understand. Who forced her to go there? What kind of place is that really? Was she so lost and afraid after the death of her husband that she would force it upon herself to live like that?
Miruna Mincic
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Good response. Lots of interesting thoughts. In future response, really try to comment on the words or images inside quotes. Take this citation, for example: “I felt us quake like small animals that have been discovered somewhere they shouldn’t be and have no time to run, or no place to run to.” There’s so much to dissect here. What feeling does the act of “quaking” give off? What is signifcant about the fact that when she’s thinking of her window friend, she feels like a “small animal?” Why does she have “no time to run, no place to run to”? Really look at what’s going on in the quote. All the answers are in there.
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The story takes place in the United States, but it’s almost like the author is mixing two different cultures together, because dowry isn’t done as much in the United States, compared to other places. I also find these “shelters” heartbreaking. Imagine losing someone you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with, and then being taken away from everything that reminds you of them. On top of all that, you’re put in shelter and forced to take seminars on how to forget your spouse ever exist. It’s heartbreaking. That’s why I was happy when the main character had her “girls” and her “window friend.” She had people who understood her pain, and made living in the shelter a little more bearable. Then even they are taken away from, and she’s back to having no one. In my eyes, it was a rational response to think about running away. Living in a place that awful, you can’t go anywhere worse, so what can you lose from trying to run? I was disappointed that she didn’t run. I felt exactly how she felt when she got woken up by the alarms. She was hoping whoever had escape succeeded. “The alarm sounds. It sounds when someone runs. […] Curiously, I find myself rooting for her.” (Cook, 51) I wanted her to run, and succeed. The ending broke my heart too. She just gave into all the teachings of that horrible shelter. She got her new husband, and knew that one day, she would “never think of him again.”(Cook, 55) Him being her first husband. She’s “not looking forward” (Cook, 55) to this, but she isn’t going to ignore it either. It’s like I’m watching someone being brainwashed. It’s upsetting.
Shanna King
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Interesting reaction. Try to go a little deeper in future response. Why were you rooting for her to succeed? What was it about the way the story was constructed that made you want to root for her?
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To be honest, the story was boring and tedious at the beginning. The narrator speaks as if she’s fine with the death of her husband. I can’t feel that she is lamenting. She goes and blathers about their possessions being priced for selling and how she would be taken to a women’s shelter. She describes everything that’s happening inside the facility. From making women participate in cooking classes to mandatory “moving on” seminars. It’s so monotonous and jejune. The story began to have a distinct nuance when she felt some slight hope of feeling love again with the sight of a man across the window of her cell. This is where I get hooked with the story. It makes me ask certain questions like— will she and the man end up together? Would she be willing to escape the shelter for him? Is this why the story’s entitled “Moving On”? Because the man on the other side of the road is the answer. As I continue to read, I start to create certain images in my head about her having a second chance in life. This is when I realize that an ember is starting to light up in my body.
When the narrator starts to contemplate about having a separate part of her husband’s identity that can be lend to someone else beside her, it made me question what love really is. Do people really love wholly? Or do they secretly hide small portions of themselves to give them to another person in case the person they choose turns out to be a mistake? Do people truly love someone forever or only until that someone is there? It boils down to unending questions about how love works. I felt a little frustration on how the story ended because I didn’t understand what happened. I woefully want to go and ask Diane Cook what she meant for my unanswered questions are slowly killing me. The most puzzling part is when she wrote the lines: “And then the image will disappear and I’ll never think of him again. I’m not looking forward to this day. But I won’t turn my back on it” (55). If only I knew what she meant, I would be composed. Even though I didn’t quite comprehend the ending of the story, “Moving On” left me with the idea that love is something enigmatic.
Lenz Layug
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Lots of profound questions in here about the nature of love. Very productive line of thinking.
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I found this story both intriguing and aggravating because it shows the absurd and unrealistic expectations set up in society. These women were placed in this prison-like shelter, where they would be taught how to move on as they waited to be picked, like animals. This idea of having to “move on” and “get over it” are very common, society sets this time limit of how long you are allowed to grieve and when you should have moved on. Also this story displays very strong ideas of a patriarchal society, “I’ll never cook him things he doesn’t like because I think he should like them. I won’t forget to do the small things like pick up the dry cleaning or rake the leaves in our yard.” (53). When she wrote this, she essentially was saying that she would do these things for her husband, because that is what a good wife would do. Also I was very irritated when I read the list of classes they were offered; cooking, sewing, gardening, and conceiving, child-rearing, body-bounce-back- from- pregnancy classes. All the classes are very stereotypical interests and roles of woman. Why is marriage such a requirement in society? Is it for reproductive reasons? Or simply because of this fear and negativity aimed towards being alone? This story strongly demonstrates that people feel that they need someone in order to be happy, and because of the pressure to be with someone, this forces people to hate the idea of being alone. So when people don’t have someone else in their life, they aren’t satisfied with just having themselves. “I have to believe that someone out there is feeling a kind of tenderness for me. I’ll take it any way I can.” (50). She is craving someone else’s attention not only because she misses her husband but also because she is lonely. This fear of being alone has not only made people dissatisfied with themselves, but also accept and settle for things that they do not deserve.
Caterina Saletnig
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Good response. Some interesting reactions in here, and some great connections and questions. One note: try, as much as possible, do go beyond the obvious and the cliche. For example, you say, “society sets this time limit of how long you are allowed to grieve and when you should have moved on.” But…is this true? Maybe. I’m not sure. Question everything (which is what you’re already trying to do).
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The story grabbed my attention with the main character describing what’s happening after the death of her husband. With the explanation of this weird process I’m really curious to know what’s going to happen, why they do things this way, and what year is this taking place in. Those are just some questions that popped up in my head. While reading the story it just got more and more messed up with this weird spouse trade/market. They are put in this prison system that acts as a grief center to move on from your lost husband and they are forced to become “better” wife material. The details she gives about people trying to escape and the bullying/fighting that goes on just tells me this is basically a prison. The story never mentions why women are a commodity for men to “choose”. I see that this society seems to revolve around people being in relationships, but it never goes into why that is. While reading the story I regularly thought that perhaps the entire story is some sort of representation of what society thinks of single people. Maybe the story is an exaggerated version of pushing people to get married and having a family which is viewed as the successful relationship, and the people trying to escape is the feeling deep inside of not wanting that life? Or maybe it’s a story about grief and what it’s like to go through that. Perhaps people dealing with grief feel like they are in a prison, want to escape, and are pushed to get into another relationship. I’m not sure what the story is really about, but those were just some ideas that were floating around my head while reading it.
Angelo Bergamin
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Great train of thought. I can see you thinking in this response, which is exactly the point of these. One note: avoid words like “weird” and “messed up.” They’re too vague. When we call something “weird,” we often just dismiss it. But I want you to dig beneath the weirdness, which you do for most of this response.
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Reading response #3
“Moving on”, by Diane Cook
The first thing that struck me in this short story is the ability of the author to make us feel one of the stages of grief of the protagonist : the denial stage. Right at the start, the tone of the widow’s internal monologue sounds detached, almost as if witnessed in the third person : “ I have a good shot at getting chosen, since I’m a good decorator and we have some pretty nice stuff to sell off and so my dowry will likely be enticing” (Cook 44). She just lost her husband, but she is thinking about how she will be sold off to another man based on her possessions, like it’s a normal occurrence ( which seems to be the case in the dystopian world this story is set in).
The second thing that surprised me about this story is the definitely dystopian feeling we get with very little details about the reality described here. The main character is sent to a “ woman shelter” by the “placement team” , which sounds like an all-powerful agency with power over all her belongings as well as on her life as a widow. The place she is sent to and it’s routine has a striking resemblance with a prison : “ We are allowed outside for an hour each day, into a fenced pen off the north wing.[…] The fences are topped with barbed wire. Guards sit in booths and observe.”(46). All of this creates an eerie vibe to the world “ Moving on” is set in, without having to go through a lengthy setting at the beginning.
Simon Perras-Dyotte 1633857
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This is good. Good ideas. I’d like to challenge you to go a little further in your digging beneath the surface of stories. Your first paragraph brings up a great point, about her detached tone. Your second paragraph doesn’t manage to say as much.
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Reading response #3
“Moving on”, by Diane Cook
The first thing that struck me in this short story is the ability of the author to make us feel one of the stages of grief of the protagonist : the denial stage. Right at the start, the tone of the widow’s internal monologue sounds detached, almost as if witnessed in the third person : “ I have a good shot at getting chosen, since I’m a good decorator and we have some pretty nice stuff to sell off and so my dowry will likely be enticing” (Cook 44). She just lost her husband, but she is thinking about how she will be sold off to another man based on her possessions, like it’s a normal occurrence ( which seems to be the case in the dystopian world this story is set in).
The second thing that surprised me about this story is the definitely dystopian feeling we get with very little details about the reality described here. The main character is sent to a “ woman shelter” by the “placement team” , which sounds like an all-powerful agency with power over all her belongings as well as on her life as a widow. The place she is sent to and it’s routine has a striking resemblance with a prison : “ We are allowed outside for an hour each day, into a fenced pen off the north wing.[…] The fences are topped with barbed wire. Guards sit in booths and observe.”(46). All of this creates an eerie vibe to the world “ Moving on” is set in, without having to go through a lengthy setting at the beginning.
Simon Perras-Dyotte 1633857
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At beginning, I thought this story is about how a woman with the deep love of his past husband moves on. But with the plot developing, I’m confused. “But once that work is dome, the Placement Team orders me to pack two bags of essentials, good for any climate.They take the keys to our house, our car. A crew will come in, price it all; a sale will be advertised; all the neighbors will come.”(44). I have no idea what this Placement Team is.In my knowledge , if my husband died, the house and car, everything belonged to us will belongs to me. How could this organization take the keys of my house and my car? That’s my right to deal with my stuff. How could they sell my stuff? That’s wired and absurd. If that’s me, I would not let anyone or anyone organization do this thing. Then the widow is forced to be sent to the shelter in some rural place. The ” Moving On for Widows” seminar is also ridiculous. ” I ‘m supposed to pretend our wedding day was lonely, and that rather than love and happiness.”(46). They try to erase all good memories of her husband and her, even demonize her husband, that’s not the way of moving on. Then they separate her and her roommate, separate her and the window friend. After eight months she is picked, that means she is prepared to get married again. What shocks me again is that,” My Placement Team takes me to a dinner”,” The Team introduces us and, after some papers are signed, leaves.”(54). That means I can not decide my marriage, as this Team makes decision of when and who I should get married. Those ridiculous things sound like in some undeveloped and uncivilized country, but that happens in the US, as it says:” My father ended up in one of these shelters in Florida.”(45).The Placement Team acts like a dictator in the second marriage of those who lost wife and husband. I think this is an ironic story about the living situation of widow and widowers as they are forced to move on.
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Yes, the exact point is that this imaginary situation is absurd! Allow yourself to become wrapped up in the fictional universe of the story. I have something important I’d like to chat with you about in regards to this response. Please stop by my office when you get a chance.
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Right from the beginning this short story grabbed my attention because of how the main character describes her life situation.
“[..] I felt doubt, dread. It’s all very hard, but they say, it’s helpful in getting placed” (46)
What kind of place is this? They are handed a manual, to life? and are told to basically think of their loved ones the opposite. The manual says one thing, but individuals who are staying at this place, still believe in their own thoughts, which are different. She describes the manual to make her feel failure instead of something positive.
“We are allowed outside for an hour each day, into a fenced pen off the north wing” [..] “Guards sit in booths and observe” (46) Why were they put into a closed area? Even though it sounds terrible when she describes it, the main character and others on her floor seem to enjoy it for a certain amount of time.
She ask herself a question “Is there any difference between us beyond a few letters in our names?” Widows go in and out of that place, almost as they meant nothing to the society, and men had the choice of picking their own wife.
“But I had not prepared for something like this. Had he? Had my husband kept some part of himself separate so he could give it to someone else if he needed to? Was it possible I too had managed to withhold something of myself without even realizing it? I hoped so” (48) This part was interesting due to the fact that she actually thought of this, while going through hard times without her husband. She asks herself a question about the husband, that she could not get an answer from anyone, and hopes she had left something out too. As perfect as she found her husband, the left-out information between her and him, could be later on discovered and actually shaped into perfection she did not think existed besides him.
Patryk Majewski
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Good thoughts and discoveries in here. It might be helpful in these responses to have fewer citations, and say a bit more about them. It would have been cool to see you develop one or two of these ideas in more depth.
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I found this story very straightforward in terms that it’s very detailed and describes everything that these characters especially the main one think about and how they feel towards something. There were a couple moments of fire like when the main character and the guy who waved at her from his window finally met and started laughing and talking to each other and when the first woman in this story tried running away from the infirmary. A lot of questions started forming in my head about people running away from the infirmary. Throughout this book it states that most of the women were friendly with each other and they always baked and did their own things. If that was the case, why do some people try to run away? Is it because they don’t want to be chosen to be with a new man? Even the main character says, “Curiously, I find myself rooting for her” (Cook 51). Is there something in this infirmary that’s hidden from the readers that only the characters in the book know? I think it’s because they feel that they can live life on their own and don’t need any help to guide them to a better life. What I really like about this story is just that how the words are formed it makes it seem as if the reader is in the book and they’re experiencing all the action. It’s also not a story that you have to think about and that’s what makes everything straight to the point. My last question towards this story is, does the main character really miss her husband? Doesn’t seem like it but at the same time it does seem like it.
Brandon Marshall
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You say the following: “It’s also not a story that you have to think about and that’s what makes everything straight to the point.” I want you to think about every story we read. That’s the point! I believe you can put more though into your responses.
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This story bothered me a lot and I don’t think I like it. It’s not like it wasn’t, because it definitely was well written, but I just don’t like it. Throughout the whole thing, I felt an underlying feeling of frustration. It wasn’t that strong, but I definitely felt it. I don’t know why I was frustrated though. Probably because it made me angry how these people have to get sent to shelters like some sort of animals, like they’re not real people. The husbands and wives are just replaceable objects and I can’t imagine what kind of society would need this to be the case. I hate how fake everything about the ideal life that the woman wants to live feels, but at the same time I know that her emotions are genuine. The part from the bottom of page 52 where she starts describing a bunch of domestic things in her letter to her window friend, though it’s actually her husband, is a heck of a fiery moment because it made me feel sick. The letter seems so sweet, but knowing that her tone is in near hysterics is what really makes this so awful. Even if it were written calmly, I still think it would have made me feel gross. I really can’t figure out how to formulate why that desire for domesticity makes me feel so bad. Maybe it’s related to what I said earlier about the falseness mixed with genuine feelings. I kind of liked the ending though. I mean, not that I liked it, but it’s more like I didn’t mind it after reading the whole story. Her future doesn’t seem bleak, from what I’ve gathered, and that’s enough for me. Overall, I can’t say that it’s a bad story, because it isn’t. It just made me feel emotions I would rather not.
Luka Vaguidov
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Here’s a lesson. You say the following: “The husbands and wives are just replaceable objects and I can’t imagine what kind of society would need this to be the case.” You also say, “It just made me feel emotions I would rather not.” If a story is making you feel emotions, then it reminds you of something in this society. Or else, you would feel nothing. In what way are people replaceable in our world?
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Throughout this short story, the protagonist is trying to grieve her husband, while being told by people how she is meant to do so. The story in itself presents a very inhumane and odd situation. When we think of shelters for people, we think of places to sleep when need be. This shelter is different; it is a building housed by women until they are chosen by their future husband. This system makes them look like objects and makes them seem worthless. While they are in there, the Case Managers give them pamphlets and books that tell them how to feel and how they are meant to grieve. Everybody deals with death differently but they try to implement these norms on these women so they are “over it” and out of the shelter as quickly as possible. This entire system and process is inhumane. One of these techniques is to “replace (their) husband’s face in (their) memory with this man’s face while being careful not to get too attached” (46). When someone dies, we try to keep the good memories and to remember them. In this situation, the idea is to repress their feelings and try to forget about their late husbands to feel ready for someone new. This is irrational and unhealthy however, the people who work at the shelter seem to be running ‘a business’ and cannot be preoccupied by how the women are actually doing. The shelter also bears some resemblances with a prison, “the fences are topped with barbed wire” and “there are runners who try to escape at night” (46-47). These passages illustrate the type of environment the women are living in. It’s unhealthy and not normal to be in such an place because your husband died. People go to prison for their actions but here, the women are forced in these shelters simply because the person they loved died.
Mireille Jauvin
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Good. Go further in your thoughts about the stories we’re reading.
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The story starts off intensely with a very haunting and melancholic paragraph. At first glance, I pictured a story about a widow grieving her husband’s death but I wasn’t quite sure where it would lead to. The author starts of the tragedy with “they” naturally, I wonder: who is “they”? As the story moves forward I begin to get a better sense of the setting and context. The idea of having widows sent to shelters where people’s careers consist of guarding them in order to “help” them move on seems very insensitive to me. In my opinion, the fact that there are even handouts, packets and seminars on how to mourn a loved one as if it was something that could be taught in such a short period of time or even taught at all is a very uncommon and unexpected a concept. However, I also find it interesting. I think the author developed that approach with so many different emotions that resulted in a very strong story. The strongest and most touching part of this piece of fiction for me was when she read the letter she wrote to her window friend and realized it was in fact intended for her husband. “Here is my love letter, my apology: please come home.” I can’t say I perfectly understand the analogy the author is trying to make with the idea of “moving on” shelters and lessons. Perhaps it is an exploration of the social expectations that people must mourn during a set period of time that emotions simply can’t follow. However, I, much like other readers, can appreciate this piece immensely considering how we all know or can imagine the pain of loosing a loved one.
Isabelle Bujold
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I find the environment of “Moving On” to be very unique and interesting. The narrator describes the camp as a “… spa facility on lock down”(45). A facility that (in theory) helps you to be a happier person (or happier future wife). You can enjoy many activities like cooking, baking, and knitting with your group of friends, but under strict watch of the guards and workers. It is an interesting juxtaposition, inside this dark, suffocating fenced prison-like facility is a bright paradise for you to get back in the real world. For them to help you, they must take away your freedom and put you in cage, but what’s special about this cage is that you get toys and games to enjoy yourself with, that is what I see when I imagine a facility like Moving On.
I find it very funny that the narrator was sent off to Moving on. I understand that she it was to help her get over the loss of her husband, but I find that Moving On essentially forces you to stop mourning and forget everything about your lost loved ones, and once they think you are suitable, they’ll ship you off to another partner. It is as if they view relationships merely as a routine instead of a deep, emotional feeling. This is so systematic, and not very human like. you must follow their system and cannot do as you are pleased. The narrator had a deep desire to be with her window friend in the male camp, she could have potentially started a life with this man. But instead, they chose to separate them for good. Which is ironic because Moving On is suppose to help you get back into society, and she could have started a new life with her window friend, but they chose to reject it.
Avishek Paul
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An interesting look at the irony inherent in this story.
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Initially, the setting of “Moving On” by Diane Cook immediately struck me as being a dismal world where individuals’ freedom is based on the assets they own. “But once that work is done, the Placement Team orders me to pack two bags of essentials, good for any climate. They take the keys to our house, our car. I have a good shot at getting chosen, since I’m a good decorator and we have some pretty nice stuff to sell off and so my dowry will likely be enticing (44).” I’m conflicted between considering it a critique of society because of all the links that could be made with arranged marriages or societies where women are otherwise seen as property, or considering it as an exercise in imagining a world of totalitarian control like Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. I wondered who this eerie Placement Team represented. Could it be the government or the Church as an institution framing marriage? Was the author trying to convey a message about the way society’s judgment of our relationship status can act as an oppressive force, either secluding us into unhappy singles groups or forcing us into marriages with people we don’t know and aren’t even sure we like?
“I am his second wife. His first wife is in a shelter on a road that leads to the interstate outside of Tucson. […] He didn’t cause their broken marriage. She did (54).” This theme of money equating to power and freedom in interpersonal relationships disturbed me at first, and I wondered how it could be that his ex-wife would willingly break up their marriage if it meant being left with no property of her own. This story got me thinking about freedom versus not being lonely, and the degree to which we value each of these things it in our society. In fact, this religious obsession with what “the manual says” (51) or what “[it] often states” (55) is a second nature for some like her Case Manager, who has internalized this rehearsed way of thinking about love and dating. I thought of her as that self-professed dating coach I’ve had in every group of girlfriends, obsessively repeating Cosmopolitan tips at her newly single comrades as if being single was a piranha infested tank to get out of at any cost. Meanwhile, others like our main character continue to somewhat silently rebel against this robotic way of viewing interpersonal relationships that is imposed upon them. The woman finds freedom in the idea of eloping into the wilderness with her window buddy : “In the letter, I am begging. My tone near hysterics. I promise that we’ll find a house, unoccupied in the woods […] I insist we’ll be the lucky ones (52).” She still seeks a wild, romantic fervor that can only exist outside of her society’s conventions. She also lets herself enjoy all the food she craves and this is like an act of rebellion within a society that thinks of her as a commodity which must constantly be looking a certain way to conserve its value : “Now my pants don’t fit. My Case Manager finally intervenes and tells me to cut it out (53)”.
-Anna Romanowski
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Terrific, deep reading of this story. Very thorough. To answer this question: “I’m conflicted between considering it a critique of society because of all the links that could be made with arranged marriages or societies where women are otherwise seen as property, or considering it as an exercise in imagining a world of totalitarian control like Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.” 1984 was, of course, a critique of society. So, it’s both!
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Im not quite sure what to make of “Moving on”… it was a very different take on modern life. While reading i had a lot of questions like: why where they in a prison like environment? or why do they need to be chosen.
All these questions i have found to still be un- answered even after having read the story. I find it curious that even though there is a system in place that seems to be very self help style, the rest just seems like no one is free. Like they cannot make their own decisions or be who they want to be. This is an interesting aspect of this story that i cant seem to unravel. When people from different floors than her say that they want to escape, and when they do they get chased at by dogs and what not. But what makes them dangerous to society if they do escape? is it that they require such a population to grow stagnantly and if the women escape then all hell breaks loose. This is a very unlikely situation seeing as they get paced into houses with other husbands and appear to be content with their lives.
In terms of the way the book is worded its carefully stated and makes the reader feel like he or she is in the prison with her. An interesting feeling while reading it and i honestly am very confused as of now.
Mathew de Marchie
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I expect a more careful reading a more thoughtful response from these assignments.
Minus.
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This short story reminds me of the handmaid’s tale, though with some key differences. Naturally, one would compare these two stories. The first few pages of this short story could quite literally be slid into some part of the handmaid’s tale and few readers would notice. It’s that similar. The similarities, however, come with one main contrasting difference. The Handmaid’s Tale is almost exclusively sexist, whereas Moving On oppresses both sexes based on socioeconomic criteria. This narrative almost feels like an institutionalized, far fetched version of our current society. Evidently, this story has an all too typical dystopian future aspect. Something horrible happened, society has changed, and humanity survives in a hyper-authoritarian government. However, if one separates this overused narrative from the rest of the story, one can drawn an interesting link between this story and our current society. In this story’s world, love is assigned by the government through socio-economic criteria. This is displayed by the fact that there is a men’s shelter for poor men, and that the good-looking individuals, men and women, get assigned new marriages very quickly. This society is clearly biased towards men, but does not exclusively oppress women. This phenomena is displayed with the protagonist’s reference to the men’s shelter, being “smaller, and mainly for widowers who are poor or who cannot look after themselves.” (Cook, 45).
As dystopian as this institutionalization of love may seem, how is it much different from our current world? We, as individuals, marry other individuals based on mostly physical and socio-economic factors. Though our current romantic trends are dominated by a free market of individuals choosing freely amongst themselves, how are the choices that they make much different from the ones assigned in this society? The horrid, mean woman that replaced the protagonist’s friend “was very beautiful and was chosen after only four days.” (Cook, 49). Thought it is not explicitly stated in this narrative, it is evident that this fictional society is ruled by an upper class which satisfies itself with humanity’s most beautiful creatures. This is referenced when the protagonist talks about how her father was put into a shelter and chosen by “A wealthy woman who had put her career first..” (Cook, 45). How is this any different, however, from our society? While our society uses soft power to achieve this end, this fictional society uses force. Means put aside, I don’t see much difference in the end result. Our society is only more palatable for one reason: we have the illusion of choice.
-Samuel Dion-Dundas
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Indeed. I greatly enjoy reading your responses. Keep up the great work.
Plus.
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The story “moving on” by Diane Cook is a story that when I finished reading, I was left with feelings of confusion and bitterness. The ‘shelter’ the narrator was staying in was so sketchy, it was described and almost seemed like a prison. The women she ‘lived’ with had so many rules to obey and were not able to have contact with the outside world; unless they were ‘chosen’. It was inhumane. Why punish them when they did nothing wrong? Didn’t the women there have any family? The story is really intriguing and so interesting although, there are many things that are wrong with it for example, if you are a widow, you’re basically sent to this place where they lock you up until you ‘move on’ and someone new wants to marry you. They even have methods that the women had to follow to ‘forget’ the good memories with their loved ones and replace them with bad ones instead “I’m to remember seeing my husband for the first time (…) then imagine the moment happening differently” (45-46 Cook). The narrator was sent there to move on from the death of her husband but does this really help someone move on? I strongly doubt it. Especially forcing her to remarry a stranger afterwards; it’s crazy. Obviously she didn’t want to be there, all she wanted was to be free. I was able to feel her sadness and the helplessness in her voice. She thinks her stay at the shelter helped her move on but I don’t think it did, no one can force themselves to love someone they don’t even know.
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Good thoughts. Try to get beyond a general summary of the story. I was intrigued by this sentence: “I was able to feel her sadness and the helplessness in her voice.” Interesting. How? Dissecting a passage that gave you this feeling would have been much more impactful.
Check.
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*****ISABELLE BUJOLD’S CORRECT VERSION*****
The story starts off intensely with a very haunting and melancholic paragraph. At first glance, I pictured a story about a widow grieving her husband’s death but I wasn’t quite sure where it would lead to. The author starts of the tragedy with “they” naturally, I wonder: who is “they”? As the story moves forward I begin to get a better sense of the setting and context. The idea of having widows sent to shelters where people’s careers consist of guarding them in order to “help” them move on seems very insensitive to me. In my opinion, the fact that there are even handouts, packets and seminars on how to mourn a loved one as if it was something that could be taught in such a short period of time or even taught at all is a very uncommon and unexpected a concept. However, I also find it interesting. I think the author developed that approach with so many different emotions that resulted in a very strong story. The strongest and most touching part of this piece of fiction for me was when she read the letter she wrote to her window friend and realized it was in fact intended for her husband. “Here is my love letter, my apology: please come home.” I can’t say I perfectly understand the analogy the author is trying to make with the idea of “moving on” shelters and lessons. Perhaps, just like Karen Carlson mentions on her blog sloopie72.wordpress.com, it is an exploration of the social expectations that people must mourn during a set period that emotions simply can’t follow. I can, however, much like other readers, appreciate this piece immensely considering how we all can imagine the pain of losing a loved one.
Isabelle Bujold
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This is an interesting response. I feel like you can dig deeper than this. Consider this sentence: “The idea of having widows sent to shelters where people’s careers consist of guarding them in order to “help” them move on seems very insensitive to me.” Well, of course. But, this is a little self-evident. Try to go beyond the obvious.
Check.
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On the very first page of the story the style of writing stood right out to me. The recent widow is talking about her dowry and why it’s so big: “And the car is pretty new, and in the last year I was the only one who could drive it and I kept it clean” (44). It isn’t that there is necessarily anything wrong with how the sentence is written, but for what I assumed was a heavily edited piece a line with three and’s surprised me since it doesn’t exactly flow. That’s when I started to notice the very strong voice that was emerging from the story. This came from the short and simple sentences that were abundant in this piece. Not necessarily eloquent but not, not either. This served to give me an idea of the widow as if she was talking to me. To me it seemed that she was somebody who was very simple minded, the way everything was to her, was right and the series of events after her husband’s death made sense. This all set up for what I thought was the biggest “fire” in this story. After the case manager finds the widow’s letter to her window friend she confronts her about it and at the end of the letter she has a thought: “Of course, I’m writing to my husband” (53). This line is so great because it blindsides you. One, up until here you think that she seems to be moving on from her husband which is confusing because just forgetting a loved one so easily doesn’t make sense. So it’s refreshing in this moment we see she hasn’t actually moved on. But going back to the style of writing and the widow’s voice it also blindsides you because the line comes out of seemingly nowhere without any buildup. That is except for the last line about raking the leaves which attentive readers will catch. She is very simple in how she admits it’s a letter to her husband but that will inspire you to go back and re-read the letter finding a whole new meaning. That’s whats fire to me, that something so simple can have such a big impact.
Jeffrey Smith
Sorry this is late it’s because I was away for the intensive course.
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Wonderful response. Original. This is the second to last response I’m reading, and you managed to say something profound that no one else said (looking at the style of the writing). That’s worth a lot.
Plus.
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Upon reading the first page of this story, I thought it was about a woman who was mourning her husband in a society where people lived by arranged marriages. This was my initial thought because the narrator said that “burdened women are more difficult to place” (44). Although “arranged marriages” would not be the right term, I don’t believe my thought was far off. This story presents a society where relationships are controlled by rules of society and, if you are to lose your spouse, you are sent off to one of the prison-like establishments until you are chosen to be married again.
I liked the narrative style of this story where events are described through different journal entries. This style of writing is helpful in identifying character development and important events because those are the one the narrator will speak of. One of these important events and certainly the biggest moment of fire is when the narrator sees a light in a window of the neighboring window: “A man is awake, like me. He pads around his small room in pajamas […]. I want to be seen, so I stand in my window. He sees me, steps to his window, and offers a quiet wave. I wave back. We are opposing floats in a parade” (48). This society is trying to fix the broken men and women who have lost their spouses by dictating the way people feel about each other. The way the rules try to make the widowers erase their passed partners is disgusting and makes it hard for people to be in touch with their feelings. This is why it was so special when the narrator exclaims her desire to be seen; it lets us see the fire of her heart. The narrator is not meant for a place like this and is brave enough to consider running away with her window friend. That’s what I loved about this story: the runners. They are the only ones brave enough to even try to get something more than what their forced way of life would bring them.
Charlotte Vézina-Dufresne
(I was away at an intensive course on the due date)
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I really like how you focus on the narrator’s desire to be seen. So interesting. An idea that could be explored further.
Plus.
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