Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Conference Presentations
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 24th: Introduction to the Class
    • August 31st: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2022)
      • Rhetoric of Fear
    • November 16th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals
    • November 2nd: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • November 30th: Words and Word Classes
    • November 9th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • October 12th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 19th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 26th: Stylistic Variations
    • October 5th: Midterm Exam
    • September 14th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 21st: Coordination and Subordination
    • September 28th: Form and Function
    • September 7th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 12th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 19th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • April 26th:  Feminisms and Rhetorics
    • April 5th: Knoblauch. Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • February 15th: Isocrates (Part 2)
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 8th: Isocrates (Part 1)-2nd Half of Class
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 15th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • March 1st: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • March 22nd: Mary Wollstonecraft
    • March 29th: Second Wave Feminist Rhetoric
    • May 3rd: Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments
    • April 20th: Rhetoric/Composition Defines New Media
    • April 27th: Sub/Cultural Politics, Hegemony, and Agency
    • April 6th: Capitalist Realism
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
    • March 16th: Identity Politics
    • March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • March 2nd: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
    • March 30th: Hyperreality
    • March 9th: Globalization & Postmodernism
    • May 4th: Wrapping Up The Semester
      • Jodi Dean “The The Illusion of Democracy” & “Communicative Capitalism”
      • Social Construction of Sexuality
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127 » November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)

November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)

Neo/colonialism

In ways similar to Autonomous, the world of the novel is run by corporations, and there’s a vast Unregulated Zone that appears to house factories. A shoe company, Pallas, has a unique (but metaphoric) workforce that live near the factories. If it isn’t obvious why a shoe company would be the epitome of an allusion to slave labor, here are some stories about Nike’s sweatshops circa 2000:

  • Two Cheers for Sweatshops (9/24/2000)
  • Nike accused of tolerating sweatshops (5/19/2001)
  • And Wikipedia even has a page devoted to it

As we’ve discussed previously (see Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey”), colonialism is when hegemonic powers take political, economic, and cultural control over a foreign land and people. In Western culture, we often first think of Columbus, followed by Spanish conquistadors, opening the door for European powers to stake their claim in the Americas. By 1914, “[Europeans]…had gained control of 84 percent of the globe” (Hoffman, p. 2). More accurately, Hoffman’s footnote explains that Europeans didn’t hold 84% in 1914 but had at various times held a total of 84% of the globe (p. 2). What’s significant is that Europeans touched that much of the world, so it’s no surprise that English and French are very common languages outside of the relatively small countries of England and France (Africa alone is nearly 50% Francophone). After WWII, most nations gained their independence from their former colonizers; some independence was easily taken back, and some wasn’t. However, the old order didn’t immediately end…In English Studies we talk about postcolonial literature that comes from writers who were born (or of recent decent) in areas once colonized or, generally, writing that focuses on the people and places formerly colonized.

Neocolonialism is the term for a less direct hegemonic power umbrella. Because of globalization, major economies have influence over other nations’ economies. In fact, multinational corporations have a lot of influence over countries where their business is desperately needed to supply jobs for citizens. One somewhat gaining traction push is for so-called charter cities. This concept is where a company or country builds a city in a host country—usually a poor country. This city would be exempt from much of the tax laws of that host country but would employ citizens from that country. The optimist would look at the potential of this arrangement and say it’s a great relationship because the company moving in gets to lower costs and bring jobs to citizens of an impoverished country, and they may even educate the workers, providing them with new skills. The pessimist would say it’s a chance for a company to circumvent laws of its parent country, allowing it to pollute, evade taxes, and impose a culturally imperialistic zone in the host country (guess where I fall on this?). The Pallas factories in the Unregulated Zone remind me of charter cities.

  • p. 222: The Sonias, Pallas workers/clones, spoke in Chinese, Spanish, French, and English—an obvious colonial reference
  • p. 224: Evie tells Miranda, “Wherever Pallas goes, there are pods of Sonias hiding out just beyond the walls of Pallas’s cities.”
  • 226: There’s an irony in shoes as a metaphor for freedom: “Shoes worn by middle-class, middle-aged suburban women scared of growing old…trying to make something they can call their own from what comes in cardboard boxes and plastic wrappers from the megastore strip mall….their shoes…the freedom they longed for.”
    • “Shoes these days were like cologne, holding the mysterious promise of life eternal.”
  • 227: “[Miranda] had recently heard a rumor that Pallas intentionally made its shoes out of shoddy materials so that they would wear out faster

Postcolonial Literature

Related to the above is the term postcolonial. When using a postcolonial lens to interpret literature, one considers the legacy of colonialism on the events, characters, themes, etc. of the work. Traditionally, this lens looks to identify the ways European powers exploited colonies, but any colonial (or neocolonialist or imperialist) arrangement can be analyzed through this lens. Additionally, this lens is used to (re)interpret colonial writers’ works, uncovering the silenced voices of colonized subjects–both real and fictional.

One work that is considered a major site for re-interpreting the violence a colonial outlook imposes is Shakespeare’s The Tempest from 1611. Consider what the British Empire is doing at this moment with their recently acquired superpower status after defeating the Spanish Armada (1588) and the Treaty of London in 1604, which ended the British-Spanish War (1585–1604).

Characters in The Tempest

Briefly, I want to mention three of the most important characters from the play, and I hope, at least, one stands out:

  • Prospero: Usurped Duke of Milan, exiled and shipwrecked on an island in the Atlantic (most likely Bermuda).
  • Miranda: Prospero’s daughter, who represents innocence on the island, and needs her father’s magic protection.
  • Caliban: Only inhabitant of the island; Prospero enslaves him for attempting to rape Miranda. Of course, such a scenario is a colonial vision of so-called savages.

Knowing what the British eventually did in North America, casting Caliban, a native of the area, as a savage needing to be enslaved, so he keeps in line, reflects the colonial empire’s view of non-British and non-European peoples. Also, Prospero, who learns to use magic to make this island his new Duchy, has a paternalistic–literally, he’s her father–approach to protecting Miranda. But she tries to resist his control.

Below, where I discuss Foods and Smells, relates to this topic because members of a culture share olfactory sensitivities. When you’re confronted with a new culture, your sensitivities are jarred, and you’re forced to confront something different. Time permitting, we may look at what Micha and Justian think about their first durian fruit tasting…

The most obvious allusion to The Tempest comes from meeting Edwina, the witch of the Island of Mists and Forgetfulness. The island’s history is a dead giveaway. Originally, the French colonists named it Ville d’Espoir (City of Hope). Nearby British colonists named their city “Hope,” and readers learn, after the British took over, “the two city’s had since grown considerably, so that they now bled into one another” (p. 139).

  • What might be the reason these cities, founded by different colonial powers, bleed into on another?
    • What might Lai be saying about colonial powers taking over former colonies?
    • Didn’t we read another story about imperialism and re-imperialism and again, and again…
  • Any takers on why the name Ville Despair is significant?
  • Could Lai be thinking of an actual Asian city that went through colonial change–specifically circa 1997?

Additionally, the island “became unmoored from history, [and] lost its connection with the past or the future and floated into the sky” (p. 139).

Bioengineering

What do you know about bioengineering? It’s a vast and growing (pun intended–ha!) subject, and I’d argue that nearly everything you consume has been bioengineered in some fashion. As I mentioned last class, people get very scared when they hear their food has been manipulated, but “manipulated” isn’t always detrimental. Consider the hype surrounding vaccinations. Here’s the link to William Speed Weed’s article about science claims related to modified (and not modified) food.

Salt Fish Girl’s plot has quite a bit to do with bioengineered foods (and humans). One thing that comes up in the novel is that people believe eating “unpatented foods” is unsafe. Stewart tells Aimee they shouldn’t eat durians because “[t]hey might not be safe” (p. 209). Also, Miranda “had always thought there was something cannibalistic about eating [durian fruit]” (p. 224). We know Miranda’s birth is related to a durian, and she smells an awful lot like the durian’s pungent aroma. There are other people with other smells. The Salt Fish Girl smells like…salty fish! And Evie also has “the salt fish smell emanating from her pores” (p. 151), and “the soft space behind her ear [has t]he smell of salt fish” (p. 161). Miranda also meets patients with a variety or smells: “a woman who reeked of radishes” and “a boy who smelled of oranges” (p. 102). Dr. Flowers and Dr. Seto believe the disease is because of “mass industrial genetic alteration practices” and that “microbes that lived in the earth were mutating and infecting humans” (p. 102).

  • Let’s read between the lines here. What is Lai alluding to by having the disease transfer this way? What does it say about the environment? The fact that people may get the disease from contaminated soil they walk in says that the earth is turning against humans for destroying nature.

Similar to the biodegradable products (ink, paper, tents, etc.) in Autonomous, Dr. Flowers’s office has “a living carpet of the most expensive genetically engineered moss and the walls climbed with unusual brilliant flowers and succulent green vines” (pp. 253-254).

  • Why do you think these two books–Salt Fish Girl and Autonomous–speculate about living organisms for products we use?

Finally, Miranda tells readers

“we are the new children of the earth, of the earth’s revenge. Once we stepped out of mud, now we step out of moist earth, out of DNA both new and old, an imprint of what has gone before, but also a variation. By our difference we mark how ancient the alphabet of our bodies. By our strangeness we write our bodies into the future.” (p. 259)

Food and Smells

Genetically modified or not, food and smells are very much a part of this novel. There might be a reference to smell on every other page (if not every single one) of this novel. Although the odors are mostly described as foul, and the other characters react negatively to Miranda’s stench, we need to think a bit more critically to figure out how to consider smells. Here’s a great passage where Nu Wa catches her first whiff of the Salt Fish Girl:

“She stank of that putrid, but nonetheless enticing smell that all good South Chinese children are weaned on, its flavour being the first to replace mother’s milk“ (p. 48).

Ever heard of pheromones? Well, that’s what’s going on here. Nu Wa likes the Salt Fish Girl and describes her in terms of comfort, that of “mother’s milk.” Nu Wa is all in, and–in our companion story line–Miranda isn’t deterred by Evie’s salt fish smell, so one interpretation is that something that makes these characters stand out—stench, aroma, effervescence—as different is appealing.

Consider the olfactory sensitivities we have in American culture. We aren’t supposed to smell “natural,” right? We use colognes, perfumes, deodorants, air fresheners, scented candles, Beano, etc. to make sure we and our immediate environments don’t smell. Outside the predominantly Caucasian, Anglo-American sanitized house, other ethnicities have strong aromas from their cooking. My uncle makes pesce stocco on holidays, and you can smell it at the front door (he cooks in the basement, by the way). Trinacria Foods in Baltimore, MD has the most pungent olive oil smell that hits you halfway down the block. I’m sure you’ve been to an ethnic restaurant (Taco Bell doesn’t count…see the link for Beano) or the home of someone of an ethnicity different from yours and been surprised by the smell. I believe Lai is using smell to allude to surface differences—in other words, superficial hang-ups. Miranda is different, so her durian scent (which, granted, is unpleasant) makes her stand out for ridicule. Only Ian Chestnut befriends her, and their relationship lasts maybe 10 pages. Ian’s mother, though, had an aroma…do you remember?

Durian Fruit from Malaysia
Not to be confused with Dragon Fruits from Harris Teeter

Dreams

Now would be an appropriate time to play “Dreams” by the Cranberries. I can’t believe Dolores O’Riordan died in January 2018. I don’t think they know exactly why either. {“I can’t find my Cranberries CD. I gotta go to the quad before somebody snags it.”}

  • Is a dream a lie that don’t come true, or is it something worse.
    –Bruce Springsteen “The River”

I take that line to mean a dream is a delusion we just can’t shake (obviously, this is NOT the final interpretation of the lyric…but it’s a damn good one). Nu Wa and Miranda have many bizarre dreams and, of course, there’s the “dreaming disease” in the novel that makes people seem to remember the lives of past ancestors. I have some interpretations for this:

  • My ancestor’s keeper…if we’re supposed to correct the sins of the past, well, we failed! This disease makes people drown themselves as a punishment.
  • Self-destructive impulses…we’re killing ourselves and the environment, and these dreamers are choosing suicide over living in this world.
  • Blurring the lines of reality…dreams are one of those liminal states (this is arguable) where you’re asleep but not conscious; your unconscious takes over; dreams in novels and films represent Freud’s theory that repressed desires come through (but not exactly—they require interpretation)

Although this could be its own section, I’m going to lump the Business Suit and Swimming Suit into this discussion. Weird…Miranda’s father, Stewart, operates a virtual reality suit that’s reminiscent of The Gimp from Pulp Fiction. This suit is so “good,” Stewart gets beaten in real life. Interestingly, they call the matrix the RealWorld. Stewart usually passes out from the abuse he takes for tax collecting. Why? What urge or release does beating a tax collector provide? Why do you think Stewart is forced to resign after his daughter uses the suit to avenge those who beat her father?

The Business Suit and the Swimming suit—Ian had two to play with…in—are hi-tech masculine technologies that didn’t fit Miranda right. Remember, read between the lines: The suits’ fits represents the awkwardness of Miranda trying to enter this alien world. She isn’t of the mechanical, electronic world; she is of nature. Yes, think of all the female metaphors for nature: mother earth, mother nature, rivers birthing. Lai could be commenting that men have to create gadgets to access nature because their gender is the other, the alien. However, women are more attuned to the cycle of life. (Yes, this is debatable, but it is also a commonly discussed theme of women’s literature.)

Finally, we can’t forget the dreams that seem to be denied to, once again, housewives. Nu Wa points out that her mom “was never the type meant for motherhood….if she had had other options, she’d have been an empress or a poet or a martyr” (p. 49). After some narration on arranged marriages and that mothers “want their daughters to live respectable lives” and not happy ones (p. 51), Nu Wa decides to be a spinster, but “some of my sisters were upset with me for choosing spinsterhood for less than spiritual reasons” (p. 54). Miranda’s mom, Aimee, seems mostly happy with her choices, but we know she and Stewart fall in and out of love, and she replays her cabaret days, longing for youth, beauty, and attention.

But Salt Fish Girl, a speculative novel, ends with the overthrowing of Patriarchy, the gift the Sonias cultivated. Whileawayans had no trouble. Miranda and Evie seem to live happily ever after…

Next Class

We’ll be discussing Salt Fish Girl all week, and, because I don’t know when we’ll begin and end most topics, I’m not separating the discussion into 3-5 pages. Don’t forget that you have another novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy next week, but DON’T PANIC; it’s a very quick read. Make sure you plan for that.


Works Cited

Hoffman, Philip T. Why Did Europe Conquer the World? Princeton: Princeton UP, 2015.

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