Sea Inside Post 3

It seems the in The Sea Inside the director loved to use close ups to create intimacy with the characters and show the deep emotions during certain situations. Julia was puzzled in one scene why Ramon would want to die even though he could still live his life out. The director uses a close up on Julia’s face when Ramon is explaining to her why he wants to die. This particular shot shows emotion on Julia that indicates her somber feeling. A particularly confusing part of the film is when Ramon dreams of flying to the sea where he finds his Julia. When he arrives Julia is drawing nearer and nearer to him to a point where they find each other inches away. The director takes advantage of this time to give emotions of the love between Julia and Ramon with a close up of their lips as they begin kissing on the beach. Finally the use of the close up is used in the most emotional section of the film when Ramon gives his final speech. Clearly the use of the close up to create deep emotional connections between the characters in the movie and the audience.

Sea Inside Post 2

The Sea Inside and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly have many similarities and differences that depict the likeness of the characters in each book. There are many similarities between The Sea Insides and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. First both Ramon and Jean Dominique-Bauby don’t enjoy life as a quadriplegic and both reminisce about their previous lives. They both also have to rely on others to take care of them on a day to day basis. It hurts Bauby and Ramon both to see the affect they have on their loved ones after their accidents. Lastly they both wrote books during their time as a quadriplegic before both dying. There are also many differences between The Sea Inside and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. In The Sea Inside Ramon can talk to his family and care takes to communicate which is far superior to Bauby’s situation where he can only blink for communication. Also in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Jean Dominique-Bauby try to live out his life as long as possible to be with his family and loved one. Where as in The Sea Inside Ramon wishes to be put out of the misery of being quadriplegic.

Sea Inside Post 1

The Sea Inside was a very emotional and controversal movie than many people disagree about. I think that this film was very good and showed the side of things that i have never seen before. If I were asked if a quadrapilegic should be allowed to take his own life he wants to i would probably say that i don't think it is right for him to do that and he should continue living his life. But after seeing the Sea Inside my views have changed drastically. Now if I were asked
that same question i would probably say that if he feels that way he should be allowed to take his own life. This movie shows that this man clearly feels that he cannot love or live his life to the fullist even when in this bad situation. I think that Ramon's request to die was kind of the easy way out. I realize that if that is what he wants to do he should be able to do that. Saying he cannot love the way he is was one thing that i didn't believe though of Ramon. It was clear to me that Ramon and Julia had a very close relationship and really did love eachother. As for all of Ramon's friends they did the right thing in helping their loved one. No one else could understand how Ramon was feeling than his own family and friends and they knew that no matter how much it hurt them to kill him that it is what he wanted and they felt obligated to help him. The Sea Inside is an emotional and contraversal movie which forces people to take sides about a man who wants to end his own life.

Week 6 part 1

In the end of Telling by Patricia Francisco I believe she begins to come full circle and have truly gotten through what happened to her that night. After the rape she feels that privatizing her grief was one of the worst things she could have done and regrets that she had been doing it for so long. She believed that she needed had a responsibility to tell people what happened to her and try to prevent other women from making the same mistake she did. Patricia starts to hear more and more about women dying in domestic violence and can't stand to her about it anymore so she calls a friend for help. After being comforted she decided to go to Washington DC for a rape march and found empowerment in marching with other women that went through what she went through. Patricia I believed is explained best through a quote in the story that says "persistence is herioic". I believe that she has been persistent through this rape and strong and this shows to me that she is a hero among her friends and family for being strong through this. One of the strongest things that Patricia does in this section is find the strength to tell her son that she was rape and that takes a lot of strength. This quote explains how Patricia has come around and is a stronger woman after what happened to her. "I'm at home in my skin, warmed by the August sun, cleaned out by the edge of winter in the wind. I push off into the cold black water and swim for the rocky shore of the next island."

Week 5 part 2

Section 5 of Telling is where I see Patricia begin to cope and take a step back and try to fight rape in all places and copes with what happened to her. She takes a look back and understands what went wrong with her and why her marriage was ruined after the rape. After hearing about similar crimes that have happened others in the community she begins attending trials of these men who have serial raped nearly 90 women in the Minneapolis. She goes to the trials to try to give input and help put these men behind bars and hates these men. She can’t stand to look at the men who are under attack in this trial buts finds the more she looks at them the more she remembers what happened to her. All this hate makes her feel as if she needs to be at each trial to watch these men go down. One day while Patricia is in her kitchen she hears an announcement on the radio that the men who are a part of this rape have been sentenced to the longest sentencing in Minnesota state history. On man has been convicted to 139 2/3 years in prison with no parole. The trial takes place in a chapter titled “Justice” and believe that this has a double meaning. Not only did Justice come to those men who had been committing mass rape throughout Minneapolis but I also believe that Patricia Francisco has found justice in this case and will use the result to try to bring down other rapists but also it has helped her to get over what has happened to her.

Week 4 Part 2

In this section of Telling by Patricia Francisco talks a lot about her relationship with men and with her husband. She talks about how although many women take a long time to recover from rape sexually that her and her husband seemed to maintain a healthy sexual life which I believe was good and bad for them. Good because they could still be romantic with each other but her husband would feel guilty and this would lead to problems in the marriage. She talks about love, labor, and loss in her chapter titled Love, Labor, Loss. To explain love she writes about when she conceived her first child with her husband. They were on a trip in Delphi and were looking at temple’s of Greek gods and while in Delphi conceived there son. Labor explains the labors of holding a baby and giving birth to it. But she takes pride in holding her baby as some people take pride in running and weight lifting. And finally Loss is when she ended up losing her husband which was a direct result of the fact that she couldn’t be sexual anymore. Sex became painful and touches where confusing to her. In this section of Telling has many ups and downs and goes from comfortable about sexuality to being scared and hurt my sex even with a man she knew and trusted.

Week 4 Part 1

A quote from Telling says, “ Eighty percent of marriages don’t survive a rape… we note our amazement that our sexual relationship has not been disrupted.” (pg. 113). Patricia Francisco is talking about although she was raped she still maintains a healthy sexual life with her husband. This seems weird because most women are very traumatized by the experience and take a long to get comfortable sexually.Another quote says, “ I love some men. I love them dearly and deeply and passionately and madly. But I have no room for the artists, writers, directors, animators, and account executives who use women in their products as sexual object.” (pg. 116). Although she has began to get through what has happened to her Patricia still cannot stand people who degrade women and treat them with disrespect.

Diving Bell and the Butterfly- Reaction

For the most part The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was an inspiring book of a man who had a need for communicating with the world and did so using only his left eye to tell people what he was feeling. I really enjoyed most of the book and but some of the book was very confusing. Times when Jean Dominique-Bauby would begin talking about how he would dance with the empress of France in his dreams were confusing and it was hard to decipher when he was dreaming of if he was talking of real events in the present of past.


I found most of this book to be mostly depressing as Bauby would talk about how his some doctors wouldn’t listen to him and couldn’t even do some of the things most of us take for granted. Things that we may take for granted are eating whatever we want, in this book he would be forced to eat and drink through a feeding tube and couldn’t even enjoy or taste his food. I could never imagine what it must have been like for him to have to make pretend that he would be eating a delectable meal. Another thing that seems to be simple and just a reflex for most people is swallowing. Unfortunately he couldn’t swallow on his own and would end up oozing drool all over himself. Finally one of the most depressing thing in this story for me was when you could tell that he was in a day dream and was having a wonderful time with his family and was talking with them you would get such a good feeling. But the worst part about this was the fact that he would wake to find himself in fact locked into his body and in great pain and cramped up for being in the same position for a very long time. In conclusion the Diving Bell and the Butterfly I found to be motivational because it shows even with such a horrible syndrome this man finds a way inside that diving bell to be free as his mind flew free as a butterfly.

Week 3 part 2

I believe the book Telling by Patricia has many more weaknesses than it does strengths. The book is a boring read that is very repetative and doesnt entertain me as a reader. It has its high points which are usually quite graffic because she will be explaining the rape. It is hard to explain each section of this book because it is so hard to distiguish what she is talking about. She goes between past and present very frequently even from one paragraph to another which makes it hard to read. But a strength of this book is the feeling that is put into it. You can feel what the writer is feeling because of this horrific thing that has happened to her. This book relates to many peoples lives even though you may not think so many women have have been sexually assaulted in there lives. Although it doesnt relate to my life it does affect the way I look at other people. I predict that after learning how to vent her anger and tell people about through telling and writing it she will come back to loving her husband and her marriage and family will come back together. The main feeling i get from this book is a sad one because all she talks about is being attacked and ravaged over and over by this man and the fact that she may never be able to get past that and may never be secure. That feeling is one that will mostly affect me after Im done reading this memoir.

Telling Week 3 part 1

1.When she goes to the doctor after the rape Patricia Francisco was told she shouldn't bath because it would erraticate any evidence from the rape. This information was very disheartening because after such a horrific experience she couldnt even go home and clean herself up. Before she was raped she decided to take defense classes which she thought would never help her in life but in the time that those would come to use she couldnt use them because she use what she had learned. If walking around at night wasn't scary enough for Patricia she was also scared to even walk alone or in daylight and even just in open spaces she feared for her life. She tells a story about how her and her friend went on a walk around a lake in Minneapolis and it began to rain out so they ran to a shelter. Although she was with her friend she suddenly became terrified by a man that seeked shelter just like them. This rape has clearly affected her deeper than I originally thought, because she is afraid of every man she sees. She makes it clear in this section that many women dont think that it is necessary to tell anyone that they were raped and think that no one cares where as it is actually the complete opposite. She writes about a poem that she found that gave her confidence and bravery. It talked about women walking confidently, strongly, and as a big, strong, confident woman. Patricia is jealous of children who are so innocent and dont know about the world yet so they dont fear many things or people until one day they are hurt and then learn to be scared and more reserved and she hates that that must happened to them. Another thing she finds empowerment from a movie which shows a radical portrayal of rape. It is about a women that is raped for political reasons and uses it to empower herself and other women to help her people. Patricia Francisco describes this woman as neither a victim or a survivor but as a leader. Gradually Patricia is coming around now, she wants to live with men and is not as afraid of them. She begins to lose sexuality in her marriage though and this hurts husband very much because he feels that he just contributes to the memory of the rape every time he and his wife have sex, and doesnt want to be associated to rape. Finally the anger that builds in patricia after the rape contributes to the becoming more distanced form her husband.

2. Patricia Weaver Francisco was born in Detroit, Michigan and attended the University of Michigan and recieved a bachelors degree in journalism. She has been living in Minneapolis, Minnesota since 1974. She recieved the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1997. She also recieved the Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction and grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board. She was the associate editor of Minnesota Monthly magazine and teaches creative writing in the MFA program at Hamline University. Other books she wrote are Cold Feet, Village Without Mirrors, and Lunacy.