PLOT
Through the lives of a group of friends,
women and men, you can see the conflict, the war of sexes, showing in this
story, and through the evolution of the characters you can guess
how that story gets to an end. Moreover, according the literary
devices the author has used, you can guess also
when she is talking about characters’ real facts or her own opinion.
The story begins, at least, in my way of
reading, while Lyssa, Roxana and Deborah are talking
about their opinion on Portlandia statue: she’s
irresistible, photogenic wonderful and artistic for Lyssa,
however it’s a extravagant display for Roxana,
and ugly, bad taste for Deborah, she
compares her with a goddess in a pagan temple. Nowadays, they work in the same
place, the magazine in Portland Cutting Edges, where Lyssa is trying to keep things as egalitarian as possible;
they are choosing the photos to represent Portland (Oregon),
Oregonians are too iconoclastic, everyone likes Mercy’s
her son photo, but ask for Mercy that she writes a poem to Portlandia;. They
comment at the magazine, the rise of rapes, Chernobyl catastrophe, buy
Mercy nor Deborah did not write it, they talk
about their children, then go for a drink and, obviously, they talk about the
difficulties in the relationships between women and men. However, they found
that Marty, who is divorced too, feels wounded because he can’t see his
daughters often.
Lyssa
and Hannah went to dinner in a small
vegetarian restaurant with an atmosphere from the ’60, talked to Reaganomics, Portlandia’s procession; Hannah tells Lyssa
she looks like a mother in a sitcom, overprotective/ because she does not like
Jess, her boyfriend. Hannah has a rebellious phase, she
moved out and she usually quarrels with her mother as she comes to see her. Lyssa was brought up in a repressively traditional family,
she was a teenager in the early sixties, in ‘69 she was in Woodstock,
emancipated and leaving her husband, studied philosophy, and in her magazine
she made interviews to anyone well-known in her neibourhood,
it was political correctness, she had dreamed of being famous. Lyssa has a dog, Hades; she thinks he is more faithful than
her daughter, who is a stereotypical rebellious teenager and she is
picking up with suspicious-looking man called Jess.
They
are going to spend Christmas together, Hannah has lost weight and become attractive
and right now she agrees with following the studies she has given up and by
which her mother had fought constantly. She told Lyssa
that two months earlier, Randy was physically violent with her, and it happened
almost a rape. Lyssa feels a huge anger and wants
revenge. She thinks about everything the women of her generation did to get a
freedom and an autonomy that make them to feel safer and not guilty relating
their relationship with men. She likes Marty;
however, what has happened to Hannah makes to think of her future with him
again. After her unsuccessful attempt to put an end to sexual violence, Lyssa turned to
a somewhat more successful attempt to put an end to nuclear power plants in
Oregon. She is presently trying--with continued lack of success and
undiminished enthusiasm--to save the whales, the trees, the spotted owl and the
world in general.
Marty is
trying to save Lyssa from herself and thereby save
her idealism for the rest of the world. He also makes sure the magazine doesn't
go under.
Amazon
House, name relating with gender of the occupants in a
small campus. Before had lived there “the dirty dozen”, Matt, Lily, Adam,
Diana, Mercy, Myrine among others, they feel heir of
the seventies musicians Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple while they are
celebrating Diana’s birthday. Diana had
become bored in her relation with Steve, they had superficial sex; and then,
she went out with Geoff, who fell in love with Diana, she
compares his beard with Don Johnson,but
soon after he left Diana, who did not want break up their relationship; then
she wrote her bitter ballads, considering he was a medieval man because he did
not feel pain while leaving her. Then, she knows Adrian, who plays in a band in Seattle,
but
Diana did not want to engage him, and move to Seattle, she likes to be on
Portland’s scene, not to join Adrian’s band. Diana has a discussion
with Rick during a practice session, trying to compound something for
Halloween, “Crimes of the heart” both are leaders, they want to get a gig, lots
of people think if you're a black female musician, you have to be a blues
singer.
Adam and Lily have been together off and on for nearly ten years, but the
relationship is regularly interrupted by temporary infidelities, mostly on
Adam's part. Lily
is a high school P.E. teacher who gives self-defense
courses, among other things. She lives with Diana and Myrine
in a big old house which is commonly referred to as Amazon House. All the women
of in there are engaged in long-distance relationships. Lily's is Adam in
Eugene.
Many George’s friends considered their own wives as bitch, but not Mercy in spite of being an
intellectual, because she did not give to her the right importance by that, by
the contrary, she increases George’s reputation; however he felt resentful for
his wife’s achievements.
Matt is perhaps the closest thing to
a professional idealist as is humanly possible. He sits in trees, marches the
streets and mooches off his friends. He helps SOFT organization to save
environment. He reads books about buddhism
Matt, Myrine, Lily, Adam, Mercy and Diana all go back
to co-op days in Eugene.
Myrine: Matt’s best friend, she helps
him to give up of being hung up a tree until police to arrest him.
Roxana, after having been working in Cutting Edges, settled by her own as a
free-lance photographer and so, she got some exposures of her work in
well-known places. She continued fighting alone for bringing up her teenager
daughter, Daphne.
Deborah, Lyssa’s best friend
was able to finish her first novel that became a best-seller; and although
critics told it was superficial, she relied on herself and devoted to a second
novel in which, surely, she was going to write about themes relating
to the war of sexes. She and Roxana have not found any man who deserves their
love.
Spatial references: Seattle, Portland, Oregon,
Eugene, a place where the last sixties were still alive in the mid-eighties.
My Way of
Reading Answer Conclusion
Lay-out