“Jaqueline was an overcoat. She muffled my senses. With her I forgot about feeling and wallowed in contentment. Contentment is a feeling you say? Are you sure it’s not an absence of feeling? I liken it to that particular numbness one gets after a visit to the dentist. Not in pain nor out of it, slightly drugged. Contentment is the positive side of resignation. It has its appeal but it’s no good at wearing an overcoat and furry slippers and heavy gloves when what the body really wants is to be naked.” (76)
What really intrigued me about this passage is that it begins with the use of clothing to cover the narrator’s body, and ends with the narrator expressing ze only wants to be naked. It was also interesting to read the narrator’s take on ze’s relationship with Jaqueline, which was contentment, and ze’s explanation of contentment.
The narrator believes that ze has no special connection to Jaqueline. Ze felt contentment, which ze says is an absence of feeling, but nothing more. One can even say that ze did not even like Jaqueline, as ze likened their relationship to a trip to the dentist, and nobody enjoys a trip to the dentist and the pain that comes with it. Ze felt nothing, just numbness, a drugged state of being. While reading this I became extremely angry with the narrator. Why would ze waste Jaqueline’s time and lead her on like this? Ze obviously wanted to be rid of Jaqueline, yet continued to keep her around until she found something better (Louise), and then Z ditched Jaqueline the moment Louise expressed interest in the narrator.
The comparison of Jaqueline to heavy clothing is really interesting. Ze wants to be rid of the heavy clothing (Jaqueline) that the narrator thinks is suffocating. Yet again I asked myself the question, “Why did ze keep Jaqueline around for such a long period of time, if ze just wanted to be free?”Although there is no clear answer, I thought that perhaps it is because no matter what gender or who ze is, ze has the same humanly desires that we all do. I turned to Micheal Warner’s “Trouble with Normal,” which talks a bit about humanely desires. Everyone has sexual and human desires, no matter their sexual orientation. The sexual desires may all not be uniform, but on some level everyone has them (3-6). It is common thought that everyone has the humanely desire for someone to love and protect them. I began to think that perhaps Jaqueline is ze’s “safety blanket” (or clothing) that protected ze. Ze may claim that ze wanted to be naked, or free from Jaqueline, when truly ze wanted the warmth of clothing (a person) around ze, no matter what (who) the clothing was. Ze wanted the warmth of a companion, no matter whom that person was. But then, the new “line of clothing” (Louise) was released, and the narrator decided to upgrade ze’s wardrobe. This comparison shows that to ze, relationships are disposable, just as clothes are.