Location, Location, Location

In one of Kelsey's posts on The Women of Brewster Place, she comments on the idea of location and how Brewster Place "therefore serves as a microcosm of the worlds in which the residents live, a world shaped by exclusion, lack, and loss. The isolation of the neighborhood parallels to the alienation the women feel from dominant culture, greater society, and—occasionally—themselves"

I began thinking about location in general and how the location of a family or group of people can define who they are.  Throughout the course of the semester we have seen characters living in specific locations that shape and mold them (especially because of their social standing.)  In The Women of Brewster Place, the women of the novel are defined by the loneliness and loss that accompanies Brewster Place.  They are tormented by their poverty and lack of anything they see valuable.  The women are set to live in one place excluded from the rest of the world which speaks to the alienation that women feel as whole.  (<I got many of these ideas from Kelsey's blog...just want to give credit where it is due!)

Many other locations that we have read about are essential to defining certain characters we have talked about this semester.  I think that in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the Long Island Sound to locate the story and expose certain characterizations of the Buchanans, Callaway and Gatsby.  The difference between East and West Egg, the class difference between Gatsby and Daisy, and the intermediate land of the Valley of Ashes are all defined and expanded on because of their specific location.  The East Egg is old money, West Egg means new money, and the Valley of Ashes is just that, a valley for the left behind. 

Kelsey's post exposes so much in regards to the location of Brewster place and I also feel like she creates questions (that I briefly answered) in regards to some of the other novels that we have read because where and why they are located in the locations that they are.