Response to Our Presentation Virginia Quarterly Review

In our today’s presentation, April and I recommend a journal Virginia Quarterly Review to the classmates. April focuses on the history of this publication, and introduces the editor in detail. In my part, I tell about some elements and pay more attention on a story we chose before.

There are many aspects that I think we should emulate from this journal. The first one is its design. The home page uses many pictures that bring audience strong visual effect. For me, the most impressive picture is the picture of story “pain”. People stand together in the darkness, but there is a little light in the background. The second good aspect is about the organization. Although the publication uses a lot of visual arts, we can see the content clearly because they are in order. The first part is the newest submissions, and then the most popular submissions. It’s easy for readers to search more information of the author or stories. It’s a pity that readers just can read stories ten times for free. If more than ten times, we have to pay for it.

       The story we choose is “Teacups”. The protagonist Eva lives in high social status, but unfortunately, she does not have a baby so that the marriage problem comes to her. She goes to clinic to get therapy. She meets a group of people, and they are Claire, Yves and Elena. Claire is a housewife, and she has a stereotype man. Every time she goes to therapy, she brings her youngest child Nedi. Yves is the only man among them. He has a wife, but he is a homosexual. Elena is a 25-year-old young woman, and she decides to divorce with her husband. The protagonist Eva really wants to have a baby, so she always hug and play with Nedi. Her husband husband Toby makes many rules for her. The special one is that she cannot drink coffee. At the end of the fiction, she decides to adopt baby, and she drinks a cup of coffee. It is a sample of good fiction because it makes me heart sink. The story reflects the process that a woman gradually gets away from her husband’s control. She tries to have the equality. The story contains many social problems such as culture, equal rights and religion. These problems are worth thinking.