Author: Garnet

Each time I read Fun Home, I become more and more aware of Bruce’s complicated relationship with gender, both within himself and through Alison. Much like how Riki Anne Wichins describes how gender policing and cissexism/cisnormativity affected her childhood, we can see how Bruce, who is not only a closeted gay man but one who has expressed interest in crossdressing (in the photo Alison finds of him in a woman’s bathing suit) and in the possibility of being trans (in the car with Alison on the way to the movies), struggles to balance his gender and sexual identities along with being a “normal” undertaker and family man in central Pennsylvania. Not only do we see gender dysphoria in Bruce, but we see him trying to squash it (or at least brush it off) with Alison, who is fascinated by a butch trucker in a diner, abhors wearing dresses and barrettes, and rues the day her breasts start developing. It seems as though college was Bruce’s time to explore these hidden parts of his identity, as on page 120 Alison first believes the swimsuit getup to be some sort of fraternity prank, and then wonders if the photograph taken on the top of Bruce’s frat house was possibly taken by a (presumably male) lover. College is also the place where Alison meets other gay people her age, starts being able to dress herself without her father’s scrutiny, and eventually has her first relationship with a woman. One can see how Bruce became part of a cycle of gender policing, as he himself was probably policed by his parents, and how Alison breaks out of the cycle and is able to live more freely as not only a lesbian but as a butch lesbian.

(Note: at the time I’m writing this, I’m only partway through the reading, at about page 180. I’m interested to see if this interpretation changes by the end of the reading.)

Sorry I’ve been posting so much about queer time (I know, sooo February) but I’m still fascinated by the idea. For most of the end of Chapter/Book II, starting around page 139 and ending on 188, the narrative is split into three, between Otho’s delivery, Mala on the same day in her yard, and a story of Pohpoh sneaking into someone’s house in the dead of night. However, the bug markers which often show a change in either narrative or time frame only appeared when switching to or from an Otho section, but not going between Mala and Pohpoh, despite these obviously being from separate times periods, as they are the same person and could not normally exist within the same section. As Otho comes closer into the yard, we realize that Mala is replaying the Pohpoh scenes in her head, allowing them to coexist in the same story. We also learn that Mala is trying desperately to protect Pohpoh, and wishes that she had been her mother, her older sister, or even just a friend. As she drifts between her visions and reality when Otho approaches and later when the police search her yard, her story and Pohpoh’s become even more intermingled, with the memory of Pohpoh finding refuge in Mala’s garden, which of course could not be a true memory.

One would think that someone who has gone through the trauma that Mala has would not wish to sit and intently remember her childhood. However, Mala is able to reimagine her past in a way that incorporates her older self, who is able to protect and care for Pohpoh when no one else would or could. In her subconscious, she is able to double herself to not only protect herself in her past, but also to keep her company as she spends her days alone and haunted in her garden.

Throughout Autobiography of Red, italics is used to signify dialogue, instead of traditional quotation marks. As such, it is not always clear when one character has finished speaking and another has begun, or if a line was spoken by the same character as a line directly before it, as there is nothing to indicate the end of one person’s thought with another’s (and sometimes they are even on the same line without a paragraph break!). Most of the time in the novel, a reader can infer the speaker by the surrounding text, either by blatancy (“Geryon said” etc.) or from context and content, but other times, lines are juxtaposed in a way that indicate a change in speaker without providing a clear moment of shifting characters, or without indicating who is speaking which part. This can especially be seen in chapter XXI, “MEMORY BURNS,” which is predominantly written in italicized dialogue, with very few clear indications of a speaker.

The chapter starts with Geryon and Herakles bickering about permanence, in regard to photography (Geryon’s passion) and then stars (interesting to note that Herakles/Hercules has a constellation named after him), and it becomes unclear about who is speaking, as there are 9 lines written only in italics, followed by another 7 with just one line of setting in between. Here, it does not matter so much who is saying what, but the message is still clear: Geryon and Herakles have different understandings of lasting and endurance, foreshadowing their inevitable and eventual split. By doing this, Carson allows for a reader to understand the fundamental differences between the two boys that do not allow for their relationship to last, without putting a name to either argument so the reader cannot “choose a side,” but instead focus on the innate lack of understanding and trust between them.

While Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe  has gotten an avalanche of positive attention for being one of the only children’s shows with queer characters, atypical family structures, and phenomenal representation in terms of race, body type, gender expression, and mental illness, I have yet to see anyone discuss how the show utilizes time to “queer” its narrative. So here I go.

If it wasn’t queer enough that the Crystal Gems (and all other Gems) are magical genderless aliens who all present as women and who fall in love with other Gems (except in one instance throughout all of Gem history), they also do not age. In the episode “So Many Birthdays,” we learn that the Gems are literally thousands of years old, and while they cannot age (and learn later in the series that they can regenerate if only their physical being is hurt), they can get injured and die if their gems are sufficiently damaged. This relates to Halberstam’s article, in that Gem culture “open[s] up new life narratives and alternate relations to time and space” (2).

Steven complicates this already alternative narrative, as he is half human and half Gem. In a more recent episode titled “Steven’s Birthday,” it is revealed that Steven is actually 14 years old, which is slightly older than his best friend Connie (a 12 year old human) and most viewers would have guessed. His birthday photo album reveals that he has not actually aged in several years, explaining why he looks young. Being the first known half human/half Gem, no one is sure how or if Steven will age any more, or the parameters of his ability to die. According to Halberstam, “Queer subcultures produce alternative temporalities by allowing their participants to believe that their futures can be imagined according to logics that lie outside of those paradigmatic markers of life experience — namely, birth, marriage, reproduction, and death” (2). Steven’s nonnormative aging process muddies a number of these experiences. If he can even reproduce to begin with, does he become able to when he is physically pubescent, or when he reaches a certain age regardless of his body? Could he reach “marrying age” and still look like a pre-teen? Can he die????? Who knows!

Another fact that further convolutes Steven’s temporality is that, under certain, uncontrolled circumstances, his physical age can fluctuate based on his mentality, as he turns into a withering old man in “So Many Birthdays” and reverts back into an infant in “Steven’s Birthday,” implying that time is not fixed and that age is an illusion. But that is something to explore at another time since I’m nearly 50 words over the limit. 🙂

“I awoke sweating and chilled. Jacqueline slept peacefully beside me, the light was leaking through the old curtains. Muffled in my dressing gown I went into the garden, glad of the wetness sudden beneath my feet. The air was clean with a hint of warmth and the sky had pink clawmarks pulled through it.” (42)

This passage is presented after we find the narrator starting to question their commitment to Jacqueline, they presumably have sex with Louise for the first time, and they have an uncomfortable dream about an ex. The narrator is in purgatory, as they straddle between two relationships, a more foreign one which they know is “proper” but unfulfilling, and one similar to those of their past, with a married woman, and for the first time, being the adulterer (although unmarried).

The passage is riddled with opposites, the narrator’s clammy awakening adjacent Jacqueline’s peaceful sleep, the light of the new day through the aged curtains, the damp chill they felt while waking subsides with the “hint of warmth,” illustrating the narrator’s sense of conflict, and their anxiety about being in limbo between two unfamiliar situations.

The narrator uses the words “sweating,” “leaking,” and “wetness,” all evoking water or moisture, but each received differently. First, they wake in a cold sweat, a contradiction in itself showing their discomfort with their current situation. The light “leaks,”
implying a slowly growing change, one that needs resolution lest it flood the entire space, perhaps to wake Jacqueline from her sleep, or, maybe, her ignorance of her partner’s infidelity. Finally, the “wetness” gladdens the narrator, who, cold and sweating, feels more comfortable standing upon similarly damp the dewy garden ground than they did sweating next to the peaceful, presumably dry Jacqueline. The “hint of warmth,” like the leaking light, will likely spread, warming the narrator the longer they stay outside, the farther she is from Jacqueline.

“But you are gazing at me the way God gazed at Adam and I am embarrassed by your look of love and possession and pride.” Page 18

“The way God gazed at Adam.”  Man is made “in the image of God,” so is Louise (assuming this is Louise) seeing herself in the narrator? Does she see a kindred Spirit, but one that she has created for herself? Was Adam truly the most spectacular thing God had ever seen, after spending an eternity amidst the תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (chaos and nothingness)? Was her marriage the nothingness and the chaos that inspired her to create the world, and eventually make the narrator her Adam?

Adam was not enough though, there has to be a Lilith, and eventually an Eve. A “mistake” before the “final draft.” If the narrator is Adam, who will be Lilith? Who will be Eve? Is this the forbearing of discontent? Of the self-righteousness and anger? Is Eden the bedroom? When will they be stripped of their innocence, their ignorance, their paradise? What will be their ultimate sin, the consumption of the forbidden fruit? Is this affair not the fruit, but the creation of the world itself?

“I am embarrassed by your look of love and possession and pride.”  Perhaps being “Adam” is more for her sake (assuming the narrator uses she pronouns (my own personal assumption)) than for her lover’s, in that this is the very first time for her that she has felt this way, that she has been looked upon with this combination of strong emotion. This being the first time for her, perhaps her only point of reference is the very first human. But while she is in the presence of “God,” is she not as powerful, as almighty? Is the fact that she can invoke these feelings not divine?