Question:

Emotion plays a huge role in what Ensler is trying to accomplish. Why is this? How does she use emotions like humor as a strategy? How does she move us from laughter to embarrassment to sadness to other emotional reactions and why do you think she is doing this?

Response:

Emotion is the primary focus in Ensler's Vagina Monologues. She strives to display how different yet similar women are when it comes to discussing the female body. Ensler is succesful in such an attempt by including a variety of stories, which ultimately show some sign of relevance to each other. In each interview I could tell there was some hesitation in the women openly talking about their body, but eventually they became more comfortable and almost relieved to finally being able to talk to someone about it. I suppose that that was also what Ensler was going for with this book. She wanted to break the ice and hear what everyone has to say. I can't think of too many people, if any, who ever choose to freely talk about their vagina and in this book those unsure feelings are brought forth and the women seem to ultimately discover a sense of who they are.

Ensler uses humor as a strategy because everyone always feels more comfortable in awkward situations when they feel they can laugh. I hate talking and reading about the human body. I've always hated health class too. It's just awkward. When I saw we had to read this book I felt weird just reading it on the syllabus nevermind checking it out at the library. Anyway, as I read more into it I felt less awkward because of the humor Ensler uses throughout. After she discusses a more seriously toned interview she'll follow up with a more light-hearted story. I found myself laughing a few times, which definitely eased up on the weirdness of reading about vaginas.

She definitely causes readers to switch emotions rather abruptly. She just seems to be giving us a good feel of how differently women view their bodies, but how similar some of the stories are as well. Some interviews are amusing and others are more upsetting, such as the section pertaining to rape victims. She wants everyone to know that we are just about all thinking the same thing and feeling the same emotions toward ourselves. We almost all find the same things embarrassing, amusing and sad and through this book it is like she's just bringing it all together so we can see we're all somewhat alike.