\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When thinking of how I wanted to start this blog post, I thought back to the free writes we did in class, because I had many questions about the concept of Cereus Blooms at Night. The first thing I would like to draw attention to is Tyler\u2019s notes on pages 3 and 105. I liked their structure within the book, and how they almost set up the concepts of Part I and Part II. However, the most obvious aspect of these is the fact that their premise feels false. For a letter that is supposed to be for Asha, Tyler uses \u201cI\u201d a lot (Mootoo 3). The whole concept of these starting letters is Tyler saying he is not going to talk about himself. Yet, 4\/6 lines are about himself or talking about himself and his efforts, and 2\/6 of the lines reference Asha. The word \u201cmyself\u201d is used five times in three lines (Mootoo 3). Similarly, the second starting letter Tyler talks about himself and his efforts 4\/5 lines, and Asha once.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My version of close reading in this sense is more about structure and repetition. At first, these annoyed me, because it is very contradictory, and the concept of this book is that it is a letter to Asha Ramchandin about her sister (if that is the case, why is he relaying to her a lot of her own childhood trauma? Perhaps a question for a different blog post). Yet, I feel a lot of it is about Otoh and then a good amount is about Tyler. So, I stress that AT FIRST this annoyed me. Because, of course, I had some revelations.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We can never separate ourselves from what we are writing, especially for those of us who are queer. When I look at my own writings, whether they be fictional or not, my own biases but also my own experiences are reflected. I do not think we should separate ourselves from our writing. The use of first person, in Tyler\u2019s case, is a direct insertion of ourselves. Frankly, we need to. Without knowing the history or biases of a writer, we cannot fully appreciate the work or analyze it correctly.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Personally, I believe writing, in and of itself, is a version of queer space. Typically, when thinking of that concept, I envision a physical space, but I think mental space is also important. Books are a view into a different world, and we all interpret them differently. They can be safe spaces as well. As a writer, I feel safest within my own writing because I can freely express myself and who I am. Growing up, I did not read a book that represented my sapphic identity until I was in high school, and I had to seek it out myself. But upon opening that book, I felt seen. I felt that similarly when I started writing as well. So, perhaps inserting ourselves is not as self-centered as it may seem. But, rather, and integral part of our own identities and cultivating a space to freely be ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When thinking of how I wanted to start this blog post, I thought back to the free writes we did in class, because I had many questions about the concept of Cereus Blooms at Night. The first thing I would like to draw attention to is Tyler\u2019s notes on pages 3 … Continue reading First Person Stories<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5606,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-class-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5606"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}