new life

The book, Two or Three Things I Know For Sure, by Dorothy Allison is somewhat unusual compared to other autobiographical books I have read. The use of pictures in combination with her own words significantly aids the reader in understanding her past and what she went through.

There is a passage on page 32 that is written with help from a picture on the following page and I find it very important in understanding Dorothy’s family. The passage is the following; “My family has a history of death and murder, grief and denial, rage and ugliness-the women in my family most of all. The women in my family were measured, manlike, sexless, bearers of babies, burdens, and contempt.” This passage, I find, describes the expected life of Dorothy and the women in her family. It is said to read and this emotion is pushed even further after seeing the picture of Ruth and her friend. They look depressed, exhausted, rugged and worn and most of all, hopeless. It reminds me of a picture I once saw of a few men from the Great Depression. But this passage is what has become of the women in her family and the beauty of this autobiography is that she does not follow in these footsteps, which have already been laid out for her by the people currently walking. Dorothy writes her own life and then lays out the life of her family, not only in writing but also in film. This is what makes me curious, I don’t exactly understand the reason for putting her family out there in the open. Was she trying to punish them for what she went through? Maybe, she is trying to show how not everyone lives the same life? I will never know for sure but I am fairly certain that she has moved on from the memories that haunted her, not that she has forgiven everyone, but that her life was good enough to write about.