Author: ratatouille but with a raccoon

I want to connect two passages where Geryon talks about a cage and a tank, relating the ideas of being trapped and being in captivity. In the first passage, Geryon responds to his brother’s question: “what’s your favorite weapon? Cage, said Geryon from behind his knees. / Cage? said his brother. / You idiot a cage isn’t a weapon. It has to do something to be a weapon. / Has to destroy the enemy” (Carson 33). Considering his brother’s insult and immediate dismissal of his response, it is no wonder Geryon feels trapped—in fact, he uses his knees as a physical barrier between himself and his brother. At first, I interpreted Geryon’s response, “cage,” to reflect how he feels trapped in his life, unable to escape his brother’s sexual and verbal abuse even in a space that is supposed to be safe (his own home). However, he was asked about his “favorite” weapon, which indicates that his response could be something he likes. For this reason, I wonder if he also sees the cage as a form of protection; as much as a cage keeps someone confined, it also keeps others from getting in. Maybe to him, the cage is a psychological space where he can escape his brother and aspects of his life that leave him feeling confused, hurt, or alone. What his brother misses, though, is that a cage does in fact “do something,” and it can “destroy the enemy.” It may not impose immediate physical violence like other weapons, but it works psychologically, causing someone to feel isolated and powerless. Moreover, confinement in a cage over an extended period would also be physically painful. So, for someone so young, Geryon picked an incredibly damaging weapon. Because Geryon has wings, the concept of a caged bird comes to mind as well. So even if the cage protects him on some level, it also confines him in a space he feels he does not belong—it grounds him so he cannot fly or escape.

In the second passage, the singer during the “Tango” chapter tells Geryon that beluga whales think about nothing when they are trapped in a tank: “But I look in their eyes and I see them thinking. / Nonsense. It is yourself you see—it’s guilt. / Guilt? Why would I be guilty about whales? Not my fault they’re in a tank. / Exactly. So why are you guilty—whose / tank are you in?” (Carson 103). Like with his brother, the singer immediately dismisses Geryon’s comment and tries to “correct” him, implying that Geryon must feel an affinity with the whales because he too feels trapped in a tank that he did not put himself in. While a tank is like a cage, I think the intentions behind them are different. Where a cage is often associated with punishment or confinement, a tank usually refers to some kind of display, or playing a role for someone/something else (e.g. whales in a tank for people to observe). So, Geryon at first sees his life as a cage that he built around himself (and events/people in his life likely participated in creating that cage more indirectly), but then Herakles’s influence places him in a tank over which he has no control. In a sense, he is forced into captivity, in more ways than one: the literal sense of being trapped, but also the emotional sense of being enchanted by or attached to Herakles. Either way, he is captivated by and expected to play the role of the unattached lover for Herakles.

Because we have been talking about perspective and partiality in class, I wonder if the cage and the tank are the same idea from different perspectives. Geryon feels a sense of agency as he navigates his life and his attachment to Herakles, but others see him as trapped in a relationship with an emotionally unavailable partner. That the singer labels Geryon’s feeling as “guilt” and not loneliness, or frustration at being misunderstood and denied agency, demonstrates that 1) Geryon may see himself as the problem, rather than Herakles leading him on or traumatic experiences impacting how he interacts with the world, and 2) others also see Geryon as the problem or the “other,” rather than recognizing their role in isolating him. Both, in turn, contribute to him seeing himself as a little red monster nobody understands. Moreover, because his perception of reality is real to him, it is thus real to the reader as well, as we experience the world through him. So, in a sense, he literally is our eyewitness, showing us the world from the perspective of the “other.”

In an interview, Shani Mootoo describes how writing can serve as an escape from trauma by “re-ordering” lived experiences (110). This “re-ordering” of experiences in fictional worlds grants her “permission” to simply exist in the world, away from the pressures and material results (like abuse) of marginalization and oppression (110).

We have discussed in class how perspective and location impact how we view the world, and I think this relates to how Mootoo uses lived experience to inform her stories. While these stories are fiction, they embody some truth because they are a re-telling of reality from a particular perspective or location. In a sense, this “fiction” could technically be another version of reality, just through a different lens.

I see this represented in the show Our Flag Means Death, which fictionalizes the historical figures Stede Bonnet (The Gentleman Pirate) and Edward Teach (Blackbeard)–two pirates from the early 1700s. The show places their story in a world where their queerness is not “othered,” granting them “permission,” as Mootoo puts it, to simply exist as they navegate the world as queer men (110). The show’s writers, then, “re-order” the world in order to explore the relationship that forms between Stede and Ed without homophobia (internal or external) as the conflict. Moreover, not only is the show itself a “re-ordering” of events, but Ed also engages in what Mootoo describes about writing and storytelling as a means of coping with trauma.

In episode 6, Ed tells the crew the story about the time he saw the Kraken, a mythical sea monster, kill his father. But later, he admits to Stede that it was not in fact the Kraken, but he who had killed his father after witnessing him commit an act of domestic abuse against his mother. In a sense, although he added some mythical elements to his story, he “re-ordered” what happened in order to disassociate from the trauma of having killed someone, let alone his father, and of having been witness to domestic violence at a young age. I think this moment also connects to Mala’s story in Cereus Blooms at Night in how she kills her father in a moment of fear and in response to sexual violence, but then separates this memory from her childhood self Pohpoh, establishing a new story within her own life to protect herself from the trauma she has suffered.

In revealing to Stede what happened in his past, Ed also admits that despite the legacy of violence and aggression that surrounds Blackbeard—the performance Ed puts on to emulate the image of a ruthless pirate—he has never actually killed anyone else. Instead, his performance as Blackbeard shields him from the trauma of his childhood, and protects him from potentially traumatic experiences as a pirate in the present. Mala, too, attempts to shield herself from her trauma in how she separates her experiences from Pohpoh’s, “re-ordering” what happened to protect her younger self in her memories. I thought it was interesting that Ed’s and Mala’s storytelling “does not attempt to pulverize ‘bad,”’ as neither of them eliminate the traumatic experiences completely (Mootoo 110). Instead, they “re-order” their experiences in ways that allow them “permission” to exist, and to live even just a little less burdened by that trauma (Mootoo 110). Their respective versions of events are no less real than the events that occurred in their pasts. Rather, they use that past to inform how they navigate the present in order to keep themselves safe.

I am including the link to the scene where Ed reveals this to Stede, but content warning for domestic abuse and violence. The show is technically a rom com, but this moment is a bit heavy: https://youtu.be/hYVB-z3KnLA

“I think about my disabled body, how as a teenager I escaped the endless pressure to have a boyfriend, to shave my legs, to wear make-up. The same lies that cast me as genderless, asexual, and undesirable also framed a space in which I was left alone to be my quiet, bookish, tomboy self, neither girl nor boy” (Clare 151).

Clare discusses how systems of power shape experiences by exerting control over bodies. He uses words relating to being trapped (“escaped,” “endless,” “pressure,” and “space”) and definition/characterization (“cast,” “framed,” and “lies”) to denote how systems of power inscribe false meanings onto the body. These “lies” written on the body force him to explore his identity under the surface, isolated from others. While being “left alone” seems like an escape from the rigidity of expectations, it is actually an example of a more subtle form of violence that manifests within structures of power. Clare identifies how interlocking systems of ableism, patriarchy, and compulsory (hetero)sexuality* pressure those who are able-bodied to conform to (hetero)sexual, binary gender experiences. But these systems ostracize Clare for his disability and gender fluidity by categorizing him as genderless and asexual. While Clare notes that this does provide him space to experience identity in ways often restricted by these systems of power, he still recognizes that it is an act of violence through exclusion and isolation; certain bodies are not held to the same standards because they are seen as “undesirable,” expendable, or perhaps unproductive.

Through this space of “undesirability,” Clare provides an example of chrononormativity, “the use of time to organize individual human bodies toward maximum productivity,” but he introduces the question of which bodies and in what ways (Freeman 3). Systems of power like those that Clare analyzes—ableism, patriarchy, and compulsory (hetero)sexuality, but also white supremacy and capitalism—shape our understanding of life as “event-centered, goal-oriented, intentional, and culminating in epiphanies or major transformations,” and often focus on productivity, not just of products but also of means to produce those products (Freeman 5). Not only does this relate to Clare’s metaphor of the mountain, but it also reverberates in what he notes about the experiences teenagers are expected to have. In a sense, the “endless pressure” forces people to follow a narrative path in life (having (hetero)sexual experiences during their teenage years and accepting traditional gender stereotypes like wearing makeup or shaving their legs) that will ultimately lead to the reproduction of these systems. So, while systems of power create a construct of linear time, they perform a cycle to maintain that power.

Clare’s passage describes this cycle. First, a person’s intersectional positioning impacts how they are expected to adhere to constructions of time that dictate a particular narrative experience of life. Second, the degree to which they adhere to that construction of time allows systems of power to measure the value of their body. And third, people, but specifically children, internalize this notion of value whether they experience the “endless pressure” to conform or not. The practice of queering time and place, then, challenges that cycle from the first step by asserting that there is more than one way of life. In essence, it contests the “lies” that systems of power use to define our lives.

*I write (hetero)sexuality to include both compulsory sexuality and compulsory heterosexuality.

“’Explore me,’ you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps, expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think I’m free, coughed up like Jonah from the whale, but then I turn a corner and recognize myself again. Myself in your skin, myself lodged in your bones, myself floating in the cavities that decorate every surgeon’s wall. That is how I know you. You are what I know” (120).

This passage has three intersecting themes based on the language: exploration, the body, and the self. As the narrator describes exploring Louise, the words in this first cluster extend beyond literal exploration (ropes, flasks, maps) to a subcategory of being stuck, unable to find a way out, even lodged in her bones. The narrator transitions into clinical, rather than sensual, language to describe the body, and specifically how they feel connected to Louise. They experience more than an emotional attachment, though; they basically imply that they are or have become Louise by virtue of falling in love with her—seeing themself in her skin, her bones, and the cavities of her body. In being physically part of Louise, they lose themself to her, to the extent that she becomes all that they know. But even with the emphasis on Louise’s body, their focus is clear from their repetition of the word “myself.”

Throughout the novel, the narrator meanders between feeling lost and found—lost throughout their numerous relationships (as displayed by their non-linear narration), found with Louise, only to become lost again when they leave her. But interestingly, here they describe feeling lost when they recognize themself. They allude to the Biblical story of Jonah, who is saved from drowning by a whale that releases him back on shore, the lesson being to repent instead of running from God. Essentially, once Louise “saves” the narrator and teaches them to “repent” for their less-than-considerate behavior, they being to rediscover themself. But instead of providing clarity, discovering their identity is disorienting. They have lost their sense of self, and instead attempt to carve their identity out of their relationship.

Repeatedly, the narrator describes relationships in which they attempt (in some form) to transform into that which most pleases their partner, but it is never enough. I think that instills in them a fear of commitment that causes them to find comfort in loneliness and self-centeredness, however ironic and frustrating it may seem. Even when they finally find comfort with Louise, they run away under the guise of playing the “hero,” despite doing exactly what hurts her the most. As much as they want to understand Louise, they are too afraid to be understood, afraid to have strings attached. So, as we have discussed in class, Louise reads, writes, and unravels them, but I think that ultimately, they are too lost to even be found.