Author: Enigma

The relationship with her father that Alison Bechdel reveals in this memoir is extremely convoluted. His death by questionable suicide only exasperates her futile attempts to comprehend all of his complexities. About his death she admits, “When I try to project what Dad’s life might have been like if he didn’t die in 1980, I don’t get very far. If he’d lived into those early years of AIDS, I tell myself, I might very well have lost him anyway, and in a more painful, protracted fashion” (195). This passage is extremely telling because it reveals a common pattern of thoughts shared by individuals who have lost a close friend or family member to suicide. In just two short sentences she has clarified so many of the unresolved feelings toward her father that circulate through this story. By admitting that she couldn’t imagine her father living past when he died, and by thinking up other ways for him to have lost his life, Alison is expressing an indirect form of acceptance over her father’s decision to take his own life.

This is a powerful sentiment that provides a lot of clarity to a very intricate dynamic. In this confession, Bechdel is realizing that her father was not able to reveal his true identity as a “closeted fag…in this small minded small town” (125), and she accepts his decision to escape it. Alison doesn’t have any proof that her father’s death was a suicide, but I believe she wants it to be. She wants to know that if nothing else, he had autonomy in at least one thing in his life. His identity may have been stolen by a society that could not embrace queerness, and his self-worth may have been diminished by institutionally impure thoughts of homosexual desire, but his death was his own. Suicide is the only way Alison is able to come to terms with losing her father; anything else would have been just another travesty to further strip him from any opportunity at sovereignty. To Alison, suicide was her father’s best chance of escaping an undesirable lifestyle on his own accord. It was this interpretation of his death that helped her relinquish the fear of exploring her own queer identity.

There is an overwhelming presence of isolation in this novel that permeates through generations, locations, and characters. I believe that Mala’s home can be seen as an extremely paradoxical symbol of this theme. It is common knowledge in society that individuals who seek refuge from loneliness tend to embrace their communities as a form of social support and belonging. Mala pushes back against this conception with an understanding that, “the scent was indeed more pleasant than the stink that usually rose from beyond the wall” (138). In this passage it is evident that there has been a role reversal in what constitutes an isolating presence. Surrounded by a barrier of soil, insects, decay, and death Mala feels welcomed and safe. She does not fear the “screaming crickets”, the “frantic moths”, the “hairy bodies”, the “crazed bats” (138). Instead, she fears the stink of what lays beyond. There is a potent stench of putrid curiosity that emanates from tepid visitors who can only conceptualize her existence from behind a physical and metaphorical barrier.

Up until Mala’s last day in her home it was her against them. Her community is a pollutant that can only be thwarted by the powerful and pure forces of nature that engulf her home. Mala’s perfumed barricade is stronger than their betrayal, their ignorance, and their malevolence, so she shrouds herself inside of it. In light of these observations, I hypothesize that Mala transcended her human form after losing her sister. In that home she resembles the weather, the insects, and the pungent cereus more than she resembles those who share her corporeal form. By embodying her environment she is able to temporarily step away from the pain that grounds her human experiences. The boundary between Mala and society controversially reverses the concept of social comfort in a bold and creative way.

Beginning in the first chapter, there is a line that separates the first sentence of Geryon’s autobiography from the rest of the verse. This separation continues until the final interview at the end of the novel. The purpose of the introductory sentence is not static. Some chapters use this technique to summarize information that follows, while others utilize it as a transition sequence from the title to the body of the text. I find this the implementation of this sentence fascinating because in a novel without predictable or traditional punctuation, each of these introductory phrases ends with a period.

These succinct introductory phrases may serve as a metaphor for the isolation that Geryon consistently experiences throughout the novel. The dividing line is a physical manifestation of the symbolic barrier that isolates a red winged monster from his elementary school peers, mother, and lover. Throughout the flux of the novel, these curt phrases are kept constant. Anne Carson’s implementation of these divisions represent that no matter how hard Geryon tries to blend into the expectations of society, he will always be hindered by a rigid, unsurpassable wall. The lack of punctuation throughout the prose that follows the introductory statement may represent the flux of life that Geryon is consistently trying to blend himself into. Geryon’s hindered journey through the chapters of his life mirrors the isolated style of each introductory sentence, “Eventually Geryon learned to write.” (37), “Somehow Geryon made it to adolescence.” (39), “Somehow a journey makes itself necessary.” (46). The harsh punctuation and bolded lines that fragment Geryon’s journey from a growing child to a traveling adult simultaneously define his lonely identity as a little red monster.

A few months ago, I came across this picture printed and pinned up on a pole in Northeast Philly. Though I was not able to apply the principles of queer theory to this image then, I can now analyze the message with an entirely new framework of interpretation. I can’t tell how long ago this picture was taken, but the message “AIDS is not in recession” still rings true for many repressed Americans hindered by low socioeconomic status and/or non-hegemonic identity.

Judith Halberstam spends a substantial amount of time in chapter one of her novel, In a Queer Time and Place, analyzing the negative consequences for “expendable” (3) individuals living in neglected pockets of the United States during the AIDS epidemic. I believe that Halberstam would applaud the social protest conveyed by this image as a strong push against who and what America’s capitalistic society has deemed important.

Halberstam suggests that while many middle class heterosexual Americans obsess over a long-term push to procreate and pass on industrial normative values (4), there are pockets of disadvantaged individuals battling for their own short-term survival (3). The AIDS epidemic modeled in this image represents that battle, and the corresponding eternal capitalistic chiasm that exists between those at the top and those at the bottom of America’s hierarchy. “Aids is not in recession” can be used as a microcosm for all past and present epidemics that force a queer subset of society to beg for intervention.

This may be a stretch, but I believe that this image, as well as Halberstam’s message can be seen as a call to action for all of those basking in the capitalistic hierarchy to step down from the ladder that has been built by unjustly flattening those who are not able to conform. Halberstam tells us that queer time exists outside of the conventions preset by society, that queer time produces a different set of expectations for an alternative life. I believe that all of this is true, but I also believe that as a capitalistic society that thrives off of homogeneity, queer individuals are doomed to face an unjust amount of neglect and discrimination unless those at the top shift their perspectives downwards. “Aids is not in recession”, and neither is America’s discrimination against our queer citizens, ethnic minorities and impoverished persons.

“I realized I was meant to be clapping in time with the beat and I remembered another piece of advice from my grandmother. ‘When in the jungle you howl with the wolves.’ I slapped a plastic grin on my face like a server at McDonald’s and pretended to be having a good time” (153)

The repetitive phrasing in this passage clearly stresses a moment of impact for the narrator. By emphasizing “I realized…I remembered… I slapped” the narrator transitions the audience through a period of self-realization that culminates in a moment of sharp pain. This pain takes the metaphorical form of a false identity where discomfort gets masked by a “plastic” smile. To use the word plastic is to suggest the most synthetic, artificial form of contentment. The narrator exposes additional paradoxes by contrasting “clapping in time” and “howling in the wild”. To clap in time is an organized motion typically done in establishments of civility. This passage demonstrates irony when the narrator cannot genuinely follow through on this motion while in the utmost pillar of civil integrity, a church. Instead, they feel as though they are among a foreign species, forced to assimilate like a lone wolf approaching a pack.

Up to this point, the narrator has been seen existing in a unique environment that is isolated from common laws of morality. They engage in sexual relations with married women and partners of both gender. In this passage, a church outing that has been normalized for stereotypical, heterosexual Caucasians is turned into a jungle of uncertainty.

The overwhelming presence of homogenized expectations in this passage are very similar to the Christmas Effects in Sedgwick’s article. In society, the mixture of church, state, and commercial industry leads to an atmosphere of isolation for those who fall outside of society’s predetermined categories. When the narrator attends church, a supposed sanctuary for outcasts, they are swept up in unfamiliarity and discomfort. This paradox speaks volumes to the novel’s intended message. Nonconforming identities, behaviors, and sexual preferences are normative for the people who live them. Society takes those who do not align with man-made constructions of normality and makes them feel as though they are lost in a jungle, scrambling to blend with the rest of the pack. By writing this novel, Jeanette Winterson fights this battle. Not all identities are defined, not all relationships are monogamous, and not all love is clean cut.

“I took them [letters] into the garden and burned them one by one and I thought how easy it is to destroy the past and how difficult to forget it” (17)

The paradoxical language in this text brings to light an important dichotomy between love and loss. Describing one action as both easy and difficult gives a great deal of insight into the narrator’s battling conscious. They want to lighten the burden of an emotional load by employing a physical technique. In a literal way, this passage simply expresses that the narrator took their letters back from an ex-lover and burned them to forget about lost love. After looking at how the contrasting diction seamlessly slides into a symmetrically structured phrase, it becomes clear that there is a much deeper meaning. This passage’s play on words suggests that no matter how simple a solution may seem there is always more depth. After destroying the past, the narrator needs to reach the cynical truth that material objects do not embody the worth of what they carry. Letters cannot own love, so the process of destroying love’s messenger becomes fruitless. The narrator knows this truth, but burns the objects anyway as a moment of cathartic hope that is soon to be realized as inadequate.

This passage tells us that the narrator is cynical and slightly pessimistic but greatly intuitive. It tells us that he or she is realist who is humanized by the mistakes that a great deal of people make after losing love. Burning letters of lost passion is not a foreign concept to many who have experienced heartbreak, if anything the destruction of once prized goods is expected. For the rest of the novel, this behavior implies that the narrator may continue to make relatable mistakes throughout her journey. It sometimes seems to be the most introspective, analytical people in life that get hurt the most. I wonder if the narrator will continue on her trajectory of analytical heartbreak.