Not a man and not ever able to be a woman, suspended nameless in the limbo state between existence and nonexistence” pg 77
From the first read of this sentence, the binaries being set up are glaringly apparent. “Man” is set opposite of “woman,” just as “existence” is contrasting “nonexistence” (77). Similarly, “suspended,” “nameless,” and “limbo” are all clustered together (77). Even the sentence structure itself follows these binary and cluster rules; the binary of man/woman is set opposite of the existence/nonexistence comparison with the suspended/nameless/limbo cluster floats alone in the middle. This double binary emphasizes the strict boundaries of the concepts of man/woman or existence/nonexistence, claiming that they leave no middle ground for any sort of womanly man, somewhat existence, etc. If something doesn’t fit into one of these categories, according to this sentence, it doesn’t even deserve a name.
A limbo state is not a desirable one. That is to say, no one actively seeks to end up in limbo. To be in limbo insinuates failure; that one wasn’t strong enough to make it to one end point or the other, and instead had to just sort of stop in the middle. With failure comes shame and so one could argue that being in limbo is shameful. As namelessness is paralleled with “the limbo state,” to be “nameless” must also be shameful (77). Humans express themselves through language; we have a word for everything we interact with in our lives. Therefore, to be “nameless” is the ultimate failure, because, according to human logic, if there isn’t a word for it, it must not exist or be important enough to acknowledge.
I believe that Mala and Tyler are able to connect on such a deep level because Mala doesn’t really use words. For her, words don’t hold the same power as they do for someone whose sole method of expression is through them. Since Mala doesn’t use words, she is able to just let Tyler be, rather than try to define him. For example, when Tyler tries on the dress, Mala pays no attention because “the outfit was not something to either congratulate or scorn – it simply was” (77). Mala doesn’t seek to define Tyler as gay or transsexual or whatever words someone might try to pin on him. He just “was” and no words were needed to categorize that.
Do you think Tyler uses Mala to define himself? For example, Mala was the initiator in the dress scene because for some reason she believed that he wanted to wear dress. Was this because she believed he was gay and thought that gay men wore dresses? Is this in a sense having Mala help define himself?
What does Tyler mean by “limbo state”? Yes he says it is a state between existence and nonexistence, but what does that entail and mean to him and the rest of the world?
I love how you start out talking about the opposites such as man and women and existence and nonexistence and then show the juxtaposition. You show how the actual sentence structure displays that there can be no middle ground but isnt a limbo state a middle ground?