Terry Tempest Williams | |
Terry Tempest WilliamsTerry Tempest Williams, "The Clan of One-Breasted Women" Terry Tempest Williams (1955- ) was born in Nevada, close enough to Utah
to see the Great Salt Lake. She earned both a B.A. (1979) and an M.S.
(1984) from the University of Utah. Besides being a writer, she has worked
as a photographer, teacher, and as a naturalist at the Utah Museum of
Natural History. Her books include Leap (2000), a spiritual examination
of a Bosch painting, and the collection of essays and poems Red: Passion
and Patience in the Desert (2001). Williams's work also appears in
periodicals such as Whole Earth, New England Review, and
the Los Angeles Times. Among her awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship
and a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Creative Nonfiction. "The Clan
of One-Breasted Women" examines the terrible toll nuclear testing
has taken upon a particular group of people. This essay was first published
in Northern Lights in 1990 and later collected in Williams's influential
book Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (1991). | QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION | CONTENT - Which Mormon dietary restrictions does the author mention?
- What does the author see in the desert in 1957?
- What symptoms of radiation poisoning does the author list?
- Briefly explain the legal concept of sovereign immunity.
- What does the author mean by saying that "living in Utah may
be the greatest hazard of them all"?
- Explain the title of this essay.
- How did some of the author's beliefs about Mormon culture change
over time?
STRATEGY AND STYLE - In paragraph thirty-eight, the author refers to herself and her
family as "virtual uninhabitants." How does her wordplay here
underline her feelings about the government and nuclear testing?
- "The Clan of One-Breasted Women" is a narration about
a part of one specific woman's life, but it has widespread significance.
What are some of the ways Williams makes this more than just the story
of a single individual? Where in the essay did you go to support your
answer?
- Williams uses dialogue throughout much of this piece. How could
she have conveyed the information it presents differently? How would
the essay change? What would it lose?
- As the author describes her journey to protest the testing in Mercury,
Nevada, she refers to the group of protestors as "winged messengers."
In mythology Mercury is also sometimes referred to as the "messenger
of the gods." Tie in these ideas with the author's view of her
protest.
- What is the role of description in this piece? Where does the author
make appeals to the senses? Support your answer with specifics from
the text.
| ENGAGING THE TEXT | - Have you ever engaged in a protest? If so, what was its nature?
If not, why not? How can you relate your experience to this reading?
- How much is your body image related to your self-identity? Imagine
your body changing suddenly and drastically. How would you react? How
much would the circumstances of this change matter?
| SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING | - Write a comparison/contrast essay about the topic of civil disobedience,
using this author's work and that of either Henry David Thoreau or Martin
Luther King Jr. Consider these questions: What prompted the two author's
actions? What did they do? What happened to them?
- In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a tribe of fierce women
warriors who cut off one breast in order to become better archers. More
generally, an amazon has come to mean a strong woman. Incorporate
these ideas into an essay that examines different images of women found
in this reading.
| FOR FURTHER RESEARCH | Do some research into the nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site from
1991, when this piece was written, until the present day. What changes,
if any, are evident over this time? If there have been changes, who has
been primarily responsible for them? If there haven't, what should be
done? | WEB CONNECTION | Are you thinking about doing research on the topic of breast cancer,
but not sure how to limit such a subject? A visit to the Breast
Cancer Resources Directory from CancerIndex.org will be well worth
your time. It has background information about the disease, and links
to hundreds of resources including to breast cancer organizations, information
for patients, and sites about screening and self-examination. | LINKS | Biographical Coyote Clan, a site devoted
to Williams's life and work, has some background information about the
author, photos, a biography, and lots of related links. It's a great
place to start your online research. This testimony
she gave before the Senate Subcommittee on Forest & Public Lands
Management about public land in Utah contains a good bit of biographical
information about Williams.
Bibliographical Ready for some of this author's work in etext? This is an excerpt
from Williams's book Red. Do you like etext better or hard copy
better? Explain the differences between the two. The NPR radio program Insight & Outlook conducted this interview,
"The Politics of Place," with Williams in 1995. Click here
to read the transcript.
Cultural Interested in putting Williams's work into the broader cultural
context of feminist literature? This page
of literary resources about feminism and women's literature will help
you do just that. How about a classic essay that examines our relationship to nature?
Here's Henry David Thoreau's essay
"Walking." Do you like using etext in your schoolwork? What
can you do with electronic texts that's hard to do using hard copy? Interested in doing some research about environmental issues, but not
sure where to begin? This page
from the Open Directory Project has the topic subdivided into about
two dozen different aspects, and will give you plenty of good ideas.
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