From The war - Marguerite Duras

"This evening I think about myself. I've never met a woman more cowardly than I am. I go over in my  mind other women who are waiting like me- no, one is as cowardly as that." (236)

From The War by Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Duras

From The Norton Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross 

    Marguerite Duras speaks of her experience during WWII and discusses her search for her husband. She does end up finding Robert L.  but in terrible condition. As he was recovering from his near-death experience from starvation, Duras's anxieties do not subside after the trauma she had seen around her, as she did print out information about departees. The fear of losing her loved one begins to eat at her which does end up taking a toll on her health. 

I believe Marguerite knew what was going to happen to the men and the inhumane treatment they got, leaving her to believe there is no way he could be alive still. Having that inside knowledge of knowing what was going to happen must have made it much worse, as she had to begin grieving her husband before she even knew if he was even dead or alive yet. From reading this memoir, she seemed to have been aware that what was happening was wrong, but due to the war and the lack of power she had been a woman, she must have been criticized for showing any emotion. 

From When heaven and earth came together - Le Ly Hayslip

"Nobody would be interested in my side of the story. Nobody would be interested in the truth. The same 'facts' were there for everyone to see and the truth, in this war, was whatever you wanted to make it...I was a disgrace and liability to everyone" (375).

Le Ly Hayslip 

From When heaven and earth came together by Le Ly Hayslip

From The Norton Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross 

    Incarcerated in prison, Hayslip goes through such horrific and traumatic events that for sure impacted her so greatly she even believed she "didn't deserve to live" (375). The pain of being thrown into a cell and being abused with such inhumane torture methods made Hayslip so hopeless and dehumanized, and I can not even imagine how hard it is to relive that through her writings. 

Once she had gotten out of the Thai prison it was then in which the war escalated and she found herself in another situation of getting tied up by officers and once again tortured by having ants eat honey off of them. Even after all of the torture and lack of freedom, she stayed strong which in turn led her to her freedom in the future. I find her to be one of the mentally and physically strongest women to have made it out alive and able to share her experience. With all of her self-doubt and setbacks, she managed to persevere and came out as a stronger person, which I strongly admire. 

Gifts of Passage - Santha Rama Rau

"In India, you can always recognize a ghost by his feet, which are attached to his ankles the wrong way around, with the heels in front and the toes pointing backward. The rest of his appearance may be entirely normal, and, of course, since a ghost doesn't wish to be recognized, he usually takes the trouble to hide his feet." (676)

Gift of Passage by Santha Rama Rua

From The Norton's Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross

    At the beginning of this expert. Santha and her sister had gone to a new school that seemed to be very opinionated when it came to race. They were not allowed to correspond with an Anglo-Indian or an English and had the belief that Indians cheat, which had affected them so much that they no longer attended that school. They also had to change their names in school to Americanize them and make them easier to say. But they just ended up mentally straining the children as they developed some split personality issues as they were growing up, which seems very harmful in the long run. 

Santha Rama Rau

In the second half, The Ghost In The Garden, she describes a haunting in her Indian garden of a woman who died in a well after cheating on her man. She is very apprehensive about the ghost and about nighttime, so much so that they stay up late enough some nights to make sure a ghost isn't wandering around them and also have a plan if they ever come in contact with it. She discussed show the feet of ghosts as the establishing fact that you are a ghost, which makes me wonder why. If they are supposed loved ones, then why do they not want to be recognized? 

The price of my soul - Bernadette Devlin

"But if you knocked someone, somebody, halfway down the stairs, you wouldn't get a blessing on your work; it was very un-Christian; you had better apologize, and that was that." (192) 

From The Price of my Soul by Bernadette Devlin

All from The Norton Book Of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross

 At a very young age, Devlin seemed to be very politically inclined and had been influenced to speak up when she was only 12 years old. As a republic activist, she was very well respected and rose very high in her stature as she served as an education teacher. Everyone was very patriotic, which is why I can see she grew up the way she did. As she did have a position as "the girl" (194), she knew she had a voice in which she was able to top shape what she could around her. She stepped in when she wanted to, and seemed to set a great example for the kids she was teaching. 

The Price of My Soul by Bernadette Devlin

Girls had uniform inspections and had an eye on their outdoor and indoor shoes which show how women were under more scrutiny than men. Mother Minignus seemed to have added to this scrutiny of not liking girls wearing anything remotely to what men would have been wearing. Deglin had stuck up for British history and stuck up for the history being taught to the students. Mither Mignus and herself never had a great relationship, but Devloin always respected her for it, which is why I see Devlin in such a mature light: she stuck up for what she believed in but did it in s respectful manner. 

The Road From Coorain - Jill Ker Conway

The Road From Coorain By Jill Ker Conway 

 From The Norton Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross. 

    Jill was born into a family of farmers in which she lived with her mother and father. Her father, had struggled with mental health issues, and to get his mind clearer and distracted he would go out to the fields to tend to his farm and animals. Her mother had loved her daughter but did push her a little too hard at such a young age. With her mother and father in bad mental and physical health, Jill had to grow up very fast and learn how to take care of the ones that were supposed to be taking care of her. 

Jill Ker Conway

    After the passing of her father, her mother was speculated to possibly be "selling Coorain" (167) or maybe actually being able to take care of it with the help of others, if they could afford it. Her mother had put a lot of pressure on Jill to learn these jobs and take the responsibilities on her own, which must have taken a major toll on her development. Having to mature fast certainly shows once she becomes grows up and can look back on these times in her life to see how far she's come. She, among many other women we have read about in this book, shows a great amount of women empowerment.

A Daughter of Han - Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI

"In those years it was not as it is now. There was no freedom then for women. I stayed with him." (634)

From The Nortons Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross

Stories from Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI's Life: A Daughter of Han 

A Daughter of Han: Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI

Written by: Idis Pruitt

    In A Daughter of Han, Ida Pruitt shares the stories that Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI, had told her and shares them with the world. Ning's husband was addicted to opium and went out one night and took Chinya with him. As Ning didn't actually think he would sell their daughter, she let him go begging for food for them. This deception had led to him coming back home drugged up and without their daughter, but only with sweet potatoes. Thankfully they ended up finding her that time after he traded her and got her back, but her husband ended up trading her again, and this time they did not end up getting her back. Though this was the case, the ending takes a positive turn after knowing her daughter was going to be properly taken care of, and then ends up growing to be a fine young lady. 

The quote above shows how hopeless she was living in poverty, so much so that she was willing to stay with her husband after all that he put her through. With her marriage on the decline, she conjures enough strength to leave him as she says she has to "'come out'"(635) and make her own living without a man. This must have been terrifying for her as she was a woman and women did not have much freedom in the 1800s, but it really shows us how strong of a woman she was to have gone through so much and still manage to escape from that toxic relationship. 

Nien Cheng - Life and Death in Shanghai

"I tried to take my mind off the present by recalling beautiful scenes and pleasant experiences of the past. But it was very difficult. The ugly reality was all too real and overpowering." (112) 

Nien Cheng: Life and Death in Shanghai 

From: The Norton's Book of Women's Lives by Phyllis Ross 

Nien Cheng - 1988

    Nien Cheng's quote above, from her writings in Life and Death in Shanghai, sets the scene for how much of harrowing her experience was during this period of time in her life. Around her, the communist party is surging, and the communist revolution is changing everyone's lives, including Nien. She went through an immense amount of fear and suffering after she was taken into seclusion for being a "spy" for the west. They tortured her, which put her in a place where she was helpless. 

    As for when she grew up, Nien did not get the emotional support she needed from her family, which seemed to put her in a place where she had to grow up earlier than the kids around her.  The quote above proves to us how she tried to keep a solid mental and emotional spirit, even when there seemed to be no hope to hold onto anymore. She displays a great deal of strength and perseverance for this, especially being able to come back to this time of her life and write about it, practically reliving all the trauma she had been through.