Bobby S. Post 4

During the week we worked on discussion questions from each chapter of The Gilda Stories that we read. The final question asked, "what do you think Gomez's purpose was in writing The Gilda Stories?" I personally think this story's purpose was to take the reader out of reality and cause us as readers to be more open minded. In a way, it takes us out of our comfort zones and forces us to see things different from the norm. I believe this method by Gomez was effective.

Usually when we think of vampires, we get the image of a white male or female. However, Gilda's character is very unique. Not only is she black, but she is a female as well. Once we discover this it is very obvious that The Gilda Stories would not be the average novel. From that point on we read about situations that would never happen in reality, such as vampires traveling from place to place turning humans into vampires. Gomez somewhat places us into a different world that we are trying to understand as the novel progresses.

Andrew Blog 4

Throughout The Gilda Stories, we see how the main character Gilda changes and progresses as a character over a very extended period of time. We even get to see into the future and we see how the world changes in the future and the effect it has on Gilda. We learn of her rough past, and her struggles to forget what she has gone through, and her quest to settling down and being happy. She really develops as a character throughout the book, and I think that the more we learn about her throughout the book, the more we realize that Gilda only used her powers for good.

She only killed humans when it was extremely necessary, and when she took the blood of humans, she had no intentions of harming anyone, she only did it because it was essential to her survival. She only turns humans into vampires if she feels that the time is right, but she never has any intentions of hurting anyone. She helps many people who are in need, and she always is looking out for the people that she cares about.

Alex Beilman - Blog Post #4

This week, the class finished The Gilda Stories. Overall, I think the book was interesting. It was certainly different from anything I have read in the past. I think there are a few major themes that Jewelle Gomez wants the reader to absorb. One is the concept of family. Not only family, but the idea of non-traditional families and the acceptance of those families. Gilda's family, because she is a vampire, is obviously not the traditional idea of a family. She refers to Bird as her mother, Julius as her brother, and Ellie is her sister. Her family and the experiences she shares with them are far from what is consider "normal" by society. I think Gomez is looking to get people to accept the fact not all family's are normal, but are still able to function like a "normal" family.

I think another thing Gomez does with this novel is break stereotypes. Typically, a vampire is a white male. Gomez strays from that norm and uses a black, female vampire as her protagonist. She also constructs Gilda as a character who is not the typical vampire. Normally, a vampire is a blood thirsty, merciless creature that will stop at nothing to get its share of blood. However, Gilda is different. Gilda can be very compassionate and gentle at times. She also shows love and friendly feelings towards others. So, that stereotype is also broken by the character of Gilda.

-Post #4 by Alex Beilman

Leah Villari Post 4

The final two chapters of The Gilda Stories continue to help support the notion that vampires have many layers to their personalities. They are not just the stereotypical vampires that we discussed in class, with white skin, fangs, capes, and no heartbeat. This is proven in the novel with the main character Gilda. Gilda looks nothing like a typical vampire, and the fact that she is a women goes against the stereotype. Gilda not only was different in her looks, but in the fact that she genuinely cared about people and their existence showed her as different from typical vampires.
Gilda showed that she cared about people throughout the entire novel. Although she did kill a few humans, and did turn people into vampires, she did it for the right reasons. The people that Gilda turned into vampires were unhappy with their lives, or they were in need of help. She always would look to help the people that she turned into vampires by looking into their thoughts. Julius was a depressed human being, who was searching for something meaningful in life. Similar to this, in the end of the novel, Effie was ready to kill herself and Gilda was able to talk her into becoming part of her vampire family.

Maggie pooost # 4

Throughout the novel, The Gilda Stories, the main character, Gilda, has changed from being a confused vampire searching for a purpose, to a happy vampire who knows where she belongs. She went from moving around constantly, from down South to as far as New York City. She made many friends and found companions along the way, but still continued to search for something. After Bird left her, Gilda felt alone and confused. She found comfort in a few people, for example, Elenor. After realizing the bad company she was keeping around, Gilda decided to move forward with her life.

Gilda finally came to peace with herself at the end of the novel, when she stopped searching for people after realizing she had a complete family accompanying her. Bird played the role of her mother, Julius played the role of her brother, and her newest company Effie completed the family. Effie was chosen to accompany the vampires near the end of the novel because she was similiar to Gilda, and was about to commit suicide. After accepting Gilda's proposal to join their family, she became a vampire as well.

Adam Swift Post #4

After reading the last chapters of, The Gilda Stories, it is clear that the main character Gilda has changed and grown as a vampire. After much discussion and contemplation, we finally can see that Gilda is a good person at the end of the story. Throughout the novel, Gomez was testing our faith in Gilda. She had Gilda killing humans, such as the one person who attacked her in the beginning of the novel, and killing Sorel after Elenore's encouragement.

However at the end of the novel, we can clearly see that Gilda is a good vampire, with a good heart. Although she has killed humans and turned them into vampires, she tried to help them with the problems in their lives. For example, Julius was a lonely person who was unhappy with his life and very depressed. Gilda helped him by taking him in and turning him into a vampire, making him one of her family members. Also, Gilda saved Effie by turning her into a vampire and talking her out of committing suicide.

Now that we have finished reading Gilda Stories I found out that I liked the book much more than I thought I would. Gilda really becomes a character that you enjoy and can relate to. Her character grew from an innocent girl to aquiring a lot of knowledge and passing it along. Although at times Gilda's actions did seem selfish, that only made her more like us because people can also we selfish at times. Through reading this story it gave a look at the past and a view of what the future could be, although this future looks very dreary.

A main point of this story was the sense of belonging and family. I think that sometimes people can also struggle for this kind of bond with other people, we all want to feel like we belong to something, and people sometimes search forever for that sense of belonging just as Gilda did. This story also pointed out that stereotypes should mean nothing and that they should not stand in anybody's way, if you want something and feel as you belong there nothing should stop you.

Cassidy Weeks. Post 4