When talking about non-normative identities there is often a fear and\/or curiosity about the unknown. What society makes invisible is generally where the dissonant culture is. For Otoh this curiosity manifests as a desire to see Mala and her garden, to know her story, and to hear his father tell him about it. When he finally does get into her garden he misses Mala completely and finds a tree full of beautiful, expensive birds. \u201cOtoh was astonished that in his own neighborhood, unknown to catchers and gamblers, there existed a tree laden with hundreds of peekoplats. He suddenly felt himself a trespasser, an awkward voyeur\u201d (Mootoo, 155). When Otoh finally sees this wish fulfilled it doesn\u2019t bring him a sense of joy or accomplishment, instead he feels \u201cawkward\u201d, like a \u201ctrespasser\u201d (155). He learns that this bountiful tree exists, and that knowledge would be useful to others- \u201ccatchers and gamblers\u201d. And he feels like a voyeur, like he\u2019s getting pleasure from seeing something private, usually not seen. Perhaps this is the moment when he begins seeing Mala as more of a person and less of a story character. Because all this time he\u2019s wanted to see into Mala\u2019s life, to know what she doesn\u2019t let others know. However when he does, the enjoyment of that knowledge is mixed with awkwardness, with the added knowledge that he must also protect this secret. As well as the realization that what he demanded from her was personal, was her life not something \u2018exciting\u2019 in the adventure story way.<\/p>\n
I also think this is interesting for its intersections of capitalism and colonialism. The tree is full of, metaphorically, money. Otoh recognizes the danger of that fact. Just like how his island was taken over and used for its profitability, the birds (and perhaps metaphorically Mala as well) would claimed if people knew about them. Not only does Otoh seem to realize the depth of what he wanted from Mala, but he also sees the complicated and potentially hazardous nature of her existence. Instead of a feeling a deep connection with Mala, Otoh becomes more aware of structures and divides in society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When talking about non-normative identities there is often a fear and\/or curiosity about the unknown. What society makes invisible is generally where the dissonant culture is. For Otoh this curiosity manifests as a desire to see Mala and her garden, to know her story, and to hear his father tell him about it. When he … Continue reading The Unknown and What We Know About It<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2598,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93618],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","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\/2598"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}