Author: QueenB

The characters in both Cereus Blooms at Night and Fun Home have bonds with others who also keeps their own truths within. For example, Tyler, the Nurses Aid at the Paradise Alms Home, is drawn to Miss Ramchandin because they both hold truths that are unknown to anyone but themselves. It is eluded throughout the entire story of Cereus Blooms at Night that Tyler is gay and this is his truth. Miss Ramchandin’s truth is held within her life story, the story of her father’s sexual abuse. In fact, Tyler uses the exploration of Mala’s story to relate and analyze his own sexuality and desires. “Miss Ramchandin and I, too, had a camaraderie: we had found our own ways and fortified ourselves against the rest of the world” (48). From the beginning of Cereus Blooms at Night, Tyler explains that he is the only person who knows the truth about Mala’s life. The whole truth. In a sense, the relationship between Mala and Tyler help each character grow and reveal their own truths. Tyler’s story becomes interwoven with Mala’s. “For there were two: one, a shared queerness with Miss Ramchandin, which gave rise to the other, my proximity to the very Ramchandin Nana herself had known of” (48). 

In Fun Home, we are presented with a bond between the author, Alison Bechdel, and her father, both of whom can identify as gay. Alison’s father grew up during a time where being homosexual was not at all accepted as a societal norm. He too, is still unsure of his sexuality and tries to hide its presence. Even when Alison shares the fact that she is a lesbian with her parents, her Dad’s only response is, “Everyone should experiment. It’s healthy” (77), and “At least you’re human. Everyone should experiment” (210). His remarks to the reveling of her truth, was insufficient to Alison. These two quotes actually come from almost paralleled events within the story. Since Fun Home is a graphic novel, we can use the pictures as well as the text to understand the feelings of Alison from this reaction from her father. The drawings on both page 77 and 201, are identical. Alison’s eyes are staring straight down diagonally, almost blank, and she is anxiously playing with the phone cord. The reader can gather that Alison is dissatisfied with her father’s reaction. This dissatisfaction, along with other clues to her father’s own homosexuality, may relate to her father’s own feelings about homosexuality, and conclude that his same sex relationships are too, just experiments.

 

Upon her arrival at the Paradise Alms home, Mala Ramchandin is placed into the care of Nurse Tyler. She does not speak, she does not eat. In fact, the only sounds that emit from Miss Ramchandin are imitations of animals. Eventually, Tyler’s presence is accepted by Mala and he declares himself as her storyteller. “…and for all the scant attention paid my presence, I am the one who ended up knowing the truth, the whole truth every significant and insignificant bit of it” (47).

How can Tyler know the truth without knowing Asha’s side of the story?

He yearns for Asha, “Asha Ramchandin, Asha Ramchandin, Asha Ramchandin. In quiet moments after a long day caring for your sister, when I would rather lie in my bed in the nurses’ quarter and have my mind lie fallow, your name repeats itself mantra-like in my head. At night I fall asleep clinging to the hope that you are happy and well, and you would soon know that it is now safe to return to paradise” (90). Tyler is well aware that he can never know everything but he has to make his own truth, to believe that Asha is happy and well, in order to make peace with the Ramchandin’s story.

“Why is the measure of love loss?” (9/39). Repeatedly asks the narrator of Jeanette Winterson’s novel Written on the Body. Perhaps it is because we cannot quantify love. We cannot compare it to any love that has ever been written or even felt. And more notably, we cannot measure love by a number of months or even years because time does not solidify love. We see the theme of time presented throughout this novel due to narrator’s pessimistic view of love. After the narrator ends eir affair with Jacqueline, ey relates this ended relationship to wasted time. “I haven’t stretched out my hand to check the clock and felt the cold weight of those lost hours ticking in my stomach.” (71). Why is the narrator obsessed with the idea that love is like a ticking time bomb?

I have little sympathy for the narrator, who often goes after women who are already involved in committed relationships. The narrator has built this idea that love cannot last because he/she has never experienced a timeless love. The narrator must put a limit, an expiration date, on his/her relationships. I too, as any human, have built walls to protect myself – to be able to not have expectations, because no one likes to admit that they have been hurt. This wall is built for the narrator by an end date. The narrator compares wasted time eloquently to a cold weight, which is a recognizable feeling for most.

Prior to the ended romance with Jacqueline, the narrator begins to fall for Louise, but this feeling is different. “What are you that makes me feel thus? Who are you for whom time has no meaning?” (51). The narrator does not feel compelled to relate this tender relationship to time. Perhaps Louise will be the one to break em from this cycle and allow him to return his watch to his wrist.

Most ignore fear when they find themselves amidst a whirlwind romance, but the narrator of the novel, Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson has too much experience with the dangers involved with falling in love. ,”I had lately learned that another way of writing FALL IN LOVE is WALK THE PLANK. I was tired of balancing blindfold on a slender beam, one slip and into the unplumbed sea” (26). E uses the analogy of being crazy enough to become vulnerable to another person as a death sentence. The author uses these phrases, “fall in love” and “walk the plank” because they evoke opposing emotions to the reader. We are met with warmth, happiness, and partnership when we hear the term “fall in love” and then immediately distraught, dreaded, and fearful when upon encountering “walk the plank”. Later in the novel, the narrator decides to ignore this once looming idea of love and risk Em life, “I know exactly what’s happening and I know too that I am jumping out of this plane on my own free will. No, I don’t have a parachute, but worse, neither does Jacqueline” (39). Each of these quotes honors the narrator’s beliefs that love is dangerous, much like free falling, but narrator desires to take this leap because Em believes that Jacqueline is worth it.

We see in Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s piece, Tendencies, the theme of death in love prevails as well. Sedgwick shocks us on page one, “Up to 30 percent of teen suicides are likely to be gay or lesbian; that a third of gay and lesbian teenagers say that they have attempted suicide” (1). This statistics, as opposed to the narrator’s comparison in Written on the body, are literal representations of gays and lesbians who feel  unable to express their love and encounter their own “walking of the plank”.

Although The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a fictional story, so many people can relate to a tumultuous relationship between a father and son, or parent and child.

The relationship between Jekyll and Hyde can be summed up as, “Jekyll had more than Father’s interest; Hyde had more than a son’s indifference.” (59) This passage comes from Henry Jekyll’s Statement of the Case, which outlines the story of how Hyde came to life. Jekyll and Hyde are technically the same person and share the same space in the universe and their existence but exist in different physical forms and identities. Each character looks at the other in similar ways as a father to a son.

This quote can be looked at both literally and hypothetically. Dr. Jekyll spawned Hyde, much like a father spawns a son. The words interest and indifferent speak both to the characters of Jekyll and Hyde respectively. Jekyll can be identified as a man of quality character and develops interest into creating a life form that allows him to play out his negative urges. Though Hyde never narrates the story for himself and says very little throughout the story, the reader can pick up on a feeling of indifference towards his negative behaviors since he is able to make his violent choices while relying on the return to Jekyll’s appearance which acts as a safe haven; this is until Jekyll is no longer able to sustain his own identity.

The theme of identity plays an important role throughout literature, love, and life.