Difference between revisions of "Week 7 Questions/Comments-327 11"
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I found Martha Ballard to be a truly impressive figure. She was a very accomplished wife, mother, and community servant. I didn't really didn't get the impression that Ballard's life was miserable or that she somehow hated it. It seemed to me that she was simply a very busy woman who did an incredible amount of work for her family and her community. The sickness and deaths she was forced to deal with were, as we have discussed in class, part of the culture of the time. Possibly they had a more profound impact on her life because she was so closely involved with a great number of them, but from her diary (particularly the excerpt from our text) it does not appear that she was overly troubled or pained by them. She does not put a great deal of emotion into her diary, it is more a recitation of goings on in her life, making it an interesting insight to the her life and the lives of other women of the time. --Grace C. | I found Martha Ballard to be a truly impressive figure. She was a very accomplished wife, mother, and community servant. I didn't really didn't get the impression that Ballard's life was miserable or that she somehow hated it. It seemed to me that she was simply a very busy woman who did an incredible amount of work for her family and her community. The sickness and deaths she was forced to deal with were, as we have discussed in class, part of the culture of the time. Possibly they had a more profound impact on her life because she was so closely involved with a great number of them, but from her diary (particularly the excerpt from our text) it does not appear that she was overly troubled or pained by them. She does not put a great deal of emotion into her diary, it is more a recitation of goings on in her life, making it an interesting insight to the her life and the lives of other women of the time. --Grace C. | ||
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| + | I really enjoyed reading Martha Ballard's diary. I learned that Ballard had land, a big family, and resources to provide for her family. It is also important to note that because she could write daily about her life, she was probably seen as an important figure of the time period because we've learned in class that women who left written documents were usually related to important men of the time period. I really thought it was interesting to read about the hardships Ballard faced (with being sick) while her husband was away, and how she dealt with her sickness. --Catherine Kennedy | ||
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| + | I'm fascinated by the debate going on here regarding whether Ballard was unhappy or not. I'd have to agree that the diary itself only presents a very pragmatic view of her life. Even when reading more deeply, it is difficult to determine whether Ballard was devoted to her work and simply a deeply pragmatic person, or whether the spareness of her writings could be indicative of unhappiness in her life. I did find it surprising that her pragmatism didn't fracture when she was describing tragedy, as in Mrs. McMaster's stillbirth on September 11. She devotes as much time in her diary to the news of the McMaster family's tragedy ("...and her child was deceased. The funeral tomorrow") as she does to standard, successful birth (as of the September 13 birth "she was delivered [at] six o'clock, afternoon, of a daughter.") It's difficult to imagine, though, that Ballard could have devoted so much of her time and so much of her energy to something that did not bring her joy or at least a sense of accomplishment. I wish she had emoted more in her diary, so we could figure out how she actually felt about her life. -- Nicole | ||
