In my 20th Century American Fiction class we are studying "faction", or literary journalism, historical fiction, whatever you want to call it and I have a creative writing assignment to do this in a short story, play, whatever. So I was thinking of putting different literary historical figures together in one place at one time. So what is one or two phrases that each of these characters would say to make them recognizable? I thought of a few. Fill in the blanks of any you can think of, or add some more characters that I didn't think to add. I seem to have come up with only women, but I'm not sure why...it doesn't have to be only women.

Edna St. Vincent Millay--"my candle burns at both ends"
Janis Joplin-"get it while you can"
Hillary Clinton-"it takes a village"
Martha Stewart-"its a good thing"

Dorothy Parker
Virginia Woolf
Zelda Fitzgerald
Gertrude Stein
Elanor Roosevelt
Jackie Kennedy Onasis
Audrey Hepburn
Oprah Winfrey
Toni Morrison

Here's an idea Talia, look up the names you have above on Google with their name in quotation marks and add "quotes". For instance, Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis, quotes, yields this: [en.thinkexist.com] />


Les

Here's a quotation from the same website I found the Jackie Onasis page:

“I'm not a teacher, but an awakener”
---Robert Frost

Les

Permission to be rude?

Reminds me of the play "top girls". There is a dinner in a restaurant with famous women. If you write in the form of a play, you can simply add their names.

[www.dailyinfo.co.uk]

Emeril Lagasse: "Bam!"

Emeril Lagasse: "Bam!"

My goal in this is to make the quote of each character really bring out that which is most remembered of these people. Do you think I have attained that by using these quotes?

Virginia Woolf
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Zelda Fitzgerald
We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion.

Eleanor Roosevelt
I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.

Jacki Kennedy Onasis
“I don't think there are any men who are faithful to their wives.

Oprah Winfrey
I knew there was a way out. I knew there was another kind of life because I had read about it. I knew there were other places, and there was another way of being.

I like the Eleanor Roosevelt and Virginia Wolf quotes, I think Jacqueline's quotation about children more accurately captures her inner most feelings, though the quote you use above is no doubt true.


Les

Audrey Hepburn

"How come my chest is flat as a tortilla?"

Oprah Winfrey - Mmmmmmmm...Tortillas !

"That's an awfully sexist way to be talkin' about dem bitches!"

Ali G

Well as Edward Albee would say: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?


Les

I am

I am thinking of putting all of these women at my funeral. I first tried to put them in the dressing room prior to my wedding, but it got too sappy with all the inspiring quotes...maybe I'll have better luck at a funeral.

Did you go to theirs? Then they are under no obligation to go to yours

This is "faction". If Phillip Roth can make Lindbergh the president, then I can put them at my funeral.

I posted it on the Homework page. It is short. But any suggestions for improvement are appreciated.

I mostly didn't like that book, except for the stamps, and that his father worked at MetLife in the same building I worked in

He works at Metropolitan....are you Jewish too? I am almost finished with it and really liking it.

No, italian and irish

Once you're done, I'll go into more detail about how I ultimately didn't like it even though I liked reading it.

Ok. I'll let you know when I finish...hopefully by tomorrow.

I almost forgot about this discussion we had going.

OK, Johnny...lets hear it. What did you think of Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America"?

I took particular exception to the depiction of Burton K. Wheeler.

He was a friend of organized labor and nothing in his background would indicate that he would act in such a disgraceful manner.

The lumping together of all isolationsists as fellow travelers of the Nazis is unsupported given their actions after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The relocation of particular ethnic groups was believable to a point....my understanding is that the US Government has recently been encouraging new immigrants to avoid concentrating in just a few cities.

However, the riotings Roth portrayed were unlikely and the arrests of prominent officials was the breaking point for me.

Up to a point, I enjoyed reading it, I loved the descriptive scenes...how the essence of the times was captured...until the absurdly forced ending.

A few members of the America First Committee:

EE Cummings
Gore Vidal
Sargent Shriver
Gerald Ford
Lillian Gish

And what about Jospeh P. Kennedy?

I agree with you on the forced ending. And a lot of the incidents seemed unlikely beginning with Lindbergh's easy election against the muchloved FDR, but it does bring some things to light, particularly anti-semitism, which is a very real thing.

From the Wikipedia article on Joe Kennedy:

n 1938, he was appointed as the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James's (United Kingdom). Kennedy, of Irish descent, hugely enjoyed his leadership position in London society, which stood in stark contrast to his outsider status in Boston. He rejected the warnings by Winston Churchill that Nazi Germany posed a looming threat, and supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement in order to stave off a second world war that would be more horrible than the first. He had to resign in November, 1940, because he disagreed with Roosevelt's policy of hostility toward Germany as well as continued tensions with the White House. Regardless, Kennedy was active in rallying Irish Democrats to Roosevelt's reelection.

Yet it is not fair to call Joe Kennedy a true isolationist. Kennedy was a strong supporter of offering aid to England and testified before Congress for 5 hours in Janaury, 1941 supporting the Roosevelt administration's support of Lend Lease. Furthermore, Kennedy also gave a well received radio address supporting the same legislation that same month.

While his own ambitions for the White House seemed impossible to realize, he held out great hope for his eldest son Joseph Jr. to gain the presidency. However, Joe Jr. was killed undertaking a high-risk bombing raid over Germany. Kennedy then turned his attention to grooming the second son, John F. Kennedy, who indeed won the 1960 elections.