Rose Mellie Rose

"It's bad enough not knowing the new alphabet and not being registered at the municipal offices, all I needed was to come to Oat a virgin."

I thought this quote was shocking yet extremely interesting. It amazed me how a 12 year old girl could have such mature and broken thoughts. Not only is she concerned about learning the new alphabet and its meaning, but she is concerned about coming to a new place as a virgin. The thoughts she had here were also in order, you can see how first she was concerned with the alphabet, then with her grandmother not wanting her to be registered, and now, thanks to this truck driver, her most recent concern was about being a virgin. I am perplexed by the writing of this story because although we know how young she is, it is almost not surprising to listen to the way this young girl talks. At first I couldn't help but read this as sarcasm. I initially read it this way because I thought this was how she might cope with it, however after reading it over I don't see it that way.

Rose Mellie Rose

"After Miss Martha and I left the Continental, we walked along the boulevard of the port like last Sunday. I talked about Pim. I also told her we went down to the restrooms and what we did in the stall. Miss Martha smiled and said I was the right age for that. She squeezed my arm very hard."

I think this quote intrigued me the most out of what I read. In the world created by the story, it seems like a perfectly acceptable thing for a 12 year old girl to lose her virginity and for her to make no big deal about it- even going on to be grateful for the trucker for taking her virginity. I couldn't figure out if Mellie just didn't know better, or its an acceptable thing in the world of the book- but this paragraph made me think it was the latter. Miss Martha brought her along with her to the dance knowing what was going to happen in the restroom. Did she do this because she already knew that Mellie wasn't a virgin and she needed someone to share her shame with? Or is it a fairly normal thing for little girls to have sex with older men at dance clubs or at all in this world? The sentence that says that Miss Martha told her she was at the right age for sex and then squeezed her arm very hard made me think that she knew what she was doing with Mellie was frowned upon. It would be helpful if we had other character's insight on this whole situation as well, because at this point it seems like the only characters that know about Mellie's sex life are the truck driver, Miss Martha, and Pim; And they all see nothing wrong with it. Mellie never tells Yem about her sexual experience, and the book never even gets into her sexual experiences with him even though he ends up becoming her husband. Was she ashamed to tell him? I don't really think she understood the concept of sex. For her it was as normal as any other human experience.

"I have not forgotten how much I owe the driver. Thanks to him, I am not a virgin anymore. It's bad enough not knowing the new alphabet and not being registered at the municipal offices, all I needed was to come to Oat a virgin."

I thought this quote was extremely strange. It amazed me that she was grateful to the truck driver for basically stealing her virginity. She considered it a relief, a favor. The way the sentences are so practical and unemotional left a lot open to fill with your own thoughts. It made me wonder how being raised with a single person in the falls may have effected this or if it was just the way that she was. I wish that I had more insight into her feelings yet I liked how quickly the actions moved along without the necessity of a bunch of fluffy emotional detail.

"The truck driver kept caressing me. I let him go on. I did everything like the truck driver wanted. I wanted to let him go on."

The thing I find most striking thus far in the novel is its language--I can only assue that because it was originally written in French and then translated, that is the reason for its apparent simplicity and redudancy. The sentence structures are all much the same; there is little to no variation; a lot of times it seems to be a very reptitive way of speaking. The quote I chose showcases that well. It some ways it starts to get a bit annoying after awhile, but in others it makes the speaker come alive. Like this quote, both in its meaning and in the way its said, it expresses (along with the "simple" language of the novel) Mellie's girlhood and apparent simplicity/naivety as well. Perhaps it is because it was translated, or perhaps it was written that way and in French the sentences would still read as reduddant. Either way, it is a good example of character language.

Rose Mellie Rose and Perceptions

“Mellie 3175 is a funny name to say who I am.”

This book’s exploration of the significance of names really stood out to me. The names of the characters, the repetition of names, the names of streets, and the confusion surrounding names emphasize the importance—or the perceived importance—of titles. The characters all lack last names and some of them are only referred to by titles—the truck driver and the photographer. Characters are thus objectified in a sense. They are known by their purpose to others, specifically to the Mellie. This treatment of names points to legitimacy/importance of human individuality and its relevance. Through Mellie, readers see very clearly the disparities between perspectives of the townspeople, but are left to determine their significances along with the still-learning narrator. There were so many Mellie’s that Nem remembers, but this fact doesn’t seem to bother the narrator much. The narrator, however, notices the oddness in her 3175 identification. The power of names draws on the book’s focus on representations and values in language and pictures and how those change from person to person. Nem’s perception of language is drastically different than anyone else’s, he sees Rose in pictures that Mellie does not, and he Mellie in Rose, Rose in Mellie, Mellie in Mellie, as he confuses the names. All of these elements he sees around identity define him more than the people he identifies.

post from Mideya

I really like this book so far. I love the authors use of language and how it is told through this obviously uneducated 12 year old girl. I also really like how the text seems to almost skip around and be repetitive at points because it makes the reader believe the narrator is a 12 year old girl even more. One quote in particular struck me though. When she says, "Thanks to him, I am not a virgin anymore." This just shows how deeply naive the main character/ narrator really is. She whole-heartedly believes that this random stranger did her a favor by basically raping her. It almost makes me dislike Rose just for the simple fact that she didn't teach Mellie any better before she left her.

Rose Mellie Rose

"It's bad enough not knowing the new alphabet and not being registered at the municipal offices, all I needed was to come to Oât a virgin."

I kind of laughed when I read this line, because the tone of the sentence made it sound like Mellie was some cliché preteen girl who, having moved to a new town, is worried about not fitting in with the cool kids. She's flung into this unfamiliar environment, but she comforts herself with the fact that she's no longer a virgin because at the very least people won't view her as inexperienced. I found it funny that she saw her virginity as a burden, a sign of her unpreparedness; she was glad to be rid of it because, in her naive mind, losing it gave her a sense of worldliness.

Rose Mellie Rose

"I have not forgotten how much I owe the driver.  Thanks to him, I am not a virgin anymore."

I find this to be a relatively disturbing quote.  In our society, having sexual intercourse at the age of twelve is very much frowned upon.  Therefore, I instinctively found this relatively offensive and disturbing.  However, I suppose that this idea can make sense in the sense of the natural human body.  That is, when a woman starts her period, that means that her body is ready to finally reproduce and that she actually should be having sex.  Perhaps this is why the author has the child have sex the day that she starts her period.  Perhaps in the society of the book, when a woman comes opf age, reproduction is expected of her.

cass ford & rose mellie rose

"This is the first time I have been dressed all in red." - page 43

In this quote, the operative words are "been dressed"-- making it seem more like Miss Martha had dressed her than she had dressed herself, and in a metaphorical sense, she had. Miss Martha dressing Mellie in red and taking her to the tea dances was more of Miss Martha offering Mellie sexually than Mellie was offering herself. When Miss Martha said Mellie was the right age for what she was doing, I was like, "What the fuck is wrong with this woman? Also, how does she run every freaking operation on the island?"

Mellie's weird. She doesn't act or react like a 12 year old should, and I don't think the language in the book is much like a 12 year old. Most of her emotions are expressed through metaphor and imagery-- for example, first the red dress, then the white-- moving from passion to innocence as she becomes disenchanted with the teas. Another example would be the blood stain left on the trucker's seat after he rapes her.

I don't think Mellie is a whore. When you grow up in a certain environment, it takes time to realize and separate what is normal or maladaptive about that environment later. She is doing what she has been taught to do. Whenever she has a sexual encounter, she says she does everything the man wants her to do, which she obviously must think is right or normal (after all, Miss Martha does it). I don't think she feels true pleasure or passion with these encounters. It's not like she's going around with a burning passion in her loins or something. Things just happen to her. I'm sure the psychological trauma will catch up with her in a few years.

I also don't really like the language the book uses. I find it so plain and redundant that it seems one-dimensional. I doubt it's the translation from French to English, because it's not like French lacks the language to describe concepts contained in the English language. French practically lent itself to the entire lexicon of abstract English words and expressions. The simplistic nature of the language might just be characteristic of someone incredibly traumatized, but maybe the author is just bad at pretending to be 12.

Rose Mellie Rose--Part 1

"And now that I have had my first period and I am not a virgin anymore, I am a young girl."

Mellie thinks that by losing her virginity, she is now a more complete person. Sex, actually, seems to be a theme in this story--she has sex with the man in the truck, and also the men in the bathroom. But she is only twelve years old; far too young for people to begin having sex in this culture. I don't understand why this seems to be accepted, it's even stated that she is a minor in this culture. The island of Oât is a very strange place.

Rose Mellie Rose

"I have not forgotten how much I owe the driver."

This particular quote is very disturbing and says a lot about Mellie. I think that the passage shows how Mellie represents innocence and ignorance. She was obviously not raised properly and lacks the judgement to know she was raped. She somehow believes that she owes the driver something when he took advantage of her. The passage shows how parenting is so important and that kids need to be watched until an age more mature than 12. Young people lack the maturity to know what is right and I believe that it is those who raised Mellie who are responsible for her actions and lack of conscience.

Rose Mellie Rose Response

"I am not a virgin anymore. Rose never told me I should stay a virgin."

From this quote, I feel like she really isn't listening or caring about herself, but only other people. She only cares what seems right to Rose, and not herself. She says that Rose never told her to stay a virgin, having the readers assume that if Rose told her to stay a virgin she would. I thought it was a little disturbing how she really didn't think for herself. even when she was with the truck driver. It seems like she a girl who is really being controlled by outside sources, and not her own thinking.

Rose Mellie Rose-Part 1

"I also talked about Pim. I also told her we went down to the restrooms and what we did in the stall. Miss Martha smiled, she said I was the right age for that."

This line really made me feel uneasy. This woman is a horrible influence on Mellie, even though I will say, she was a little to whore-like to begin with. Mellie thinks that having sex somehow makes her more mature. People keep telling her that she looks older that what she really is, and it's engrained in her head that she must also act older as well. Even though she thinks she is more mature, her language used throughout the story is very plain and not mature. We can still tell that she is young throughout the book just by the way she describes people and her thoughts about them. I think that Mellie has had to grow up too fast and she doesn't fit in with anyone in Oat because there is no mention of people having any children.

Rose Mellie Rose

"I told her that I am not a child anymore since I have had my first period and I am not virgin. She smiled, she said that still doesn't mean I am not a child" (40).

Mellie has a very naive and ignorant way of looking at the world. She only understands growing up in a physical sense. Throughout the novel she comments that Rose and others tell her that she is very developed for her age. Mellie believes she is growing up because she is physically maturing: she started her period, lost her virginity, and started growing her womanly figure. She does not consider her mental or emotional growth as maturing. Miss Martha tries to tell her that it takes more than physical growth to be considered an adult.

Rose Mellie Rose

As much as that whole "thanks for raping me" thing creeped me out as well, I'll go off in another direction. The sentence structure of this book is definitely particular, as much as one can tell from a translation. I studied French in high school and have to read a lot of translated works this semester (from Ancient Greek, though, not French), so I latched onto the language of the main character and tried to analyze it. We don't know where this story takes place, but it's most likely some island off the coast of backcountry 1980s France. The "continent" they speak of is most likely Europe, and the alphabets must be different versions of French. The language in the story has a naive quality that comes across very well even through the language barrier, probably because it's so purposefully simple and straightforward. Mellie seems to have almost no personality of her own, since her narration comes across as purely objective notes about the experiences she has never had until this point in her life. French is a pretty indirect language, so letting this character speak in first person and pulling it off is a testament to Redonnet and Stump both.

Rose Mellie Rose

"I am happy the truck driver gave me his address... I have not forgotten how much I owe the driver. Thanks to him, I'm not a virgin anymore."

This quote, along with some others and certain aspects of the book, really disturbed me. I think it is ridiculous that Mellie let him do that to her without question, and then she is under the delusion that she actually owes him for doing that to her. It makes me question the way she was raised, because I would think her naivety would cause her to be scared or unsure about what is going on, but she willingly accepts what he does to her. On top of that, Miss Martha says she is at the "right age" to be having sex with guys in bathrooms. I am wondering what sort of society they live in...

Rose Mellie Rose

"Thanks to him I am not a virgin anymore"

This quote reveals the depth to which Mellie has become deluded by living with Rose for the first 12 years of her life. She does not realize that what the truck driver did to her was rape and that she was taken advantage of. Instead she focuses on the fact that it made her feel good. And if you haven't been taught otherwise, at age 12, why would you think differently? I believe this is only the first instance of the reader observing such evil through the eyes of an innocent child. The point is not necessarily what is happening to the child, but the fact that her innocence is juxtaposed with the evil acts of the OAT towns people.

Briar Rose 2

"Ah, but remember, said the leper, opening his robes, and, as though in parody, peeling off a wafer of flesh from his diseased chest, physical beauty is only this deep and lasts but a brief season, while spiritual beauty lasts forever."

In the retelling which this quote appears, Beauty is forced to choose between a crazy old man, a holy leper, and a foolish/naive, yet beautiful, young man. I like this quote because I find it to be mostly true and because beauty wanted it to be the young attractive one. Of course she hoped this without knowing the specific traits of the others but it is true for all of us that our first impressions are formed based on visible features. It is human nature to do so but not always the best course of action to take, especially because outward beauty is no indication of spiritual righteousness.

Briar Rose 2

"She lies alone in her dusty bedchamber atop the morbid bed. Perhaps she has never left it, her body anchored forever here by the pain of the spindle prick, while her disembodied self, from time to time, goes aimlessly astray, drifting through the castle of her childhood..."

I think this passage is interesting because after all the repetition we still are not sure if much time has passed at all. Have these past stories been dreams that come and go in a split second? This quote makes me think of when I have a dream. It seems like hours and hours go by, yet I can be asleep for only a few minutes. Her dreams within dreams are getting old. She seems to be living out her life in a long dream. I think this quote might be hinting at the fact that she may never really awaken.

Briar Rose Response

"She lies alone in her dusty bedchamber atop the morbid bed. Perhaps she has never left it, her body anchored forever here by the pain of the spindle prick, while her disembodied self, from time to time, goes aimlessly astray, drifting through the castle of her childhood, in search of nothing whatsoever, except perhaps distraction from her lonely fears (of the dark, of abandonment, of not knowing who she is, of the death of the world), which gnaw at her ceaselessly like the scurrying rodents beneath her silken chemise "

I chose this quote because i think you really get a good sense of what her life is like. I liked that the first part really related to the classic disney version of sleeping beauty, but then it goes off explaining her life with a twist. I think it does a really good job of enlightening us on how she feels and it brings color to the story.

Briar Rose 2

"He has left the crone's ointment back in his saddlebag, but he won't need it, even were it what the old fraud claimed it to be: the branches part gently, the fragrant petals caress his cheeks. He is surprised how easy it is. How familiar. He feels, oddly, like he's coming home again. It is not the castle, no, nor the princess inside (perhaps he will reach her and disenchant her with a kiss, perhaps he will not; it matters less than he'd supposed), but this flowering briar patch, hung with old bones, wherein he strives. I am he who awakens Beauty, the bones seem to whisper as the blossoms enfold him."

(I know its a little late to post this, but I just could not get my computer to work last night.) I chose this quote because I feel like it brought the story together in the end. The line, "He is surprised how easy it is," is used on the first page of the text and I think that using it at the end like Coover did was a good way to kind of loop the story around into an ending. The story itself is difficult to end because it is nothing but repetition of the same event over and over again; so, how do you come up with a conclusion for something like that? By ending almost the same as the beginning, it was like Coover was resetting the loop- like it was all going to start again. You don't really know how the story ends, its all left open for interpretation. The prince may or may not have rescued the princess. This story could have different meanings for anyone that read it.

Briar Rose II

"Now that I am awake, she says, the truth is more hidden than before. Her mirrored eyes meet his: When will this spell be broken?"

I chose this quote because it very nicely describes the cycle this story seems to take. When will this spell be broken? When will my true prince come? Well, it already has been broken, several times. The princess has been awoken and awoken and awoken and still she is sleeping. It's a never-ending cycle. When will this story be over? In many ways it was finished halfway through, and in many other ways it can never be over, because it is all just repeating.

Briar Rose Part II

"She is just as he imagined her: beautiful, gentle, innocent, devoted, submissive. He is suffused with love and desire, but he also feels like he would like to take a nap."

I chose this quote because It is all about the idea of the ideal woman. I think it is the perfect stereotypical quote for both genders. Of course women are expected to be all these things, which are supposed to invoke love and desire. The cliche fairy tale cookie cutter image of a woman...so impossible yet still so desired and chased. I think its funny because it is true, what happens after the happily ever after? Do the characters nap? what happens when the carriage rolls away? I like the idea of stretching the fairy tale molds. It really causes you to think about the stories possibilities.

cass ford & briar rose, part ii

"Today... I saw a strange thing. I saw a plucked goose flying. It flopped into my room where I was sleeping or else lying awake and said to me: You will never awaken because the story you were in no longer exists. Oh yes? He is thinking about the quest that brought him here. Has he made his name then?... Or has he perhaps come to the wrong castle? When she says, perhaps not for the first time, that, even when sitting in the same room with him, she feels like she's all alone, he realizes his mind has been elsewhere. I'm sorry, my love, he says. What is your heart's desire? To live happily ever after, she replies without emotion. Of course, he replies, it's yours for the asking. And also I wonder if you'd mind watching the babies for a while? Babies--?!" -page 66

Yes, this quote is insanely long, but there is so much to unpack from it. The content of the conversation, manner in which it is directed, and how it is received on either end are all important aspects to consider. The two are absorbed in their own thoughts. It is easy to feel sorry for the princess feeling alone (because the prince isn't listening), but the topic of her own conversation is just as selfish as the prince's private thoughts. He is preoccupied with the past: he wonders if he has made a name for himself, and he wonders if he is in the wrong castle. The "wrong castle" to me is like a metaphor for relationships. Today, we would ask if we are with whom we are meant to be. The princess's reply lacking emotion to "live happily ever after" is contradictory. What is living "happily" ever after? Wouldn't emotion be just as flat without suffering to put it into perspective? I interpreted the "Babies--?!" as being said by the prince, as a sort of "What babies?" comment. Perhaps he thinks it is a ridiculous request, or perhaps the babies being referred to are the ones she had before this prince came. If it's the latter, the prince's reaction speaks to how the princess is viewed for her sexuality, as if there is an expectation for her to remain pure and faithful to him, even in the past. Even more to consider: why is the goose plucked? What does it mean that her story is over? Is it because she is now with her prince, and the importance is lost? This novella raises more questions than it answers, but I think that is exactly how it was intended to be.

Briar Rose 2

"... clothed in little more than tangled flaxen strands and furiously stabbing herself over and over with the spindle. Ah, such a desire to sleep again..."

When I read this quote towards the end of the book, it triggered my memory to other parts of Briar Rose when characters would tell Beauty that she is the lucky one- being able to sleep, not having to deal with the world, etc etc. This is obviously a very cynically view on life, and makes me wonder whether or not Coover truly stands behind this opinion or not. It's as if we are given two sides- 1) Live life, while not only experiencing happiness and triumph, but also evils, sadness, and disappointments. Or 2) Don't live life at all (in fact, sleep through it) so you don't have to deal with being let down or failing. This section opens my eyes to the negativity the author and the character both have towards things that have happened in their life, causing them to not want to deal with it anymore.

Briar Rose 2

"As he enters the hall, engulfed in pain, he realizes he has arrived at the perilous edge of the world and that from this entering there will be no departing. Help! he howls. Wake up! Get me out of here!"

I like how this time it seems as though the prince is dreaming. We see that he is just as trapped as Rose, maybe not through sleep, but in his mind while he slashes though the briars. When he cuts the briars, its almost metaphorical for the all of the crone's fake Sleeping Beauties that he tries to get though to find his true love. And Rose keeps destroying the fairy's fake princes because all she wants is her true prince. I guess what find frustating is that we see them fighting so hard through their illusions to get to each other, and they're so close, but they never meet. Coover is trying to tell us that in order to find love, we have to wake up and see past our illusions, we have to accept that love isn't always happily ever after. Reality, thats what we have to accept, and love can't become real if we are under a spell of another person's influence and not our own.

Briar Rose

"Why do you always suppose every story is about you?"

I find that people most frequently associate themselves with the main or title character. Though there are the odd ones who prefer Bellatrix Lastrange to Harry Potter, the general populace seems to want the story to be about someone like them, just like Briar Rose does in this book. People seem to need to make themselves the main characters, needing to be important enough to be considered a main character. Briar Rose's desire is, however, sensible, since she has limited access to the outside world.

Briar Rose 2

"The fairy recognizes that many of her stories, even when by her lights comic, have to do with suffering, often intolerable and unassuaged suffering, probably because she truly is a wicked fairy, but also because she is at heart (or would be if she had one) a practical old thing who wants to prepare her moony charge for more than a quick kiss and a wedding party, which means she is also a good fairy, such distinctions being somewhat blurred in the world she comes from" (60).

This section of the story really made me analyze how I felt about the fairy. Are her actions and words geared toward helping Rose by preparing her for her future or is she just telling her scary stories to be spiteful. I think that the fairy is good. Throughout the book, she is the one constant character for Rose. Even her parents are shown as bad people, but the fairy appears to stop the bad things or tell stories of what could happen to her. I think that although the way she speaks may be sinisterly tinted, what she does is for Rose's benefit. The fairy is like a mother figure for Rose. She wants to protect her by teaching her that the world is not always a fairy tale and there is no real happily ever after.

Briar Rose part 2- Alex

"Once upon a time, she says with a curling smile, her wicked side as usual taking over, there was a handsome prince and a beautiful princess who lived happily ever after. But that's terrible! cries Rose." -Coover

The end of the story seems to create an infinite loop of story-lines that can occur after the supposed "Happily Ever After". The story ends how it begun, with a prince determined to fulfill his destiny by awakening Beauty in the magical tower. However, in Beauty's unstable subconscious she is the disgruntled wife, left at home, not understanding her husband's restlessness and desires to seek his name. Just as the story asks "What is desire?" it also contests what happiness truly is. Does Beauty actually want to wake up, or does she fear the possibility of her life with her prince more than she does the snares of her own mind? In the quote I picked, Briar Rose's perception of the 'correct' ending for a story has warped from her idealistic notion of 'happily ever after' to seeing the auspicious ending as something to dread or fear. Coover has flipped the notion of 'happy' into a fear of complacency, just as he flipped "Sleeping Beauty" into a story about stories.

Briar Rose 2

She never wakes up. The prince doesn't reach her. The book ends essentially at the beginning of the narrative, giving a bit more background to the prince's motives and Briar Rose's existence in eternal sleep. Somehow I feel like this is a satisfying ending, though. Normally, stories have to have some kind of conclusion that wraps up the conflict and pays off the reader's expectations. But that's really the question, isn't it? Did we, as readers, expect Rose to wake up at the end?

I personally didn't expect her to, nor was I surprised that the prince never reached the castle. Rose has had so many false awakenings that didn't turn out well and the prince has imagined just about every possible way he could interact with her once he finds her - imagination overcomes reality here. If the event ever actually happened in the narrative, we readers would invariably have been disappointed because anything we can imagine would be more exciting or romantic or lusty or frightening. With such a circular, dream-like story, the chosen ending (if that's what it can be called) is a smart choice.

Briar Rose

"Of course, dark as it is, he might not be able to see all this, though, as he imagines it, dawn is breaking and, as he pushes aside the ancient drapes (he has already, hands now at her knees, pushed them aside, they turned to dust at his touch)..."

I think this quote is interesting because this is again a variation in Coover's repetition. The idea of the Princess's thighs being spread open has been talked about previously when Coover mentions how the branches "part like thighs". The underlying idea of sex is expressed in an innocent way giving it the feeling of a fairy tale. The reader continually feels suspense thinking that the Prince has reached the sleeping beauty, but each time things fall apart. In this quote her body turns to dust at his touch and he loses her again.

Briar Rose quote

"..but that she doubts that her prince will ever come suggests she underestimates her own legendary beauty and its power to provoke desire in men."

I chose this quote because I find it original that Coover would point out deep feeling in the "princess". Usually you see this picture of a princess with no real feeling only oblivious beauty. I like the idea that the princess could doubt her fate. How could she be sure he would come? What if she wasn't pretty enough or desirable at all? I have questioned things I was told to believe my whole life and I know those tempting thoughts full of doubt.

Briar Rose

"In spite of all the fairy's promises and reprimands, when the little ninny's not bewailing her fate, she is doubting it, or if not doubting, dreading it, afraid of what she longs for."

This quote was interesting to me, especially the last bit--"afraid of what she longs for"--explaining that she is conflicted between her rationalities and her desires, trapped in a constant tug and pull of her own emotions.

I also particularly liked the beginning--"yet another inflated legend"--sort of giving it a Don Quixote feel. While I think this will be an interesting read, I can help but wonder, why all the fairy tale stories? What's it about fairy tales that makes us want to retell them again and again, and why are we reading them all in this class? I think it's very interesting how this applies to creative writing. This story, however, seems to be a wonderful refresher after Bloody Chamber, as a retelling of Sleepy Beauty seems far less common than retelling Red Riding Hood a million times.

Briar Rose

"Ah, the beautiful: what a deadly illusion! Yet, still he is drawn to it."

It seems like the theme of beauty being something "deadly" is common in a lot of the types of stories I like to read. Many times if a character is described as strikingly beautiful, they would use that to their advantage to get what they wanted or to manipulate others. I agree that beauty can be a "deadly illusion." Isn't it a reoccurring life lesson that true beauty comes from within? Or that just because someone is lovely on the outside, there is no guarantee that this stays true for the inside?

Confusion and Briar Rose

“Yes, yes, I can see him! No, you can’t, he was completely swallowed up by the briars. A pity, but it was too late. No! Hurry! Here I am! It’s not too late!” (24)

My favorite element of Briar Rose thus far has been Coover’s ever-confusing discourse. This passage is just one rapid-fire example of the book’s fascinating contradiction and ambivalence. The omniscient third person narrator switches perspectives quite often, so even though the narrator remains a constant, he offers splitting views of his story-views far removed from each other and so somewhat jarring and disorienting to the reader. The speakers are also at times difficult to differentiate and follow, so much so that the reader could wonder whether the narrator or one of two of the other characters is speaking. This style of confusion emphasizes the uncertainty and ambiguity of the story and seems to challenge the discrepancies between dream and reality, sleep and awake, story and prophecy. He offers no clear guideline for what to take literally, so every word is in question—every sentiment is malleable, every moment a lifetime yet still no time at all, every wakening a dream or a story or a memory. I have a hard time deciding what to make of it all, but I feel it speaks to a look at the ‘what we’re supposed to be.’ The sleeper asks, “Who am I? she demands. What am I?” (17). Her struggle might be with expectations of living up to sexual expectations and motherly expectations, symbolized in the many dead and living children she has while comatose. The adventurer sees her with lust, then in a friendly sense, as he also struggles with how to see his quest and himself as a hero. His struggle may lie in wanting to be “the one” while beginning to see those very efforts to make him just like the failed men whose shells he sees on his path.

Briar Rose- Alex

"And they lived happily ever after? How could they, the dragon was dead. No, I mean the princess and the--Oh, who can say? The prince had other tasks and maidens to attend to, making a name for himself as he was, for all I know, my dear, that one's chained there still."

I think one of the main messages in the story is the dissonance between reality and the happenings of fairy tales. Each time the princess wanders in and the crone tells a tale in which the ending isn't happy, she insists that that's not how the story is supposed to end. However, the princess is living in a 'dream,' and not just her 100 year enchantment. Most young girls grow up on the idea of the ideal male figure; something that is impossible to reach and hopeless to look for. Like the prince can never truly make it to the spires of her castle, the romantic ideals set in fairy tales are unrealistic hopes of idealistic dreamers. The repetition of lines is also a metaphor for the passing down of the tale, of the unreachable ideal, from generation to generation. No generation really remembers the reality of love, identity, and sexual intimacy, and so the lie is perpetuated for even longer than the 100 year fictional enchantment.

Briar Rose - Tom

"Caught in the briars , but still slashing away valiantly, driven more by fear now than by vocation..." (Coover 28).

The hero's quest for Beauty is driven by his desire and apparently by his vocation. Many think of their vocation as who or what they are and as such, accept tasks given to them as being a part of them. The question that I believe rises from this quote, is whether he is seeking Beauty because he genuinely wants to, or because he believes it is his job to. If it is his desire, the tale is one of introspection and deep personal reflection. If it is his vocation, the tale may be one of societal pressures and influences on personal desire. I believe Briar Rose explores the former subject and the hero will come to realize that it is him who in the end wants her.

cass ford & briar rose

"... [H]e does think of her, less now in erotic longing than in sympathetic curiosity.... And now, what if no one ever reaches her, what if she goes on dreaming in there forever, what sort of a life would that be, so strangely timeless and insubstantial? Yet, is it really any different from the life he himself has until now led, driven by his dream of vocation and heroic endeavor and bewitched by desire?" - page 25

"... [N]ow he thinks of her principally as a kind friend who might heal his lacerations and calm his anguished heart." - page 28

This pair of quotes is interesting in that they are the first truly introspective thoughts of the knight trying to save Briar Rose. As he suffers more and more to get to her, his thoughts shift from erotic desire to a longing for companionship. His endeavor leads him to an epiphany about his goals, and he seems to have realized the fleeting nature of desire. He realizes that rather than it being a part of him, it is an external force (created by society, I would argue) compelling him to find Briar Rose and conquer her. These introspective quotes are interesting, because instead of the traditional post-modern take on fairytales and gender, in which the male is the evil, oppressive 'other,' Coover gives dimension to both the Sleeping Beauty and her "hero."

Briar Rose

"She dreams, as she has often dreamt, of abandonment and betrayal, of lost hope, of the self gone astray from the body forsaking the unlikely self."

I feel like this quote could easily sum up Sleeping Beauty's long slumber. Everything has abandoned her: her parents, her beliefs, her aspirations, and even herself. She is alone in her dreams and cannot move forward. Her future has been shattered. She is now dependent on a man to save her, as she cannot save herself in this instance.

Briar Rose

"They seem to be instructing him that the prize here without may well exceed the prize within, that in effect his prize lays not before him but behind, already passed, or rather, that the test is not of his valor or judgement..."

This quote seems to reiterate the saying that "it's not the journey, not the destination." The hero of Briar Rose thinks that the prize he is seeking, fame and glory, may already lie in his past. The point of this quote is that the main point of the story is not what it seems. It could be a bit of self-discovery along the way to the castle, not getting the princess from the castle.

Briar Rose

'He is lean and stong with flowing locks, just a little hair around his snout an dirt under his nails, but otherwise a handsome and majestic youth, worthy of her and of her magical disenchantment. She sleeps still, eyes closed, and yet she sees him as he bends towars her, brushing her breast with one paw--hand, rather.....'

I love how this excerpt portrays the prince as animal-like, and not so much like a human. Its funny that Rose expects this epiphany or right-of passage to come through intercourse with "this prince" even though he seems kind if gross with his dirty fingernails and scruffy snout. I think this represent our ideas of reality versus what we want to see. What we want may seem like one thing, but it turns out to be completely different that what we expected. Sometimes we naively go for what is right infront of us, we'll see the flaws (dirty fingernails) but yet we still pursue it. Like Rose, we need to wake up and see reality, instead of taking what is blaring us in the face, we have to search independently for our own prince or goal elsewhere.

Briar Rose

"She dreams, as she has often dreamt, of abandonment and betrayal, of lost hope, of the self gone astray from the body, the body forsaking the unlikely self...her longing for integrity is, in her spellbound innocence, all she knows of rage and lust"

I think this passage represents Briar Rose and the idea of an isolated princess inside of a castle waiting for her prince. This story is far from the typical fairy tale; this story is much more sexual and blatant about the characters' sexual desires. The qualities of knowing rage and lust were never mentioned in the original Sleeping Beauty and the fact that these characteristics are given to Briar Rose makes this story very distinct. I also think that she drams of abandonment and betrayal because of all the past failures of men to extract her from the castle. I think this passage shows that even though she has been deprived of her integrity, she longs for better and constantly awaits for a man who is up to the task of saving her.

Briar Rose

Usually the stories we read involve a naive girl who experiences the harsh realities of the world and changes her perception of her role in her own story. But in Briar Rose, the princess is the static character. Her story is a continual repetition of the same plot over and over with minor changes that usually leave her worse off than when the story began. This time it's the prince, the male presence in the story, whose view of the world changes over the course of his journey. The prince first views the princess as someone he could use to make a name for himself. She's a means to an end, someone to be viewed solely in a sexual light and who would inevitably thank him for freeing her from her captivity. But as he becomes trapped in the briars he begins to lose faith in his journey and questions the point of what he's doing. He starts to view the princess as something of a companion instead of an object, someone who could appreciate his struggle. While I'm hoping the princess will eventually become less static as the book goes on, I actually found this role reversal refreshing.

Briar Rose

"He is surprised to discover how easy it is. The branches part like thighs,the silky petals caress his cheeks. His drawn sword is stained, not with blood, but with dew and pollen. Yet another inflated legend. He has undertaken this great adventure, not for the supposed reward — what is another bedridden princess? — but in order to provoke a confrontation with the awful powers of enchantment itself. To tame mystery. To make, at last his name."

The quote that really got to me was the quote that we looked at on the first day of class. It gives a good feeling of what the story is about and why he is going on this journey to find rose. I didn't realize the sexual context in the quote at first, but after looking at it a second time it is really apparent. He is not on this journey just to save a princess, but to "tame mystery".

Briar Rose

"Though proud of the heroic task set him (he will, overcoming all obstacles, teach her who she is, and for his discovery she will love and honor him forever without condition)..."

This quote really struck me because it shows the idea of male dominance in the story and also the prince's original perspective of the princess. At the beginning of the story the prince only saw the princess as a way to make his name. He thought that she should be eternally grateful to him because of what he was doing for her. When he thought of her, he thought of her as a sexual object. But as the story goes on and he becomes hopeless and entrapped in the briars, he begins to see her as a friend. Someone that he can talk about his strife with. I found it interesting how each time the story switches to the prince, his thought process changes subtly. The more he hacks through the briars, the more he questions what he was doing and why. When you're in the princess's POV, her story just repeats with different variations. Its very redundant.

Briar Rose

The prince may or may not be a rapist. The father, as well. And Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose may or may not have a hundred children or still be dreaming or be awake and faking sleep or be a fairy tale character or be real or what have you. This book is disturbing and confusing, in other words. I find it fascinating, though.

The character of the prince is of a young man who thinks that he has it all together. He embarked on this quest to gain a reward, not for any psychological awakening or growth of courage. It seems immature to me that he is going through all the trouble of finding this abandoned castle and trying to secure this maiden that so many others have failed to awaken just because he wants to have sex with her. I would say that we have an unsympathetic protagonist on our hands, but that's also the motivation of every other suitor who has come after Briar Rose. All she wants is her true love and an end to her pain, but even this new prince who we're following now isn't going to be any different from the ones who came before. Unless he has a change of heart, the plot isn't going anywhere.

Briar Rose

"No, in the end she was taken rather rudely by a band of drunken peasants who had broken into the castle, intent on loot. I don't believe this."

This quote makes me think about society's expectations on the endings of stories, movies, etc. Rose is surprised that in this "fairy tale," the Beauty isn't woken up by a prince, but by a bunch of savages instead. I think many people in our culture have been conditioned to expect a happy ending or some sort of closure when it comes to fictional stories, and I find it interesting that Rose is the same. I also think it is interesting that "Briar Rose" does not try to fit this mold, which makes it unique. Instead of telling the story of Sleeping Beauty that many have been exposed to (the happy fairy tale of a princess being awoken by her true love), Coover puts a dark and twisted spin on it that would make many people in our society cringe.