Childhood is central to the plot, imagery, and meaning of Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo — childhood is the time and site of both creation love but also the absolutely brutal abuse and rape that Mala — Pohpoh — Ramchandin endures from her father from a very young age. There are many passages, however, especially in the beginning, where childhood is alluded to by Tyler, or compared to things that are not childish to diminish them. This puts childhood at the forefront of the novel immediately, and in association with Mala in her helpless old self.
“‘Mr. Tyler, I know that you had formal training… but that does not give you the authority to make up rules for yourself. You will always find troublesome residents but in the end, at their age, they are all like children. And when children misbehave, you have to discipline them'” (13-14).
This passage establishes a parallel between childhood and diminished value or agency of whatever it is compared to in that moment. In this case, Sister rids the elders in the home, especially Mala, of their agency as adults by telling Tyler “they are all like children” and “misbehave” (13). Mala had almost no agency as a child — she and her actions were owned by her father, and that connection is made before we as readers even know her story. However, the stripping of agency by others, by outsiders to her life, is contrasted by the way that Tyler treats her as lonely, misunderstood, and in need:
“I sat by her head, slipped my arm under her back and pulled her into my arms. I held her against my chest, rocking her until the first streaks of morning light broke through the pitch-black sky” (21).
As he “held her against [his] chest” Mala seems small, like a baby; the word “rocking” is associated with rocking a small child to sleep when they’re restless (21). Now, instead of child as a demeaning association, the imagery is of comfort, solemnness and melancholy of a crying baby. Someone is there for her in a way a parent would be, not only in a moment where she has no one by her side, but in a lifetime parental abuse as well as absence.
The imagery of a child in Mala in her present narrative as a very old woman is threaded throughout the novel. The imagery shifts to an air of innocence and childish joy and love, rather than child helplessness and lack of agency by the end: “She giggles and twitches her feet…On visiting days she wears a garland of snail shells about her neck” (247). The snail shells are representative of the small parts of love and play she had in her childhood, an image that is established throughout the novel. In her last years, perhaps Mala is reclaiming her childhood and the moments of care and love Pohpoh had amidst the horrible pain of her childhood cut short.
Sonechko, this is a great analysis! I wonder if Tyler and Mala’s relationship can also be read as a representation of the queer family or queer time. When Tyler rocks Mala to sleep and spoon-feeds her soup, he acts as a parental figure even though he is younger than her. The traditional, heteronormative family structure is flipped on its head; the mother gets mothered, while the cared-for serves as the caregiver. This reminds me of found family, a topic we discussed in our analysis of Paris Is Burning. When queer individuals are ousted from their biological families, they find community amongst other queer people. In these queer family units, age differences do not matter. As we discussed in class, drag mothers are often younger than their drag children. Would you argue that Mala, Tyler, and perhaps even Otoh form a found family? Or would you say their relationship represents queer time? Mala acts like a child as an adult, while Tyler acts like an adult as a young man. Both step outside a chrononormative timeline. Could both of these analyses be true simultaneously? I would love to hear your thoughts!
I agree with the fact that childhood is at the forefront of the novel and I think this is emphasized with how we get Chandin’s childhood story first. We are able to see a bit of his backstory and how he became who he was. While this is not the focus of the novel, I do think it is extremely important to look at to analyze what childhood looks like. Chandin had a lot of internalized racism that affected who he ended up marrying and possibly the way he “raised” his children. I don’t think he ever quite got over what he initially believed about himself, about his place in the world and his worth. I don’t by any means think this excuses his behavior, but is a lens in which to look at his affect on Pohpoh’s childhood.
This is so interesting! I totally agree with the whole concept of Mala reclaiming her childhood, especially because of how brutally it was stolen from her. One thing I hadn’t really thought about yet was your first quote from the very beginning of the novel. It made me think about not just how we treat elders as if they are back to being children, but also about the infantilization of disabled and mentally ill folks. I think Mala falls into this category as well because of the way she seems to be viewed as “crazy” by the rest of the island. The rhetoric of misbehavior and punishment I think is also incredibly common within inpatient mental health treatment, which I believe furthers the infantilization of people with mental illness.
I also think Tyler might be one of the first people to treat Mala in a childlike way. We saw how the circumstances of her childhood forced her to grow up very fast, meaning she barely got a childhood in the first place. Tyler showing her this childlike care is something pretty new for her. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is one of the reasons she’s able to start reclaiming her childhood.
You picked out great parts of the story for this analysis! I’m especially taken by the quote early in the story from the nurse telling Tyler that all older people eventually act like children. It reads as true on its face, after all – the level and type of care that people need when they get to a certain age becomes very similar to childhood/infanthood. Also, though, it acts as keen foreshadowing to Mala’s life story, since her current mind is very straightforwardly inhabited by a childhood version of herself who never got to heal. Since Tyler (and eventually the other people around Mala) end up working to heal that child, Mala is finally able to have the pleasant sort of childhood that was stolen from her the first time around.