'Two or Three Things We Learned for Sure..." (Final Blog Post)

Two or three things we learned for sure, and all of them support one conclusion: by introducing readers to individual people—not groups or populations—the books we read this semester allow readers to hear the stories, rather than overlook them because of fear and prior prejudices.

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Human psychology, despite extensive research, is still only minimally understood.  However, research, and patterns of behavior, have shown that all people use a cognitive technique of categorizing people to maintain order in their own world.  In most cases, this behavior “lends to negative stereotypes” (Cohen, 2011).  A 2005 study published in Science builds upon this idea, citing that “individuals from a racial group other than one’s own are more readily associated with an aversive stimulus than individuals of one’s own race…” (Olsson et. al., 2005). 

What this science shows is something experienced by individuals of many races and genders on a daily basis.  There exists a human tendency to fear what is not understood, and in that fear, to avoid seeking out experiences that would tend to dissipate the subsequent stereotypes and prejudices that develop.  However, this same science also indicates that “this prepared fear response might be reduced by close, positive interracial contact” (Olsson et. al., 2005). Cohen’s article in Psychology Today says it differently; she writes about a concept known as “including the other in the self,” or the idea that it is increasingly difficult for negative stereotypes to persist when an individual has a close friendship that allows for understanding and identification with the other person.  This, in turn, can change the individual’s views of larger groups of people (Cohen, 2011). 

Many modern female authors, from Julia Alvarez and Edwidge Danticat to Eve Ensler and Julie Otsuka, use their writing to start the conversations that break down the social barriers and convey the true sufferings and triumphs of women and girls around the world. This seems to be, above all else, their purpose in writing; by giving individuals a voice—and creating these personal, identifiable relationships—they dispel the fear that creates prejudicial distance between us.

Eve Ensler’s writing provides, perhaps, the most direct example of this goal; in both The Vagina Monologues and I Am an Emotional Creature, she is clearly giving a voice to the women who have been silenced by violence, oppression, and societal perspectives.  One of the most striking demonstrations of Ensler’s prowess as a writer is the way in which she manages to maintain the feeling of personal narrative in each of her monologues.  She writes with the voices of lesbian women, straight women, abused women, transgender women, silenced women—women who are stigmatized or even overlooked.  When she introduces The Vagina Monologues by writing, “Let’s just start with the word ‘vagina.’ It sounds like an infection at best, maybe a medical instrument…” (Ensler, 5), she connects with all women; by putting her female readers at ease by recognizing this shared struggle, she opens the door to open-mindedness, and then introduces her readers to individuals that they can connect with, feel sympathy for, and even celebrate with.

Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies, takes a different approach; she tells the story of four sisters, four women who dared to stand up to a dictatorial regime.  In the case of Patria, Minerva, Dedé, and Mate Mirabal, silence was never an issue, as these revolutionary sisters made their voices heard.  However, as a writer, Alvarez is chronicling a history that might otherwise be forgotten, or at least overlooked outside of the Dominican Republic.  It is easy to remain detached from the tribulations of nations when reading about them in history books, as lists of names, dates, and facts.  But getting to know these four sisters, their husbands and children, their community members, reveals to readers and allows them to understand the true bravery required in taking a stand.

Ironically, however, in the first story of Edwidge Danticat’s book Krik? Krak!, Children of the Sea, anonymity is used to serve the same purpose.  As I wrote in one of our early blog assignments:

“In each story, Danticat somehow finds the common element of humanity.  By minimizing individualism through the creation of characters, that, even when they have names, could be anybody, she gives a voice to the masses.  Danticat provides an intricate portrayal of humanity and the endless search for a place to anchor our identity—something that is a part of every human experience.

   In Children of the Sea, the two main character—a young man and a young girl—narrate through letters to one another, though neither will ever receive these writings…. The young man…has escaped Haiti on a boat headed for the United States.  Everyone on board is lacking food and quickly becoming ill; Danticat describes the characters’ condition when she says, “…since there are no mirrors, we look at each other’s face to see just how frail and sick we are starting to look” (Danticat, 9).  In this line, she truly minimizes the individualism of each character…” (Conroy, 2011).

In this, however, Danticat conveys human emotion on such a level that, despite their namelessness, readers feel the suffering of—and, ultimately, a connection to—the characters.

Danticat takes another ‘unorthodox’ route in her quest to give voices to the silenced; she writes of a mother singing “Kompe Jako, dome vou? Brother Jacques, are you sleeping?” to her child, reminding readers, myself included, of a common childhood song that is apparently shared across many cultures.

Certainly, too, Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine cannot go unmentioned in this conversation; by making the members of the family nameless yet extremely relatable to, she combines, in a way, Ensler’s and Danticat’s approaches—there is a degree of anonymity that allows the characters to represent almost anyone in their situation, but their American background and inhumane sufferings speak to the readers and reveal the true atrocious nature of the Japanese interment.

Interestingly, all of these racial and ethnic stereotypes are addressed through one lens, one vehicle: women.  Women are not “feared” as members of some racial and ethnic groups unjustly are, but the frame of reference—writing by women, about women, for women—furthers the purpose of creating equality—or at least starting the conversations that will lead to it—and allowing everyone to speak, and everyone to be heard.

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Two or three things we learned for sure, and one of them is that everyone—no matter their gender, sexual orientation, or race—deserves a voice, and these courageous female authors are making strides in allowing this to be a realistic possibility.

Sources:

(1)  Cohen, L.J. PhD. (24 January, 2011) The Psychology of prejudice and Racism. "Psychology Today." www.psychologytoday.com.

(2)  Olsson, A., Ebert, J.P., Banaji, M. R., Phelps, E.A.. (29 July, 2005).  The Role of Social Groups in the Persistence of Learned Fear. Science. Retrieved from JSTOR.

Vectorial, too.

As we discussed in class on Friday, there is a cyclic, or circular, nature to Dorothy Allison’s story, which she tells in her autobiography, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure.

As a young girl, she is subjected to a family life that leaves her physically and sexually abused and that is very difficult to escape.  Rather than being broken by her circumstances, however, Allison is determined to become her own woman, to not end up like her mother, her aunts, and all the women that have come before them, women who are strong enough to cope with the hardships of their lives but who still accept their circumstance as inevitable.  By the end of the story, Allison has a family of her own—a longtime partner and a son.  She is not unscathed by her past—in fact, it drives her in all of her behaviors and interactions with others—but she has still managed to learn to give and receive love, something that at one point seemed impossible for, and to, her.

Dorothy Allison

 In looking at Allison’s story, however, the discussion cannot stop at shape—directionality must be taken into consideration.  The way that she writes Two or Three Things I Know for Sure is vectorial—it has quantity, direction, and momentum.  The pace of the book is slow, initially, in some ways reflecting the southern culture in which she was raised.  This also reveals the depths of Allison’s suffering as a child; the physical and sexual abuse by her stepfather began when she was five years old and lasted until she was sixteen—a period of time that felt, to Allison, like a lifetime in and of itself.  As the author moves forward with her story, however, describing her journey into her sexual identity, learning to like herself, learning to love others, there is a distinct increase in pace.  The story moves more quickly, with more assertiveness and determination, a reflection of Allison’s personal quest; much like her joining of the karate class, she takes life head on.  By the very end, however—even just over the last few pages—there is a calm that returns, a slowness and gentleness.  This is not to say that Allison has been able to let go of her past; the conversation with her sister Anne and Anne’s daughter clearly shows that there is lingering pain and distress, so much so that Allison recognizes and seeks to address her niece’s apparent resignation.  However, Allison seems to have reached a place in which she can survive and have love, a place in which she can exist without the constant fervor once inextricably linked to her identity.  

And again... Why?

 In her autobiography Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, after Dorothy Allison finishes describing the horrific sexual abuse she was subjected to as a five year old girl, she makes a statement.  It is strikingly stark, but perhaps, most upsettingly, one that is made much too frequently, as is demonstrated by the fact that it has come up in several of the books read this semester.

“Two or three things I know for sure, but none of them is why a man would rape a child, why a man would beat a child” (43).

As a class, we have questioned this same reality when reading Push by Sapphire and The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler.  Push tells the story of Precious, a young girl raped repeatedly by her father; at the age of sixteen, she is illiterate but has borne two children by her father.  In addition to the continual rape, Precious is beaten and force-fed by her own mother.  In Ensler’s collection of essays, stories, and poems, more than one story is told, but the vignettes still speak of horrific sexual abuse endured by young girls all around the world.

Why would a man rape a child? Why would a man beat a child?

There is no one, rational, reasonable answer to this question; no girl—or woman, man, or boy—should be subject to physical beatings and violations.  There are inevitably many reasons that result in these abuses, but no excuse can justify this cruel abuse of power, particularly the power of age, which is the case in Allison’s life.

What these books have demonstrated, however, is the depth of human resilience.  In The Vagina Monologues, Ensler counters the tales of violence with accounts of women finding their voices and standing up to their abusers.  In Push, Precious manages to find strength in herself and start to change her path, as much as is possible given her circumstances.  With the help of Ms. Rain, her son, and the other girls at Each One Teach One, this young woman breaks a generations-long pattern of neglect and cruelty.  While I have not yet finished Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, it is evident already—shortly after the statement on page forty-three—that Allison will be resilient as well.  No matter the outcome of her adult life, the fact that she intended, at a young age, to escape her circumstance, indicates a deep strength of spirit.  And, given that Dorothy Allison has now written her autobiography, it is clear that she finds a way to move on with her life.

While it is not possible or responsible to make sweeping generalizations about gender, because each individual has his or her own individual strengths and abilities, it is interesting to compare these women—fictional Precious, Ensler’s hundreds of interviewees, Dorothy Allsion—to the men in Allison’s family.  She discusses, at length, their resignation and hopeless acceptance of their lot in life—to live in a rural, impoverished area, working hard, day in and day out.  The cycle of disrespect for women in the community that Allison grew up in is perpetuated, and the men act out in this way as they silently bear the pain that is “veiled by boasting and jokes” (28).  Examining this seeming dichotomy—the women’s willpower to change versus the men’s resignation to fate—does not provide answers to the questions Allison is indirectly asking when she says, “two or three things I know for sure, but none of them is why a man would rape a child, why a man would beat a child” (43).

However, it does shed a light on the complexity of the social issues, prejudices, and cultural norms that contribute to intentions and behaviors of men and women alike, and it explains again and again the role that books like these—written by women, to give a voice—can play in revealing the human side of characters often stereotyped.  Only in understanding this—that each person is an individual with circumstances—can we begin to answer the multitude of other questions that come up again and again, even in the face of resilience.

The Significance of Dr. Tree

What is the significance of Dr. Tree and his study? Why does Rosa reject his version of reality? What does she object to? Can you make any connections between her attitude toward Tree and her attitude toward Stella?

In the second story in Cynthia Ozick’s compilation The Shawl, Rosa Lublin, for whom the story is named, is still struggling to move beyond the impact of her time at the concentration camps and the loss of her daughter Magda, who was murdered by a guard.  Rosa lives in Florida, a place that she has relegated herself to in an attempt to recreate the conditions of the World War II camps, a setting outside of which she is unable to truly function. 

Dr. Tree, a psychologist at the Department of Clinical Social Pathology at the University of Kansas-Iowa, is studying this pattern of behavior, something he refers to as Repressed Animation.  Ultimately, he would like Rosa to be a part of his study.  This request invokes in Rosa the same emotions that led to her destroying her store in New York—Rosa sees herself and other Holocaust survivors as individuals, a community deeply and egregiously wronged.  She wants the world to know her story, but she rarely finds someone willing to listen.  In her eyes, however, Dr. Tree is treating Rosa and her fellow survivors as numbers on a list, subjects to be studied, not human beings trying to recover from a traumatic experience.

Essentially, Dr. Tree’s study and Rosa’s niece, Stella, play similar roles in the stories; both represent the reality of a world that has moved on from the horrors of World War II, whereas Rosa, especially because of the loss of Magda, has been unable to live consciously in  that world.  She feels a deep anger towards Stella and blames her for Magda’s death; more than 30 years later, however, that blame is seated in the fact that Stella has created a new life for herself, outside of—or in spite of—her history.  Dr. Tree, in Stella’s mind, comes from this same world—a world that has forgotten what Rosa cannot and is focusing on the aftermath.  Because Rosa cannot remove herself from the present of her time in the concentration camps—she even explains, at one point, that people have three lives, “the life before, the life during, the life after…for me there’s one time only; there’s no after” (58)—she deeply represents those that can, or those that live in the present because they have not experienced what was Rosa’s “during.”

And so Rosa’s means of survival and Rosa’s truth, which are both detached from the actuality of events, dictate that she must object to Dr. Tree’s behaviors to continue living. In Dr. Tree and Stella’s world, Magda is dead and people have moved on.  Because in Rosa’s reality, however, (despite the very small glimmer of new hope Persky brings) Magda is still alive, she cannot move to this world, and therefore must be defensive and abrasive to avoid losing her mechanism for protecting herself.

A Survival Story?

The word ‘survival’ has a myriad of connotations in a modern, technologically advanced society; it is heard frequently, for example, in reference to individuals who have overcome a potentially fatal disease like cancer.  In this instance, as in so many others, the word paints an image of victory—of an indeterminable spirit unable to be dampered.  

By pure definition, however, the word ‘survivor’ simply indicates that something living is still in that state of existence after a particular event has come and gone.

In the case of Rosa Lublin, the main character in Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl, her state of mental health calls into question whether or not this compilation of two short novels is actually a Holocaust survival story.  In reality, the answer to this question depends on the particular perspective of the reader.  While it is true that Rosa lived, physically, through her experience in the concentration camps, she is clearly, more than thirty years later, not thriving in her survival.

As we discussed in class on Wednesday, Rosa’s current living conditions are not indicative of her previously successful business endeavor in New York.  She has relegated herself to a life poverty and despair, symbolically representative of the conditions under which she suffered during the Holocaust.  Rosa still harbors deep bitterness for her niece, and she truly believes that her daughter Magda is still alive.  These are all signs that indicate her continuing despair, and the fact that she has been unable to function in her life in the United States.

And so we return to the first question: has she survived? Physically, she most certainly has, although her health is suffering.  Mentally, however, the impact of such an experience cannot ever be left behind.  Whether a ‘survivor’ of a disease or a grievous violation of your personal human rights, it is impossible for such an experience to not leave permanent marks on the human spirit.  The question, then, is not whether or not a story is one of survival, but the degree to which the characters can exist in their new lives. 

Parts of the Whole

In the novels that we have read this semester, there has been a pattern of stark contrasts used to illustrate, on a deep emotional level, both the gross inequities of social, economic, and educational status and humans rights abuses in the United States and other countries around the world.  Often, the literary device used to drive these points has been synecdoche, or metonymy, the use of a part to represent the whole.

            There are many ways used to illustrate how this device is used; for example, the press often uses the phrase “the White house spoke” in reference to a statement made by the executive branch of the government.  An author might also discuss ‘fifty sail,’ with ‘sail’ actually being representative of an entire ship.*

In When the Emperor Was Divine, this is used on a very human level—four characters, the mother, father, daughter, and son—are a part of the whole Japanese-American population subjected to years of torture and deprivation without any concrete evidence to justify their displacement.  The characters in Julie Otsuka’s novel are never given names, never identified by any strikingly unique characteristic.  The use of this device is most apparent in the last two chapters, which represents the loss of any individual identity through the internment process—the last chapter is written from the first person plural point of view, whereas the previous three were written in first person singular, each through the eyes of either the mother, daughter, or son.  The same phenomenon occurs during the father’s confessions at the end of the novel; it is clear that he is speaking on behalf of all the unjustly imprisoned Japanese-American men.

Cynthia Ozick does something similar in the very first pages of The Shawl, the first of two short stories in her novel of the same title.  The image that Otsuka creates early on is of just three frail girls—Rosa, Stella, and baby Magda—marching down a dusty road.  It is quite clear that these three are not walking by choice, but out of forced necessity; they have no choice but to keep moving forward.  The threatening force of which they are frightened seems almost hypothetical, a larger looming force that could be lurking around any corner.  In the third paragraph, however, Ozick writes, “Rosa, floating, dreamed of givin Magda away in one of the villages.  She could leave the line for a minute and push Magda into the hands of any woman on the side of the road.  But if she moved out of line they might shoot.  And even if she fled the line for half a second and pushed the shawl-bundle at a stranger, would the woman take it” (4)?

And so Rosa and Magda are actually representing a whole line of people being driven from their homes.  They are not, in fact alone, but two of many.  While this is not such a clear use of synecdoche as the representation of a recognizable symbol for a larger body of people, it does clearly reveal to the reader the plight of so many, on the level of an individual—this makes these stories, Otsuka’s and Ozick’s alike, so much more powerful; the readers can connect with the characters on an individual level to understand a larger injustice that, years later, it is easy to be detached from.

Enemies of the State

 While In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez, and When the Emperor Was Divine, by Julie Otsuka, address very different political conflicts at different points in history, there is an important similarity between the main characters—they are considered to be enemies of the state.  The circumstances of the Mirabal sisters, however, strike a deep contrast to the situation of the father in When the Emperor Was Divine. 

            In the Time of the Butterflies details the true story of Patria, Minerva, Dedé, and Maté Mirabal, four sisters who, with their husbands, were involved in the revolutionary movement to overthrow Dominican dictator el Trujillo.  When the Emperor Was Divine is a pure novel, based only on the collective experience of the thousands of Japanese-Americans who were internally displaced to internment camps in the Western United States after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.  There are four members of the protagonist family: the mother, the father, a young girl, and a younger boy.  The mother and the children are sent to the Nevada desert, while the father was arrested and imprisoned.  Like Minerva and Maté Mirabal, the father was tortured for information to such a severe degree that there were permanent physical scars, not to mention deep emotional wounds.

            Ultimately, these sets of characters experience disparate outcomes, for a number of reasons.  Perhaps most importantly is the difference in how the characters became involved in the respective conflicts.  The Mirabal sisters, led by Minerva and heavily influenced by Leandro, among others, chose their own paths.  While the girls certainly felt, on a moral level, that they had no choice but to act, they were still free to either actively join or avoid the resistance movement.  The Japanese-American father in Otsuka’s story, however, had no such choice.  Simple because of his ethnic heritage and upper middle class status that enabled him to work and travel, this love father and faithful husband was dragged from his home by force in the middle of the night.  Unlike Minerva and Maté, he was not in prison to take an ideological stand against gross abuse of human rights; instead, he was stripped of all dignity for no reason.  This does not in any way reduce the significance of the horrific torture that the Mirabal sisters were subjected to.  It does help to explain, however, the state of being for the dad versus the sisters after being declared enemies of the state.

            The Mirabal sisters were fighting for something that they truly believed in.  They also had each other, and their husbands.  Even in jail, Minerva and Maté were in the same cell with other women, and therefore had someone they knew and trusted to watch over them. The father, on the other hand, was completely alone.  His only connection to his previous life was the letters from his family, who had a very limited idea of what was being done to him. His torture was entirely based on falsities that he had done nothing to invoke.  Upon his return home to Berkley, the father in Otsuka’s novel was far more broken than the Mirabal sisters, who had something to keep fighting for.  Their support system had not been completely decimated, as the father’s was, and they had a place to go home to, rather than a broken memory that needed complete rebuilding. Additionally, the girls and their husbands were seen as underground heroes, not social and cultural lepers. Finally, of course, there is the way in which the stories end: the three Mirabal sisters most involved in the conflict were killed.  This is horrific by any and every standard; however, the father in When the Emperor Was Divine faces perhaps the most difficult challenge of all: returning to his life and facing the daunting task of restoring some normalcy to his existence.  Again, there is nothing good about the deaths of Las Mariposas, but these story’s endings helps to articulate the differences that defined their experience, versus the fathers, as an ‘enemy of the state.’