The Shawl is less a story and more an indictment.
On a painfully basic level, it's an indictment against the Nazis. It's even an indictment against the Jews themselves - "Aryan," Stella said, in a voice grown thin as string, and Rosa thought how Stella gazed at Magda like a young cannibal" - whose thirst for vengeance outweighed their desire to survive, to remember, to impart knowledge to those afterwards. To never forget to remember "my Warsaw is not your Warsaw." It's an indictment against Europeans, too, whose inaction is to blame for much of the pain exacted against minorities during Hitler's ascendancy. It's a subtle indictment against Americans. But most of it all, the short story levels it's criticisms at the Germans who hid. The Germans who were 'just following orders'. The Germans who did not speak up. The Germans who plunged their faces into their "magic shawls" to shield themselves from what was really going on in their country. The short story's title, itself, is an ironic and pointedly sardonic jab at the non-Nazi Germans tendency to obfuscate themselves in the face of self-terrorism. It's always even easier to hide rather than fight. The Shawl isn't so much a shawl as it is a symbol. To Ozick, the inactive Germans might as well have been Nazis themselves.
The character Magda is an allegory for the quiet Germans. Is it any coincidence that Ozick dedicates much of the few pages within to explaining what Magda looks like, in addition to clearly showing Rosa and Stella's reactions to the child's appearance? Ozick doesn't even describe Rosa, and while Stella's appearance is clearer to the audience, we are only shown generalities like "knobbiness" and "coldness" rather than specifics, as is the case with Magda. The thoughts of the author, as well as the thoughts of the two thinking characters, are heavily focused on "the face, very round, a pocket mirror of a face: but it was not Rosa's bleak complexion, dark like cholera, it was another kind of face altogether, eyes blue as air, smooth feathers of hair nearly as yellow as the Star sewn into Rosa's coat. You could think she was one of their babies." When an author devotes an entire paragraph towards describing a character's teeth as "an elfin tombstone of white marble gleaming there," the audience better pay attention to what the writer is doing here. Magda could have been a German based on appearances alone and, considering her tendency to "suck air" often, she was, at least symbolically.
According to Rosa, "Magda was mute," and "she never cried." It isn't coincidental that the first time Magda opens up her mouth is when the shawl, an oppressive symbol, is taken away from her by Stella. "Magda, in the sunlight, swaying on her pencil legs, was howling," describes Rosa as her child wanders vulnerably into the open. Magda isn't just talking, either. She's howling. This is behavior usually reserved for performance poets like Allen Ginsberg; not babies. Rosa even subconsciously recognizes this fact, because she fears that "Magda would put the shawl in her mouth and turn dumb again." It visualizes a turning point in the behavior of both Rosa and Magda. Rosa begins to see how important the voice, and speaking out is in regards to individuality; Magda begins to develop a voice of her own. Of course, the penalty for speaking out is death, and it isn't a painless lesson for Rosa when she watches a soldier toss her child into an electric fence. Ozick is commenting, indirectly, on the nature of shutting up and surviving - if it can really be considered survival - and speaking one's mind but dying corporeally. Through incredibly Though Stella is indeed viewed by Rosa as a cruel person, she is incidentally the reason behind Magda developing singularity, individualism, her own voice - "it was the first noise Magda had ever sent out from her throat since the drying up of Rosa's nipples." Without Stella, Magda never would have had the experience to speak her mind, nor would she have been killed by a soldier during that point. We are essentially asked to question which fate would have been better for Magda: speak up and die, or remain quiet and survive. It isn't an easy decision to make.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Family Ties That Bind
When The Emperor Was Divine has its foundations in color and its criticisms highlighted through the many shades of prejudice associated with color.
"Nobody will look at you," the sister says to the boy as they enter the concentration camp, "if your face is too dark." "Nobody's looking at me anyway," replied the boy." His sister is showing her young age here. She assumes darker is a horrendous plight, a handicap, perhaps because she has succumbed to whatever views her mother, her peers, and her country might have told her about darker skin - but from the boy's younger, more immature, more fresh-faced perspective, color does not matter. Apparently, color matters very little to the Japanese-Americans the family is surrounded by, because nobody pays attention to the boy even when his skin eventually darkens from the skin. He’s as much a prisoner as everyone else is regardless of whether his skin is a leathery tan or an ivory white. Excusing the white horse imagery, the boy's impressions have yet to be completely destroyed by whatever influences American culture would normally exert on him, and it shows in the way he describes everything throughout his chapter. Look at his description of one of the camp’s guards: "He had brown hair and green eyes, or maybe they were blue, and he had just come back from a tour of the Pacific." While the boy’s offhanded statement about the guard’s eyes may imply reverse racism – for example, him assuming that all white people have light eyes – I see this more as a devil-may-care expression. Color simply doesn’t matter to a child when they haven’t been indoctrinated to believe color has certain connotations within a society.
Likewise, color extends beyond uniting people together. It also tears people apart from one another. "The boy did not have a best friend but he had a pet tortoise that he kept in a wooden box filled with sand right next to the barrack window" furthers previous claims that, despite every Japanese-American being in the camp for roughly the same reason - "they all looked alike, black hair, slanted eyes, high cheekbones, thick glasses, thin lips, bad teeth" - they are all bitterly alone in their struggles. All the family has is each other, if that, but even if they don’t, at least the desert’s dust prevents one static constant.
"Always, he would remember the dust. It was soft and white and chalky, like talcum powder. It made your nose bleed. It made your eyes sting,” says the boy. Not everything white is a positive thing, and it takes away your persona. Your cultural identity. “It took your voice away,” the boy says. It literally prevents you from speaking out. The whiteness strips you of everything that makes the boy, everything that makes a person who they are, everything that makes you, 'you'. However, the color is simply a symbol for cultural degradation. Otsuka is not implicating all white people, or even white people in any capacity, small or large, as the catalyst for bastardizing the family's values. In fact, Joe Lundy and the soldier on the train are portrayed sympathetically; they're as much victims of a "whitewashed" culture as the Japanse-Americans are. I mean, just look at what the dust is, as well as what it does. Dust is cultureless, homogenized, ugly. It's beyond the realm of human color. It's the basic element of so many greater sums, dirt and sand and grains, yet those small specks of dust are all it takes to completely wash away any trace of the boy's presence in the desert. "One evening, before he went to bed, he wrote his name in the dust across the top of the table. All through the night, while he slept, more dust blew through the walls. By morning his name was gone," notes the narration. Like all traces of the family getting removed from their home after they are imprisoned, and the father’s forced removal in his slippers and bathrobe, identity is a fragile entity prone to being erased by forces beyond the family’s control.
"The shoes were black Oxfords," begins the boy as he describes a paternal heirloom he took to the camp. Remember the umbrella the boy was unable to fit into his suitcase when he was packing? He never mentioned bringing along his father's shoes instead of the umbrella. The umbrella would've been a far practical object for the boy to take along, yet he must have felt his father's shoes were the more important heirloom to bring along than a thing which grants purely physical comfort during times many people find discomforting. It's a willing disregard for practicality. However, he anticipated the shoes would be more useful to him, reminding him of his father and boosting his "mental climate" better than any umbrella ever could. And unlike his sister, he does not blame his father for being absent in the family's life. "You know what bothers me sometimes? I can't remember his face sometimes," complains the girl to her brother. "Me." It bothers /her/ that /she/ can't remember what /her/ father looks like. The sister is only thinking about her father in relation to herself. Although the family's circumstances may lend some sympathy to the girl's way of thinking, it's still selfish for her to see her father as paternal object, especially when the boy does not let his situation interfere with his adoration for papa. While the boy continuously wonders how Papa (notice how he only refers to the father as "papa" rather than "his/her father" like the girl does?) is doing throughout his chapter, the girl defers to papa as "her father" only. The boy's seethingly obvious lack of age - he's only eight years old at the beginning of the novel - has this bizarre way of making him more mature than both his mother and sister. He does not need a father figure present in his life to know he's loved when all he needs to do is close his eyes and reminisce. To hold his father's shoes is enough reassurance. "He took them out of his suitcase and slipped them over his hands and pressed his fingers into the smooth oval depressions left behind by his father's toes and then he closed his eyes and sniffed the tips of his fingers. Tonight they smelled like nothing." Though the days when the father used to refer to the boy as his “absolute numero one” (this co-opting of a Spanish phrase by a Japanese-American family strikes me as ironic) are over, the boy still has not forgotten the face of his father like his sister may have, and his father’s lessons – “when to leave the boy’s mother alone and how best to ask her for ice cream,” for example – are not something even dust can erase.
"Nobody will look at you," the sister says to the boy as they enter the concentration camp, "if your face is too dark." "Nobody's looking at me anyway," replied the boy." His sister is showing her young age here. She assumes darker is a horrendous plight, a handicap, perhaps because she has succumbed to whatever views her mother, her peers, and her country might have told her about darker skin - but from the boy's younger, more immature, more fresh-faced perspective, color does not matter. Apparently, color matters very little to the Japanese-Americans the family is surrounded by, because nobody pays attention to the boy even when his skin eventually darkens from the skin. He’s as much a prisoner as everyone else is regardless of whether his skin is a leathery tan or an ivory white. Excusing the white horse imagery, the boy's impressions have yet to be completely destroyed by whatever influences American culture would normally exert on him, and it shows in the way he describes everything throughout his chapter. Look at his description of one of the camp’s guards: "He had brown hair and green eyes, or maybe they were blue, and he had just come back from a tour of the Pacific." While the boy’s offhanded statement about the guard’s eyes may imply reverse racism – for example, him assuming that all white people have light eyes – I see this more as a devil-may-care expression. Color simply doesn’t matter to a child when they haven’t been indoctrinated to believe color has certain connotations within a society.
Likewise, color extends beyond uniting people together. It also tears people apart from one another. "The boy did not have a best friend but he had a pet tortoise that he kept in a wooden box filled with sand right next to the barrack window" furthers previous claims that, despite every Japanese-American being in the camp for roughly the same reason - "they all looked alike, black hair, slanted eyes, high cheekbones, thick glasses, thin lips, bad teeth" - they are all bitterly alone in their struggles. All the family has is each other, if that, but even if they don’t, at least the desert’s dust prevents one static constant.
"Always, he would remember the dust. It was soft and white and chalky, like talcum powder. It made your nose bleed. It made your eyes sting,” says the boy. Not everything white is a positive thing, and it takes away your persona. Your cultural identity. “It took your voice away,” the boy says. It literally prevents you from speaking out. The whiteness strips you of everything that makes the boy, everything that makes a person who they are, everything that makes you, 'you'. However, the color is simply a symbol for cultural degradation. Otsuka is not implicating all white people, or even white people in any capacity, small or large, as the catalyst for bastardizing the family's values. In fact, Joe Lundy and the soldier on the train are portrayed sympathetically; they're as much victims of a "whitewashed" culture as the Japanse-Americans are. I mean, just look at what the dust is, as well as what it does. Dust is cultureless, homogenized, ugly. It's beyond the realm of human color. It's the basic element of so many greater sums, dirt and sand and grains, yet those small specks of dust are all it takes to completely wash away any trace of the boy's presence in the desert. "One evening, before he went to bed, he wrote his name in the dust across the top of the table. All through the night, while he slept, more dust blew through the walls. By morning his name was gone," notes the narration. Like all traces of the family getting removed from their home after they are imprisoned, and the father’s forced removal in his slippers and bathrobe, identity is a fragile entity prone to being erased by forces beyond the family’s control.
"The shoes were black Oxfords," begins the boy as he describes a paternal heirloom he took to the camp. Remember the umbrella the boy was unable to fit into his suitcase when he was packing? He never mentioned bringing along his father's shoes instead of the umbrella. The umbrella would've been a far practical object for the boy to take along, yet he must have felt his father's shoes were the more important heirloom to bring along than a thing which grants purely physical comfort during times many people find discomforting. It's a willing disregard for practicality. However, he anticipated the shoes would be more useful to him, reminding him of his father and boosting his "mental climate" better than any umbrella ever could. And unlike his sister, he does not blame his father for being absent in the family's life. "You know what bothers me sometimes? I can't remember his face sometimes," complains the girl to her brother. "Me." It bothers /her/ that /she/ can't remember what /her/ father looks like. The sister is only thinking about her father in relation to herself. Although the family's circumstances may lend some sympathy to the girl's way of thinking, it's still selfish for her to see her father as paternal object, especially when the boy does not let his situation interfere with his adoration for papa. While the boy continuously wonders how Papa (notice how he only refers to the father as "papa" rather than "his/her father" like the girl does?) is doing throughout his chapter, the girl defers to papa as "her father" only. The boy's seethingly obvious lack of age - he's only eight years old at the beginning of the novel - has this bizarre way of making him more mature than both his mother and sister. He does not need a father figure present in his life to know he's loved when all he needs to do is close his eyes and reminisce. To hold his father's shoes is enough reassurance. "He took them out of his suitcase and slipped them over his hands and pressed his fingers into the smooth oval depressions left behind by his father's toes and then he closed his eyes and sniffed the tips of his fingers. Tonight they smelled like nothing." Though the days when the father used to refer to the boy as his “absolute numero one” (this co-opting of a Spanish phrase by a Japanese-American family strikes me as ironic) are over, the boy still has not forgotten the face of his father like his sister may have, and his father’s lessons – “when to leave the boy’s mother alone and how best to ask her for ice cream,” for example – are not something even dust can erase.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Hazy Deja Vu
What if the woman, the girl, and the boy were taken to prison while the man was left alone at home? Chapter Two's introduction offers the audience a glimpse into this alternate reality. "Somewhere along the western edge of upper Nevada it passed a lone white house with a lawn and two tall cottonwood trees with a hammock between them gently swaying in the breeze," begins the narration. The deju vu here is hazy but strongly felt. Between "a small dog lay sleeping on its side in the shade of the trees" and the hedge's "perfect green spheres," it's like the family's home in Berkeley exists outside its original confines. It has been transposed to an entirely different locale with entirely different people, in this case "a man with a straw hat trimming hedges." In addition to conjuring subconscious but plaintively bared throwback memories in the girl - in fact, much of the chapter is as much dedicated to the girl's memories of living elsewhere as it is to living in the moment, as much about "tossing lemons out into the desert" as it is the girl telling Ted about her father buying shoes in Paris years earlier, "fancy ones with little holes punched in the leather" - could Otsuka be challenging the audience to speculate what would have happened to the family if the roles had been reversed, with the man taking on the roles of father, mother, groundskeeper, and child while the rest of his family was taken away? The prominence of the house in the introduction, the explicit mention of its "wooden picket fence" and "victory garden," as well as Otsuka's extensively uncharacteristic description of a seemingly unimportant object makes me think the idea wasn't far from the author's consciousness. Likewise, there is also the nostalgia angle to consider. Chapter 2 soaks in the girl's memories of past events; considering the girl's heavy notice of the house in the beginning, did spotting the house spur much of the girl's narration and experiences throughout the rest of the chapter? The girl does not make the connection, the reminders, between her "white stucco house" in Berkeley to the "lone white house" in Nevada explicit, but that is the point of minimalism. The two house share more than just similar colors. They share moods, tonalities, essences. Despite Berkeley's urbanity, the family's house - it's community - was as alone as the house in Nevada is. The family's uniqueness is what makes them alone in relation to their surroundings in Berkeley: their Japanese-American background, their wealth, even the woman's unusual individuality during a time when woman were rarely individuals, her smoking habit and habit of wearing dresses above her knees. Though the family was surrounded by people all the time in Berkeley, they were surrounded by few people they /connected/ with on the same level as their own experiences allowed. The family is a microcosm. This disconnect continues well beyond Berkeley and into the crowded Tanforan racetrack and onto the even busier train, and will likely continue for the rest of their lives. Further experiences in the internment camps will likely only push them farther away from others and closer to each other. We need to read between the lines here. In essence, the house is a literary MacGuffin, because while it doesn't seem to be all that important to the reader, it actually guides the girl's narration for the rest of the chapter - and in effect our reading experiences. The entire chapter seems to be a blatant meditation on earlier events as seen through the lens of the current moment: and a meditation on current moments as seen through previous experiences. Even something as minute as the girl not knowing what the word intermittent means is informed by having "been a good but not outstanding student who had learned the meanings of many words" in a past life. On a much wider scale, Otsuka is indicating the importance of time, of experiences, of accumulation. For a book with relatively little indication of time, When The Emperor Was Divine presents facts in a starkly linear fashion, with each past experience building onto current experiences. The opposite could also be said, as each recent experience can be clearly unfolded onto itself into a million pieces of a past moment. Time, like most of the themes in Otsuka's novel, is an important but understated device.
As most of our class discussions have reiterated, criticisms for Otsuka's novel are frequently levelled at the sparseness of her language, and the lack of outright passion in the words. After coming off reading a book as brazenly passionate as Push, the divergences can be especially jarring. I disagree. Though the audience may see When The Emperor Was Divine as "whitewashed" as the stable walls at the Tanforan racetrack where the family spent nearly the last half-year, the novel's emotion comes through in invisible waves: we are supposed to find emotion in what isn't stated, as well as what lies in between the lines, rather than in the barely-there language Otsuka evokes. We're challenged to ply deconstructive theory to glean anything but the most obvious and shallow bits of information from Otsuka's writing. That's the beauty of minimalism. While minimalism isn't for everyone, and in fact many people may outright hate the novel's disconnect, those with particularly vivid imaginations will feel the novel on a grander, heartwrenching scale than any other type of writing. The girl's character seeps through every conceivable pore in the second chapter, and even though Otsuka's writing style is exactly the same in the second chapter as it was in the first, the chapter is an entirely new experience for the audience. For example, let's look at one of the first scenes aboard the train: "Don't lose that arm," her mother said under her breath. "I wasn't planning on it," said the girl," moments after hurling a lemon out a train window." Otsuka has told us an abundance about these two characters, and their relationship with one another, in two short sentences. Two short sentences totally devoid of adjectives, inner thoughts, nor any indication of /how/ the characters say what they say. The author writes like a journalist - does she ever use a word other than 'said' to end a quote? - but thinks like a fiction writer. Regardless of the unadorned quotations, the audience can easily imagine the mother adopting a cautionary smirk, or the girl scoffingly looking at her mother. Otsuka doesn't need to clutter her writing with unnecessary description because our minds, and her sparse prose, evoke even more vivid descriptions without them. The burden lies as much on the author as it does on the audience; it's interactive storytelling at its finest.
As most of our class discussions have reiterated, criticisms for Otsuka's novel are frequently levelled at the sparseness of her language, and the lack of outright passion in the words. After coming off reading a book as brazenly passionate as Push, the divergences can be especially jarring. I disagree. Though the audience may see When The Emperor Was Divine as "whitewashed" as the stable walls at the Tanforan racetrack where the family spent nearly the last half-year, the novel's emotion comes through in invisible waves: we are supposed to find emotion in what isn't stated, as well as what lies in between the lines, rather than in the barely-there language Otsuka evokes. We're challenged to ply deconstructive theory to glean anything but the most obvious and shallow bits of information from Otsuka's writing. That's the beauty of minimalism. While minimalism isn't for everyone, and in fact many people may outright hate the novel's disconnect, those with particularly vivid imaginations will feel the novel on a grander, heartwrenching scale than any other type of writing. The girl's character seeps through every conceivable pore in the second chapter, and even though Otsuka's writing style is exactly the same in the second chapter as it was in the first, the chapter is an entirely new experience for the audience. For example, let's look at one of the first scenes aboard the train: "Don't lose that arm," her mother said under her breath. "I wasn't planning on it," said the girl," moments after hurling a lemon out a train window." Otsuka has told us an abundance about these two characters, and their relationship with one another, in two short sentences. Two short sentences totally devoid of adjectives, inner thoughts, nor any indication of /how/ the characters say what they say. The author writes like a journalist - does she ever use a word other than 'said' to end a quote? - but thinks like a fiction writer. Regardless of the unadorned quotations, the audience can easily imagine the mother adopting a cautionary smirk, or the girl scoffingly looking at her mother. Otsuka doesn't need to clutter her writing with unnecessary description because our minds, and her sparse prose, evoke even more vivid descriptions without them. The burden lies as much on the author as it does on the audience; it's interactive storytelling at its finest.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Gothic Pallor
The man went to the library and walked over to the online catalog. The weather had chilled, so the leather jacket he wore for warmth hissed as he sat on the chair. It felt good to sit down, he thought. Typing a few words into the keyboard, he found what I was looking for, a book called When The Emperor Was Divine, and wrote down where the novella was located and went to retrieve it promptly. The library's floorboards crackled in time with the rustling of his leather coat.
Do I sound like Julie Otsuka yet?
Forgive the patronizing tone, because I absolutely love Otsuka's minimalism, but just look at the bottom of the first page: "She no longer had to squint but she squinted out of habit anyway. She read the sign from top to bottom anyway and then, still squinting, she took out a pen and read the sign from top to bottom again. The print was small and dark. Some of it was tiny. She wrote down a few words on the back of a bank receipt, then turned around and went home and began to pack." Of course, to say I'm on par with Otsuka is ridiculous. She's a baroque wordsmith, and I am not. This is writing intended to be read aloud. Between the many lists - "There were things they could take with them: bedding and linen, forks, spoons, plates, bowls, cups, clothes" - enunciated syllables, and journalistically short sentences, the story stays in the audience's head freshly and readily. You know Japanese wood carvings? Otsuka's writing is the cerebral equivalent, lotus blossoms, pallid faces, willowy, depressive figures, all etched simply.
Speaking of pallor, the color white makes frequent appearances in When The Emperor Was Divine. "She crossed California Street and bought several bars of Lux soap and a large jar of face cream at the Rumford Pharmacy." Lux soap is of great significance to Asian culture; specifically in regards to skin lightening. Asian women apparently go to ridiculous lengths to achieve the whitest skin possible because it is seen as immensely attractive by their society as a whole, that ivory pallor, and when you consider the 1940s setting as well as the American backdrop, the woman's desire to have whiter skin is much more understandable. She may just want to be seen as an American, to blend in or be accepted without issue, rather than viewed as a Japanese-American or, at worst, a foreigner despite living in America for over fifteen years. We ultimately don't know what the woman's motivations are, however. What I do know, though, is of Lux's strong connection to the goth subculture. It may seem ridiculous, but on the advice of some friends, I ordered Lux whitening soap from the Philippines last summer under the pretense it would make my skin bone-white. Well, it didn't exactly do this, but that doesn't stop the Lux brand from advertising itself as a skin lightener nor being commonly accepted as the best way to achieve lighter skin by mainstream Asian society (in my opinion, never mind the whitening aspect; it's capabilities as a moisturizer are overlooked and if Lux had a stronger presence in the US Dove would more forgotten than Ozymandias). The heavy presence of the color white goes way beyond just skin tone, as well: White Dog, dresses, frocks, soap itself, films, Dorothy Lamour (who, despite having olive skin, looked Irish-pale in pictures and movies during the time), moonlight, teeth.
"Teeth don't count."
"Teeth are essential."
Names are usually seen as essential, too. Names are fundamental to identity. "Thank you, Joe." Then the door slammed behind her and she was alone on the sidewalk and she realized that in all the years she had been going to Joe Lundy's store she had never before called him by his name. Joe. It sounded strange to her. Wrong, almost. But she had said it. She had said it loud. She had wished she had said it earlier," remarks the woman. Why is it that the Japanese-American family is never named - indeed, the woman doesn't even call her children anything other than "the boy" or "the girl" throughout the novel - yet the untitled woman calls others, people outside their family, by their first names with little hesitation? Even White Dog, an animal who is killed like an animal, is technically named. Otsuka may be trying to say something here, whether it's a comment on Japanese culture as a whole, or simply a remark about the family's tenacity and modesty, as their reluctance to attach names to themselves speaks loudly when juxtaposed against outside influences.
Perhaps the family's namelessness was intended to twist cultural statements, which are not usually seen as malleable, into something else entirely. "She took The Gleaners out of its frame and looked at the picture one last time. She wondered why she had let it hang in the kitchen for so long. It bothered her, the way those peasants were forever bent over above that endless field of wheat," says the woman. In either a darkly ironic statement, or a boldly defiant declaration, Otsuka plays around with Asian typicality: that women are wilting flowers, banded feet, well-poised objects of subservience. Considering Otsuka mentions "the woman, who did not always follow the rules, followed the rules" when describing her thoughts towards moving into the internment camps, in addition to emphasizing her individualistic streak with phrases like "sitting down on the landing with her dress pushed up above her knees and lighting a cigarette," (a woman smoking and wearing a dress above the knee during the 40s virtually spells out a lack of adherence to social mores) using The Gleaners painting and the woman's reaction to its realism is symbolically defiant - as well as foreshadowing the station, that of chattel, which the woman and her family will later occupy in the internment camp. Further imprisonment symbolism appears moments after the woman releases the family macaw from its cage. "Without the bird in the cage, the house felt empty," muses the woman, with deafening irony. In addition to being an obvious allusion to internment camps, the irony - that a house would feel empty without a captive soul within it - is biting. Cloak-and-dagger irony seems to be Otsuka's favorite vehicle to convey imagery and emotion, because the woman's emotional responses to outside events, nor her own inner thoughts, are rarely described in detail. Instead, they are shown to the audience, leaving meaningful interpretation of characters up to the readers.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Classroom Savagery
Mr. Wicher and Precious have a bizarre relationship. Though both characters share little screen time together, the few pages where they do interact with one another explore a unique dynamic, with malleable Precious fulfilling the noble savage stereotype to Mr. Wicher's cultured European.
For a child like Precious, who wants little more than to "change my seat to the front of the class," one would assume she'd be something of a teacher's pet, trying her best to please Mr. Wicher by whatever means necessary. Of course, assumptions don't even work for the status quo, which is definitely something Precious doesn't belong to. What the audience sees instead is a combination between classroom enforcer, willing but unable learner, brown-noser, and adversarial disruption. She creates a classroom persona around her intensely mercurial emotions. How many students could one second claim to confront the teacher angrily - "his face is red, he is shaking" - to genuinely exclaiming "shut up mutherfuckers I'm trying to learn something" to her classmates moments afterwards? It seems like most of the moments in Precious' math class are equally full of these dualities. "Mr. Wicher look at me confuse but grateful," says Precious, proudly, after "keeping those rowdy niggers in line" during math class. It's behavior more fitting for a warzone than a math classroom. Furthermore, Precious elaborates her defined role within Mr. Wicher's classroom to the audience by saying she's "like the polices for Mr. Wicher, I keep law and order," and of course, here is where the reality lines start to blur together. "I like him, I pretend he is my husband and we live somewhere in Wesschesser, wherever that is," muses Precious. Although Mr. Wicher "don't come to school looking like some of those nasty ass teachers," it is probably incredibly odd to the audience to imagine a teenage girl attaching herself to a math teacher who isn't particularly attractive-looking instead of someone like, say, (generic choices ahead) Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom or some other hunk-of-the-month seen on the covers of girl-mags. What's most interesting to me, though, is that Precious makes no remarks about the physical attractiveness of any of the (admittedly few) male characters she comes in contact with throughout Push. For a teenager living in an increasingly image-based society, it's not only expected but even encouraged peerwise to make remarks about hot guys or people she'd love to crassly fuck, but she shows little signs of real shallowness. She justs wants a man to love her, regardless of what they may look like. It's touching and realistic, as depressed people generally lack an interest in sex, if a little jarring to an audience expecting to read the equivalent to a rambling teenybopper's diary throughout Push.
According to Precious, Mr. Wicher says she "has an aptitude for maff." This is confusing. Is Mr. Wicher mistaking Precious' class enforcer role for "maff" skills? Doubtful. Does he just feel bad for the girl, like he owes Precious some blase compliments in return for protecting him? I mean, pardon the excessive vanity of my language and everything, but how the hell does Mr. Wicher know Precious has any latent math talents if all she does, by her own admission, is sit down and shut up in class? Precious doesn't even recall the last time she wrote anything down the first time Miz Rain asks the class to keep a journal in Each One Teach One. In fact, she panics - she cries, wondering if she even belongs in Miz Rain's class because she can't do nearly everyone else can. Mr. Wicher really doesn't know Precious. He doesn't know Precious at all beyond whatever front she chooses to present in class that particular day. These empty compliments are all said to placate her, a "troubled student," from interrupting his teaching, and it's a common affront I absolutely have an issue with. Mr. Wicher is an enabler. Mr. Wicher leads her on. Mr. Wicher is just like all of the other professionals who have failed Precious, only his special brand of caring but not really caring comes in "a dope suit." I find it fitting that Sapphire chose to make a Mr. Wicher a male instead of female character, like the rest of the more important characters in Push, to illustrate how Precious' - and on an even grander scale, any "problem childs'" - welfare falls not on just one sex, one gender identity, one parent, nor one ethnicity. Blaming the mother? Well, what about the teacher who pity-passed a struggling student because he was too lazy to help out, or the counselor who didn't intervene when she knew a client was being beaten by her father? These parties are all equally responsible for passing the child's problem on to another person. It should be everyone's burden to bare, because it does take a village to raise a child - as well as a village destroy one unequivocally.
For a child like Precious, who wants little more than to "change my seat to the front of the class," one would assume she'd be something of a teacher's pet, trying her best to please Mr. Wicher by whatever means necessary. Of course, assumptions don't even work for the status quo, which is definitely something Precious doesn't belong to. What the audience sees instead is a combination between classroom enforcer, willing but unable learner, brown-noser, and adversarial disruption. She creates a classroom persona around her intensely mercurial emotions. How many students could one second claim to confront the teacher angrily - "his face is red, he is shaking" - to genuinely exclaiming "shut up mutherfuckers I'm trying to learn something" to her classmates moments afterwards? It seems like most of the moments in Precious' math class are equally full of these dualities. "Mr. Wicher look at me confuse but grateful," says Precious, proudly, after "keeping those rowdy niggers in line" during math class. It's behavior more fitting for a warzone than a math classroom. Furthermore, Precious elaborates her defined role within Mr. Wicher's classroom to the audience by saying she's "like the polices for Mr. Wicher, I keep law and order," and of course, here is where the reality lines start to blur together. "I like him, I pretend he is my husband and we live somewhere in Wesschesser, wherever that is," muses Precious. Although Mr. Wicher "don't come to school looking like some of those nasty ass teachers," it is probably incredibly odd to the audience to imagine a teenage girl attaching herself to a math teacher who isn't particularly attractive-looking instead of someone like, say, (generic choices ahead) Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom or some other hunk-of-the-month seen on the covers of girl-mags. What's most interesting to me, though, is that Precious makes no remarks about the physical attractiveness of any of the (admittedly few) male characters she comes in contact with throughout Push. For a teenager living in an increasingly image-based society, it's not only expected but even encouraged peerwise to make remarks about hot guys or people she'd love to crassly fuck, but she shows little signs of real shallowness. She justs wants a man to love her, regardless of what they may look like. It's touching and realistic, as depressed people generally lack an interest in sex, if a little jarring to an audience expecting to read the equivalent to a rambling teenybopper's diary throughout Push.
According to Precious, Mr. Wicher says she "has an aptitude for maff." This is confusing. Is Mr. Wicher mistaking Precious' class enforcer role for "maff" skills? Doubtful. Does he just feel bad for the girl, like he owes Precious some blase compliments in return for protecting him? I mean, pardon the excessive vanity of my language and everything, but how the hell does Mr. Wicher know Precious has any latent math talents if all she does, by her own admission, is sit down and shut up in class? Precious doesn't even recall the last time she wrote anything down the first time Miz Rain asks the class to keep a journal in Each One Teach One. In fact, she panics - she cries, wondering if she even belongs in Miz Rain's class because she can't do nearly everyone else can. Mr. Wicher really doesn't know Precious. He doesn't know Precious at all beyond whatever front she chooses to present in class that particular day. These empty compliments are all said to placate her, a "troubled student," from interrupting his teaching, and it's a common affront I absolutely have an issue with. Mr. Wicher is an enabler. Mr. Wicher leads her on. Mr. Wicher is just like all of the other professionals who have failed Precious, only his special brand of caring but not really caring comes in "a dope suit." I find it fitting that Sapphire chose to make a Mr. Wicher a male instead of female character, like the rest of the more important characters in Push, to illustrate how Precious' - and on an even grander scale, any "problem childs'" - welfare falls not on just one sex, one gender identity, one parent, nor one ethnicity. Blaming the mother? Well, what about the teacher who pity-passed a struggling student because he was too lazy to help out, or the counselor who didn't intervene when she knew a client was being beaten by her father? These parties are all equally responsible for passing the child's problem on to another person. It should be everyone's burden to bare, because it does take a village to raise a child - as well as a village destroy one unequivocally.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Dear Mr. Fantasy
Precious' life is as fantastical as her name would suggest. She's married to a white math teacher, lives in Westchester, is well-loved by both of her parents, and lights up the Apollo Theater as the best dancer the venue has ever seen. Of course, none of this is actually real. It all takes place inside her head.
I was struck immediately by the allegorical comparisons Sapphire creates between rape and dancing. Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz," a famous poem which compares a father's abuse of his son to a dance, a waltz, where the father's "whiskey stained breath" clings to his son like fists choking the life out of the child, runs paralellel to Push. Sapphire's uses Roethke's imagery and comparisons, that of a child retreating into a dance-like fantasy whenever they are abused by their father, throughout much of her novel. "Then I change stations, change bodies. I be dancing in videos! In movies! I be breaking, fly just a dancin'! Uhm humm heating up the stage at the Apollo for Doug E. Fresh or Al B. Shure. They love me! Say I'm one of the best dancers ain' no doubt of or about that!" However, unlike "My Papa's Waltz," which humanizes the father to some extent so we can understand why he is so abusive towards his child, none of this is present in Push. Instead, the audience is shown a father who basks in sleazy dualities. Dad compliments Precious (if it can be called a 'compliment') with "I'm gonna marry you," only to follow it up with "you as wide as the Mississppi" in the same sentence. Precious doesn't only retreat into fantasy when her father rapes her, either, as seen when she is "walking down Lennox when bad thoughts hit me I space out" to her first day at Each One Teach One. Additionally, fantasy is one of the few ways Precious copes with what she feels is a lack of intelligence - a disconnect from normalcy - on her part.
"Push the button, stupid, I tell myself. I push the button; I'm not stupid, I tell myself." There is abundant indecisiveness in nearly all of Precious' actions and reactions. Precious is shown projectig the same "mixed signals" her father thrusts onto her; it's all portrayed as a cyclical experience. Her self-image is topsy-turvy; she is at once confident and tough, but uncertain and vulnerable at the same time. In contrast to Precious' near-bullying attitude in Mr. Wicher's class, her reflections regarding her father - or lack thereof, really - approach gingerly stated levels of regret, uncertainty, and misunderstanding. "If he did he would I was like a white girl, a /real/ person, inside," muses Precious, noting how her father cares little for his daughter beyond shallow sexual gratification. Additionally, the 'white girl' symbolism, the dualities between black and white, is a repeated theme in Push. Although Precious boastingly says she believes Louis Farrakhan's stance that "crackers is the cause of everything bad," her actions, even the majority of her words, signal an altogether different (as well as confusing) opinion. While doting upon Mr. Wicher, she curses out Mrs. Lichenstein, for seemingly arbitrary reasons. To Precious, Mrs. Lichenstein is a "fat-ass bitch" irregardless of her being one of the few professionals who expresses an interest in helping her. It doesn't matter; what I noticed about Precious is her tendency to lash out at most of the women in her life, aggressively and defensively tossing around words like "bitch," "cunt bucket", and "whore" without consideration. With a mother like hers, should he even have a high opinion of other women in general? White men are barely even addressed throughout the book, but white women? At every turn. White women, black women, Jewish women, Spanish women; excepting the Spanish nurse who delivered Mongo, Carl, and Mr. Wicher, there is no such thing as a male presence in Push. Precious constantly makes demeaning remarks regarding how light-skinned certain black women are, especially in relation to the nurses at the hospital and her psychiatrist. Sapphire intentionally made nearly all of the characters in Push female. In addition to giving herself freedom to explore women's issues amongst African-Americans in Push, the all-female cast centralizes Push's main concepts - gender, incest, rape, racism - onto a singular, funneled identity. It serves to make the novel more easily digestible (i.e. more enjoyable for men who prefer not reading about "women's issues") as a whole. A more male viewpoint is given through Jermaine who, while a lamentingly underdeveloped character, stands out as a deviant amongst the cast appearance and personality-wise. Gender and ethnicity are two of the few aspects to Precious, her "black queen" self, which she can be unquestioningly proud of, while an ethnically-charged inferiority complex towards her intelligence guides much of Precious' other interactions with the rest of the world: Miz Rain, the principal, Mr. Wicher, her classmates. Sapphire tastefully captures the whirlwind reactions minorities may feel towards the majority like the author has experienced significant racial prejudice herself. I say tastefully, because Sapphire doesn't take the easy out and make her main character an Uncle Tom, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, a carbon copy of Louis Farrakhan's draconian politics, a follower. Precious is complex: while in the beginning doubt is integral to her character - awkward moments in Mr. Wicher's class, such as "his face is red, he is shaking, I back off, I have won, I /guess/" when she challenges the teacher - she begins to grow independence while in Each One Teach One. "I look at Miz Teacher's long, dreadlocky hair, look kinda nice but kinda nasty too," says Precious, initially with learned distaste until she quickly follows the statement up with the open-ended "I don't know how I feel about people with hair like that." In any one else such an unsure attitude would signal a lack of conviction or at worst, extreme flightiness, it's a much more meaningful action coming from Precious, to break away from her mother's coercive brainwashing, and a step in the right direction.
I was struck immediately by the allegorical comparisons Sapphire creates between rape and dancing. Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz," a famous poem which compares a father's abuse of his son to a dance, a waltz, where the father's "whiskey stained breath" clings to his son like fists choking the life out of the child, runs paralellel to Push. Sapphire's uses Roethke's imagery and comparisons, that of a child retreating into a dance-like fantasy whenever they are abused by their father, throughout much of her novel. "Then I change stations, change bodies. I be dancing in videos! In movies! I be breaking, fly just a dancin'! Uhm humm heating up the stage at the Apollo for Doug E. Fresh or Al B. Shure. They love me! Say I'm one of the best dancers ain' no doubt of or about that!" However, unlike "My Papa's Waltz," which humanizes the father to some extent so we can understand why he is so abusive towards his child, none of this is present in Push. Instead, the audience is shown a father who basks in sleazy dualities. Dad compliments Precious (if it can be called a 'compliment') with "I'm gonna marry you," only to follow it up with "you as wide as the Mississppi" in the same sentence. Precious doesn't only retreat into fantasy when her father rapes her, either, as seen when she is "walking down Lennox when bad thoughts hit me I space out" to her first day at Each One Teach One. Additionally, fantasy is one of the few ways Precious copes with what she feels is a lack of intelligence - a disconnect from normalcy - on her part.
"Push the button, stupid, I tell myself. I push the button; I'm not stupid, I tell myself." There is abundant indecisiveness in nearly all of Precious' actions and reactions. Precious is shown projectig the same "mixed signals" her father thrusts onto her; it's all portrayed as a cyclical experience. Her self-image is topsy-turvy; she is at once confident and tough, but uncertain and vulnerable at the same time. In contrast to Precious' near-bullying attitude in Mr. Wicher's class, her reflections regarding her father - or lack thereof, really - approach gingerly stated levels of regret, uncertainty, and misunderstanding. "If he did he would I was like a white girl, a /real/ person, inside," muses Precious, noting how her father cares little for his daughter beyond shallow sexual gratification. Additionally, the 'white girl' symbolism, the dualities between black and white, is a repeated theme in Push. Although Precious boastingly says she believes Louis Farrakhan's stance that "crackers is the cause of everything bad," her actions, even the majority of her words, signal an altogether different (as well as confusing) opinion. While doting upon Mr. Wicher, she curses out Mrs. Lichenstein, for seemingly arbitrary reasons. To Precious, Mrs. Lichenstein is a "fat-ass bitch" irregardless of her being one of the few professionals who expresses an interest in helping her. It doesn't matter; what I noticed about Precious is her tendency to lash out at most of the women in her life, aggressively and defensively tossing around words like "bitch," "cunt bucket", and "whore" without consideration. With a mother like hers, should he even have a high opinion of other women in general? White men are barely even addressed throughout the book, but white women? At every turn. White women, black women, Jewish women, Spanish women; excepting the Spanish nurse who delivered Mongo, Carl, and Mr. Wicher, there is no such thing as a male presence in Push. Precious constantly makes demeaning remarks regarding how light-skinned certain black women are, especially in relation to the nurses at the hospital and her psychiatrist. Sapphire intentionally made nearly all of the characters in Push female. In addition to giving herself freedom to explore women's issues amongst African-Americans in Push, the all-female cast centralizes Push's main concepts - gender, incest, rape, racism - onto a singular, funneled identity. It serves to make the novel more easily digestible (i.e. more enjoyable for men who prefer not reading about "women's issues") as a whole. A more male viewpoint is given through Jermaine who, while a lamentingly underdeveloped character, stands out as a deviant amongst the cast appearance and personality-wise. Gender and ethnicity are two of the few aspects to Precious, her "black queen" self, which she can be unquestioningly proud of, while an ethnically-charged inferiority complex towards her intelligence guides much of Precious' other interactions with the rest of the world: Miz Rain, the principal, Mr. Wicher, her classmates. Sapphire tastefully captures the whirlwind reactions minorities may feel towards the majority like the author has experienced significant racial prejudice herself. I say tastefully, because Sapphire doesn't take the easy out and make her main character an Uncle Tom, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, a carbon copy of Louis Farrakhan's draconian politics, a follower. Precious is complex: while in the beginning doubt is integral to her character - awkward moments in Mr. Wicher's class, such as "his face is red, he is shaking, I back off, I have won, I /guess/" when she challenges the teacher - she begins to grow independence while in Each One Teach One. "I look at Miz Teacher's long, dreadlocky hair, look kinda nice but kinda nasty too," says Precious, initially with learned distaste until she quickly follows the statement up with the open-ended "I don't know how I feel about people with hair like that." In any one else such an unsure attitude would signal a lack of conviction or at worst, extreme flightiness, it's a much more meaningful action coming from Precious, to break away from her mother's coercive brainwashing, and a step in the right direction.
Monday, April 4, 2011
The queerest of the queer.
Boys in the girls room
Girls in the men's room
You free your mind in your androgyny
Boys in the parlor
They're getting harder
I'll free your mind and your androgyny
No sweeter a taste that you could find
Than fruit hanging ripe upon the vine
There's never been an oyster so divine
A river deep that never runs dry
The birds and bees they hum along
Like treasures they twinkle in the sun
Get on board and have some fun
Take what you need to turn you on
Behind closed doors and under stars
It doesn't matter where you are
Collecting jewels that catch your eye
Don't let a soul mate pass you by
Garbage - "Androgyny"
The 1980s was an androgynous renaissance: Annie Lennox rocked a crew cut better than most men on daytime MTV, enormous shoulder pads were in, the pageboy dominated, and a defiant Grace Jones blended gender mores to a distorted paste in mainstream films like Conan the Destroyer and A View To A Kill. Although published in 1996, Push is set during the 1980s, and infused with a strong relevance to the time period it lives through. Push is as a much a product of the era it swims in as it is a testament to the intolerance which overwhelmed 1980s popular culture.
Precious is unquestioningly the novel's main character, but what about her classmates at the alternative school? While one of my biggest gripes over Sapphire's novel is the stifling lack of detail given to characters other than Precious, Mama, and Miss Rain, this could have been done on purpose. Rita, Consuelo, Jermaine - these characters are all carbon outlines for the audience to fill in however they wish. However, with all of the classmates and their unique (if underdeveloped) personalities taken into consideration, it is Jermaine who I find the most interesting and substantial. Jermaine is first described by Precious as a "a girl my color in boy suit, look like some kinda butch." It's a minimal but evocative description. Perhaps intentionally, Sapphire's self-portrait on the back of the book's jacket was the first image that popped into my head here. Between the angular, squared-off haircut and jagged expression Sapphire even looks like a dead ringer for the aforementioned Grace Jones. I would not be surprised if Sapphire inserted herself the novel as a composite of both Miss Rain and Jermaine, using distinct parts of her personality to embody these two characters. It would certainly complement the duality-heavy characters found in all of the readings we have analyzed in our class so far. Each character represents two sides of the lesbian stereotype: the butch, male-aversive Jermaine - she responds with a blunt "good" when Consuelo makes the observation that there "ain' no guys in our class" - versus the "straight-acting" lipstick lesbian embodied by Blue Rain. However, Blue Rain is by no means a 'weak' character. For example, she has no problem reasoning against Precious' homophobia when the latter expresses her Louis Farrakhan-informed prejudice: "Miz Rain say Farrakhan is jive anti-Semitic, homophobic fool." Finally, Blue Rain attempts to even change Precious' attitudes through calm reasoning, a move that is somewhat successful thanks to Precious' respect for her teacher. "Ms Rain say homos not who rape, not homos who let me sit up not learn for sixteen years, not homos who sell crack fuck Harlem. It's true. Ms Rain the one who put the chalk in my hand, make me queen of the ABCs." Unlike the relatively foppish gay and lesbian characters portrayed throughout mainstream media, Sapphire's Blue Rain is confident, strong, and intensely passionate. She doesn't resort to meekly backing into a corner nor violence when her personality comes into question. Considering the rampant ignorance and prejudice surrounding the LBGT community during the early 1990s, when "Precious" was written, Miss Rain is a rare mainstream example of a positive lesbian role model.
Though the audience learns enough about Jermaine from the character herself, it is through Precious' observations on her classmate which sheds the most light on androgyny, sexuality, and mainstream attitudes towards the two controversial ideas, especially in relation to the novel's time period. In fact, Precious has a strong aversion to Jermaine from the beginning, when she moves away from the woman when her lesbianism is thrown out into the open because Precious "don't want no one getting the wrong idea about /me/. To Precious, lesbianism is "freaky deaky," and even though her and Jermaine are the same color, they are not (and might never be) on the same plane of existence: "We about the same color but I think thas all we got the same. I is /all/ girl. Don't know here." There is a sense of learned elitism Precious extols towards Jermaine solely due to the latter's sexuality and aesthetic; it's ironic considering Precious has an extreme inferiority complex as far as almost anything else is concerned, owing to her abusive upbringing. Sapphire, who is bisexual herself, uses Precious' ignorance allegorically to represent the prejudice deviant sexualities faced in the 80s . Likewise, this same ignorance is used by Sapphire to point out and criticize the discrimination African-Americans exhibit towards people of their own ethnicity. Sapphire even wishes she had a "light-skinned" boyfriend throughout the novel, indicating there are certain shades of all-inclusive prejudice directed /towards/ blacks, /from/ blacks. On an wider scale, Precious' attitudes are essentially a microcosm for the rest of the world's behavior towards the LBGT community.
An early insight into Jermaine's character comes through in Precious' observation over the androgynous character's name. "Jermaine, which I don't have to tell you is a /boy's/ name, say, "It's who you know and I know too many people in the Bronx baby." Names are an exceedingly important component to one's self-identity. Is Jermaine even her real name? Sapphire keeps this ambiguous. Ultimately the audience has no idea, because even Jermaine's story at the end of the book mentions nothing about how she was named. Furthermore, her full name is Jermaine Hicks. It's an ironic last name; I don't really need to point out why (Jermaine's distaste for "honkies", an integral part to her character, as she so often reminds the audience, plays a big part in the blackly humorous but subtle wordplay over her name), but let me just say that with a surname like that, I could certainly understand why she might have changed her first name.
Girls in the men's room
You free your mind in your androgyny
Boys in the parlor
They're getting harder
I'll free your mind and your androgyny
No sweeter a taste that you could find
Than fruit hanging ripe upon the vine
There's never been an oyster so divine
A river deep that never runs dry
The birds and bees they hum along
Like treasures they twinkle in the sun
Get on board and have some fun
Take what you need to turn you on
Behind closed doors and under stars
It doesn't matter where you are
Collecting jewels that catch your eye
Don't let a soul mate pass you by
Garbage - "Androgyny"
The 1980s was an androgynous renaissance: Annie Lennox rocked a crew cut better than most men on daytime MTV, enormous shoulder pads were in, the pageboy dominated, and a defiant Grace Jones blended gender mores to a distorted paste in mainstream films like Conan the Destroyer and A View To A Kill. Although published in 1996, Push is set during the 1980s, and infused with a strong relevance to the time period it lives through. Push is as a much a product of the era it swims in as it is a testament to the intolerance which overwhelmed 1980s popular culture.
Precious is unquestioningly the novel's main character, but what about her classmates at the alternative school? While one of my biggest gripes over Sapphire's novel is the stifling lack of detail given to characters other than Precious, Mama, and Miss Rain, this could have been done on purpose. Rita, Consuelo, Jermaine - these characters are all carbon outlines for the audience to fill in however they wish. However, with all of the classmates and their unique (if underdeveloped) personalities taken into consideration, it is Jermaine who I find the most interesting and substantial. Jermaine is first described by Precious as a "a girl my color in boy suit, look like some kinda butch." It's a minimal but evocative description. Perhaps intentionally, Sapphire's self-portrait on the back of the book's jacket was the first image that popped into my head here. Between the angular, squared-off haircut and jagged expression Sapphire even looks like a dead ringer for the aforementioned Grace Jones. I would not be surprised if Sapphire inserted herself the novel as a composite of both Miss Rain and Jermaine, using distinct parts of her personality to embody these two characters. It would certainly complement the duality-heavy characters found in all of the readings we have analyzed in our class so far. Each character represents two sides of the lesbian stereotype: the butch, male-aversive Jermaine - she responds with a blunt "good" when Consuelo makes the observation that there "ain' no guys in our class" - versus the "straight-acting" lipstick lesbian embodied by Blue Rain. However, Blue Rain is by no means a 'weak' character. For example, she has no problem reasoning against Precious' homophobia when the latter expresses her Louis Farrakhan-informed prejudice: "Miz Rain say Farrakhan is jive anti-Semitic, homophobic fool." Finally, Blue Rain attempts to even change Precious' attitudes through calm reasoning, a move that is somewhat successful thanks to Precious' respect for her teacher. "Ms Rain say homos not who rape, not homos who let me sit up not learn for sixteen years, not homos who sell crack fuck Harlem. It's true. Ms Rain the one who put the chalk in my hand, make me queen of the ABCs." Unlike the relatively foppish gay and lesbian characters portrayed throughout mainstream media, Sapphire's Blue Rain is confident, strong, and intensely passionate. She doesn't resort to meekly backing into a corner nor violence when her personality comes into question. Considering the rampant ignorance and prejudice surrounding the LBGT community during the early 1990s, when "Precious" was written, Miss Rain is a rare mainstream example of a positive lesbian role model.
Though the audience learns enough about Jermaine from the character herself, it is through Precious' observations on her classmate which sheds the most light on androgyny, sexuality, and mainstream attitudes towards the two controversial ideas, especially in relation to the novel's time period. In fact, Precious has a strong aversion to Jermaine from the beginning, when she moves away from the woman when her lesbianism is thrown out into the open because Precious "don't want no one getting the wrong idea about /me/. To Precious, lesbianism is "freaky deaky," and even though her and Jermaine are the same color, they are not (and might never be) on the same plane of existence: "We about the same color but I think thas all we got the same. I is /all/ girl. Don't know here." There is a sense of learned elitism Precious extols towards Jermaine solely due to the latter's sexuality and aesthetic; it's ironic considering Precious has an extreme inferiority complex as far as almost anything else is concerned, owing to her abusive upbringing. Sapphire, who is bisexual herself, uses Precious' ignorance allegorically to represent the prejudice deviant sexualities faced in the 80s . Likewise, this same ignorance is used by Sapphire to point out and criticize the discrimination African-Americans exhibit towards people of their own ethnicity. Sapphire even wishes she had a "light-skinned" boyfriend throughout the novel, indicating there are certain shades of all-inclusive prejudice directed /towards/ blacks, /from/ blacks. On an wider scale, Precious' attitudes are essentially a microcosm for the rest of the world's behavior towards the LBGT community.
An early insight into Jermaine's character comes through in Precious' observation over the androgynous character's name. "Jermaine, which I don't have to tell you is a /boy's/ name, say, "It's who you know and I know too many people in the Bronx baby." Names are an exceedingly important component to one's self-identity. Is Jermaine even her real name? Sapphire keeps this ambiguous. Ultimately the audience has no idea, because even Jermaine's story at the end of the book mentions nothing about how she was named. Furthermore, her full name is Jermaine Hicks. It's an ironic last name; I don't really need to point out why (Jermaine's distaste for "honkies", an integral part to her character, as she so often reminds the audience, plays a big part in the blackly humorous but subtle wordplay over her name), but let me just say that with a surname like that, I could certainly understand why she might have changed her first name.
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