blog post #3

My family is definitely one-of-a-kind when it comes to basic home life. Therefore it was a challenge to relate to the family in Housework. To me, the language in Housework was reflective of their social class and work standings. When I began to read it, I definitely categorized them as lower class. Their means of communicating involved as little actual communication as necessary. They spoke in short, demanding phrases, paying barely any attention to proper grammar or appropriateness. Willy constantly seemed to be doing manual labor, while Martha was working with the children and Monica was doing chores. This made me think that the family was not very wealthy, for almost every “Image” occurred while working.

Then I started to compare their family, standings, and language to my own life. I live in a fairly average, middle-class household. If our family’s dialogue was recorded for a day, though, I don’t know how we would appear. We almost have our own language; we swear, enjoy crude humor, and talk in incomplete sentences. On the other hand, my dad, brother, and I love engaging in intellectual conversations late at night. Our language is all over the place, but we know how to communicate with each other. The jobs in my family are barely reflective of our “class” either. My dad performs beach shows at Kindercare, my brother plays in his band with him in the summer, I work at Noodles & Company, and my mom works for customer service at the airport. If someone received a description of our family on paper, or read a forty minute dialogue between the four of us…I don’t know how our language, work, and class could be fully understood.

My point is that these three characteristics can help define someone or something, but I needed to think back and relate the situation to my own life to make sure I wasn’t too quick to stereotype. I could somewhat relate to the work of Odysseus because he was in charge of making drastic decisions that would affect his entire crew. I’ve encountered many experiences with my friends where I’ve had to take that lead and be the decision-maker. One time specifically is when I planned a trip for my friends to go cliff-diving. I set it up with a specific schedule and items for people to bring. I had to make executive decisions about times and other planning issues, even to the dismay of some of my friends. It was a struggle to please everyone and I hated bossing people around, but like Odysseus, I was just looking out for the entire group. This may not help represent my class or language, but it does express my culture. Growing up in a creative family always motivated me to be a leader, which definitely shows through my work.