Mini-Document Essay
Students
enrolled in English 1102 classes taught by VSU Instructor Diane W. Howard
during spring 2004 semester, read “Going Through the
Change,” Janice Daugharty’s first collection of short
stories. After reading the collection, the
students explored topics in the stories, relating them to their hometowns or
communities. Simply put, the students related the ideas in a literary piece to
their own lives, finding points or areas of similarity as well as areas of
disagreement. Once they identified points—in agreement or in contrast—the
students researched and wrote a mini-documented essay on the subject “Regional
Identity.”
Strong Southern Women in My Life and Going Through the Change
by Erin Johnson
In Going Through
the Change, Janice Daugharty portrays many of the women as strong and
prideful. Mamie, Gransallie, and Miss
Sara are excellent examples of strong southern women of the twentieth
century. They are caring, strong-
willed, and proud of who they are and what they do. A strong woman of the South should have all
of these qualities. Southern women have
a distinctive way about them. They
embody the qualities of both Scarlet O’Hara and Melanie Wilkes from “Gone With the Wind.”
Southern women possess Scarlet’s passion and tenacity, and Melanie’s
nurturing and caring ways. Above all,
they will do whatever it takes to make sure that everyone has what they need,
be it their family or friends. Janice
Daugharty’s characters each have their own charm but are the embodiment of
strong Southern women. In my life, I
have been blessed with a family that has remained close because of the strong
bonds that bind us from generations of growing and learning. Strong Southern women are what my family is
made of, and they are the main reason that my family remains so close. Many of the older women of my family,
especially my Grandmother, have given me the strength to do anything. Women in my family and in Janice Daugharty’s
stories exemplify the traits of the ideal Southern woman.
Miss Sara, the strong-minded
caretaker of children in the story “Looking to Miss Sara”, reminds me so much
of my own Grandmother. My Grandmother is
never satisfied until I am with her. If
I am away, even in the backyard, she cannot stand it because she cannot know
that I am okay. Everyone else believes
that she will worry herself to death, and she is crazy to feel the way she
does. However, I now realize, especially
by reading “Looking to Miss Sara,” that my Grandmother has every reason to
worry. She knows how the world is and
she hates for her family to be out in it.
In looking to Miss Sara, Sara makes understands what the world has come
to and thinks to herself, “If [Toby] doesn’t have Sara, he has no one and
that’s a fact” (“Miss Sara” 109). My
Grandmother has the same idea about her family as Miss Sara has of Toby, the young
boy whose family leaves him in her care for the weekend while they are working,
and never even asks about him.
My Grandmother embodies the strong
Southern woman because; she raised her four children by herself after my
Grandfather left them. Linda
Hollingsworth states in her review of Going Through
the Change that, the women in Daugharty’s stories are “tough souls who
learn to live with the strained events and insensitive people in their lives”
(Hollingsworth). My Grandmother is a
“tough soul.” Even though most women would have never forgiven a man for
leaving them and their children, my Grandmother has. She cooks for my Grandfather and talks to
him, when he stays with her and my Uncle on the weekends, as if they were never
divorced. In my eyes it takes a strong women to do what she does. Also, unlike Mommer, the lazy mother of two
children in “Living Lessons” that are taken out of school for having African
American blood in them, who “just sets there by the stove,” (“Lessons” 188)
while her oldest child cooks, my Grandmother is far from letting anyone lift a
finger in her home. I, being “the baby,”
am not allowed near the stove. She takes care of anyone who comes into her
home, never sitting, and always in the kitchen making her guest everything they
want and do not want. However, she does
complain, but no matter what anyone does, she will not stop working. As Miss Sara says as she is babysitting the
children, “ ‘y’all gone break me down, and then what?’
She says…but never says, And then who’ll
take care of you?” (“Miss Sara” 101). In her eyes we cannot do without her, and she
is right, just as Toby cannot do without Miss Sara.
My Grandmother is also a very proud
woman just like Gransallie from “Amazing Grace,” who takes her grandchildren to
My Grandmother has never in my life told me that she
loves me, at least not in words. In her
actions, she has told me she loves me more than I can ever imagine. The other day, she told me that she didn’t
love me, but she was going to put her foot down when it comes to me going to
Africa in the summer. She will not let
me go because there is no way for her to know that I am okay. In this way, she reminds me of Mamie in “Dogs
in a Pack.” Mamie, the strong-willed
widow and mother of three girls, who holds two would-be rapist
at bay, never shows any emotion towards her children, but her actions,
protecting them with all she has, tells more than words. Like a mother hen, Mamie keeps her girls
under a close watch. She knows the men
may try something later on and decides that if her daughters “don’t come soon,
she’ll go after them” ( “Dogs” 2). Though there was no need for it, she would no
doubt have killed Cowboy and Minit Man, the convicts who want to rape Mamie’s
girls, but are side-tracked by the torture they are put through by them, if she
had no choice. My Grandmother, without a
doubt, will do anything, and has done everything, to show her family how much
she cares, without having to compromise her pride in the process.
Janice Daugharty writes about the South and the
people who live here. The women
characters in the stories are the most prominent because they represent certain
qualities of strong Southern women.
Everyone, no matter where he lives, has someone in his life who is represented in one of the stories. My Grandmother is the most prominent figure
in my life and I see her in any Southern writers works
because, my Grandmother is part of my regional identity. She, like Gransallie, Mamie, and Miss Sara,
are strong Southern women. They show
pride, caring, nurturing, and strong-mindedness associated with the Southern
woman. Janice Daugharty paints a
wonderful picture of who a Southern woman is and what she stands for.
Works Cited
Daugharty, Janice.
“Amazing Grace.” Going Through the
Change.
- - -. “Dogs in a Pack.” Going Through the Change.
- - -. “Living Lessons.” Going Through the Change.
- - -. “Looking to Miss Sara.”
Going Through the Change.
Hollingsworth, Linda P, “Reviews.” Rev. of Going Through
the Change, by Janice Daugharty. Studies
in Short Fiction 2003: 300.