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Jul. 13th, 2007 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI skipped a bunch of bits in the Lit & Gender book. I'd have to go acquire more books to know the texts they were talking about. Then it got back to stuff they've printed in the second half of the book, and plays, which is my favourite bit so far anyway.
Trifles is a play I did not expect to be good and it turned out to be really powerful.
There's been a murder and some Official Important Men and their wives go to the house to try and figure it out. They think they know who, the murdered man's wife was found with him, but the men can't figure out why. The whole play is in the kitchen. The men look at the kitchen and see a whole bunch of nothing much and ignore it all. The women look around the kitchen and not only see why they *understand*. It's a really good play.
So now I'm thinking about kitchens. Which might not be the point, but anyways. When I wrote a story where I wanted to show that demons trashed a house, turned it from home into demon party, I made them mess up the kitchen. Which is also handy because of the being full of weapons. But kitchen is the center of the house.
Except, well, not.
I mean, I have a flat with a kitchen only just big enough to close the door whilst you're standing in it. When people visit and I want to offer food and drink we end up with one person hovering in the doorway and me fiddling about in the cupboards and trying not to knock into them. When my mum or aunt visit they usually end up in the kitchen. Not in a send-them-away way, it's just where people go. Only not in this flat, which aren't designed for it.
I read in a book about designing homes that when some architects designed council houses they made tiny neat little kitchens and huge great dining rooms, but then when they went to see how people used their houses they found the dining room was a great big store cupboard and everyone was trying to pile into the kitchen, even if that meant ending up outside the door. The kitchen was adequate for it's cooking function, but hadn't even noticed it's social function.
Class & gender inscribed in housing.
Next story I intend to write is House & Home, next in the RFJ series. It's a classic builders-upset-haunting story. But now I'm thinking of it from a kitchens point of view and realise what it needs more of. I'd put stuff there already but now I notice it.
The set for Buffy's house got built with a kitchen as one of the first parts.
Giles' kitchen you can see from his front room. Technically you can also see his bed, but the camera doesn't tend to.
Xander's basement place wasn't homey at all, and for cooking had only a hotplate.
... Spike rather lacked need for a kitchen.
Angel had a kitchen, and cooked for people.
Kitchens are interesting.
I liked about the play the way the whole thing happens in the kitchen. Like being stuck there. It focuses the attention and expresses a theme both at once.
The short story version starts before they walk in, and I thought that lost something. I'd have to look at it again to see what it gained instead. Maybe starting with the life of the pov character shows her life as wider, and then they get to the kitchen the story stays there so it's trapped and a contrast. Maybe.
Kitchens and quilts and madness. Interesting themes for talking about women.
Trifles is a play I did not expect to be good and it turned out to be really powerful.
There's been a murder and some Official Important Men and their wives go to the house to try and figure it out. They think they know who, the murdered man's wife was found with him, but the men can't figure out why. The whole play is in the kitchen. The men look at the kitchen and see a whole bunch of nothing much and ignore it all. The women look around the kitchen and not only see why they *understand*. It's a really good play.
So now I'm thinking about kitchens. Which might not be the point, but anyways. When I wrote a story where I wanted to show that demons trashed a house, turned it from home into demon party, I made them mess up the kitchen. Which is also handy because of the being full of weapons. But kitchen is the center of the house.
Except, well, not.
I mean, I have a flat with a kitchen only just big enough to close the door whilst you're standing in it. When people visit and I want to offer food and drink we end up with one person hovering in the doorway and me fiddling about in the cupboards and trying not to knock into them. When my mum or aunt visit they usually end up in the kitchen. Not in a send-them-away way, it's just where people go. Only not in this flat, which aren't designed for it.
I read in a book about designing homes that when some architects designed council houses they made tiny neat little kitchens and huge great dining rooms, but then when they went to see how people used their houses they found the dining room was a great big store cupboard and everyone was trying to pile into the kitchen, even if that meant ending up outside the door. The kitchen was adequate for it's cooking function, but hadn't even noticed it's social function.
Class & gender inscribed in housing.
Next story I intend to write is House & Home, next in the RFJ series. It's a classic builders-upset-haunting story. But now I'm thinking of it from a kitchens point of view and realise what it needs more of. I'd put stuff there already but now I notice it.
The set for Buffy's house got built with a kitchen as one of the first parts.
Giles' kitchen you can see from his front room. Technically you can also see his bed, but the camera doesn't tend to.
Xander's basement place wasn't homey at all, and for cooking had only a hotplate.
... Spike rather lacked need for a kitchen.
Angel had a kitchen, and cooked for people.
Kitchens are interesting.
I liked about the play the way the whole thing happens in the kitchen. Like being stuck there. It focuses the attention and expresses a theme both at once.
The short story version starts before they walk in, and I thought that lost something. I'd have to look at it again to see what it gained instead. Maybe starting with the life of the pov character shows her life as wider, and then they get to the kitchen the story stays there so it's trapped and a contrast. Maybe.
Kitchens and quilts and madness. Interesting themes for talking about women.