Bisexuality

Author Note: I do not claim to be in the LGBTQ community, so everything said here is statements that I have been made aware of through social media and other sources. If I have been wrongly advised, everyone is more than welcomed to correct me (please be nice, I’m learning).

The ending of Cereus Blooms at Night was really interesting to read. I have to say, I think it left a lot think about. I like how at the end, Tyler didn’t care if he was seen by the other nurses in the nurses uniform. I think that realization plays a part into understanding intersectionalities and binaries which we have discussed in class. In the book, there is a lot of breaking of binaries, such as Tyler determining who i he by the outfit and Otoh determining who he was by taking his father’s “place” (becoming the man his mom knew). These breaking of binaries or redefining them, is what is talked about in a lot of our theoretical texts. Having these binaries can be good, creating safe spaces in which to chat with others going through a similar experience, however they also exclude people. For example, the current issue in the LGBTQ community is the erasure of bisexual people. In the binary of LGBTQ, it is supposed to include the B, which stands for bisexual. However, there have allegations that this binary has excluded bisexuals almost for the same reasons as heard from the binary of heterosexuality. Being bisexual means that a person likes both males and females, some things that have been said about this are like asking the person to choose male or female, or if the person starts dating someone of the same gender that automatically makes them gay or lesbian and creates the erasing of bisexuality.

 

Representation Matters

Something that caught my attention while looking at the transcripts from the archives was the lack of representation from people of color. This raised some questions from me: Why is there a lack of representation? Does it have to do with the history of people of color in this country? Does it tie into cultural and societal expectations? I wanted to know how these questions tied into the lack of representation of people of color in the archives. There is no doubt in my mind that there are people of color in the LGBTQ community (I follow a nice amount on Tumblr if that is any indication), so why so little in the archives? I don’t think it is the fault of the archives, but the fault in the society we happen to be in. I can only talk about my culture specifically, but from what I know of from experience, is the very high expectations of masculinity placed on black men. I have a younger brother and from what I remember, he was often told that he cried too much and that he needed to toughen up. The expectations on black men is to be hard, what I mean by that is to have little to no emotions and be able to handle every and any situation handed to him. Anything less than this, including being queer, warrants name calling and an unfortunate experience with bullies. From what I can understand being an East Asian Studies major (and from reading personal stories from Tumblr), there is almost a complete opposite effect in play. More often than not, Asian males are striped of their sexuality altogether, leaving a space where they can’t explore themselves. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t queer people of color, just that situations make it difficult for them to be out, which is why representation matters.

 

Recreation or Looking in the Mirror?

“When Mala heard the wall being pulled apart, she bit her lower lip and stared out across the yard, losing herself in the shapes of the mudra tree, Save Pohpoh, she chanted. Save Pohpoh,” (Mootoo, 180).

This section of the reading really interested me. One of the reasons is the obvious “illusion” of the younger Mala in order to correct the wrongs of her past. Mala recreates herself when the police come to investigate what made Otoh run away. This “illusion” (this is in question because everyone can see her when she runs away). This “younger” Mala is made to relook at her father when does not hold the power he had over h when she was a child. It is actually interesting that in his death, she kept him there, almost in control of him even in the afterlife (I do not know much about the religions in where this book took place, except for Christianity, so I’m unsure if there is cultural tradition behind burying a body). If there is traditions regarding this, at least in Christianity it is to help the spirit rest well, then she definitely holds a power over him. This may explain why she kept the body. She shows the “younger Mala” the body to show the control over their father she has now. To prove that the pain is over and she can go on peacefully (almost like  old spirit of the past). Another reason this is an interesting scene/scenario in the book is because the “younger Mala” gets to escape the realities the real Mala had to face. She flys, which is something Mala ha always dreamed of as an escape into another place away from her father. This is a bit of a stretch, but I would like to believe that in this fantasy, there is a bit of reality. For example, we know the police only make comments about  girl running in order to mock Mala. However, what if there really was a younger girl in the same situation as Mala, that had a chance to see that one day she too would be free? She would be free from the horrors of someone abusing her and be able to “fly” away. Again, this is a stretch, but I would like to believe that the author creates this little girl in order to show to readers that revisiting the past can bring a sense of freedom and the “older” Mala can represent the older and wiser protecting the young and naive.

 

Comfort in the Unfamiliar

In the passage on page 180 the narrator says, “I decided to try out the cafe, out of masochism, out of habit, out of hope. I thought it might comfort me, although I noticed how little comfort was to be got from familiar things,”  (Winterson).

This might be a stretch to what the author is trying to say but, I think this greatly helps provide a better point to a comment I made in class. I talked briefly about how I thought that relationships, especially marriage, should not be content. This is not to say that the marriage has to be nothing but trials of the heart or on one side the spectrum (happy or sad). I think a marriage or relationship should be made out of things that make you something more than just content. The narrator talks about their relationship with Jacqueline as one of content or plateaued feeling, and I think that’s why it was so hard for them to be as emotionally invested. Relationships, of any sort, are supposed to help a person grow, or come to a new understanding in their life. The narrator’s relationship with Jacqueline was not helping them grow in any sort of way. However they were comforted by the familiarity with being with her. And even in that familiarity, can we even say that is comfort? They knew she would be there, but they were never comforted by her presence. With Louise, however, there was comfort, and as we see throughout the novel, nothing about there relationship is familiar. This is a new experience from the way Louise was upfront with Elign about the affair to the fact that the narrator left her. This relationship is comforting without it being familiar. The narrator has show growth and knowledge from this comforting unfamiliar experience.

 

Looking Inside Memory

I think the passage on page 61, “I wasn’t happy, but the power of memory is such that it can lift reality for a time. Or is it memory the more real place?” (Winterson) is very telling about the main character and is key to the character development. I feel like we get to see the inner workings of how the main character organizes and categorizes their thoughts, feelings, and understanding of what is going on around them. For example, looking at the whole passage, the protagonist escapes to the past in order to comfort and shield themself from the present disaster going on around them. They are in the midst of a terrible break-up, with a person they knew they shouldn’t have been with from the beginning, and they escape to the past for comfort. They seem to do this a lot whenever they are in a situation which is not favorable to them or when they get upset. The memories aren’t always happy, but the protagonist seems to have this inability, in my opinion, to handle these very real and personal situations so they run to memories to escape. This, I believe and this could just be my opinion, the reason why the protagonist keeps getting in  these situations. Unable to confront or deal with the past, they cannot learn from it, and in turn cannot protect themselves from having it happen to them again. Also, and this maybe going on a limb as well, I think the protagonist hasn’t forgiven themself for things that have happened to them in the past as well.You have this constant replay of their life, and is it self-reflective? A little, but for the most part these are memories, in the grand scheme of things, not the highlight of relationships they would have wanted. They are always mentioning the cliches of love and how they long for it and these memories are the exact opposite of that. These memories are with lovers past that for one reason or another never seem to be the cliche she wants.