The Writer As Explorer

This week I have decided to write about “The Preacher Collects” by Gail Levin. This story was not what I first envisioned it to be. I had the idea that it would have some sort of focus on religion. Looking at the artwork I was intrigued to find out how the author would relate it to such things, but that isn’t what we got. We got more of an account on other’s lives which I am sure most of it was fiction, but it was more of regurgitated information with elements of a story that was not fully executed or told to its full potential. The author also inserts herself into the piece which to me makes me feel as though they wanted to give realism to it, but honestly it made it more confusing to me than anything else. There are obviously elements of a story here, but I do not think that the author had found it.

“The Preacher Collects” by Gail Levin felt very different from some of the other things we have read so far. The point of view is first person, and yet the narrator is telling things in such a way that it feels like it is from a third person point of view. The story is very surface level, and feels more like a catalog of events than a story that the reader can feel a part of. There is also very little to no dialogue between characters; the narrator only really focuses on when and what happened in the story. This creates even more disconnect for the reader and the story, making all the other characters feel very one-dimensional.

This does, however, say a lot about the narrator. Though he sees keeping the artwork ‘safe’ as a good thing, he is really stealing from a dying family and selling their things later on. He feels that he needs to be recognized for his efforts when he begins talking to the museum curator, even though she is right in the fact that he stole from the Hopper family. Much like the way the story is told, the narrator is very superficial and interested in what really matters to him. This even applies to noting the death dates of other characters; he is proud of the fact that he outlived everyone else and got the better end of the deal.

“The Preacher Collects” by Gavin Levin is so ironic to the point that it is almost funny but also exposes the injustices carried out on the people involved. In this story, we meet Reverend Sanborn although his actions are anything but holy. From the start, he looked for any opportunity to take advantage of others to better his own life. He talks about the many institutes he attended, which were listed similarly to his resume, and explains why he took his current job “My job came with the security of a home, just next to the church, where I lived with my wife, Ruth, and our four children.” He never mentions God or why he chose to become a Preacher.He feels no remorse for stealing from others. He even uses the church as the gateway to taking advantage of Marion. He knew that Marion was the sister of the famous artist Edward Hopper so he uses it to hid advantage. When Edward’s wife, Jo, says she expected that Marion’s church friends would help care for her sister-in-law, he says “That is where I came into the picture”. By distracting Marion with a new television, Sanborn finds old art pieces of Edward’s and starts to “collect” them for his financial gain.
An eye-opening and disturbing part of the story is where he quotes Ephesians 4:28: “He who steals must steal no longer but he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.” Since he is a narcissist he relates this to him being able to give back to himself and his own family even though the people he is stealing from were the ones in actual need. It shows how deeply delusional he is to believe his acts are justified.

During the Hoppers’ last years alive, the couple suffered misfortune with their health. An example: Jo developing glaucoma to the point where she couldn’t see. If Reverend had used the money he had stolen they could’ve gotten her surgery, instead, he tricked her into changing her will so that he was in it.

When Gail Levin comes to help authenticate the paintings, we as readers, hope she will catch on to the Reverend’s deceit. It’s a very prominent saying that “ what is done in the dark will come to light” and I think this is what we expected to see. Unfortunately, real life is not a fairy tale so evil does sometimes prosper. When it is revealed that Levin has caught on to the Reverend and his thievery, our hope of the truth coming out is quickly diminished. Greed overcomes both the Reverend and Levin’s boss as they make a deal to exchange a record book for the firing of Levin. The irony of evil overcoming good shows the darkness of the world we live in and that no one is absent of sin.

The most prominent theme in “The Music Room” is the thumping. The first thought after reading this is the complete similarity to the “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. We see this, sort of, different look at a recurring noise.

The difference between this story and the “Tell-Tale Heart” is the state of being of the main characters. In “Tell-Tale Heart” we see the breakdown of a person, a withering of the mind, through one’s activities. In “The Music Room,” the tone is almost unbothered. In “Tell-Tale Heart” there are two main things that symbolize the characters’ feelings. There, first, is the eye of the old man we meet on page one, which symbolizes evil, and the heart which thumps throughout the story, which symbolizes the guilt of the character with every beat that thumps. In “The Music Room,” I feel as if the two main characters, Mr. and Mrs. Enderby, represent these exact images. Because of the pure, unbothered nature of the man, it only suits to be the image of evil. The slight deviance from the male character, in the female character, is the essence of worry. She still has the unbothered factor to her, but she explains how she doesn’t particularly enjoy having to wait while they die. While these two characters are on a different scale than the eye and the heart, they play their roles as if they were the same.

With both of these ideas in mind, we can see that the dynamics of these stories are somewhat similar. I think the difference is really in the feelings of the characters. In “Tell-Tale Heart,” it centers around a man who is caught up with his guilt. In “Music Room,” guilt is somewhat of an afterthought. There are mentions of “part of you enjoys it, I think. Not this part,” and “I wish he’d stop,” but there is only an undertone of guilt. The story finishes with more jokes and less worry, and it seems as if the longer you read the more insidious these people become.

“We may be thieves, but we are not murders.” The difference between these characters is the Enderbys have no claim to what they have done, while the “Tell Tale Heart” is consumed by it.

There is almost nothing out of the ordinary in this story once one knows its author. Stephen King is notorious for his horror novels and “The Music Room” is no different. King is able to take a perfect, seemingly average painting and put his own mysterious, gruesome spin on it. Something I found to be quite interesting, however, is how King made this painting something that stands out as its own new thing. After reading his short story “The Music Room,” one’s view is permanently impacted by it and thus, won’t see the painting the same way again. There’s a quote in the story that alludes to this quite nicely in my opinion:

“People claim to root for the hero, but it’s the villains they remember” (120).

The act of turning the Enderby’s into “villains” in a sense fulfills the purpose of this line; they’re memorable. With regards to “rooting for the hero,” the Enderby’s sense of detachment can apply to this. It almost makes us sympathetic for them when learning more about their situation initially. They’re living through the Great Depression and are trying to survive in their own way. We do lose that sympathy however when we learn Mr. Timmons, the man held captive, is their sixth victim.

The story also includes quite a lot of foreshadowing. From the thumping in the closet, to the music (eventually used to cover the dying sounds of Mr. Timmons), to the quote above, we are never truly unaware. The slow progression towards the reveal of the Enderby’s true intentions is well paced and thought out. We are constantly learning new things about them while also enjoying their authenticity towards each other.

“The Music Room” provides a look into the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Enderby, who kidnap and extort businessmen in order to pay off their needs during the Great Depression. The story itself is quite short, but its content compensates for the length. Mr. and Mrs. Enderby treat their profession with complete emotional detachment–there is not an ounce of empathy to be found from either of their characters towards their victims–however, something Mrs. Enderby stated fascinated me on page 123: 

“We may be thieves, but we are not murderers.”

When she said this, I thought there was perhaps a moral code that this couple goes by, where they are willing to steal money, but they do not feel they have the right to decide if someone dies. That thought is quickly snuffed out a few lines later when Mrs. Enderby says:

“But we are not murderers. Our guests simply lack sustenance, as do so many in these terrible times. We don’t kill them; they simply fade away.”

She is so detached from what they do that she pins the cause of death onto the ‘guests’ themselves and views it as fading away due to a common helplessness experienced by others, not tracing it back to what she and her husband do. Additionally, she deludes herself into thinking that whatever family their guests have (if any) will have enough wealth and/or connections to survive without them. 

Mr. and Mrs. Enderby do not come off as people one may be capable of hating, and that is where Stephen King’s talent comes into play; he makes them understandable and even somewhat sympathetic.

My initial impression of “The Music Room,” before and after I started reading, was how unnerving it was.  This was something I had expected (to that extent) when I realized that the author was Stephen King, though I was still taken completely by surprise by the actions of the two characters, Mr. and Mrs. Enderby.  I never would have guessed that someone would take a simple setting of the painting Room in New York and turn it into something sinister, though I’m not surprised it was Stephen King to do it.

However, what stood out to me the most was the uncanny feeling of emotional detachment from Mr. and Mrs. Enderby.  It stood out like a sore thumb.  Even when Mrs. Enderby started getting a bit agitated by the subject’s screaming — one Mr. Timmons, who they had abducted and stole from — she never seemed bothered by their current actions, only the idea of expanding on their previous plans.  The reason why this stands out so much is because it doesn’t feel as if the husband/wife duo desensitized themselves to their crimes.  Instead, it feels like they were this emotionally detached in the first place, perhaps why they turned to this line of “work” at the start of the Great Depression.

The first paragraph also adds to this uneasy sensation of the story, as you expect it to be a perfectly “normal” story that doesn’t include kidnapping wealthy individuals and starving them to death (since murdering is not okay, Mrs. Enderby is clear about that).  The beginning introduces us to what could’ve been the Enderby’s, with a nursery, a baby, and loving parents.  But when the reader remembers this beginning, after the horror of all that the Enderbys have done, it shakes the foundation the entire story is based on.

• Rejected the usage of forenames and was gender-nonconforming, opting to use the names Peter and Hig interchangeably. When an art society that they were vice president of referred to them as “Miss Gluck,” they resigned.
• Established a “paint war” against the quality of paint during the 1950s, having become unsatisfied with the unreliability and inconsistency of the medium. They were able to persuade the British Standards Institution to insinuate a better standard for paints.
• After ending their relationship with Nesta Obermer, Gluck took a 30-year hiatus from art until the 1960s.

• Story: During their 30-year period of artist’s block, Gluck uses this time to reflect on their self-identity and fall back in love with themselves after spending years with the companionship of multiple different people. They have an epiphany about what being alone truly means and uses this to compel their new work.

“There were two doors into this house. The first, in a small unfurnished room, opened directly onto the sea. It could only be entered from the water.”

“Rooms by the Sea” upon its first reading can feel like a dull narrative without true depth or incentive to portray thought-provoking meaning. However, once read a second time, the properties of surrealism begin to take shape. The story inflicts feeling not through the story itself, but rather through how the story is told. The word choice, the emphasis on duplicates, and the unsettling feeling of not quite understanding all tie into the overall ‘point’ of the literary piece. Much like the story’s muse, it is surrealism, just in written form.

One key indicator of a recurring theme is showcased through the usage of doubles. There are two doors in the house. One entrance leads to the outside, to civilization, to the living world. The second leads out to the other side, to the sea, to the end of life. The house is simply a vessel, homing those ready for the fate of their people. With the narrator leaving the house, one can assume they’re not quite at that point in their life to readily accept the second portion of their existence.

“Passing by the room that opened onto the sea, she saw that the door was closed. She turned off the lights and locked up the house and walked down the stone path.”

The surrealistic nature that not everything is as it seems is something that lasts well beyond the closing lines. The haunting nature of the story and the mythical properties of the characters call into question what borders on the line between reality and fiction. There is creative potential within the unconscious mind. It balances the rationality of life with the contention of dreams and forces the reader to seek out beauty within the unpredictable and strangeness; the unconventionalness of storytelling and art.

Source.

The investigation into the significance of vision becomes a pivotal key point and consistent theme throughout the short novel. This extends not only to the ideals of artistic vision but as well as the multiple concepts of sight, physically and metaphorically. This is delved into as early as the very beginning of the novel when we learn that Griet’s father loses his sight in a kiln incident after having been a prominent tile painter that previously had awarded him a position in an artistic guild. His blindness introduces us to the interchanging relationship connecting both vision and the loss of sight to each other, as well as the exploration into what we wish to see and what we turn a blind eye to, and the eventual repercussions of these actions.

“You’re so calm and quiet, you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes, hiding in your eyes.”

Throughout the novel, Chevalier traverses through the notions of self-identity and being. As our narrator, Grier becomes our eyes into a world unfamiliar and foreign to a girl of her status and position. We journey with her as she transitions from child to woman; from innocence to experience. And by the end of the story, we are left to decipher if the properties of Griet’s situation left her changing in a way that extended beyond simply growing up, or if she truly did change at all.

Grier quickly realizes that her perception of her family and the family that she has come to work for begin to develop into their own individual worlds that she must navigate separately, as shown through her inner dialogue of having “two families now and they must not mix.” As this idea sets in, and she finds herself drifting from her home life to be fully emerged within Vermeer’s, her own familial ties begin to loosen, and eventually her own moral convictions follow suit. This deterioration is due, in part, to her growing infatuation with Johannes Vermeer himself. This blindness to her own identity and status allows her to sacrifice her morals without truly understanding the weight of the repercussions until it’s almost too late. But she is unable to alter it, because of the emotional and societal power imbalance in place.

“I did whatever he asked of me.”

Van Leeuwenhoek’s cautionary advice about becoming too close to Vermeer takes form. He states, “women in his paintings, he traps them in his world,” which is evident in Griet, who only loses control only when with Vermeer. A piece of her will always remain with the painting.

“For fifteen years, Gregorio Aruna worked among us, building his museum of miniatures here in our village of Monterojo, high in the Sierras de las Marinas, and in all that time, no one was allowed in the door of his museum.”

As we navigate the introduction of Carrie Brown’s “Miniature Man,” we are led to believe that the inhabitants of Gregorio’s museum are untouchable; unreachable – and perhaps they are in a way. His craft is of personal intentions, and his work reflects the life he has conducted, one of self-inflicted solitude, or so we are initially led to believe. And furthermore, as the narration progresses and we tentatively unearth a fragmented storyline told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, we are directed to perceive specific characters in a very specific way. The knowledgeable and wise doctor, Dr. Tomas Xavia. The attentive and doting mother Celeste. The placid and aloof father Carlos. And of course, the idiotic and idealistic fool, Gregorio.

As though to lighten the burden of being wrong, the blame is pointed towards Gregorio, because it is much easier to fault the person who seemingly created their own troubles, rather than acknowledges the lack of attention and awareness for someone who had been holding out for the appreciation of the ones he cherished most, the ones who were inherently his hardest critics, toughest antagonists, and perhaps even his greatest motivators.

It took the complete mutilation of his hands, his singular ability to create his work, for them to notice. Only when he became reliant on their aid were they finally able to notice him, as though for the first time. The work he’d been devoted to for decades and could no longer attend to was finally opened up to an audience that was too close-minded to realize they all were Gregorio’s incentive that spurred him on. His home and family; two things that attempted to break his spirit and ambition, just as the slab of marble broke his hands.

In a dream, Xavia receives the solution to what can be determined as the main conflict of the story.

“I dreamed of Gregorio’s museum, and I seemed to see it all as though I were a child passing slowly before the displays.”

Perhaps the weight of disregarded guilt manifested in his unconscious mind. Celeste then inquires what he believes the museum holds, finally showcasing some level of interest in Gregorio’s work.

“I thought of my dream. ‘Both familiar and strange,’ I said after a minute.”

Xavia then decides to organize an event for the miniaturist and his family to see a video filmed by Gregorio’s nephew of the undiscovered museum following a second dream. Those closest to him could be defined as practical and logical thinkers, so it comes as no surprise that it would be his own artistic nephew, acting as a vessel for the exposure of his work, who is able to finally bring Gregorio’s art into their household.

Even then, the rejoicing of his family once they witness his work feels hollow. On the surface level, the ending of the story seems to convey an atmosphere of joy, yet we can’t help but feel that this gratitude has been long delayed and has grown stale. What does it mean to Gregorio, who can no longer continue this work that they now so wildly praise? It falls flat. It’s not enough. His art was always talented, long before his accident. But it took the dismantling of his life for his family to finally recognize this, and it’s too late.

In “Nighthawks” by Michael Connelly we see, as we have been taught all semester, that observation is the key part within writing and life. Without speaking and observation there is no story and there is nothing happening. In the story, if Bosch had not been so observant with the painting, there would not have been any conversation brought up with Angela. If Angela had not been observant, she would not have known that Bosch had been watching her or the painting the past two days. If Bosch hadn’t been observant he would’ve given Griffin the location of his abused daughter. Adding onto this, if they had not joined together in their appreciation of the art, there would be no story. Additionally, if they had not been brought together by this art, and the job of course, then the daughter could have stayed in the danger. Finally, this piece of writing is quite literally what we are doing in class. Being inspired by art to create writing. Even if it is just sitting in the presence of the art and letting the stories flow through us. The inspiration and simple satisfaction that we get from art is something we all have experienced. I think it’s extremely important to talk about the power that observation holds. Like we saw in Girl with a Pearl Earring, observation adds so much to the story, one could claim it is the story. A piece of writing is the notes of observation.

This short story, based on Edward Hopper’s most famous work by the same name, follows a retired detective now working as a private eye. After tracking a young woman to the museum where the painting Nighthawks is on display, he is accidentally placed into a situation where he must have a conversation with her. She catches him out, and, off the page, tells him about her father, the man who had paid to have her followed. After speaking with her, he decides to tell her father that she wasn’t the right person, and advises her to change states.

What I find interesting about this story is that what happened between the mark and her father is never shared with the reader. There are hints – we know that it happened in Maui and that the father was drunk – but nothing of substance is revealed. This choice makes sense, because the specifics of what happened are not the subject of the story. This is a story about a man who is always alone encountering someone like him and finding some kinship with her. She asks him which of the figures in the painting he is, and explains that she is the man sitting alone. He agrees the he is as well. She is a writer who uses paintings to inspire her work, and he relates this to his own experience of a relationship between studying the saxophone and detective work — it’s unexplainable, but there is a way that inspiration travels through a person to different disciplines. He is not only sympathetic to her situation (perhaps in part because he has daughters of his own), but he experiences a profound connection to her for her appreciation of the painting. I believe that her analysis of the work also gives him some further insight into his own situation, inspiring him to consider things in a way that he never had before.

“Nighthawks” by Michael Connelly speaks of the humanity of man. At the start of the story we are introduced to the Private Detective, Bosch. Bosch is an older man who seems to be deeply focused on his case. His subject is a young woman who is a writer. At the beginning of the story, I perceived Bosch to be a hard detective who will do anything to get the job done but he’s actually surprisingly soft.He tries hard to be sneaky and not get caught trying to watch his subject but fails miserably since she noticed him the day before . He even blows his cover even more by talking to his subject which is actually really funny considering he tried so hard to avoid catching her attention. This interaction shows that Bosch is normal person and not a cold hearted robot just there to do a job. After their conversation, we learn that Bosch was hired by the young woman’s Father. Turns out that her Father had assaulted her and she ran away. In order to keep the young woman safe, Bosch uses his own daughter’s hair to alter the DNA result to give the young woman time to move and escape her Father again.  This act of selflessness showed the humanity that we sometimes do not get to see in detective stories and I really enjoyed reading it.

In “Nighthawks” by Micheal Connelly, the perspective is that of a third person who is limited to following the character of Bosch, a private investigator tasked with looking for Griffin’s runaway daughter. Initially, the reader does not know Bosch’s reasoning for surveilling this young woman, drawing in the reader through mystery and intrigue.

While that drew me in personally, what really got my attention was the importance of the painting and how it connected to the characters. The conversation that Bosch has with the young woman is interesting because she points out the painting and asks him which person in the painting he thinks he is. He chooses the man sitting at the counter alone, same as her. This sparks a conversation between the two, and she ends up finding out why Bosch is really there. The conversation about the painting caused Bosch to become vulnerable in a moment in which he knows he should not be because he found commonality between himself and the young woman through the painting.

What makes this interesting is the point of view we are reading this story. We are but an observer, much like the lone man in the painting that Bosch and the young woman see themselves as, which creates a different relationship between the reader and the characters. And though the audience follows Bosch as a main character, they are still somewhat distanced from him.

Right off the bat, we can tell in “Nighthawks” that the main character we follow – Bosch – is obsessed with this woman that writes at the museum.  He details her daily schedule, he knows where she does or doesn’t look, how she interacts with other museum goers around her, etc.  It doesn’t seem like that he missed anything about this mysterious woman.  That is until he was caught off guard by her when she initiated a conversation, and called him out on following her.  This was the first thing that caught me off guard in terms of Bosch’s reaction, as I was expecting him to deny it completely and leave the museum – instead, he stayed and talked with her, about her work, and why she came to the museum to stare at the painting Nighthawks, which she used to help focus her work.

The second surprising response from Bosch was when the setting changed to Reginald Griffin, a producer of several, award winning films.  Griffin had hired Bosch to find the woman, his daughter, who we learn is named Angela.  For unknown reasons (though it is implied that Griffin did something horrible when drunk in Maui), Angela ran away from her father and is essentially on the run.  Bosch, during his debrief, lies to Griffin’s face, stating that he did not find the man’s daughter. He even gives him a hair sample from his own daughter to prove that the Woman in the Museum was not Griffin’s own daughter.

The finally unexpected response, however, was when he called Angela with a burner phone.  Their conversation shed more light on the situation at hand, as well as adding implications to stories not fully explained.  This, in and of itself, was not inherently surprising.  What was, however, was Bosch saying he was going to keep the burner phone he used to call Angela.  This came to a bit of a shock, since he barely knows the woman, and only had one written interaction with her.  But both Bosch and Angela seemed to have left a mark on one another to stay in contact after this tense situation in both of their lives.

This story is full of confusion and mystery, yet has a backbone of clarity and reason. Fabius, the house’s cook and long time friend of Carmen’s great grandmother, Claudine, seems to poses much knowledge, but he expresses it subtly. We know from his long relationship with Claudine and extensive travels that he must know more than he lets on. Fabius is a quiet man who keeps to himself, maybe unwilling, or just uninterested in sharing what he knows with others. Near the end of the story when he speaks with Colleen, we learn how Fabius cares for Colleen. He makes her a more elaborate than normal dinner and asks to share a seat with her. Over dinner, he explains her mother’s history and the history of their people (the Basque’s). Fabius relays details of Colleen’s mother’s death, more so her near death, and explains how that will one day happen to her, and how that is happening to him now. The Basque’s inexplicable death process, along with the inexplicableness of the house’s shapeshifting, keep the reader hooked by forcing them to constantly be asking questions. Is something wrong with their house? Does this happen to other people too? Why is Fabius so quiet? Why did he ask to sit with Colleen? Why didn’t he tell anyone he spoke english? The secrets of the characters, the house, and the Basque heritage encourages readers to provide their own answers, just as Colleen does when comparing the editions of Rooms By The Sea. I believe, like Colleen, many of these questions are answered with Fabius’ explanation of Basque’s deaths, though still leaving some open-endedness as to the state of the house once Colleen leaves, where Fabius will go now that his life is over (though it isn’t), and what will become of Colleen now that she is alone with her art.

A house just as confusing as the story, Rooms by the Sea, by Nicholas Christopher, tells a story based on the painting “Rooms by the Sea.” In this short story, we meet Carmen Ronson, the great-granddaughter of Claudine Rementeria, an author of a book that coincidentally has the name of the painting as the title. Rementeria originally wrote the book to please her husband, using her native tongue, Euskara, and having a few English translations. Initially, the story talks about Carmen’s mother, Calleta, and her relationship with a housekeeper/servant, Fabius. After the death of Carmen’s father, her mother only spoke in her native tongue to Fabius and drank the champagne that she and her husband had the night he proposed. However, we quickly learn that her mother died after a stroke out at sea.

After her death, Carmen’s house began to add rooms to itself every year, which architects could not fully explain. The readers discover that the house rapidly changes after an incident with Carmen out at sea and almost wrecking. However, all the rooms were built the same. On page 5, we get some description of the identical styles of each bedroom, stating, “The rooms were bedrooms and sitting rooms. Their walls were painted white, their ceilings blue. The bedrooms were furnished identically: a bed, a bureau, and a night table.”

An important detail to note is that the house changing itself is not the only mystery we get. The character Fabius is a mystery in himself. He understands the blueprint of the ever-changing house without explanation, and when asked how he knows the place, Fabius brushes it off. Throughout this story, the readers do not get a reason why Fabius and Carmen’s mother was so close or why he knows the house and most of his life. Finally, after Carmen finishes reading the book Room by the Sea in its original language, do we understand how Fabius knows so much and what his life has been like. 

Fabius is around 100 years old and is a descendant of those who survived the sinking o Atlantis. Initially, the people who survived the destruction of their city became fishermen near the Pyrenees and evolved to need to live by the water. They have one year to live as sea creatures when they die, finally passing from this earth. We discover that Fabius is not the only descendant of Atlanteans but also Carmen’s mom. 

This story is both whimsical and confusing. While there is not a complete understanding of how the house changes on its own, there was a mention of a previous home being burned down that was initially her mother’s. This house not only looks like the house by the end of the story but also the place Carmen tried to sketch from her mind but never seemed to get right. On the last page of the story, when Carmen is finally ready to leave her childhood home, she gives one more look at the house. She states, “When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw, not the house she had just left, but the large house in the photograph, and her sketches, its windows lit up and the sea behind it a luminous blue.” In a way, this story feels like it has come full circle, and the readers feel satisfied that everything is as it once was.

“Nighthawks” pans out as a noir detective-type story with a private investigator (Bosch) tailing his person of interest, Angela. The initial assumption one makes is that Angela is perhaps a criminal, a spy, or the accomplice to a criminal. Bosch follows her through her daily life, but the majority of the story takes place in an art museum Angela frequents. 

What I found most striking was Angela’s observant analogy on page 84: 

“All light in the painting comes from within the coffee shop. It is the beacon that draws them there. Light and dark, yin and yang, clearly on display.”

When starting, the reader likely makes the assumption that Angela has done something wrong, so the reader is on the lookout for signs of transgression on her part. However, when Bosch reports back to his client, Griffin, and it becomes apparent that Angela is a runaway daughter, the focus shifts. Why did Angela run away? Was it because of a rebellious phase or did Griffin do something to cause such a rift to form? Griffin is clearly an influential figure, so did Angela tire of a debutante life? New assumption: Griffin is a concerned father with considerable wealth looking to reconnect with his daughter. This perspective continues to cast Bosch and his employment contract with Griffin in a favorable light, if with a smattering of doubt. 

More facts are revealed, or rather implied, which flip the favorability of characters considerably. As Bosch leaves, Griffin asks if she mentioned Maui and goes on to claim that ‘he was drunk, goddammit, and it never happened again.’ This revelation is key. Bosch’s now-terminated contract as well as Griffin’s character have become a point of contention with the reader. Angela’s wariness when confronting Bosch in the museum becomes understandable, along with Bosch’s assertion to Griffin that it wasn’t the right girl in an effort to protect Angela. 

At the beginning of the story, we have a rough concept of black and white, Bosch (good[?] protagonist) and his target (bad[?] opposition). The classic beauty and intrigue of the story comes from the blurring and eventual shift of those views. Additionally, Angela’s brief mention of yin and yang itself becomes a device. The philosophy behind yin and yang itself states: ‘Within light, there is a small amount of darkness. Within darkness, there is a small amount of light. You cannot have one without the other.’ It is that small amount of contradiction to the defining trait that balances the two out and connects them. In the beginning, we defined Angela as ‘the dark’ ergo the unknown, and Bosch/his client as ‘the light’ ergo the known. The story carries out these roles for two-thirds of the content, before these small but powerful amounts of light (Angela’s desire to escape and her independence) and dark (Griffin’s past actions that drove his daughter away) are revealed, which color our views of these characters. In this way, Michael Connelly has created a short but wonderful example of how characters themselves can create a yin-yang situation.

This week I have decided to write about the short story “Nighthawks” by Micheal Connelly based on the painting by Edward Hopper. Connelly uses his confidence in his writing to give the reader a profound and exciting experience into the world of a private eye following his subject. The writing leads the reader to the conversation of biases and perspective with situations being not what is presumed to be. Learning about oneself and doing what is right. Connelly presents these lessons to use through the use of Bosch and his experiences with his subject that he is following (Angela). He leaves us with a cliffhanger in the middle and end of the story for the reader to assume for themselves about how their relationship grows and continues. All while doing this Connelly inserts the action of seeing ourselves through art and identifying with it. Who are we and what do we stand for? Are we a watcher? A follower? Or a leader? All important questions that can be answered based on how we see ourselves.

Something that I didn’t notice about this story until a good amount of the way in was the addition of the character Harry Bosch. As I read, I realized that name sounded familiar to me but I couldn’t quite place it. The character’s first name “Harry” is never said throughout the story, just his surname, as if it’s iconic enough to notice on its own. The excerpt pre-story confirmed my suspicions when I went back to it. Michael Connelly is the author of the Harry Bosch books, a series of mystery novels featuring the tenacious titular character, Bosch. The excerpt also tells us that he came across the painting Nighthawks the same way Bosch does in this short story while writing his first Bosch novel. This stood out to me as being incredibly interesting. 

Knowing this makes the reading process of this story more interesting. Here is the story of a character that already exists but placed into the setting the author had been in himself. Connelly is almost using the character of Bosch in the opening of the story to convey his own tale; how he started his series off years ago. “He smiled and nodded. He had learned something.” It’s very much an introduction to a character and thus, an introduction to the author. They seemed to have discovered art in the exact same way.

”He thought he understood inspiration and how it could travel from one discipline to another, how it could be harnessed for an endeavor seeming completely different” (84). Even the conversation Bosch has with Angela, asking if the novel she’s writing is about herself, hints at this story being reminiscent of Connelly’s early days discovering art in a new medium and using it as his inspiration. Such a clever way to pay homage to something that started your creative process.

One recurring theme in Girl With a Pearl Earring is the innate artistic ability Griet possesses. From before her first encounters with Vermeer, we see her eye for detail in the precise observations of others, the way she keeps her cap starched and wears it religiously, the way she chops and arranges vegetables into a color wheel– and later, her contribution to Vermeer’s painting of van Ruijven’s wife writing with the quill. Without any formal training, she knows the painting lacks some form of disarray to catch the eye. She knows the table is too neat, and decides to change something. Such an action could come at the cost of her job, and yet she somehow has such a strong conviction that it is something that needs to be done.  Chevalier weaves these hints throughout the story so that her potential is never far from the reader’s mind, yet that potential is never realized.

The thought of what Griet may have been capable of achieving, if she were a boy, crossed my mind at several points. If women had not been so limited in society, perhaps she could have become a tile painter like her father had been, or be a true apprentice to Vermeer. Instead, she had to settle for a life as the butcher’s wife– secure, but still too poor to own pearls, selling the ones Vermeer wanted her to have.

One aspect of this story that I found particularly interesting was Griet’s choice at the end to marry Pieter, and the results of it. Up until we were directly told, I hadn’t been able to predict what her decision would be. I knew she wouldn’t go to Van Ruijven’s, and I found it difficult to believe that she would consider returning to Vermeer’s household. I began to think that she would return to her parents’ house, but that is only what I would have done, and not necessarily the best choice she could have made for herself. 

When Griet returns to Pieter and marries him, it is a practical measure. Instead of continuing to follow her passions, which she has by this point come to realize will never lead her anywhere good, or returning to her parents and the role of childhood that she had been clinging to for so long, Griet chooses to make a life. She takes the opportunity that will give her the best chance at a future, and I think this is not only admirable, but a sign of growth for her character. While Pieter is not my favorite person (nor is he Griet’s), he represents security and the compromise that all women would have had to make at that time. He is a nice man (more or less), he has a reliable income, and he is willing to support her. Griet enters into the contract of marriage because it is the reasonable thing to do under her circumstances. And, as it turns out, with time she becomes accustomed to it. Even content.

While I do believe that it was ultimately a good thing for Griet to marry Pieter, that doesn’t make it any less sad. That due to the circumstances of her birth she was forced to stifle her artistic inclinations, her desire for more, and even her desire to be with someone she really liked (someone with “clean hands”), is nothing short of a tragedy. But it was unavoidable, and I believe she made the best choice she could have.

One of the most notable features of Griet is her perceptiveness, how observant she is. Not only does the reader pick up on this, but so do Vermeer and others. It is almost as if her perceptiveness is childlike instead of a means of judging the things around her. Vermeer picks up on this as well. This motivation, you could say, behind her perceptiveness lunges forward at Vermeer, which entices him to teach her the ways of being a painter.

I would say that Griet’s perceptiveness is both a strength and a weakness. She observes how people feel, and at times those feelings fester into her own feelings and anxieties. She observes how children act and react, and it tells her more about the hierarchy of the families and people around her. She observes the men, and she understands their lustful tendencies and their sometimes malicious intent. She is a cornucopia of observations which both help and hurt her in some ways.

Specifically, with Van Ruijven, we see a new side of Griet. She is used to men lusting over her and looking at her in many circumstances, but this time it finally feels real. He grabs her at the table, and for the first time, we see kindness from the people around her. The family and even Tanekke, in a somewhat motherly way, protect her. This was a major turning point in the book, I believe. The family is finally showing that they actually care about Griet. Griet notices it and so do others.

Maria Thins finally drives this message home when she explains that Vermeer had become more protective over Griet after this instance. It shows Griet that they care about her –at least some of them do — more than simply just a maid. She has made her mark, and, mostly, everyone can see it, even if they don’t like it.

Griet presents herself as the version of herself she wishes she was. Someone who is clean and doesn’t break rules. Someone who does what she is asked and thinks of nothing but that of which she is supposed to. In many ways she does embody those virtues. Her apron is always tidy, her hands are always clean, her cap is always secure. But I think she longs for more than this, she longs to be the Griet with a bare cap and who does what she wants. I think her desire for Vermeer is her way of escaping her ritualistic lifestyle because she knows she cannot have him. By entertaining the idea that he wants her and dismissing the pursuits of others, such as Pieter the son, she is allowing herself freedom in an environment in which she is constricted to her duties. I think this is why she lets her relationship with her master go so far, getting bolder as the story develops like when she changes his painting. There are many instances throughout the book in which she tells herself she could never be so bold as to do something she wasn’t supposed to, yet she does, and continues to. She was bold to entertain Vermeer’s subtle passes at her, to walk out of the house when confronted about the pearls, and to return there once again to retrieve them at the end of the book. At the end of the book when she has a family of her own, she speaks about how she no longer thinks about Vermeer the way she did when she was his maid, yet she still held on to what she had left of him all those years. She held on to his touch of her lips, his stare, and her painting. She says she wonders what it looks like, but I think she longs to see how her master perceived her. Eager to continue the fantasy of his gaze, making more of it than it was, so that she can let go of the life she wanted to imagine for herself instead of being weighed down by her reality.

Louise joined the American Abstract Artists Group after moving to New York City from Paris. After joining the group was when her art career shifted from junkyard scraps of driftwood to marble, plaster, and bronze. Through her artistic transition she began to explore her fears through her work, supplying her with a way to cope with her experiences and internal struggles, primarily with moving to a new country. Before she devoted herself to art, she studied math because “[she] got peace of mind, only through the study of rules nobody could change” until she was able to find peace of mind through artistic expression. I imagine a story in which Louise remains in Paris and studies and uses math as a way to express herself artistically. She learns to relinquish her comfort with rules by breaking artistic ones in her work, revolutionizing art and creating a new genre all together. 

Helen Frankenthaler was an American artist who moved to New York City as a baby from Germany. She studied at the Dalton School under Mexican artist Rufino Tomayo and at Bennington College under Paul Feely, director of Bennington’s art department. Once she stated “A really good picture looks as if it’s happened all at once.” I imagine a story in which she is very old and paints very slowly. She spends the last 3 years of her life dying a slow death, trying to finish her last piece, waking every day and painting until she rests. Painting as slow as she’s dying. The piece is to be a gift for her children, a commemoration of her life and her work. She lives alone and dies before she is able to finish, when her children find her and the painting they spend hours trying to figure out its purpose, for she had not painted in years and didn’t tell them she was painting again, they find secrets about her whilst trying to sort out the meaning behind her unexpected work.

Dorothea Lange was a photographer, based mostly in California and worked for the California State Emergency Relief Administration. She photographed before the Depression, during it, throughout WWII, and more after. Her work was published in San Francisco News, LIFE Magazine, and Los Angeles Times. She complained that contemporary photography was too concerned with uniqueness rather than what was familiar and intimate. In an essay she co-wrote with her son she says photography is “more concerned with illusion than reality. It does not reflect but contrives. It lives in a world of its own.” I imagine a story in which she is a woman in distress, like the ones she photographs. She has been injured at the factory where she works, unable to use her legs, wheelchair bound with no wheelchair. She resides by the beach near her old home waiting for someone to notice her. Waiting for someone to help her raise awareness of the negligence and dangers in factory work.

One of the most important currents in A Girl with a Pearl Earring (from my perspective), though certainly not the only current, is the focus on Griet and how naive she is across the entire story.  This is the opposite side of the coin, I feel, since Griet tends to be very perceptive in many other aspects of the story, like noting tiny details when she’s cleaning.  There are different levels of intensity with this naiveté, but it shines through some major aspects of Griet’s life.

The major instance of this is her interaction with Vermeer and his paintings, both through the act of painting and the act of modeling for these paintings.  We discussed some of these moments in our last class – Vermeer teaching Griet how to crush materials into pigment to later mix, and then Vermeer teaching her again how to see shades and tones and how colors are layered; that things aren’t simply one color, but many.  Throughout all of this she is simply clueless and needs to be educated, which Vermeer seems more than happy to do.  This is due to his personal interest in her, though whether it is sexual or purely teaching her to see like an artist, it doesn’t matter.

There are some things that she learns very quickly, however, especially in regard to the relationships between her three masters.  She learns that Vermeer, and even Maria Thins at times, would not stand up for Griet against Catharina, something that is expressly evident in their final interaction at the end of the story.  She learns that no one can stop van Ruijven from pursuing her, even though Vermeer and Maria Thins tries to prevent it (although, at times, not very hard).

Girl With A Pearl Earring ends in a very unexpected way. After the painting is discovered by Catharina, Griet leaves the house and goes to the center of the square in town, and thinks of which direction she should go. Ultimately, her decision is what some would consider to be the ‘safe’ one for the situation that she found herself in: she goes to Pieter the son, and marries him.

Leading up to this point, Griet has changed throughout the novel. She became more reckless and bold in her actions, and though she makes several decisions that are somewhat reckless and bold, it is nothing compared to what happens after Vermeer has seen her hair. She feels that she has little to no control over what happens to her, and she has a harder time trying to keep things secret. Pieter is the only option that offers her some relief from everything happening at the house, and he has been approved by her parents. The decision to join him is a way to maintain who she is; it is exactly what Van Leeuwenhoek warned her of, once he realized she was being painted: “He thinks only of himself and his work, not of you… Take care to remain yourself” (Chevalier 186).

In the end, Vermeer’s legacy as a painter is well known, but after his death he leaves his family in a dire situation. Though they try to maintain some semblance of wealth, they are now in a poorer position than Griet is when she comes for the reading of the will. She takes in the state of the house, and Catharina’s story of debt. After she is given the earrings, Griet cannot help but feel sorry for Catharina, and the situation she ended up in. She also recalls what Van Leeuwenhoek had said to her and wonders if she had done so. “It was not always easy to know” (Chevalier 232). And yet, she could be in a much worse position than them, if she had stayed.

The most prominent theme in Girl With A Pearl Earring is power or rather Griet’s lack of it. Abuse of power can be seen clearly in Van Ruijven as he uses his power and money to harass Griet and make Vermeer create a painting of her even though she does not want to. In a less striking example, even Vermeer abuses his power by having Griet take on extra chores for him, having her buy things, secretly using her to model in a painting, and all of the other little acts he uses to manipulate Griet. The clearest act of his misuse of authority is forcing Griet to wear Catharina’s earrings and not caring about how it will affect either of them.

While Catharina is the mistress of the house she seems to have the least power. She is supposed to be in charge of the children, the maids, and the rest of the household, but she seems to do little of those responsibilities. She enjoys her title of Mistress and her lofty position but does not have authority to properly run anything. I think the trauma of the abuse she endured as a child has crushed her confidence. She has a passive voice within the house; for example: when Vermeer proposes that Griet sleep in the attic instead of the cellar, she protests but does not emphasize the fears she has. She is insecure about Griet being so close to her husband, but she does not fight due to her fear of what her husband will say. This lack of authority that she has shown throughout the book causes Cornelia to fill in the gap for her.

Since the beginning, Cornelia is portrayed as “a handful” and “a troublemaker.” She is mischievous and often gets back at Griet in petty ways for no identified reasons. Cornelia is Catharina’s favorite child, so she is never scolded or punished. I think this is because Catharina is happy she is carrying out all of the petty acts toward Griet that she wishes she could do herself. Cornelia’s behavior is most likely a subconscious shift to scapegoat herself in order to protect her mother in her own way. She recognizes that her Mother is weary of Griet from the very start and when she found out that her Father was having Griet model for him, she saw this as a direct threat to her parent’s marriage and her family. This threat caused her act out to protect her Mother and family from potential destruction.

One of the biggest developments in Griet is her ability to become less the observant one and more the one who’s directly involved. Griet’s original intention for herself was to stay out of trouble and do whatever was asked of her, to keep a low profile. At the beginning of the story, all Griet wanted was to provide for her family and to see them whenever she could. She didn’t like being in the house of her master and mistress necessarily other than to make money. But as the story progresses, Griet is doing quite the opposite. The irony of this is why Griet was summoned to be a maid in the first place. Her attention to detail, her ability to remain almost invisible, and to make adjustments without it appearing so were the qualities that got her hired. Now, Griet has tampered with almost everything.

However, Griet is a first person narrator meaning that by default she is almost unreliable. That being said, can we overlook her own honesty and self-awareness? When Griet confronts Franz about him sleeping with his master’s wife, he calls her out for being attracted to her master. Rather than tell us the audience that this was a lie, she’s honest. “He did. He did know me better. I opened my mouth but no words came out” (186). So why is Griet telling this story if all it’s doing is casting shame onto her?

There is something about Griet that even she herself keeps hidden. On page 138 she says: “When it was uncovered it seemed to belong to another Griet—a Griet who would stand in an alley alone with a man, who was not so calm and quiet and clean. A Griet like the women who dared to bare their heads. That was why I kept my hair completely hidden—so that there would be no trace of that Griet.“ Griet herself is aware that there is a side of her she doesn’t want the world to see. That side comes out every now and then throughout the story, but much more so towards the end. Griet is almost warning the readers of the allure of wealth, money, and power and how it can easily become desire.

Tracy Chevalier has truly captured readers’ attention with her story Girl With A Pearl Earring. We are captivated by Griet and her story.  Chevalier has taken this painting done by Johannes Vermeer and turned it into this one novel. Page turner after page turner. She deals with many changes that range from difficult to amazing, which leads her to becoming a different person by the end of the story. She reminds us that life’s changes are inevitable and something that we will all face, some better than others. I find that the character of Griet is very easy to relate to. Her curiosity and the way she questions things in her new environment. We have all been that young girl before trying to find our way in the world and find ourselves. Chevalier gives us a hint of coming to age, but not entirely.

I feel as though the relationships and dynamics are what truly propels the story forward. Griet takes fondly to her master (Vermeer) and their relationship blooms over the course of the book. She longs to be close to him in ways that a maid should never cross. I was often reminded of the power dynamic between the two and found myself questioning if it was because of Griet’s young age that she had taken to him in this fashion and if it was truly healthy to do so. Frankly all of Griet’s “romantic” relationships gave me the same feeling. All had some type of power dynamic and it left me wondering who truly was the right fit for Griet. I did enjoy seeing how her relationships changed in the house. How she interacted with Maria Thins, who reminded me of a grandmother figure, and Catharina was very interesting to me, but we could see that developing in the beginning of the story.

There is obviously a reason that Chevalier made these choices and why she even came up with this story in the first place. I found myself intrigued by her inspiration and searching the painting for my own story and meaning as well.

Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier is filled with commentaries on 1600s sexism, classism, and the story behind this mysterious painting. That being said, the one thing that needs to be talked about more is the beautiful writing that takes us to a completely different world. Chevalier uses similes, symbolism, and foreshadowing to create a dynamic plot for the readers. 

Chevalier was inspired to write this story after staring at a poster in her room with the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring. The story’s entire idea is based on a single thought, “I wonder what he did to her to make her look like that.” Immediately, the story was birthed and published for our enjoyment. With little known about the painter himself, Chevalier decides to create her own narrative of the artist and the muse. She not only creates a personality, but reveals the muse herself had the knowledge and inspiration to become a painter. On page eight, there is proof that Griet has the makings of a painter; it says, “I always laid vegetables out in a circle, each with its own section like a slice of pie. There were five slices: red cabbage, onions, leeks, carrots, and turnips. I had used a knife edge to shape each slice, and placed a carrot disc in the center.” With the imagination of Chevalier, we are shocked to find that she uses common kitchen ingredients to symbolize the color wheel. It is remarkable how she would fit a scene that shows the character’s true colors. 

Chevalier also gives foreshadowing consistently throughout the novel. For example, on page twenty-two, the audience reads that Griet, the main character, slaps the eldest daughter across the face after the daughter has done something bratty, stating, “I reached over and slapped her. Her face turned red, but she did not cry. She ran back up the steps. Aleydis and Lisbeth peered down at me solemnly.” In the story’s final scene, Griet leaves the house for the last time with the cursed pearl earrings and bumps into the daughter once more, writing, “Cornelia was standing out in the hallway. The brown dress she wore had been repaired in several places and was not as clean as it could be. As I brushed past her, she said in a low, eager voice, “You could give them to me.” Her greedy eyes were laughing. I reached over and slapped her.” (Chevalier 195) Chevalier has an incredible eye for small details that seem to take the story full circle. 

In order to create a scene for a book, there must be strong imagery and overall well-written literary devices. With many of the scenes digging into emotional and dramatic scenes, Chevalier uses similes to describe these moments, making them even more real. For example, on page 153, Chevalier uses similes to show Griet’s franticness as she tries to hide her hair from the outside world, stating, “I did not know what to do. I looked around as if I would find an answer in the studio.” By reading this, we can fully understand Griet’s panic and stress as she looks to find something to tie her hair up. We not only know what the main character is feeling, but we, too, feel what the character is feeling.

Tracy Chevalier’s writing in The Girl With A Pearl Earring is both inspirational and beautiful. So many writers can look up to her in the writing world and take notice of her capabilities to make readers feel empathy toward characters.

• When her husband was drafted in 1942, Grace Hartigan decided to study mechanical drafting and worked as a draftsman in an airplane factory. 
• For the first 2-3 years of having her artwork in galleries, she exhibited her work under the name George Hartigan as she knew that showing her artwork under a man’s name would gain more attention. 
• She often painted things she considered ‘vulgar’ that were also normal parts of American life, like overdressed shop windows, in an effort to normalize them in her own eyes. She also wore men’s clothes, had a foul mouth, and was considered a workaholic with no rules to her work.

Story idea: an encounter between Grace and a male patron at the gallery where her earliest work is still being exhibited under the name ‘George’. The patron praises the work extensively, up until Grace, in a moment of naivete, explains that she is ‘George.’

• Cindy Sherman prefers to use self-portraits to send messages about current issues, showing herself portraying different characters and personas. In this way, Sherman could also be classified as an actress along with a photographer. She has portrayed roles as a prostitute, women in varying intense emotional states, an abused housewife, and a dancer.
• She prefers photographing grotesque characters and posing, involving disasters and/or sex in her 1980s-90s series. In her words, 1986, “I’m disgusted with how people get themselves to look beautiful; I’m much more fascinated with the other side.” 
• When she had just graduated college, she started her 1976-2000 series Bus Riders, where she dressed up as various people she encountered while riding buses. One of her tactics for impersonation included donning blackface. These garnered divisive reviews by critics, some saying it exposed the racism embedded in society while others called it insensitive.

Story idea: I think I would like to have a story centered around a single day in her life as she goes around and finds the ‘grotesque’ in objects, people, and situations. I would also like to have it set in the 80s; reason being she took a lot of inspiration from the AIDS crisis and I want to explore how exactly she did that, whether she actually visited hospitals or relied on what was available through the media, as well as the reactions of AIDS patients who knew of her work and whether they liked it or found it mocking.

Marie-Guillemine Benoist is a famous French artist during the late 1700s, a female artist inspired by the Neoclassicism movement. Her work was a substantial feat for women in the art world, as she was outspoken about educating women, specifically in the arts. She was also inspired by the abolishment of slavery, inspiring a portrait of a black woman to show her belief in all women’s rights. Unfortunately, Benoist was married to a lawyer, Pierre-Vincent Benoist, who supported the royalist cause. Because of the political concerns regarding her husband, Marie had to leave the art world and her voice for women’s reasons. 

My idea for a short story for Marie-Guillemine Benoist:

Marie becomes enraged due to her husband’s political beliefs stomping on her activism and artistry. Marie struggles with the decision to continue painting or support her husband.

Facts

1. Agnes Martin was publicly known to have schizophrenia, though it was undocumented until 1962.
2. It is speculated that she had a relationship with artist Lenore Tawney.
3. In an interview in 1989, discussing her life and her painting, Agnes Martin said, “Beauty and perfection are the same. They never occur without happiness.”

Story Concept

• Agnes sees everyone’s personality as a set of lines and color. She has no way to express her love for Lenore publicly, but perhaps she can paint about it. She begins to paint Lenore as her set of lines and colors, thinking that no one will ever know the meaning behind it, except someone does.

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist who drew inspiration from surrealism. Kahlo’s art during the 1920s and 1930s was prevalent in Mexico but, unfortunately, took time to catch up in the United States. Kahlo is known for her self-portraits, striking emotions into every viewer of her artwork. She first started self-portraits when she was hospitalized after a severe bus accident. With nothing to do, her parents gave her a special easel and some oil paints. Kahlo then used a mirror to paint herself, which she found therapeutic and a form of self-exploration. After her recovery, she married a man named Rivera. Although during the eight years Kahlo and Rivera were married, Frida did not create much art; it was only after the divorce that she started to bounce back and make more of her paintings.

My idea for a short story about Frida Kahlo:

After Frida’s bus accident, she struggles with her identity and comes to terms with being hospitalized and having to recover. Frida’s parents notice this conflict and gift her paints and an easel, which creates a safe place where she finds beauty in the world and herself.

Facts

1. She originally wanted to study architecture, but felt lost as she was the only woman in the course.
2. She married Alfred Ardnt, who happened to be an architect.
3. She used costumes for many of her self-portraits, similar to Cindy Sherman’s work, though way prior to her.

Story Concept:

• Gertrud Ardnt creates fancier versions of herself through self-portrait photography in order to create a name for herself as a profound photographer; she wishes to create characters that draw people in. Her husband thinks that it is a bad idea and that it will get her nowhere.