Two Or Three Things I Know For Sure (1996) - Plot & Excerpts
February 20 2015In the Biography of Dorothy Allison, she explains how her family struggles with poverty and how she endures rough times during her childhood. Dorothy was born on April 11, 1949 in Greenville, South Carolina. She loved telling stories and make people think they are true. She used to tell a lot of them to her younger sister, and she would usually believe her. “I used to whisper to my sisters stories behind the red-dirt bean hills and row on row of strawberries” (Allison 5). One day, Allison’s mother died while she was with Allison’s other sister. After the funeral, everything changed between Dorothy and her sisters since they started acting as if they had become strangers.After Dorothy’s mother died, her sisters divided her belonging into different parts for the 3 of them, but didn’t get anything worth money, as their mother didn’t process great things. While sorting old photographs and snapshots of her mother, Dorothy sees how beautiful her mother was and how all the boys were chasing after her. “Men wanted my mama, wanted her before she knew what it meant, when she was twelve, thirteen, still a child” (Allison 22). At the age of fifteen Dorothy’s mother was pregnant of her and ran away with a silly boy that then left her to raise Dorothy alone. Since then, she never trusted any man again, but wanted to so badly it ate the heart out of her.Allison had a very small family, though she doesn’t know more than half of it. One of her aunts though has 9 children, but three of them died. Death was common back then, especially for Dorothy’s family as they were very poor and didn’t have money to consult doctors or even to pay bills. One day, as Dorothy Allison came back home with a family project to make, and had to take some information from her family Bible, but she realized that she didn’t even know her grandfathers name. As she asked some help to her aunt to help her with the project, she herself had some trouble finding family members to include in the project. “-We don’t have a family Bible? –Child, some days we don’t even have a family. And you just put down what you know. You don’t have to put down everybody” (Allison 12). Not many relatives cared about Allison’s family as many of them either ran away or got killed.A theme that can be applied to this book is self-independence. Dorothy couldn’t count on her family or friends to help her with homework chores or anything, as she had to do everything by her own. Even when she needed money to buy something, she had to work for it. Dorothy was very inspired by her mother and during her infancy couldn’t find any commonality between her and her mother, but after her mother’s death, Dorothy realized she was just like her. “ Wanda was being mama doing what mama would have done, comforting us the way only mama had known to do. We had become mama” (Allison 19). Dorothy and her sisters started to tae care of themselves and one of Dorothy’s sisters already had kids, so had to take off.March 6 2015Since the beginning of time, girls and boys were always treated differently. Of course, the girls were the ones badly treated. Even when a woman got married, her husband would still treat her like a dog and constantly insult her. “Men and boys are all the same. Talk about us like we dogs, like we never girls, never little babies in our daddy’s arms. Turn us into jokes cause we get worn down and ugly” (Allison 48). In Dorothy’s family, most of her aunts had problems with their husbands and most of them already experienced harsh treatments from men. This gave Dorothy some background information about life. Men had the power and would usually be the one giving the orders in the house. Back then most men mostly used their wife for pleasure and at the end leave them. As this went on for a long time, men also started using younger girls for sexual desires.Dorothy had a troubling childhood. When she was only five, her mother’s boyfriend raped her. For along time, nobody believed her until her mother finally figured out the truth. “I need to say that when I told, only my mama believed me, only my mama did anything at all” (Allison 52). Dorothy began exposing her story at a late age, but when she did tell it, she would use the worst words that could possibly describe a rape. She would usually use the word rape and child in the same phrase, which killed her as it, brought her the worst memories. All her life, Dorothy wondered how and why a man could rape and beat a child. Nevertheless, Dorothy remained a strong independent girl who is very smart and protects her women’s rights. Few characters are presented in this book. One of them is Dorothy Allison, the narrator. Dorothy grew up to be just like her mother, confident and fearless. “Mama was never confused about who she was or what she was offering across the counter” (Allison 36). Another character is Dorothy’s aunt, Dot. As Dorothy’s mother died, she was the one to take care of her. Dorothy’s aunt always told her stories about her mama and about life. She even told her family secrets. As Dorothy grew, she learned a lot from her, but certain things about her life were very dangerous.The theme so far can be coming of age. As Dorothy learns from her mistakes, mother and aunts, she starts to know how to deal with life. Now, Dorothy can protect her self and others from danger. Dorothy was the kind of girl who kept everything to herself and who would always do what she was told to. Once her mother died and she started getting more independent, she realized that life isn’t all about her, but the people around her and family. Dorothy now sees who she can or cannot trust and is a loyal person who grew up to change the world forever.March 15 2015Dorothy Allison started to be very comfortable talking about her struggling past once she got used to it. What also helped her was the fact that she became a lesbian. Dorothy used underestimate herself and her feelings. Because she thought she was different, but everyone is different and no one should be ashamed of that. She thinks that love is everything, but lovely and that most of the time, its fake. “Love was a mystery. Love was a calamity. Love was a curse that had somehow skipped me” (Allison 59). Even though Dorothy knew a lot about love, she rarely experienced it. Because of what happened to her and her mother Dorothy didn’t trust people, especially men. The only people she really trusted were herself and her sister. She couldn’t even trust her own aunt.Dorothy didn’t grow up to be like the girls in the rest of her family or like any girl she knew. Dorothy from the beginning knew she didn’t want to end up like those girls. The ones who got pregnant at fourteen, the ones who got drunk and fooled by men or the ones who were simply not smart enough. “Because I did not turn silly at thirteen, start staying out late and sighing over boys at school, I thought myself too wise, too special to fall in a trap every other women in my family knew too well” (Allison 55). She, contrarily to them, wanted to do something out of her life. She didn’t want to end up like girls who were treated badly by their husband and had to stay at home, she actually wanted to turn up to be a great person. And she did.One of the several themes that can be applied to this book is self-discovery. Dorothy figures out that she is a lesbian. “I fell in love with a women” (Allison 53). Of course, there was always a part of her that felt she was attracted to women, but she only is sure of it once the people around her notices it. Her therapist told her that “sexual abuse makes lesbians”, and though this may be one of the reason Dorothy became one, she didn’t believe it. Dorothy believes that one of the reasons that she became a lesbian is because of her commitment to a women’s revolution. Nevertheless, Dorothy became very confident and even defends herself pretty well. She is a successful woman that no man can hurt or insult in any way.
A Quick RecommendationThis was a good Year of reading memoirs for me and it helped a great deal in recognizing the art that goes behind writing one. I regard such art to be strictly personal where memories both wispy and vivid try to capture life from a central and peripheral standpoint. Whether it’s about a son talking about her mother and leaving a margin worthy space to mention about himself, or the brilliant writer bemoaning the loss of an imperfectly beautiful yesterday, or the young man who welcomes life by encountering the reality of experience; every person who trust the power of words in order to transform abstract into something tangible, silence into pertinent sound and mistakes into lessons, offers an invaluable gift to the readers. I am no longer a grown-up outraged child but a woman letting go of her outrage, showing what I know: that evil is a man who imagines the damage he does is not damage, that evil is the act of pretending that some things do not happen or leave no mark if they do, that evil is not what remains when healing becomes possible.So if I have to suggest (quite emphatically) one such book for anyone and everyone to read then it’s surely going to be Two or Three Things I know for Sure. Dorothy Allison in her profoundly expressive and powerful memoir talks about her lost childhood and creating a loved version of self much against the doomed wishes and fatuous tradition of the world she came from:...I thought it was like that story in the Bible, that incest is a coat of many colors, some of them not visible to the human eye, but so vibrant, so powerful, people looking at you wearing it see only the coat. I did not want to wear that coat, to be told what it meant, to be told how it had changed the flesh beneath it, to let myself be made over into my rapist’s creation. I will not wear that coat, not even if it is recut to a feminist pattern, a postmodern analysis. Courageous, tragic and honest- the things she tells here are things one needs to hear.
What do You think about Two Or Three Things I Know For Sure (1996)?
Allison is truthful and honest with what she shares. It is interesting to me how light she seems to keep the mood, though the content is none to be taken light of. I might believe she strings together an array of stories with the convicted belief that the common denominator is the belief of each story. She trusts the validity of her story telling and as such shares blatantly, but still light-mooded by her choice. The title of the book is very fitting, and the reoccurring "Let me tell you a story" introductions are precise and purposeful. Scattered with thoughts and characters already specific to their own, I found that I had to flip back and forth to remember everything that had happened or which age certain people were at what point in their lives. But after getting the hang of her style, and reading the majority of it in one sitting, an appreciation for her conviction is got! Her honesty is valuable, and by her valuing does my heart naturally aim to trust her story telling too. Dorothy Allison, ya got me!
—Hannah Kwon
Autobiography by a southern girl who is a story teller as a child and becomes a writer. Illustrated with photographs of mostly the women in her family. Her aunt used to to say, "Two or three thing I know for sure, of course it's never the same things and I'm never as sure as I'd like to be."...one of them is what it means to have no loved version of your life but the one you make...the way you can both hate and hate and love something you are not sure you understand...change when it come cracks everything open
—Mary Kinietz
Powerful and compelling autobiography. Having the author read this work herself for the audio version (on cassette!) really brought the short work to life for me. She was able to pack so much emotion into this telling and to really highlight the repetition of the "two or three things I know for sure" theme. If only I knew anyone else who still listened to cassettes, I'd send this along to share it. Alas, I must be one of the last people out there who still has a cassette deck in the car and doesn't mind pulling out the old tapes once in a while.
—Joanna
