Running Head: The Space John Fisher

The Space of Our Lives Week 4 Paper 3 Professor Barbara Monaghan

What does the word space mean to the average person? Some people say it is where he/she lives. Others say that it is what and whom they are surrounded by. In the three essays, Westbury Court, They all Just Went Away, and Silent Dancing, each author writes about space and I can very well relate to all three stories from previous happenings in my life. Joyce Carol Oates lives in the rural countryside of Millersport, New York, where it is wide open and her neighbors are far enough that you have to travel a little bit before you can get to their houses. In Oatess situation she knew all of her neighbors and had a big house with a lot of space. It was not cramped or anything, they lived comfortably. long since begun to rot and collapse engulfed by vegetation that elsewhere, on our property for instance, was kept neatly trimmed. (Oates, 1995 Pg. 243). She likes living in the country because it is quiet and everything is not so close together like it is in the city. Oates was naturally curious about the surrounding farmhouses of her familys property. I believe that it was a lack of entertainment to Oates that allowed her to be fascinated by the abandoned farms. Oates states in the story, Shall I say for the record that ours was a happy, close knit, and un-extraordinary family for our time, place, and economic status? (Oates, 1995 pg. 243) I can relate to Oates because when I was growing up I lived in a house in Clifton, NJ until I was three years old. After that we moved into a house in Hawthorne, NJ. That was the house I grew up in until I was about fourteen years old. The space in the house was big. It had a backyard that was bigger than any backyard in the neighborhood. I had my own room, and my sister and I got along great. When we made the transition from Clifton to Hawthorne, my sister and I were both curious as to what the new

surroundings were going to be like, and we wanted to explore the new space that we would be living in. On the other hand, Judith Ortiz Cofer had a different life. She lived in Paterson. It was a new style of living because most of their lives they were able to be a loud as they wanted. But in apartment living residents need to show respect and be quieter then you want to be, and they should do the same. The Ortiz family lived in a neighborhood that was in the middle of a major renovation stating in a huge tenement that had once housed Jewish familys but was just being taken over and transformed by Puerto Ricans, overflowing from New York City(Cofer, 2005 pg.1). For some time there was only Jewish culture around and there were apartment buildings with just that race. Later on, apartment buildings were taken over by more ethnicities. Which is how the Ortiz family in the story was able to get there apartment. They described it like being in Puerto Rico because there were familiar aromas and sounds throughout the block filled with people from Puerto Rico. In the story Cofer talks about how she heard her mother yelling at the neighbors about something she did not know about at the time. When she got older she knew the whole story. Her neighbors flushed down a baby that was not ready to be born yet. Then they go on and say, Instead of flushing the baby down a toilet why not put him in a little white casket and bury it (Cofer, 2005 pg.7). I can relate to this experience because my brother who would have been a year older than me did not get to see the light of day, was buried in a little white casket between my great-grandparents. Cofers incident and my late brother situation were both completely different. Cofers cousin was going to give birth to an unwanted child, that was American, and the father of that child

was already married, with children of his own. My parents situation was very different with my brother. He was a child that was already loved, and not even born yet. Another writer, Edwidge Danticat, like Judith Cofer lived in the city. It was really cramped and not too many people knew each other. She lived by neighbors that she barely knew and it was a small apartment. The apartment building was run down with graffiti on the side of the building, and trash piled up in the dumpsters. They had two television sets so they were doing very well for themselves. Danticat would watch TV in the living room and her two brothers would watch TV in the other room in the back of the apartment. Towards the end of the story she also describes that she is no longer living in Westbury Court but now she lives in a house. She is very comfortable and says that she visits the old town once in a while but she will never dream of living there again in such a cramped environment. I can relate to both Danticat and Cofer because their situations are a little similar. When I was thirteen years old, I found out that we had to move out of our house and move to an apartment in Paterson, NJ. My sister and I lived with my father. It was our first time living in an apartment and we had to learn quickly to keep quiet when my dad said so or we would have gotten in trouble with the neighbors. To add to that, we were not even allowed to play outside, It was not that bad of a neighborhood but my dad just wanted to make sure we did not get into trouble or hurt ourselves. After that we moved into our current apartment in Hawthorne NJ, it is a way better neighborhood then Paterson, though it is still very cramped and I even had to continue to share a room with my sister. We had to learn how to deal with it or kill each

other trying. The apartments are right next to each other, making us feeling like at times that we are sitting right next to our neighbors through the thin walls. As the reader can see I can relate to all three stories because I lived all of them to a certain extent. My life in the apartments reminded me of Danicats story about living in the city. The country life Oates described reminds me of the time I spent in my old house. Then the story Cofers story reminded me of the brief time I spent in Paterson with my dad and sister. Every move in my life was an exciting new chapter in my life, though I do wish I was able to see my brother but will have to wait some time before I can.

Reference Page Danticat, E. (n.d.). Westbury court. Retrieved October 19, 2013, from http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ve d=0CCkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fenglish.basd.k12.wi.us%2Fmocarski%2Fc ollegeenglish%2FWESTBURYCOURT.rtf&ei=xYhiUrqgK8HCywHNnoDYAQ&usg =AFQjCNFy7xbfGmwRggMd1JrUqF6a7tQUaw Oates, J. (1995, October). They all just went away. The New Yorker. Retrieved October 19, 2013, from http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1995/10/16/1995_10_16_178_TNY_CARDS_ 000373438 Ortiz Cofer, J. (n.d.). Silent dancing. Retrieved October 19, 2013, from http://www2.hawaii.edu/~facoba/readings/cofer.htm