Category: 2022 Blog Post

Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night is, in my eyes, a novel which examines to deeply explores the connection between colonial and bodily invasion. As the graphic, horrific sexual assaults of Mala play out throughout the book, Mootoo wants to guide us further than just the terrible nature of Chandin’s individual transgressions. She wants to develop an allegorical narrative on colonialization, expressed through the experiences of Chandin, Mala, and the whole island of Lantanacamara. Looking through the lens of Qwo-Li Driskill’s “Map of the Americas” poem, I want to briefly examine how Chandin, Mala, and Ambrose each fit into the larger allegory around colonization that is present throughout this novel, in order to get a better sense of how the prevalence of colonial forces on the island shaped both the suppression and formation of Mala’s identity.

Driskill’s poem, much like budding romance between Mala and Ambrose, is told from the perspective of someone who has faced the hardship of colonization and assault. The speaker in the poem tells their lover to “know these lands have been invaded before / and though I may quiver / from your touch / there is still a war” (Driskill, lines 60-64). Something has been taken from both this speaker and Mala that continues to haunt them, and while the poem relates this assault and theft more directly to colonialism, I do think that in the novel Chandin is clearly meant to be a representative of colonial domination as well, especially considering his upbringing with the Thoroughly’s.  In both pieces of literature the focal character is hesitant to pursue their own interests, with Mala specifically being very concerned about the eventuality her father’s retribution when he finds out about her and Ambrose.

This is what makes the ending of the novel so tragic, because Mala is unable to escape her father’s influence in the same way the speaker in Driskill’s poem reclaims themselves through their intimacy. At the end of the poem, the speaker says “I walk out of the genocide to touch you” (Driskill, line 85), but even after embracing Ambrose and becoming intimate with him, Mala can’t emerge from her father’s all encompassing influence, through no fault of her own. Driven by the embarrassment of losing Lavinia and Sarah, he refuses to let Mala escape, seeing any step away from him and towards independence as a step towards rebellion, which he, as a controlling, colonial influence, meets with brutal violence.

I do think Mala is eventually able to formulate an identity that lies outside of the  colonial/paternal rule that long governed her life, though it is not in the way Driskill’s poem outlines. While Ambrose was always only a temporary escape from this influence, the independence she gains after her father dies is truly what allows her to express her truest self, expressing her love for plants, bugs, etc. more fervently. She has been freed from the shackles of tyrannical rule, and in her joy we see just how much she’d been holding in for all those years.

 

The idea of “confession” is one that has been intrinsically tied to questions and expressions of sexuality for decades, if not centuries. Michel Foucault discusses this concept in “The History of Sexuality,” discussing confession as a production of truth and a form of power, the holder of which can vary case by case. Confession exists, in a form, as one of the most important moments in a queer person’s life—coming out.

As queer characters continue to frequent mainstream media, so do “coming out” scenes. In recent years, there have been many famous “coming out” moments: Santana Lopez and Kurt Hummel each have their own moments on Glee, Simon Spier emotionally told his parents he was gay in Love, Simon, and Nick Nelson came out to his mom out as bisexual in Heartstopper. These are all explicit in the sense that each character tells a loved one they are in love with someone of the same sex or explicitly state their sexuality. The “coming out” scene I would like to examine through the lens of confession is from season four of Stranger Things. It is, unofficially, the coming out of Will Byers. 

Coming out can be a confession no matter what form it comes in, but in the case of Will Byers in season 4 of Stranger Things, there is a weight behind his words that adds to the feeling that he is truly confessing something. In episode 8, when Will’s longtime best friend Mike Wheeler is letting his insecurities get toh him, Will reveals a painting to him that he had been trying to gift him all season long. Except, when he uses this painting (which depicts Mike as the leader of a medeival-dressed group, a heart emblazoned on his shield) as a way to boost Mike’s confidence, he lies. He tells Mike that Mike’s girlfriend and Will’s adopted sister, Eleven, was the one who commissioned it. Will confesses that “El” has been “so lost” without Mike, that she’s “so different from other people”. Turning away from Mike, Will then says: “When you’re different, sometimes you feel like a mistake. But you make her feel like she’s not a mistake at all.” As he continues, he becomes more emotional, to the point where he’s silently crying once he’s said his piece. 

Of course, in this scene, Will is not actually talking about Eleven. From the first episode we learn that Will has been working obsessively on a painting, but El did not commission nor does she know what it depicts. She assumes it’s for a girl that Will likes. Though it is made obvious through Will’s subtle confession that he, not El, needs Mike and feels like a mistake for feeling that way, the writer and Will’s actor have since confirmed that Will is queer and in love with Mike. This confession is of special note, because although Mike doesn’t seem to realize, Will is confessing things that are hard for him to voice, hence why he can’t admit he’s the one behind the words. This, Foucault would say, is a “production of truth” (58). Though it’s not the real truth, Will is creating his own truth in this scene to protect himself. And, between Will’s obvious distress and the 80s setting of Stranger Things, the audience gets a real sense that Will is, to some degree, ashamed. He’s coming to terms with his identity and his feelings at a time where it was not always safe to do so. Thus his confession is one made out of desperation for Mike to understand how needed he is, and perhaps for Will to finally release what he’s been holding in without fully exposing himself before he’s ready. This scene perfectly emulates “confession”, especially in the context of queerness and coming out.

link to scene:

https://youtu.be/Pw6m-yWneNA

A Poem for the Loving Living
Inspired by Qwo-li Driskill

Here’s to all the shady queens and bull dykes
The radical faeries and radical theorists,
The queer and now,
To the past, present, and future of queer history theory lives

Give us our flowers while we are still here, instead of the thorns
Drawing scarlet blood from wounds not deep enough to prick,
But deep enough to scar.

We put on our lipstick, red, like war paint, and dance to the cries of change.
“It’s not my revolution if I can’t dance” and oh, the battle cries are singing
songs of melancholy joy,
echoing.
A whisper in the wind reverberates

“Never again”
Never again
Never again… until the next time

And then it’s a shame
A tragedy, they died too soon
As the crocodile tears roll down
the faces of those who pushed them off the bridge into the Hudson,
the real mourning goes on
behind the scenes.
Continue reading A Poem for the Loving/Living – Inspired by Qwo-li Driskill

“Not a man and not ever able to be a woman, suspended nameless in the limbo state between existence and nonexistence…The reason Miss Ramchandin paid me no attention was that, to her mind, the outfit was not something to either congratulate or scorn—it simply was” (Mootoo 77). 

This quote about Tyler from Cereus Blooms at Night explores how his identity does not yet have a name or label in his society. He exists in a liminal space, unable to properly fit into the definition of man nor woman, and therefore people don’t know what to make of him. We are conditioned to see gender as binary, and stepping outside of this binary is often seen as negative. In Tyler’s case, he is not physically harmed but he is mocked for his femininity. His coworkers make passing comments, laugh, and stare. He stands out, which is an inherently bad thing to them. On the contrary, Mr. Hector views Tyler’s gender as celebratory. Tyler’s queerness reminds him of his beloved brother. He even asks Tyler and Otoh if they know his brother just because they are queer. For Mr. Hector open queerness is something to be celebrated, as he knows the harm his brother suffered in their childhood for being too feminine so he empathizes. However, Mala does not take on either of these lenses, but a neutrality to Tyler’s queerness. She views it as natural, nothing to gawk at, something that simply exists, neither congratulating or scorning it. Queerness to her is neither good nor bad as society categorizes it as. It just is. 

Mala’s lens reminded me of something I read in my philosophy class, excerpts from Martin Heidegger’s book “The Question Concerning Technology.” While Heidegger’s politics were disgusting, his claim about technology surprisingly relates directly to Mala. Heidegger wrote that while technology itself is neither inherently good nor bad, humans think of all of their surroundings as either technology or on its way to becoming technology (looking at it for how it can become useful rather than what it currently is). Everything is seen as materials for technological advancement, even the earth is seen as materials for oil and the cutting down of trees to build factories.

Like the characters’ need to label Tyler’s gender as good or bad, there is a human need (perhaps a result of socialization) to label things, to understand their purpose in the world. To believe that everything must have a purpose, one that’s either good or bad. In his book Heidegger wrote “When we once open ourselves expressly to the essence of technology, we find ourselves unexpectedly taken into a freeing claim,” meaning that when we begin to look at technology as something that simply exists rather than the way to view the entire world, we can be free. This freedom would allow us the understanding that there is not one correct way of thinking, that multiple lines of thought can coexist not necessarily in relation to the others. Adopting this neutrality like Mala does in regard to gender, we can look at queerness (which is either celebrated or scorned), as simply existing alongside heterosexuality, rather than the antithesis of it. Queerness is queerness, not directly opposing the dominant framework, not as something that is good or bad, but something that just is. 

 

“Mala all but rid herself of words… Every muscle of her body swelled, tingled, cringed, or went numb in a way that words were unable to match or enhance… Mala’s companions were the garden’s birds, insects, snails, and reptiles… She did not intervene in nature’s business… Flora and fauna left her to her own devices and in return she left them to theirs. They realized eventually that they had no cause to hide. Mala permitted them to roam boldly and to multiply at leisure throughout her property.” (Mootoo, 126-128).

Nature is the embodiment of identity; just as a species is equipped with instincts crucial to their individual life cycles, a sense of self is an innate aspect of a human being. However, humanity lacks the freedom to simply exist, unlike plant and animal life. Heteronormativity embeds a myriad of expectations upon an individual, immediately characterizing any divergence as “abnormal.” Failure to abide societal mores results in public ostracization, despite identity being a natural facet of an individual. A blooming flower is seen as beautiful, yet a blooming identity is subjected to judgement.

Mala’s comfort in nature allows her to feel physically and emotionally at ease with her body, quirks, and queerness. The removal of pressure to present “normally” in order to please a higher power allows her to heal from her years of abuse. For the majority of her life, she was silenced by her father, expected to serve him. Additionally, the community was ignorant to her trauma, labeling her as “crazy” rather than recognizing her behavior as symptoms of PTSD. Nature had no opinions of Mala, as the wildlife “left her to her own devices,” (128). Mala had developed a symbiotic relationship with the natural, as both her and earth could exist without fear. She was treated as a human being, a living organism; not as an abnormal phenomenon.

Mala’s relationship with nature reminded me a lot of Eli Clare’s “Stones in my Pocket, Stones in my heart.” Similar to Mala, this was only place Clare felt a “sense of a body,” (Clare, 145). Despite not understanding the meaning of certain heteronormative expectations, Clare knew that he naturally did not feel feminine. The pressures to adhere to the accepted lifestyle of a woman did not match his innate identity. Therefore, he found an escape through an environment where there was no “normal.” Every being was allowed to exist naturally as they are. His lived experience is analogous to the relief Mala feels within her garden.

The physical pleasure Mala obtains from surrounding herself in the wild is akin to Clare’s view on the body from a biological standpoint: “Our bodies are not merely blank slates… We cannot ignore the body itself: the sensory, mostly non-verbal experience of our hearts and lungs, muscles and tendons, telling us and the world who we are,” (Clare, 150). Mala foregoes speaking, allowing her true sense of self to transcend words. By letting her anatomy alone present who she naturally is, she is defending herself against verbal opinions. No matter how common, opinions are not facts; Mala simply existing as she is cannot possibly be “unnatural,” despite the controversy around her. She physically feels the most content in an environment who not only accepts her natural self, but also exhibits their unique qualities with no shame.

Clare, Eli. “Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies: Disability and Queerness.” Public Culture, vol. 13, no. 3, 2001, pp. 359–66, https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-13-3-359. 

Mootoo, S. Cereus blooms at night; Thorndike Press, 1996.

In Vivan M. May’s essay about Shanu Mootoo’s cereus Blooms at Night, May makes many claim about the novel. However, the most interesting claim made is when May analyzes the use of allegories in Mootoo’s work. The claim is the allegories that Mootoo uses “pushes readers to delve into the silences and fissures of the known” (May, 108). This claim stood out to me because the story is set in the fictional Caribbean town of Paradise and “suggests a novel that is more allegorical in nature” (May, 108). May goes on to state how the allegories “lie somewhere between fact and fiction” (May, 108). The most interesting example of this in the text is when Mala goes to check on her father’s body. “Did she only imagine the vapour of hot air that passed over the balde?” is a statement that showcases May’s claim (Mootoo, 229). Mala obsessed with her father’s body and at times is convinced he is still alive. Mala’s loss with reality results in Ambrose “fearing once more for his life” and thus, he abandons her (Mootoo, 228). Mala’s break with reality only continues to grow. She isolates herself in her house and “worked until she had created an admirable wall that was almost impenetrable” (Mootoo, 230). Here we see Mala struggling between fact and her version of reality. Mala’s story of abuse and how she is coping with her trauma is a significant part of the novel. The novel is a “collective [of] stories” that are meant “to be heard and understood in new ways” (May, 108).

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

The protagonists in Written on the Body and Cereus Blooms at Night both create an extension of themself who they feel an obligation to protect, ultimately sacrificing their form to save “their child.” 

The narrator in Written on the Body views Louise as a part of themself, a person who is very similar and part of an intertwined and complementary set of bodies. They are two halves of the same whole, made of similar parts with very minimal differences: “Your body is twice. Once you once me. Can I be sure which is which?” (Winterson 99). They clearly see Louise as an extension of themself, or themself as an extension of Louise. Either way, the narrator views this relationship as dependent, with one unable to exist fully without the other. The narrator also sees Louise as their creation, calling her “My child. My baby” (Winterson 159). The narrator feels a parental obligation to Louise, to protect her from the world and take care of her. This parental lens taken by the narrator in viewing their relationship forces the narrator to take a position of authority, one where they feel entitled to making decisions on behalf of Louise, as a parent would their child. Therefore, the narrator makes the decision to leave Louise to ‘save her from her cancer,’ because “Our love was not meant to cost you your life. I can’t bear that. If it could be my life I would gladly give it” (Winterson 105). The narrator takes on the role of the savior, sacrificing themself and this love to allow Louise to get care from Elgin. They emphasize that they would rather die than her, but because they cannot take her cancer away from her body, they do the next best thing — they cut themself out like a tumor, theoretically saving Louise. For the rest of the novel, the protagonist floats through life incomplete, unable to have what they truly want. For a majority of the novel the protagonist sees this action as a justifiable and courageous sacrifice they make for Louise to be free, to survive.

Similarly, Mala creates Pohpoh as an extension of her childhood self to separate that trauma and period of her life from her current woes. Mala views herself as Pohpoh’s mother, and intends to be “the mother of Pohpoh or at least her older sister” who would have “hugged her and protected her as well as PohPoh had protected Asha” (Mootoo 173). Mala, the grown up Pohpoh, separates a part of her identity, that childhood youthfulness, from the whole so she has someone to take care of after Asha leaves. The maternal role Mala/Pohpoh has filled since her real mother abandoned her is deeply ingrained in her identity, and so when one ‘child,’ Asha, leaves, Mala must create another child to protect. This child just happens to be an extension of herself, a figment of her imagination that represents her childhood and innocence that needs to be shielded from the violence of the father. Mala also takes on the role of ‘mother’ for the entire family, acting as a mother for Asha or Pohpoh, a wife for Chandin, and the one who runs the household. 

Just as the protagonist does, Mala ‘sacrifices’ herself to save Pohpoh from violence. In addition to taking the brunt of her father’s sexual abuse, when the police investigate her house and find Chandin’s body, Mala places herself as a barrier between them and Pohpoh: “‘They coming after you, run, run!’ Mala shouted to the child who, in her imagination, had already escaped the yard’s confines. […] ‘Yes, Pohpoh, you take off and fly, child, fly!’” (Mootoo 186). Mala is tackled by the police, but this self-sacrifice allows Pohpoh, or her childhood, to remain free and escape from reality. This metaphorical sacrifice of the narrator and Mala ‘saves’ the child they care for in an ultimate act of parental love. Just as the protagonist views Louise as “the tender thing I wanted to protect,” Mala says her “first duty was to save and care for Pohpoh” (Winterson 159, Mootoo 172). Both characters view their relationship with this extension or creation of theirs through a parental lens, making their primary purpose to protect and care for that person, like a child.

By framing both of these protagonists as parents who shield and defend aspects of themself, both authors comment on this phenomenon of hiding away aspects of one’s identity to protect it from the harsh world. This component is usually manifested or thought of as a child, because they represent innocence and purity and must be protected from trauma. By separating this part of self and manifesting it as something physical, whether that is onto one’s lover or as a figment of one’s imagination, these characters use escapism to protect this aspect of self that may be threatened by external factors. For the narrator, Louise represents all of the good parts of a relationship before it meets that ‘six month mark’ where things usually go south. For Mala, separating her childhood innocence and wish to escape keeps it from being corrupted by her father’s violence. However, this reaction is a bit paradoxical, since it puts one in harm’s way to protect one from another form of harm. Does this approach imply that keeping one’s childhood pure is essential?

“He had the sensation that the corner of the sheet trembled between his fingers…suddenly entire patches of the white sheet broke away and turned into a rising haze of reluctant moths…the edges of their wings had locked together, linking them to form a heavy sheet that was slowly devouring the corpse underneath” (184).

This quote from Cereus Blooms at Night comes at a climactic moment in the story, when the dead and decaying body of Chandin Ramchandin is found by police in the basement of Mala’s home. Mootoo sets up Mala’s connection to bugs throughout the novel, printing them between paragraphs and sections and showing her love and care for them. The moths covering her father’s corpse are intentionally connected to Mala and her role as protector of the bugs, her sister, and her younger self. They represent her as well as being her friends. Their white color, aside from giving them resemblance to a sheet, could represent the purity of love she has for the insects which they in turn feel for her, and also the childhood innocence that was stolen by her father’s sexual abuse. That stolen innocence is now “slowly devouring” his dead body. In the same way that Mala is both protecting herself and being herself through her projection of Pohpoh, the moths are protecting Mala and representing Mala, stuck with her decaying father while keeping him out of sight and contained under their bodies until they are disrupted by the policeman and forced to abandon their post. Mootoo chooses to keep him preserved underneath the house in an unrealistic way to show how the entire house has been frozen in time, in a bubble isolated from the rest of the town which has moved on since his death, without thinking of Mala.

The fantastical preservation of her father’s corpse, staying recognizable and in continual decay after over 30 years or more is tied to Mala’s own paralysis. Her life has not progressed since the day she killed her father, stuck up on the hill isolated from the town with only the bugs as company. Physically she has not moved on, and mentally a part of her has detached and become a projection of her younger self, further mooring her to the past. The day that Oto disrupts her routine, the day the police come and find her father’s body, breaks the spell that has kept them both frozen in time in the house. Even the smell of his decaying body haunts the property and infects the air just as his rotten desires soured Mala’s childhood. She is still not free of him after all those years, until Oto, the policemen, and the fire break the boundary set between her home on the hill and the rest of the town. For the first time in her life, she is away from her father’s body, free from his rot that blackened his insides even prior to his death, a disgusting disease he projected onto his daughters through sexual abuse. After his body is burned or removed from the home, the cereus blooms sweetly, without masking the scent of decay, for a new generation of love.