Throughout the novel Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo, language is a source of control and autonomy for the main character Mala. This reflects the author’s deliberate word and language choices throughout the book to develop the characters identity in different ways.
The author uses language as a tool of developing identity. When Ambrose’s wife leaves him, he corrects her writing. His view and use of language, which he used a lot with Mala and barely ever used with his current wife because he was asleep most of the time, show his attitudes towards the two of them. I took Mala’s control and limited use of language as a way for her to have control over an aspect of her life. Malas upbringing, from being left behind by her mother to the extensive rape from her father she had to battle, has left her no room for control in her life. Her father controls where she goes and what she cooks, and Mala has to obey due to his violence. Once he is gone and Mala is on her own, she can take control of herself and identity.
The author says “Mala gives up verbal language, while I use verbal language to detail her trauma and her triumph. To my mind, her abandonment of this language and my use of it are only different sides of the very same coin.” (Mootoo, 111). This further shows the sense of control Mala has over herself now, she can control what she tells Tyler, her life is no longer someone else’s. Mootoo uses specific words to show the relationships and identities of characters. I saw this in the discussion of Mala’s father, “Pohpoh was what her father had lovingly called her since she was a baby…but when Chandin Ramchandin started touching her in ways that terrified and hurt her…” (Mootoo, 200). When talking about the past and their father daughter relationship, the author uses the titles “Poh Poh” and “father”, but when talking about the brutality, the author says “Chandin Ramchandin” and “Mala”, which is what PohPoh changed her name too because Mala reminded her too much of her fathers actions towards her.
I feel like this post really connects to the “Ikea but Different” post, in regards to the focus that they both have on Mala’s control and her lack thereof at times. Her desperate grasp for the control she never had as a kid versus the present-day part of the story is such a huge contrast and it really demonstrates how she sometimes only knows the extremes, because her life has been a series of extremes that she could not, or felt as though she could not change.
I like how you describe language as a form of “autonomy” in this novel, since it is truly Mala’s only form of control over her life. Within her community her life has become a story that is spread through gossip among neighbors, one which Mala deliberately avoids contributing to. An example of this is when Mala chooses not to tell Ambrose about her abusive father, instead hoping that he will come to understand by himself. In this way she distances herself both from her abuse and the stories that are spread about her, exerting autonomy in the only way she can.