Author: fosterd

Actions have consequences. This is an idea idea that many people know, but few people are aware of how horrible the consequences can be, or how small the action. Of course, one has to figure free will into this as well, because that is how choices are made. One could argue that when Asha and Pohpoh’s mother left it had the consequence of abandoning her children in an abusive situation, but why blame her for her husband’s decisions to commit this abuse anymore than one would blame her daughters for not leaving.

It was an unpleasant shock to me, however, when reading the last section of Cereus Blooms at Night, to realize that there was one unequivocally bad decision and decision maker on whom a large part of the blame for everything that occurred could be placed.
One of the primary themes of the story is to not judge people so harshly, evidenced first by the trial of Mala where the literal judge decides to be merciful because they do not fully know what happened, and later on by the large number of queer characters who are or are not treated as odd by their neighbors: Otoh living life as a man, though not being genetically male; Nurse Tyler’s job and dressing up to impress/entertain Mala Ramchadin; and Ambrose’s sleepiness and then wakefulness, while he also kicks himself harder than anyone else for what was done to Pohpoh.

This theme was most heavily and horrifyingly reinforced, however, by a single line in passing about a decision made by another character who as yet has suffered no ill consequences despite the misery brought into Mala’s life. “None of Asha’s letters were ever delivered because the righteous postman, deeming the Ramchadin house to be a place of sin and moral corruption, refused to go up there” (243). Any of Asha’s letters delivered at any time could have given Pohpoh the motivation and means to run away from that place of sin and join Asha in a happier life. Instead, the postman’s judgement resulted in the victim being subject to worse and worse abuse, culminating in madness. Jesus ate with lepers, and through his kindness they were saved. In a story where “Judge not, lest ye be judged” is a recurring theme, I feel comfortable enough with my own actions to judge the postman as, at the least, intentionally failing in his duties. At the least.

“I don’t have to go far to see everything. I does see how your father does watch you. His eyes just like my father’s own. … You do for yourself better than me!” (p 184)

These words from Mala are the culmination of her madness and her sanity, embodying her paradoxical dissociation from her past and showing several of the book’s themes at once. When she says she can see everything Mala is referring to her memory of the events that have so shaped her life that she has been living out again in her mind, but this time from a different perspective. The key to understanding Mala’s madness is the realization here that she knows she has changed but not that the world has as well. To her, Pohpoh’s father is still alive and Ambrose still the young man that she mistook Otoh for, and Pohpoh still the young girl whose father watches her in the worst ways. But Mala is just sane enough to know that she is not a young girl anymore, so therefore she must be Mala instead, and she chooses to try to fix the wounds of the past by protecting Pohpoh the way no one protected her in her childhood.

Despite the misery and madness prevalent through the earlier books, it is the promise of beauty and healing with which the book ends, and it happens because of what Mala does here. She finally lets go of Pohpoh, sending the girl off to the skies of Paradise (pun intended) to do and be better. She allows her world to finally change instead of retreating further into her memories and living entirely in an unaltered world of her youth. It is because of this that she can finally begin healing, and hopefully awaiting a letter from Asha.

“…anything worth doing turned out to be a girl thing. In order to enjoy ourselves, we learned to be duplicitous. Our stacks of Cosmopolitan were topped with an unread issue of Boy’s Life or Sports Illustrated, and our decoupage projects were concealed beneath the sporting equipment we never asked for but always received.” (Sedaris, p10)

This particular essay, Go Carolina, draws implicit comparisons between trying to correct a lisp in speech therapy and trying to “straighten out” a “bent” sexual identity. The first part of the above quote serves the double-purpose of making the similarities clear through bringing up the subject of gender, which is closely connected to orientation, and then showing the effects this has on on the people subject to it–no correction is forthcoming, and the “patients” merely learn to better conceal their “condition”. The second part gives everyday examples of the deceit involved, and thus of the impacts big and small on their lives.

I saw a strong connection between the theme of this passage and the theme in Michael Warner’s The Trouble With Normal. In his work, Warner discusses the incorrectness of the feeling that, “controlling the sex of others, far from being unethical, is where morality begins”. People in authority seek to prevent or limit “abnormal” sexual practices, including homosexuality, and use this suppression to amass social or political power. We see this in a smaller scale in Sedaris’s work, where the school system and Miss Chrissy Samson try to straighten out his speech impediment, while also using the therapy as self-improving status transactions. Agent Samson repeatedly condescends to and chides Sedaris, and he also notes the way his teacher repeatedly and unnecessarily brings up the subject in class. The crowning event of the narrative occurs later, when Samson guilt trips him into saying thorry, and then mocks him for doing so. There couldn’t be much of a better comparison for the way Warner describes authority figures using the shame of sex to bolster their own authority. And the similarities continue when Sedaris describes what results from these tactics: no actual change in beliefs, only lies as they continue like before, but in secret. The boys change their words instead of the way they say them, and hide their “girl thing” interests behind the expected boy interests that they lack.

Page 159: I had to leave. She would have died for my sake. Wasn’t it better for me to live a half life for her sake? 

This passage’s words are of comparatively moderate importance to its tone: the agonized whimper of false justification. Even saying/writing this, our Narrator knows that it is wrong, and that s/he has made a terrible mistake. The evidence is in the syntax used:

“I had to X” is one of the most common justifications in the English language, and thus one of the ones that rings the most hollow. In truth, it is not used even as a justification, much less an explanation, but as a plea for understanding from an assumedly judgmental audience. A plea that is made only when the pleader has doubts about the correctness of their actions and feels the need for the agreement and support of others, which would be unnecessary if they truly believed they did the right thing.

In the second sentence, the use of “would have” is most revelatory. It expresses willingness in the past tense, implying that the Narrator knows s/he has crossed a line and no longer believes Louise still would do so. I also saw the implication that the Narrator does not consider him/herself to be worth dying for, because of what s/he has done.

Lastly, that the third sentence is a question is a huge point. Here the Narrator shows that s/he cannot even convince him/herself, and is no longer sure of the reasoning.

This passage struck me as important because it so perfectly illustrated what has become the Narrator’s primary flaw: martyrdom. S/he views this as sacrificing their relationship rather than throwing it away, and thus leaves Louise despite the pain so that she can have a better life. But the Narrator did nothing to actually ensure that Louise would get treatment, or even need the treatment. The moment s/he chose to trust Elgin over Louise was the moment their relationship was doomed.

So desperate to make the sacrifice for Louise, the Narrator denied Louise even the chance to do the same. S/he loved Louise too much to let Louise love him/her back, too much to let Louise lose anything (Why is the measure of love loss?), and that is the flaw that led the relationship to fail. That is what the passage above shows: the Narrator’s realization of his/her mistake.

p34: “Meanwhile, at home in Stanford Hill, Esau and Sarah, locked in prayer through the 24 hours of the Sabbath, wondered what would happen to their boy who had fallen into the clutches of a flame-haired temptress.”

This passage struck me because it is so different than much of the rest of the story, and yet still maintains the running themes, just in a different flavor. The rest of the story focuses on the Narrator (shortened to N) and the people N knows and interacts with. Yet N is almost nothing like Esau and Sarah, and barely interacts with them, only knowing them as the parents of the husband of the woman N falls in love with. Yet here and now they are momentarily the most important people in the story, and I wanted to examine how they related to the running themes.

“Why is the measure of love loss?” This is a running theme throughout the story, and it was only after dissecting the passage that I realized we were seeing another flavor of that theme here. Esau and Sarah feel that they are losing their son and are powerless to stop it, which is reflected by the word choices: locked in prayer holds implications of being frozen and unwillingly immobile; their boy is a diminutive possessive term showing that they still care for him and are not angry at his choices, only afraid; clutches is used in reference to Louise possessing “their boy” and has negative connotations of jealousy or insidious plots; and fallen, especially so in the same sentence as Sabbath, has connotations of falling from grace, fallen angels, and falling for a plot.

In a way Esau and Sarah may be the (morally) best characters shown in the book, as while they are unwilling to compromise their own beliefs, they still unconditionally accept their sons choices and care only that he may be hurt, rather than showing the various levels of selfishness seen in other characters.