Eros and Botany

Chapter 4 ends with a striking image of a house divided: a daughter and her father, engrossed in their personal paths, seen by the audience through two seperate windows. It's vivid imagery, not only from a symbolic point of view (windows alone are generally a pretty loaded symbol; just ask Hitchcock), but on a purely aesthetic perspective as well. We are seeing Bruce and Alison through unobfuscated windows to their personalities, and it's an allegory for Fun Home's concept. Bechdel's graphic novel is an intimate look into her relationship with with her father, albeit only viewed from inside her 'window', with illuminated insight into contrasts between the two characters. Since we are only given Bechdel's point of view, I feel like the novel is unfairly balanced towards her interpretation, biased; doubly so because Bruce is not alive to provide the audience with opinions to the contrary. This throws off the book's impact and validity somewhat. However, when Bechdel indulges moments of judgmentality and hypocrisy herself, the audience are (whether Alison realizes this or not) given a snapshot of her personality to clash against Bruce's. These differences in personality, whether perceived or actual on Bechdel's perspective, are blatantly illustrated during Alison's Easter memory with her father where the audience can see dynamics in motion. What she shows is pretty unflattering.

"At Easter, dad would paint goose eggs with twining tea roses," relates Alison, atonally misunderstanding, while her dad, eyebrows furrowed and expression even more stoic than usual, handpaints an enormous egg. The background, on the other hand, shows a disinterested, even aloof, Alison dipping /chicken/ eggs into a tiny paint vat. Dipping. Chicken eggs. Not goose eggs, not handpainting. She's depicting herself in an unflattering fashion: for a bookworm, Alison acts more conforming, less creative, and ultimately far less individualistic than she probably should be, especially in relation to her father. Dipping chicken eggs is considerably more impersonal, as well as rotely trivial, than handpainting a goose egg. While Alison says "if there ever was a bigger pansy than my father it was Marcel Proust," Bechdel is only talking about one aspect to the many aspects of her father. She's disregarding his other personality traits in favor of an easier target. I disagree with her opinion on Bruce, naturally. "I was just about to grab a beer, and then we'll get to work on the flagstones," says her dad, smiling coquettishly, to Roy. You know, maybe I just have no idea what a pansy really is, but considering how much beer Bruce guzzles throughout the story as well as how hard he works physically (the latter can not even be disputed by Alison who shows him working on some 'home improvement' project in numerous scenes), the word 'pansy' does not give us an accurate representation of her father's character. Additionally, what of her father's response when Alison's eyes fixate upon the masquiline-looking woman in the diner? "Is THAT what you want to look like?" he probes his daughter, words rolling off the tongue like a recoiled snake. For all his supposed pansiness, that sounds like a typical 'straight male' reaction to seeing a bulldyke, with all the repulsion and shallow judgmentality that comes along with it. What Alison totally disregards are her father's dualities. Bruce must balance both of his sexualities on a precarious, precipice-esque vantage point, manifesting itself in numerous personality traits which seem at odds with another. Drinking cheap beer versus reading Camus, and so on. It's part of his conflicted character. I don't want to say Bruce is androgynous, because he absolutely is not, but the principal is similar. His traits borrow equally from the masquiline and feminine sides of the spectrum. It's just a matter of which sides he decides to show at any given point in the story.

There's another dimension to Alison's use of the word 'pansy', however. Pansies are also a type of flower. Saying her father is a pansy is an enormous double entendre. "Eros and botany are pretty much the same thing," says Alison, which is an apt summary of Bruce's personality, dualities and all. Since Bruce can not express himself fully and truthfully in his life, he needs to semi-substitute (not completely as evidence by his various dalliances with teenagers) his deviant sexuality for botany, an acceptable alternative socially with a remarkable connection to each other. It reminds me of the infamous 'fucking flowers' scene from Pink Floyd's The Wall. Barely constrained sexuality and sensuality anthropomorphisized through flowers. Flowers are erotic enough on their own - when terms like budding and seeding are commonly applied to describe flowers you know there has to be something bubbling beneath the surface, but they are given an entirely new veneer in The Wall, which is pictured to the left. Stamen and pistil even /sound/, speechwise, like their anatomically human counterparts. Bruce's ideal is represented by the flowers in Pink Floyd's film.

However, though I feel like Alison is too damning towards her father, I do not think her judgmentality is not without merit. Living with such an outwardly emotionless person, especially one who was so unpredictable and occasionally physically abusive, will change one's impression of everything around them. In essence, Bechdel's personality is justifiable to some degree. The hypocrisy and judging nature are like a defense mechanism. Just look at the scene where Alison brings her rough-looking lesbian friends to Chumley's - she's judged immediately and shallowly, as her own father did to the bulldyke in the diner. It was a man's world in the sixties. It's a man's world even now. Though Alison says "the vision of the bulldyke sustained me," going through life as a woman, a lesbian, and a daughter in her family has colored her perceptions, increased her weariness despite, I'm assuming, the strong person she is on the inside.It's hard to blame Alison for her occasionally unfair impressions of others when she has been subjected to an abundance of unfair impressions herself.

Scaly Flowers

Bechdel is a talented writer, a talented artist, and if her looking too deeply into her father's death is any indication, she'd make a pretty ace conspiracy theorist, too.

It's great Alison is interested in getting to intimately know the details behind her father's death, especially considering the rest of her family doesn't seem to care how or why Bruce really died. Likewise, the thoughts going through Bruce's head those weeks before he passed is an even more esoteric component to her father Alison does not overlook. These are all oft-neglected, but important pieces of information the rest of her family, whether through preoccupation with grief, apathy, or simply not caring enough, do not zero in. According to the truck driver who hit him, Bruce "jumped backwards into the road as if he saw a snake" when the truck neared the pre-occupied dad. In addition to the snickering phallic reference behind the snake (if anything could get her father to 'jump' it'd be a penis, right? Even his supposed way of dying involved his homosexuality literally creeping up on him) mention, Who else actively pursues the truth beyond the eyes of a truck driver? Only Bechdel, at least to our knowledge. What isn't great, however, is Bechdel's presumptuous idea that she had something to do with Bruce's passing. This is the kind of thinking I'd expect out of an adored, only child trust fund baby; not someone with two equally neglected brothers. "For a wild moment I entertained the idea that my father had timed his death with this (Bechdel coming out) in mind, as some sort of deranged tribute. But that would only confirm that his death was not my fault. That, in fact, it had nothing to do with me at all. And I'm reluctant to let go of that last tenuous bond," muses Bechdel, self-determinedly, towards the end of chapter three. Well, at least she's honest. She knows she's reaching pretty far in her theories, as well as admitting that part of her presumptuousness stems simply from wishful thinking on her part. Since their father-daughter relationship was not strong in life, who says they can't become closer through death? Bechdel certainly doesn't. However, Bechdel this is all cyclical. Like I mentioned at the start, I still feel like Alison has already decided in her mind . She so desperately wants Bruce's death to have involved her in some way that she's willing to jump to unfortunate conclusions. This narrow tunnel thinking is as dangerous as the 'snake,' the metaphorical and literal one, who supposedly sent Bruce to his grave.

Speaking of snakes and more phallic symbols, Bechdel drops a hidden reference to not only the male organ, but pedophilia (or at the very least toleration for a naked child's form) and its relation to the phallus halfway through the chapter. The reference is highly fitting considering both Bruce's homosexuality and sexual relationships with boys. Bechdel knows how to chose her pop culture references well. However, the reference is one only rock n' roll history geeks would probably pick up on without researching the band. "I got the Blind Faith album," announces a working mode Bruce - is that a smile toying with his lips for once? - on the front porch to his children and babysitter, although his attention towards Roy during this scene is obvious and barely constrained. He lives through teenaged boys by proxy - or vicariously, as you described during our class discussion today. His kids might as well not even be in the same scene. You know how children love winning their parents approval? Imagine Bruce as the child, and Roy as the parent. Call me judgmental, but I just can't see Bruce enjoying Blind Faith behind the provocative album cover's "artistic" value. Though Blind Faith is musically well-known for including guitarist Eric Clapton and having a few minor hits in the UK and the US (again because of Clapton's presence), their fame extends mostly to the album cover of their only proper record. It'd be controversial today, if not even more so: a topless, redheaded twelve year old girl holding a toy airplane. The young girl, the daughter of friends' of the band, was given explicit permission by her parents to appear topless in the photograph. The band was attacked as "assaulters on common decency" almost immediately after their self-titled album was released, with some record shops refusing to sell the record, and an alternate cover was issued for stores who wouldn't stock the original artwork. The plane the girl held, in particular, was attacked as an obvious phallic symbol, which Either way, I feel like Bechdel's inclusion of the Blind Faith album isn't coincidental. She clearly chose to showcase the album as an allegory for not only her father's phallic concerns, but his homoerotic, pedarasty-esque fascination with boys, as well. The only difference is that the album cover is far removed from real life, especially since it is (in my opinion) inexplicit other than showing undeveloped breasts in addition to the girl sporting a (most likely ironic or signs-of-the-times-like) spaced-out expression on her face, while Bruce's attraction to boys is like steam. Expose him to an attractive boy and watch Bruce's inner conflicts play out through his tormented facial expressions. Blind Faith's girl has no such concerns.

Bruce's sexuality has been well-developed for years while the girl shown on Blind Faith's album cover is undeveloped, 'budding', much like the "silk flowers, glass flowers, needlepoint flowers, flower paintings, and where any of these failed to materialize, floral patterns" in the Bechdel home. The word I homed on in specifically was needlepoint - a /needle/point flower is like a double dose of phallic symbols thrown together. Although they are sometimes cheap plot devices, phallic symbols can be, and are in Fun Home, an effective method of showing how Bruce copes with his sexuality: through proxies. Through expression. Through creativity. "What kind of a man but a sissy could possibly love flowers this ardently?" disagrees Bechdel.

A repressed one, I answer.

Mind-Numbing Phallacy

Chapter Two opens up with a loaded illustration: a grassy knoll with a human silhouette standing over Bruce's gravestone. It's an image Bechdel created to bluntly diffuse her emotions onto the reader. It's immediate. And then there's that obelisk leering over the grave from its vantage point in the background. It's tall. It's proud. It's strong. It's obfuscating. It's mind-numbingly phallic.

Could Bechdel have been any more obvious about her father's fascination with the male organ? I almost immediately caught on to what the majority of chapter 2 was going to be about - just by looking at the opening illustration for three seconds. I don't know. Maybe I just have my mind the gutter, or it's my own predilections talking, but at least Bechdel presented the potentially crass subject matter in an insightful, humorous fashion. For example, when Bechdel's "mom couldn't convince the monument maker to do it" - that is, create Bruce's obelisk out of "fleshy, translucent marble like the tombstones in the old part of the cemetary" - I snickered pretty hard. What else is abundantly fleshy and occasionally translucent? Not that I'm an expert on the subject, but I'd bet 'fleshy' rivals 'thick' or 'pendulous' for most used adjectives to artfully describe penises in erotica novels. Only the daughter of a phallus-obsessed closeted gay man would use the words 'fleshy' and 'translucent' to describe a tombstone, however. That's not to say it isn't a vivid description, because it is, and Bechdel manages to pull it off without sounding ridiculous, but the connections she's trying to draw between a tombstone and a penis is a little too obvious for my liking. Either way, regardless of Bechdel's surprising lack of subtlety here, there's a lot to be said about Bruce and his connection to various phallic symbols in his life, "a shape in life he was unabashedly fixated on."

Months ago I discovered a religion on Wikipedia called the Church of Priapus. The connections to Greek myth and philosophy Bechdel throws into Fun Home continue here. Named after Priapus, the constantly-erect Greek god of fertility and the male sexual organ, it's a religion predominantly associated with gay men. Bruce would've probably fit in perfectly the St. Priapus Church. According to Bruce, the obelisk "symbolizes life." The Church of Priapus feels the same way. An article from The Advocate says the Church believes the phallus is the source of life, beauty, joy, and pleasure, and is wholly deserving of worship and awe for these reasons. I'm curious to know if Bechdel knows about the Church of Priapus, or if Bruce knew of the church, or was even apart to it - it's an interesting idea to consider. Between Priapus, Daedalus, Icarus, and Sisyphus, Bechdel's incorporation of Greek pantheism into her story is extensive, but accessible and full of allusions and depth which would not be possible without the connections she draws with, for example, Daedalus and Bruce. Her love of mythology deepens our understanding of her perspective regarding Bruce and his death. Bechdel, as shown by the panel of her crying on her girlfriend Joan's shoulder but not really saying anything, would not be able to express her true feelings through raw emotional displays - not without a rationalized veil, like that provided by the linearly written details of Greek myth, to coat them in and act as a sieve. Rationalizing things is something Bechdel has, perhaps even needs, in spades.

Greek myth isn't the only tool Bechdel uses to deepen our understanding, however. She also extends this to literature and pop culture. "Should we have been suspicious when he started plowing through Proust the year before?" says Bechdel. Instead of focusing on the obvious black humor involved in "people reaching middle-age the day they realize they're not going to finish Remembrance of Things Past," a notoriously lengthy work, I homed in on author Proust himself. Like Bruce, Marcel Proust was a closeted homosexual to all but his closest friends. The extent to which Proust exercised his sexuality is unknown beyond unverified accounts, and aside from using homosexual characters in several pieces, Proust never made any known open comments regarding homosexuality - whether his own sexuality, his affairs, nor the affairs of others. In other words, Proust is remarkably similar to Bruce, at least on a superficial level. Neither acknowledged their homosexuality to anyone other than themselves and close friends, although we have no idea why both men chose to do so. We can speculate, however - was Proust just as self-loathing as Bruce is thought to be? His gay characters are remarkably realistic and under stereotyped, especially considering the time they were written, so this doesn't seem like a likely explanation to me. The readers are, with good reason, left totally on the dark here. We're forced to speculate and draw comparisons; Bechdel is encouraging us to think non-linearly. It's not at all like Bruce's noticeably changed appearance on his death bed, for example, which smacks the audience upside the head with its bluntness. "His wiry hair, which he had daily taken great pains to style, was brushed straight upon end to reveal a surprisingly receded hairline," notes Bechdel upon seeing her father's corpse, 'prepared' by a mortician unrelated to the family. Bruce is far more similar than he appears to the previously mentioned "unattractive balding men" Danny DeVito and James Gandolfini from my last blog entry. Beginning his sexual life as a strapping college-aged young man in the military with a full head of hair, he died a balding, hairy middle-aged man who was having affairs with boys. Poetic justice at its cruelest, the loss of Bruce's hair signifies both a loss of attractiveness - certainly of his own self-image and most likely the impression of others - and the death of his sexual existence. Afterall, the frequently namechecked Robert Redford never did lose his hair like Bruce did. Not even death can hide Bruce's lies.

Wax On, Wax Off

Gay men aren't supposed to be hairy...are they?

From the opening airplane scene, something hit me before any of the words did: Alison's father is one hairy man. Springy and dense, it coats Bruce's arms like a poison. I feel like Bechdel even emphasizes her father's hirsuteness in certain frames, such as the numerous shots of a shirtless Bruce or a reclining Bruce in bed, to make him look more like a neanderthal than a father. It's all part of Bruce's dualities. His distant attitudes towards his family, his hairiness embodied, juxtaposed against his love of fashion, aesthetics, and art, his delicate facets. Alison certainly doesn't view her father as a paragon of warmth, and his hairiness reflects this attitude which is surprisingly prevalent even outside the Bechdel home. Beyond the gay bear culture, hairy men - especially in the 2000s pop culture rift - are generally stereotyped as slobs, simpletons, sleazeballs, "funny men" (but never as desirable men), or just all-around unattractive male figures. I mean, look at Robin Williams, The Diceman, Steve Carell, Danny Devito, and James Gandolfini. These actors all make a living playing characters fulfilling at least one of these personality traits, and in the case of Gandolfini and Devito, even have the unfortunate double whammy of being balding and overweight in addition to furry. How many children grow up wanting to look like them? Unfortunately, while Gandolfini is an exceedingly talented actor, he probably isn't an object of lust to "average" people. Though Bruce might have been as hairy as he is depicted in the graphic novel, I think it's primarily Alison taking artistic license with her character, albeit in a subtle and wholly relevant way (just look at the gay subtext involved in Bruce's hairiness alone - bears vs. twinks, hairy vs. waxed, it's a common topic within the LBGT community). Bechdel sets up her novel with these dualities, and it's a frequently visited theme, these contrasts, in just the first chapter alone.

Alison wastes no time in describing her father as "libidinal, manic, martyred," for example. In addition to the libidinal portion foreshadowing his sexual dalliances with students and the nanny, each word Alison uses to describe Bruce appeal to an entirely different portion of his personality. These dualities have been a common theme in everything we've read thus far. What I really latched onto was the word 'libidinal,' however. For someone who looks like a conservative blowhard, it's hard to imagine him sleeping around, at least in my mind. And then we are even presented with the dualities between Alison and her father, as well as their relationship and, in my opinion, Alison's hypocrisy. She criticizes her father for being emotionless and cold when she even describes herself as the "spartan to his Greek" in comparison to her father. "This is the wallpaper for my room? But I hate pink! I hate flowers!" exclaims Alison, as the comic depicts her eyes sinking to the back of her skull - in tandem with her heart, most likely. "Tough titty" is the only reaction Alison provokes from her father. "What's the point of making something so hard to dust?" questions Alison while buffering a citadel-shaped chair (note the irony: the top of the chair has three crosses on the top, and I don't it has something to do with anything as lightweight or as obvious as the fact that the next scene shows the Bechdel family in church). "It's beautiful," replies her father, stoic-faced as usual. Does her father have more than one facial expression? It doesn't look like it. His face doesn't even change after Alison, "having little practice with the gesture" of kissing, "grabs his hand and busses the knuckles lightly as if he were a bishop or an elegant lady." In fact, Alison's father is both of these things. A bishop and an elegant lady. His coldness is nearly clerical, and his interests, his "designer cologne," his caring "if the necklines don't match," are like a debutante's. The religious undertones in the chair Alison was polishing is bizarrely indicative of her relationship with her father, as well. Though her father is strong and rigid like the chair is, appearance-wise, he needs Alison - other people, his male students, the nanny, even his wife - to maintain these appearances. He needs to be cared for. He needs to be polished himself. He's really like a child inside. His self-loathing, too, is even dependent upon the attitudes of other people in their relation to himself. The father's children and wife keep up the image that he Like Alison alludes to, everything falls into place like an elaborate jigsaw. Not even the church has a more difficult to understand hierarchy. Speaking of religion, religious themes seem to pop up throughout the book, but perhaps the most prevalent involves Bechdel's incorporation of classical myth into her story.

The Daedalus and Icarus myth is featured prominently in the first chapter when Bechdel describes the relationship between her and her father. "Then there are those famous wings. Was Daedalus really stricken with grief when Icarus fell into the sea? Or just disappointed by the design of failure?" Icarus is an overdone myth to namecheck in art at this point, but it isn't here where Bechdel applies a totally unique spin to one of the most famous pieces in the Metamorphosis. She approaches seemingly overdone topics like gender issues as if no one had ever tackled them before her. When both were prepared for flight, Daedalus "warned Icarus not to fly too high, because the heat of the sun would melt the wax, nor too low, because the sea foam would soak the feathers." Whether intentionally or not, Ovid's piece on Daedalus and Icarus is easily broken apart by deconstructive literary theory, because what Ovid doesn't mention through Daedalus' speech is the most important part of the myth when parallel to Fun Home. It's Icarus, of course. Daedalus doesn't want Icarus to fly too high, for the sun would melt the /wings/, nor to fly too low, as the water would soak the /feathers/. What about Icarus himself? If the sun could melt a pair of wings imagine what it could do to supple human flesh. Likewise, don't pores soak water the same way feathers do? However, Daedalus doesn't mention anything about Icarus when he's actually warning his son. The wings are Daedalus' only concern. The artifice themselves; /his/ artifice, not the artificee. That's not to say Daedalus doesn't care about his son (for all we know their relationship could be a whole lot more complicated than what is presented by Ovid, and it most likely is considering Daedalus' reaction to Icarus' death), but deconstructionist theory is all about what isn't shown rather than what is, and what isn't shown is any indication that Daedalus recognizes his son beyond the created wings strapped to his back.

Late Bloomer

We go from Patria's flamboyants to Dede's dark flowers in the span of only a few chapters. "When Dede next notices, the garden's stillness is deepening, blooming dark flowers, their scent stronger for the lack of color and light." A cursory look at the chapter's opening line might make the audience think something awful is going to happen soon, but I don't see these images that way at all. For one, these dark flowers are "blooming" - just beginning their lives as beautiful flowers - and secondly, Alvarez specifically mentions their "scent is stronger for the lack of color and light." Dede's moroseness has strengthened her character, perhaps even to the point of extreme bullheadedness, and the state of these flowers are entirely indicative of Dede's personality. Although a morose, resigned-acting character (hence the flowers dark colors), Alvarez is suggesting Dede is a late bloomer; unlike her sisters, whose defiant personalities were known even as children, Dede seems to be realizing the importance of uniqueness later on in life. It could even be argued that Dede's generally conformist attitudes are helping her remove herself from traditionalism - reflecting upon her sisters seems to inflate her with a vague sense of importance, as well as encouraging her to question why she didn't go along with Minerva, Patria, and Mate originally. Of course, there are still barriers for Dede to overcome, and whether she's able to break away from the traditional opinions women hold about themselves and are subjected to by others in the Dominican Republic is still up in the air. Afterall, Dede's "scent is stronger for the lack of color and light" - years of submissiveness have only made her more submissive and docile.

Her sexuality is particularly interesting, and sexuality as a theme complements the metaphor of a flower blooming in an overdone but blunt fashion. Alvarez wants us to take notice of Dede's dismal sex life. Though Alvarez approaches sexuality tastefully and subtly, it's still a focal point of each Mirabal sister. Dede is no different. "But in so many other things I have not changed, Dede thinks. Last year during her prize trip to Spain, the smart-looking Canadian man approached her, and though it'd been ten years already since the divorce, Dede just couldn't give herself that little fling." Proving herself to be much less Blanche Deveraux of "The Golden Girls" fame and more Mrs. Doubtfire, Dede's traditional views (and perhaps even more) prevent her from enjoying time with a man other than her former husband. It wouldn't be too far off point to say Dede is definitely the least sexually awakened character in the entire novel. On another note, you may call it a dirty mind talking, or me just looking too deeply into things, but Dede would have happened to be around 69 years old around the time this "smart-looking Canadian man" approached her. This is just another (most likely coincidental) facet to consider when looking at Dede's sexuality.

Dede is also being held back through close-mindedness. For example, Dede assumes her niece is uninterested and even annoyed at the idea of talking to the journalist about her mother. "Dede cringed. She had better cut this off. Unlike their aunt, the children won't put up with this kind of overdone gush." That's awfully presumptuous on the part of Dede, as well as clearly untrue. Dede seems to be the one imprinting her dislike of "overdone" gush onto Minou. "But Minou is chuckling away. "Come see us again," she offers, and Dede, forced to rise to this politeness, adds, "Yes, now you know the way." Whether through obligation or feeling guilty for assuming Minou's feelings, Alvarez's structurally rich writing lets us know Dede feels /something/, a hint that she is a deeper character than her passive personality might originally suggest.

Dede's husband is a constant influence on her mind even after their lives have gone in seperate directions. "It was as if the three fates were approaching, their scissors poised to snip the knot that was keeping Dede's life from falling apart." Alvarez's imagery has dual-meanings here. Although using the Three Fates from Greek mythology is nothing new in literature, especially where four sisters are concerned, the word 'knot' was chosen deliberately. Knowing how marriage-conscious the "docile middle child, used to following the lead" is, knot is an incredibly loaded word for Dede to use in a first-person narrative. The knot Dede refers to here strongly alludes to her marriage with Jamaito. While Dede wishes "a long look as if she could draw the young man of her dreams out from the bossy, old-fashioned macho he'd become" could change her husband, she's forced to deal with a progressively less understanding husband. Regardless, Dede's marriage, even if she does not see the marriage itself as idyllic, is seen as an anchor for the young woman - it's the only object in her preventing her from going along with whatever her sisters are doing. She'd be just as likely to follow along with whatever her sisters are doing if Jamaito, a strong male figure, was not in her life. That's just part of Dede's personality, submitting to people with loud presence or the ability to lead, a trait Dede lacks completely. I find it somewhat ironic that while Jamaito used to be the "young man of her (Dede's) dreams" - presumably, a gentle, passive young man - and Dede longs for the older Jamaito, Dede has gotten through life by conforming and submitting, not by complementing or sharing equally. Passiveness and submissiveness rarely complement each other well. Since Dede has a more submissive personality, Jamaito adapted over time to this, and strengthened Dede's docile streak. Machismo in Latin culture is commonplace, even encouraged, but unlike the Mirabal sister's parents, where the father was obviously the 'king of his domain' and the mother the equally obvious 'power behind the throne,' (also not all that uncommon in Latino marriages) the marriage between Dede and Jamaito lacks dynamics. Mr. and Mrs. Mirabal, for all of their differences, were a complementary couple. There is nothing symbiotic about Dede's relationship; it's one-sided and shallow, especially as the couple approaches middle-age. However, Alvarez places some of the blame - as well as a bit of quiet contempt - onto Dede for allowing herself be so compliant in her marriage. As much as Alvarez is writing In The Time of The Butterflies as a means of eulogizing and paying tribute to the sisters' deeds and positive traits, I feel like Alvarez is writing to point out that although the Mirabal sisters are wholly deserving of their status, they aren't inhuman or infallible. Just look at previous chapters, where Alvarez describes Mate's superficiality or Padria's religious and sexual complications. Celebrity may blind people to the truth behind the legend, but Alvarez does not shy away from depicting any of the characters' perceived flaws. It is Alvarez's duty as a journalist to present the truth as she sees it. It isn't her job to obsfucate. The characters in In The Time of The Butterflies are depicted as conflicted, and this is why Alvarez's writing is so effecting. For example, while "Dede had been ready to risk her life" that night the sisters drove along that "lonely road," Dede had her marriage to consider. Her marriage is essentially the only reason why she's still alive, and although Dede could have died a martyr alongside her sisters, it is martyrdom and the associated satisfaction but the thought of leaving her husband alone stacked against life, an unsatisfying marriage, and keeping the family together. Conflict at its most raw. Not even Dede in her 'old age' seems to know which decision would have been the most appropriate for her to choose.

Sister Doubt

Piety is pretty sexy, at least in the case of Patria.

Though In The Time of the Butterflies was written over ten years prior to the film, Patria is similar to the nun in The Crime of Father Amaro, the famously controversial Mexican film where a nun pleasures herself to the image of Christ. "I'd see those boys and think, Ah yes, they will come to Sor Mercedes in times of trouble and lay their curly heads in my lap so I can comfort them. My immortal soul wants to take the whole blessed world in! But, of course, it was my body, hungering, biding its time against the tyranny of my spirit." What kind of comfort is she offering here? The sexual undercurrent throughout the chapter - her "body, hungering," - is brazenly depicted. "I smelled her wafer smell and I knew I was in the presence of the holy," says Patria during her first meeting with Sor Asuncion. "My heart beat fast, scared and deeply excited." Is she describing a meeting with the headmistress of Immaculada Concepcion or the chance of getting into the former's habit? I'm just being crass with the second opinion, but taken out of context almost every sentence in the chapter could come straight out of an eloquently written erotica novel. Likewise, Patria's sensuality isn't limited to only men. Her sensual being manifests itself even in interactions with family like her sister Minerva, whom she asks to play with her hair. "Soon her gratifying fingering and her lilting voice would lull me to sleep again." The word 'fingering' generally has only one connotation, and it's a connotation Alvarez is fully aware and conscious of. She's a deliberate writer. Alvarez is a master at using commonly seen language to show, rather than tell, what her characters feel. In this particular case, though, I feel like Alvarez succumbed to cheapening her 'art' for the sake of . In a book full of simple but poetic language, the word 'fingering' is just too blunt, consistency-breaking, and, for lack of a better word, sophmoric. The rest of her novel is written at such a high echeleon that almost any lapse in quality is jarring to the audience. For instance, a reader might have only recognized the sexual component to Patria's chapter on a subconscious level previously, but they're certainly going to notice /something/ when they see Patria's behavior towards Minerva. It's just that obviously. I feel like Alvarez prefers subtlety over bluntness , but now I'm being presumptuous. Maybe Alvarez intentionally threw that word in to make the audience realize what they've really been reading the whole time; to make us feel the same dirtiness or perverseness or shame that Patria surely feels for "hungering" even as a pious young woman. It'd be audience participation at its finest if this was the case. Feeling exactly as Patria feels, the struggle which "came in the dark in the evil hours when the hands wake with a life of their own."

Despite whatever connotations the language in this chapter may have, I don't think that Patria is necessarily a sexual being, so much as an incredibly sensual one. She's just incredibly passionate about her calling. Since it would not be acceptable for a young woman in her station to display overt desire, And then we have all the instances of the color red popping up in Patria's chapter - from the "brilliant red flames" of the flamboyants, to the "plush crimson cushion" in Sor Asuncion's office. (As an aside, the individual petals of a flamboyant are butterfly-shaped, which cycles back to the title of the book.)

Beyond the sensual content of Patria's chapter, she infuses her language with veiled references to BDSM. "They saw the pains I took keeping my back straight during early mass, my hands steepled and held up of my own volition, not perched on the back of a pew as if petition were conversation." Pleasure is pain. Servitude, too, is depicted as being a kind of divine pleasure for Patria. The lines between serving Christ and serving your body are totally distorted and blended together here. In fact, Alvarez almost suggests that Patria's sensuality manifests itself through religious service in an incredibly coquettish, unconfident fashion. Further parallels could be drawn to Marquis de Sade's (how appropriate) work "Justine." Though the titular character is the pinnacle of piety, at least in her mind, she is subjected to desolute horrors - such as being taken in by a group of monks and raped repeatedly by all of them. However, despite the abuse brought upon Justine throughout the novel, she refuses to give in due to self-righteousness, and by the end of the novel is a broken husk who no longer believes in God. Sade even suggests that, had Justine indulged sin for a brief time at the beginning of the book, that she would have been able to ultimately live a pious life by the end - according to Sade, one needs to know sin in order to know the light. Knowing what it's like to indulge in sin strengthens one's faith. Though Patria hasn't seen any of the abuse Justine did, the two characters are similar because their self-righteousness prevents them from knowing what they are preaching against. Bullheadedness can lead to a character's downfall just as easily as indulging in too much sin could; in many ways self-righteousness is even a sin in and of itself. Ultimately, however, Patria is a character of dualities, like many of the works we have read previously.

I feel like Patria has something of an inferiority complex. She needed Sor Asuncion to reassert her faith, that she had what it takes to become a nun; like she needed permission even though it has been known to us since the first chapter that Patria's self-confidence makes her feel superior to most people she comes in contact with. "It was after my conference with Sor Asuncion, once I had begun praying to know my calling, that suddenly, like a lull in a storm, the cravings stopped." Why did Patria's "hungering" stop after Sor Asuncion reassured her potential? It's almost as if . For all of Patria's self-righteousness and confidence, there are aspects to her character which are just as vulnerable and as insecure as a child. She's outwardly independent yet needy simultaneously. By relying on others - God, the Sor, her fiance - Patria is able to reassure herself of her own identity. It's the mother archetype brought to extremes.

Dear Eve

Nicely done. If I didn't know I Am An Emotional Creature was almost entirely anecdotal I would have thought "Dear Rihanna" was just a reprinting of an actual teenage girl's letter to the popstar. It's the domestic violence version of "Go Ask Alice," although at least Ensler isn't pretending the letter was written by anyone other than herself. Either way, Ensler does a pretty convincing job of getting into the head of an abused teen. Although some people may interpret "Dear Rihanna" as ham-fisted or preachy or, at worst, a self-serving, fantastical vehicle for the writer's own opinions, Ensler has enough experience working with battered women to sport at least a fundamental understanding of how young women might act in an abusive relationship. "It must be hard for Chris to be with you," says the narrator, reversing the blame onto the victim. It's all a mirror of the narrator's own relationship with Brad - as the narrator blames herself whenever Brad "acts up," she will blame Rihanna for Chris' actions, for 'provoking' him to hit her. To the narrator, her relationship is normal and healthy. Of course, as the reader, it's plainly obvious to see the gaps in the narrator's explanations. Though Ensler sensationalizes the piece to provoke a strong reaction from the reader, it's hard not to feel pity for the narrator, and it's especially difficult to not feel pity when one realizes there are numerous abusive relationships out there. The relationship between Brad and the narrator is likely a microcosm of all the relationships Ensler heard about firsthand over the interviews she conducted prior to writing the book.

"It's so shallow to dump someone after they mess up," the narrator continues. She uses the word 'shallow,' but I don't think it means what she thinks it means, nor does she understand the implications of the word. Isn't Brad and the narrator's relationship, one that seems to only be based on dependency, possessiveness, and violence, as shallow as it comes? Brad even told the narrator that if he was Chris he would have kept Rihanna "locked up in a room" for fear of other men looking at her. The narrator's hypocrisy is incredibly distressing, and Ensler knows this will likely tug on the audience's heart, which is where the sensational criticism comes into play. This aspect is perhaps a little abusive on the part of the writer. However, I feel like there are other far more substantial points made towards the end of the piece, all of which excuse whatever personal indulgences Ensler fulfilled through writing "Dear Rihanna."

For example, the narrator points out to Rihanna that her mother "judges him by one aspect of his personality but that's only a part of who he is." We go from shallowness in one paragraph to a whole different type of shallowness in the next. While the mother only sees Brad's violent side, the narrator only recognizes her boyfriend's positive aspects while ignoring or excusing everything else. The narrator is essentially just as shallow as her mother, who she accuses of shallowness; the narrator only sees Brad as a lover, not an abuser, which gives her a distorted and totally shallow and exaggerated image of who her boyfriend is. Their equally shallow people because neither piece together all aspects of Brad's self to see an accurate interpretation of who he is as a person. It's an interesting comment on the nature of perspective, as well the mindset of people who have been or continue to be in an abusive relationship. The point is continued, fracturedly, in an earlier statement by the narrator. "I heard Oprah say if a boy hits you once, leave 'em right then, but that's so cold, so mechanical." And totally ungirllike. Unemotional. What Oprah said would appear to be against the overarching theme of Ensler's collection. Previous selections made the distinction between Ensler's opinion of what makes a girls and what makes a women pretty clear (as well as that awkward transitional phase between girl and woman), and this statement could be an continuation of her sentiment. Is Oprah, and by extension most women, going against their 'girl' roots? I could be reading too deeply into this, but perhaps Ensler is saying it is in a girl's nature to be forgiving despite serious transgressions, because that is part of the emotional center: to forgive, but not necessarily forget. Forgetting is an entirely different matter. Having the power to forgive can be empowering, Ensler may be saying that the power of forgiveness makes the woman the dominant party in the relationship. That the woman is the one who can forgive, or walk away from the man, leaving him with nothing.

Ensler also digs into the psyche of domestic violence, with a specific focus on its repetative nature. "They (parents) are always pissed off about the same things and she makes him feel so bad about himself and then he gets ugly...sometimes he hurts her and then she gets meaner..." The narrator - and by extension Ensler - paints everything in cyclical colors. Even the narrator recognizes how cyclical her parents' violence is, although it is a shame she doesn't recognize the cycle of violence within her own 'romantic' relationship with Brad. It's easy to point out the problems in other people's relationship, I suppose, as the narrator does with both Rihanna and her parents. The narrator is too busy making excuses: "they're (boys) are all crazy sad you know...seeing how alone he (Brad) is and confused and sad." Although excessive empathy may be central to being a 'girl', to being close to one's Emotional Creature much like the power of forgiveness is, it isn't when the 'girl' is being victimized or taken advantage of for doing so. The 'girl' in all creatures should be celebrated, not punished. And ultimately, what Ensler implies is that domestic violence gives birth to more domestic violence, and until someone tries to put an end to the violence in a non-violent way, whether by leaving the abusive relationship or bringing an outside authority into the equation, the violence will continue and most likely just escalate.

Why We Know So Little

Sophie et Apolline is an anamoly amongst the other pieces in "I Am An Emotional Creature." While Ensler's tone throughout most of the works in Emotional Creature is generally dire or grave, with occasional burts of tongue-in-cheek humor, "Why French Girls Smoke" is none of these. Absolutely none. It's frank, unadorned, minimal, and - despite being written to appear like a poem - reads much like prose would. Although Sophie started smoking at a party due to peer pressure and "at the beginning (Sophie) didn't want to smoke all the time," like she does, and Apolline "smokes to avoid the future," both Sophie and Apolline treat the topics at hand - their smoking addictions, family problems, social issues - with such an earnest, matter-of-fact tone of voice that it's difficult to see the monologue in a negative light. It's a 'pure' piece. Neither narrator speaks about their problems in a way which makes us cringe or want to immediately close the book, even when Apolline discusses her unfortunate first sexual experience. "I didn't want to have sex, I was a little drunk," says Sophie, but she immediately follows this up with "I am with my boyfriend now, he is gentle," which lightens the mood almost immediately. Sophie doesn't allow herself to dwell too much on the negative, outside of her addiction to smoking. Likewise, neither woman uses anything that could be considered 'highbrow' language or overly poetic terms to describe their situations. It's a straightforward work, and Sophie et Apolline is totally devoid of exaggeration and sensationalism, the latter of which is a criticism frequently levied at Ensler's writing, whether true or not. In these respects Sophie et Apolline is the most 'real' piece in the entire collection: because it seems so believable, unlike the piece about the basketball player thinking about her ancestors in the middle of a game, nor does it feel like an exaggerated anectote or a product of Ensler's potentially overgeneralizing, overassuming, painting-with-broad-brush-strokes mind as is the case with "What Do You Like About Being A Girl." Unlike "The Vagina Monologues," where all monologues have some basis in the experiences of another person, "I Am An Emotional Creature" is predominantly written in the experiences and perspective of only herself. (Not that I personally feel like she overgeneralizes girls or women or boys or men too much, as she doesn't claim to be writing from a factual perspective, but it's a valid criticism of her writing which can sometimes present a narrow, rather than balanced, view.)

However, despite it's relative breeziness, "Why French Girls Smoke" isn't without depth. In fact, for such a straightforward piece, Ensler throws in some pretty subtle hooks. For one, Ensler never makes it clear what the girls smoke. Is it cigarettes, cigars, marijuana, or something else? This ambiguity is typical of Ensler, but at the same time lends a darker veneer to Why French Girls Smoke. I'm not saying that smoking object A is 'worse' than smoking object B, but in terms of legality, as well as one being more taboo than the other, certain substances can be seen as objectively worse. I feel like Ensler is even challenging us to question what it is that the girls smoke, using what isn't there to have the reader take notice of what is there, and vice versa. The piece screams deconstructionist theory. What isn't said is just as important, if not more important, than what is said by Apolline and Sophie. The girls give us only a narrow snapshot of what their lives are like without delving too deeply into anything beyond their smoking habits. It's an interesting tactic and one that is certainly characteristic of Ensler's deliberately written style.

On another, I also took particular notice of the "Popular girls smoke for style, unpopular girls smoke for stress" line. Lines like these are why I read poetry so much. The meaning doesn't bang you over the head, especially because in this case the two lines are broken up structurally as the first is said by Sophie and the second is said by Apolline, but Ensler speaks insightfully. Since popularity or the lack thereof exerts an enormous amount of pressure on young women, popular girls theoretically have less stress in their life (although to play devil's advocate popularity can be an enormous burden in and of itself), while the girls who are constantly vying for a venerated status amongst their peers have more stresses in their lives. On another note, the fact that Sophie says the first line and Apolline says the other can be a subtle comment on female friendship or closeness. Would two male characters behave in a similar fashion, at least in Ensler's perspective? As the two girls are said to be best friends, the fact that they are able to complement or finish each other's thoughts so perfectly indicates depth beyond what a typical friendship for either sex might be. The readers, however, are not totally let into the worlds of Apolline and Sophie. The poem is just a snapshot. We know precious little about their relationship with each other beyond being best friends, or any of the situations they may have experienced together. I see it as an extension of Francis Bacon's famed "Of Friendship" essay, but without the homoerotic subtext. There is no question in my mind that Apolline and Sophie are heterosexual. Call it a feeling even though Ensler is intentionally vague here. Likewise, another such instance of Ensler being intentionally vague occurs when Apolline describes her boyfriend.

"He is gentle. He pays attention to me. We have sex one or two times a week." I took note of how these lines are the only places in the entire poem where periods are used, and in such close quarters. Periods are usually used for emphasis, and doubly so when coupled with these short sentences, as well as the fact that the rest of the poem is not structured this way, draws It seems like Ensler wants us to pay special attention to Apolline's idyllic love life here. With that said, while Apolline says a lot about her relationship with her boyfriend in just three lines, she also says very little. The audience knows what their sex life is like now, but what about everything else? Do they go on dates or just have sex? What are the other aspects of their relationship like? I don't want to read too much into the piece, but it's even possible that Apolline is confusing love for sex here, which is a pretty common theme in Ensler's writing. I find myself incredibly curious to know more about Apolline and Sophie but Ensler gives just us enough to peek into their lives without saying nearly enough to get a feel for what they are like.