“Mala all but rid herself of words… Every muscle of her body swelled, tingled, cringed, or went numb in a way that words were unable to match or enhance… Mala’s companions were the garden’s birds, insects, snails, and reptiles… She did not intervene in nature’s business… Flora and fauna left her to her own devices and in return she left them to theirs. They realized eventually that they had no cause to hide. Mala permitted them to roam boldly and to multiply at leisure throughout her property.” (Mootoo, 126-128).
Nature is the embodiment of identity; just as a species is equipped with instincts crucial to their individual life cycles, a sense of self is an innate aspect of a human being. However, humanity lacks the freedom to simply exist, unlike plant and animal life. Heteronormativity embeds a myriad of expectations upon an individual, immediately characterizing any divergence as “abnormal.” Failure to abide societal mores results in public ostracization, despite identity being a natural facet of an individual. A blooming flower is seen as beautiful, yet a blooming identity is subjected to judgement.
Mala’s comfort in nature allows her to feel physically and emotionally at ease with her body, quirks, and queerness. The removal of pressure to present “normally” in order to please a higher power allows her to heal from her years of abuse. For the majority of her life, she was silenced by her father, expected to serve him. Additionally, the community was ignorant to her trauma, labeling her as “crazy” rather than recognizing her behavior as symptoms of PTSD. Nature had no opinions of Mala, as the wildlife “left her to her own devices,” (128). Mala had developed a symbiotic relationship with the natural, as both her and earth could exist without fear. She was treated as a human being, a living organism; not as an abnormal phenomenon.
Mala’s relationship with nature reminded me a lot of Eli Clare’s “Stones in my Pocket, Stones in my heart.” Similar to Mala, this was only place Clare felt a “sense of a body,” (Clare, 145). Despite not understanding the meaning of certain heteronormative expectations, Clare knew that he naturally did not feel feminine. The pressures to adhere to the accepted lifestyle of a woman did not match his innate identity. Therefore, he found an escape through an environment where there was no “normal.” Every being was allowed to exist naturally as they are. His lived experience is analogous to the relief Mala feels within her garden.
The physical pleasure Mala obtains from surrounding herself in the wild is akin to Clare’s view on the body from a biological standpoint: “Our bodies are not merely blank slates… We cannot ignore the body itself: the sensory, mostly non-verbal experience of our hearts and lungs, muscles and tendons, telling us and the world who we are,” (Clare, 150). Mala foregoes speaking, allowing her true sense of self to transcend words. By letting her anatomy alone present who she naturally is, she is defending herself against verbal opinions. No matter how common, opinions are not facts; Mala simply existing as she is cannot possibly be “unnatural,” despite the controversy around her. She physically feels the most content in an environment who not only accepts her natural self, but also exhibits their unique qualities with no shame.
Clare, Eli. “Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies: Disability and Queerness.” Public Culture, vol. 13, no. 3, 2001, pp. 359–66, https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-13-3-359.
Mootoo, S. Cereus blooms at night; Thorndike Press, 1996.
Your post reminds me a lot of Smashed Pumpkin’s post “Something That Just Is”. As you said, Mala and nature share a symbiotic relationship. Because of this relationship, it allowed her to learn how to accept people as they are. This is where Tyler comes in and when she brings the nurse’s dress to Tyler, she gives it to him but does not judge him for wanting to wear it, but rather claps and feels joy because she sees that he is being his natural self. Just like nature let Mala just live, Mala let Tyler just live.
There has been a lot of literature I’ve read that depicts nature as indifferent, but your use of the term “symbiotic relationship” implies a benefit on both sides. Mootoo does make the “unnatural” natural by Mala’s relationship with insects, but I wonder if this would have been as affective if Male was doing the same thing with mammals or domesticated animals? Cereus shows Mala submersed in nature, but it does not included animals like dogs or cows. I am not sure if this strategy she used to cope would have been as effective to read about if that was the case. The grotesqueness of the insects are really meant to subvert the ideas about what is natural or not.