In Cereus Blooms at Night, Shani Mootoo writes about a group of boys slowly burning a praying mantis alive. The mantis seems to be an allusion to Mala Ramchandin and her abuse. “As the flame got nearer the mantis’ body began to arch. The insect twisted its head, its front legs a blur. The instant the flame touched a back leg, the mantis’ movements stopped abruptly. It became as rigid as if it had disappeared”(MooToo 91). The mantis is ultimately frozen by its trauma, it loses its capacity for action. The mantis seems to disappear. This paragraph is immediately followed by the line, “Pohpoh [Mala] bit her lower lip. She stood perfectly still”(Ibid). Watching the mantis’ pain makes Mala frozen, like the mantis, incapable of acting in an attempt to stop the insect’s incineration.
Moreover, like the mantis, Mala is still, rigid, a term that could hint at the behavior of a corpse. Both the mantis and Mala could then be removed from existence, or, perhaps even reduced to corpses, in the context of their trauma. The issue with this interpretation is that it denies any agency to Mala or the Mantis. However, by observing this scene in comparison to Tyler’s comment that he “wonder[s] at how many of us […] either end up running far away from everything we know and love, or staying and simply going mad. I have decided today that neither option is more or less noble than the other. They are merely different ways of coping”(Ibid 90). This statement allows the reader to interpret a certain, albeit limited, agency on Mala’s part.
Throughout the novel, animals, insects, plants, flowers are accurately depicted and I agree with you on the fact that there is an essential connection between nature and Mala. I like how the author, in this passage, reminds her readers that violence and cruelty happens to everybody – whether it be a human being or an insect.
However, you write that “The mantis is ultimately frozen by its trauma, it loses its capacity for action”, stating that that’s also what happens to Mala. But this act of violence, on the contrary, pushes Mala into committing tremendously violent acts on her father.