Author: yeezy

The troubles with societies acceptance on queer identities has been an issue for a very long time. One of the consequences of unaccepted queer identities is the commitment of suicide. In Fun Home, Bechdel uses the suicide of her father to understand how outcast individuals end up taking their life because they are not accepted socially and emotionally. For Bechdel, her fathers suicide is comprehensible. Who will be happy in a life where one’s identity is not acknowledge and furthermore not accepted by you. Bechdel states that “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” (195). Her Dad’s life had no meaning because he was suffering to come out as his true identity, that he was gay. Hiding one’s identity is eventually having a sickness inside of you that is hard to take off or to explain. Years and years pass and hiding your identity can eventually lead to a breakthrough that could lead to a relief or death. If he would of continue, he will be hurt both physically and emotionally. This is because he was not able to express who he was, his true identity. Bechdel will rather see his father dead then “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 way” (195). She accepts that in order for him to escape his true identity he needed to escape from this world, he needed to escape from himself. Bechdel accepts her fathers death in order to understand one decision that he was able to make. A decision that was hard but nonetheless he committed to it.

Our understanding of sexuality has historically established the existence of labels such as male, female, feminine, and masculine. These historical social constructions have implied the non-exigence of anything in between those two primary gender labels. According to Judith Butler, we consider gender as a “corporeal style, an act, as it were, which is both intentional and performative..where performative suggests dramatic and contingent construction of meaning” (Butler 139). We are historically constructed into a gender, an identity, which we have obeyed through historic time. Eventually, it has become a lifestyle, a sustained and repeated “corporeal project”. Individuals became accustomed to such labels and identities, however, from the beginning of the 20th century this labeled identities began to question who they identity as, or if their are any labels that will be able to identify them.

Furthermore, author Shani Mootoo creates a novel that brings up the topic of unordinary gender identities. Mootoo presents characters that fit neither side of the gender binary, but rather presents us to the continuum of gender and sexual roles and behaviors. For example, Tyler, the narrator, is biologically male, has a sexual affinity for man, and engages in cross-dressing. Indeed, he felt that “there was something delicious about about the confinement of his hairy legs in stockings” (Mootoo 83). By using the character of Tyler, Mootoo is able to renegotiate gendered roles of and its impact of labour (jobs) based on ones gender. Not only does he like the stockings, but he also likes being a nurse and a caregiver. In my opinion, Tyler is a symbol of uniqueness, an unknown gender identity that he is able to portray but not identity. In my eyes, he embraces a man who breaks the constituted rule that only women ought to be nurses, caregivers, or any motherly symbol.

Anne Carson, a celebrated poet and essayist, took it upon herself to retell the story of Gerson and Herakles. A novel that turned Stesichoros’ story into Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse. By blending fantasy and reality, Anne Carson introduces an inventive autobiography of a red winged monster who struggles to survive in the real world. The striking way Carson utilizes red and wings only further the perfect metaphor for otherness, to communicate Gerson’s role as an outcast. Consequently, the fantasy used in Autobiography of Red leads to our understanding on who Geryon in reality is or becomes.

According to Bell Hooks, in order “to heal the splitting of mind and body, we……attempt to recover ourselves and our experiences in language” (Hooks 175). The use of language is the only attempt to understand our mind our body and who we represent, essentially it identifies who we are or who we are trying to identify. Throughout the novel, the use of red was emphasized as one of Garyons’ quality, who he was. Gerson was red sen in his childhood, as was everything about him, from the “red silk chalk” used by his teachers to the way he was described to us (Carson 26). It becomes more clear when he set down the total facts known about himself, first and foremost of which is that “Geryon was a monster and everything about him was red” (Carson 37). He was such an other, so unique, that he would not take the traditional route to his classroom at school. Gerson would walk to the far end of the building and “stand motionless until someone inside noticed and came out to show him the way. He did not gesticulate. He did not knock on the glass. He waited. Small, red, and upright he waited” (Carson 25). There he stood and waited to be included, the outcast, the other, the unique. Now, the question is why red? We know that Geryon is not literally red, or is he? In my perspective, red is a standout color, a color that is seen and placed out of other colors, isn’t that what Geryon is. Geryon is not like anyone else. He is unique and his redness only speaks for who he is. But red is not the only thing that makes him an other, a unique individual, his wings also display who he is.

At first, Geryon’s wings were noticeable. His mother used to “neaten his little red wings and push him out the door” (Carson 36). When time went on, Geryon decided to hide his wings because he knew his wings set him apart. However, when he was in Buenos Aires he understood that “twelve percent of people are born with tales” but only he has been born with wings (Carson 97). By him entitling the photograph “No Tails”, Geryon expresses a sign of self-acceptance. Essentially, he is embracing his otherness, his uniqueness, the one thing that sets him apart from other, the one thing that makes him who he is.

Anne Carson blends reality and fantasy to further understand the character of Geryon. The inventive wings and redness character are metaphorically figures that emphasize the uniqueness of Geryon and portray an image of otherness. The purpose of this invention if for the reader to understand that language can be interpreted in different dimensions, in this case we encounter a characters’ life who we never get to hear, because he is different. What a better way to understand the unique than by blending fantasy with reality, an inventive form of writing.

“Christ was wrong, impossibly hard, when he said that to imagine committing adultery was just as bad as doing it.” (Winters 38)

The narrator develops a deep uncertainty on the idea of religion. Through the quote, we can imagine that the narrator’s affair will Louise has hit them hard in the way they perceive their relationship with Jacqueline. For the narrator, committing adultery is more “bad’ then actually just imagining it. Nonetheless, this quote not only characterizes the idea of family upbringings through religious institution, but also how the surrounding world has changed over time. This idea of time developed a sense of uncertainty in the narrators perspective of his life and decisions.

According to Halbustan, “Queer uses of time and space develop, at least in part, in the opposition to the institutions of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction.” Winterson’s use of dialect through her characters uses queer time as a sense to portray the narrators genderless view. The use of religion is given to the reader as a cyclical event. From my earlier quote, religion is spread out through the novel in order to understand how the narrator has somewhat changed or developed a different sense of what religion might mean in their own imaginatively place. It might even be crazy to imagine that queer time in Written on the Body might just be a place where all our impossibilities become possible by the simple fact that everything is weird into our own understanding.

” This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The wall are exploding… Moon and stars are magnified in this room…. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm.” Page 190

The moon, stars, and the world are use as a metaphor to signify infinity between the love that the narrator has for Louise. It is the symbol of deep affection to a woman that has been victim of a sickness that eventually helped them become closer. When the narrator implies a new story, a new beginning, it might be the start of a new life for both the narrator and Louise.

Throughout the novel, the narrator portrays the image of self, when they repeatedly introduce the word “I”, in the first person perspective. By the end of the novel when the love between the narrator and Louise succeeds, the transition from “I” to “we” changes the image of both the narrator and the novel. My first impression was that this is the last draw for the narrator. Louise has finally come back and the narrator can’t waste any time objectifying her the way the narrator did throughout the novel. The new beginning for Louise and the narrator is no longer based on “I” or “you” but rather “we”, the two of them together not one more important than the other.

Furthermore, maybe the way the novel ended represents the novel as a whole. I like the fact that it leaves the reader to construct his/her own ending in a number of ways. There is no certainty as to what happens, the only certainty we have is that for the narrator “this is where the story starts” (190). Thinking in this train of thought, could it be that this was the case during the entire novel? Not only was the ending an opportunity for the reader to construct their own thoughts, but in a way the entire novel falls into the same gap. This might be crazy talk, but as readers we were given the opportunity to decide whether or not the narrator was male or female, or perhaps the idea of a genderless narrator is what pulled us through the novel. Either way, we construct our own hypothesis while the narrator only provided the reader with evidence and support.

Winterson, Jeanette. Written On The Body. 1992. New York, NY: Vintage

“In Wonderland everyone cheats and love is Wonderland isn’t it?”

Love embarks new sensations into the inner soul. For the narrator, love is a life-shattering complicated lifestyle that has created a place called Wonderland in order to further construct the visualization of an adulterer. The language portrays a person who compares themselves with a population who are criticized for making love in the dark, in an unvisualized environment. An environment where no one has to know, no one can’t know.

Does the narrator have guilt, shame? Possibly, but the way they compare themselves with “others” only further emphasizes their shameless ways. Another possible way to interpret the narrators view is for us as readers to perceive the narrator into a double individual, who believes love can be found in any type of circumstances, in a wonderland where we as readers know that it doesn’t exist. Of course Wonderland is an idea, an imagination, an inexistent place. What I really think this passage is about, the narrators imaginable place where only they know the content, the circumstance, the troubles, and the heartbreaks. The narrator is in control of his own imagination, his wonderland. Unfortunately, they have no control of the real world, a world where they will be criticized for their actions.

Work Cited:

Winterson, Jeanette. Written on the Body. 2001. New York, NY: Vintage.