"The Italics Are Mine"
From “The Italics Are Mine” by Nina Berberova
I chose to write about 3 quotes from the excerpt which describes Nina’s lack of freedom of choice.
“In the strong desire to have a profession “for life” to have something that would grow with me like an arm or a leg and be a part of me, I now see a kind of compensation for what I lacked as a girl. I sought not only the profession itself, but the act of choosing it, the act of conscious decision.” (Berberova, 69)
“So I wrote a long list of possible professions on a piece of paper, completely disregarding the fact that I was not a boy, which meant that such professions as fireman and mailman had properly to be excluded.” (Berberova, 69)
“Never in the whole course of my life have I been able to free myself of this, and even now I think that an anthill is better than a nest, that there those near you warm you less, that in the anthill among a hundred thousand or a million, you are freer than in a nest, where all sit around and look at one another, waiting until scientists finally discover ways to make us all mind readers.” (Berberova, 74)
The first and second quote come from the beginning of the except. The first quote describes how Nina has a strong desire to choose a path for herself. She describes how she lacked the ability to choose as a child and that the profession she chooses will mean more because she has a say in the decision. The second quote describes how Nina’s choices are limited because she is a woman. Although she is allowed to choose a profession for herself, there are limits on what she can choose because certain professions are only for men. This was normal back in the day, and still happens now. Society deems women as “less than men” so certain careers are less available to them.
The third quote describes how she has never been free from her family. She compares her family to a “nest” in which she is stuck, unable to make her own decisions. Nina felt trapped in her family and explained how she would rather be with other people in an “anthill” so that she could make decisions for herself.
Word Count: 380
I like your take on this. I think it was interesting how she never wanted to be around family/ her mother because she felt so suffocated by them, she only wanted to feel free with her thoughts and poems. The occupation she chose, she was in love with. It was the only thing that kept her sanity in tact while growing up. She had said at one point when she was ill about covering up her head and being with her thoughts and wondering where they would carry her. She had such a vivid imagination through her poems, I think that is what saved her growing up.
ReplyDeleteI really like your take on the reason that Nina was so adamant to choose her own profession. I think that, growing up, there were a lot of things that were out of her control. Being able to choose her own profession was probably one of the only things in her life that she could control. When everything in your life seems out of control, you start to spiral and you try your hardest to hold onto anything that you can to keep your head afloat. I think that the reason she was so adamant on choose her own profession is because she felt like, if she didn't have total control over at least one thing in her life, she would drown. I also really like how you brought up the societal view on women both back in the day and now. Even though women have made tremendous steps in the direction of equality, there is still the societal view that women are less than men. It is tough to get around that stereotype nowadays, I can't even begin to imagine how hard it was back then.
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