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She’s Not ThereA LIFE IN TWO GENDERS

Jennifer Finney BoylanAlyson Benitez and Jennifer Streeter

+Jennifer Finney Boylan

Born James Finney Boylan (1958) in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Produced the first best selling work as a transgendered American.

She graduated from Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut) in 1980.

Since 1988, Jenny Boylan has been a professor of creative writing and American literature at Colby College, in Waterville, Maine where she has been voted professor of the year.

+Summary

“She’s Not There” chronicles and relates memories relevant to the abandonment and redevelopment of one’s personal identity from Boylan’s earliest memories of identifying with the opposite sex to her gender reassignment surgery.

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Images of Self in She’s Not There

“Maybe you can be cured by love.”

+Boylan’s Images of Self

“On the big walk, I was going to try to solve whatever was wrong with me. … (p. 23)”

– “Maybe you can be cured by love.”

“I felt that what I had always hoped for was true, that I’d been cured by love (p. 130).”

“Is it possible for things to just vanish inside us? That hadn't been my experience (p. 276).”

+Image of Self Through Music

“Look around you. All you see/ Are sympathetic eyes. / Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home…. (p.44)”

Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel

“The people are saying that these two were wed, But one had a sorrow that never was said. He moved away from me, with his goods and his gear. And that was the last I saw of my dear (p. 114).”

She Moves Through the Fair by Sandy Denny

“I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book (p. 114)

“ I’m Gonna Wash The Man Right Out of My Hair (p. 231)”

+ “Sometimes I think the best way to understand gender shift is to sing a song

of diaspora.”

+Literary Elements

Style (p. 19)

Imagery (p. 39)

Sensory (pp.37, 60)

Dialog (pp. 35, 157)

Repetition- (pp. 88, 232)

“Tis is a good life, the life at sea.”

+Frameworks

Formalist:

Language, scene, sensory, musing, plot, character, setting, point of view, tone, etc.

Readers Response:

Creates personal meaning, involve yourself during interpretation, make personal connection.

Feminist:

Concerned with gender role, women status, double standards relating to gender, stereotypes.

+Things to Consider

Targeted Audience Stated in back of book

Morals and Beliefs of Author Each reader could interpret this differently

Topics and Themes Gender, Family, Sexuality, Love, Life, Finding One’s Place in Society, identity, death/ rebirth,

Time Era and Location 1974-2002

Societies Views on Topic How we as readers view this topic and how characters presented in the book view this topic

+Comparison to Karr

Page 23

Hurricane

“All around me were echoes of the ocean and the howling wind and the seagulls and the rain, the smell of creosote and tar”

Storm represents his dilemma of wanting to be a girl

Page 26

Bug storm

“you can hear the hum of wings get closer and closer”

Storm represents Mary’s dysfunctional family

She’s Not There The Liars Club

Storm- a disturbance of the normal condition of the atmosphere

+Comparison to Lucy Grealy

Maybe you can be cured by love.

Still, all the while, I was secretly hoping that in the process some potential lover might accidentally notice I was wearing my private but beautiful heart on my stained and fraying sleeve. (Grealy 193-194)

She’s Not There Autobiography of a Face

+Recommendations

Truthful to actual events

Addresses relatable issues or dilemmas

Explores a BIG question of memoir as defined by Barrington

Unique language & style

Influences techniques of writing distinctive memoirs

+Alyson’s response to Reading

Reading Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders is like…

A game of tug of war between sympathy & self value.

+Jennifer’s response to Reading

Reading Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders is like…

Experiencing a new situation with familiarity.

+Work Cited

Boylan, Jennifer. She's Not There. New York: Broadway books, 2003. Print.

Biography of Jennifer Finney Boylan for Appearances, Speaking Engagements, Endorsements Talent Agent." All-American Speakers Bureau Keynote Motivational Sports Speakers. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2012. <http://www.allamericanspeakers.com/celebritytalentbios/Jennifer-Finney-Boylan>.

Karr, Mary. The Liars Club. New York: penguin group, 1996. Print.