Queen of Denial

"My sister was in denial. And it wasn't just about her obese friend but about her entire life. She though that if she planned every last detail of her wedding on paper, she could change who she was, who we were" (5).

In Christine Granados's The Bride, Lily describes her childhood with her sister Rochelle who has been planning her wedding since birth. Rochelle plans every detail according to the "five-pound bride magazines" (3) that she buys at the store. She plans the songs, the guests, the food, the dress, leaving only the groom to be found. Throughout the story, Rochelle refuses to accept any traditional Mexican-American wedding practices--no "dollar dance" (6), no over-weight bridesmaids, no El Paso autumnal winds or heat to mess with her idea of the ideal wedding. Basically, Rochelle continously denies her heritage. She, like many children born in America to parents from other cultures, desires to be that American ideal--blonde, thin, and a WASP. What she fails to realize is that her culture is part of what makes her Rochelle. Lily tries to remind her of this many times, but Rochelle has her heart set on being a true "American" bride.

In the end, Rochelle cannot change who she is or who her family is. She must accept that life does not follow her carefully-made plans in her little pink and blue notebooks. Rochelle's downfall is that she spent her life planning details of an event that could not come to pass (especially when one accounts for the change of identity) instead of living. By denying her culture and heritage, she denied all reality, shown in part by her refusal to hear the details of her dates from Lily's perspective while being all too keen to pour over the details of her non-existant wedding. This denial of reality reaches its peak when Rochelle finds herself a junior in high school, married, and pregnant. She planned for none of this, and yet this is now her life and her future.

Question: Do you think Rochelle's behavior during her wedding shows that she will learn to accept her life, heritage and all, or that she will continue to deny reality for the rest of her life?

through salmon-tinted lenses

"When the month of June rolls around, I have to buy the five-pound bride magazine off the rack at the grocery store.  The photographs of white dresses, articles with to-do lists, and advertisements for wedding planners remind me of my older sister Rochelle's wedding" (3). 

I, too, had to re-read the story's opening to discover that the narrator plans to buy the same wedding magazines she used to ridicule Rochelle for buying.  Still, this passage is difficult to unpack.  Readers can get stuck in a cycle of wondering if the narrator is being forced to buy these magazines, or if she feels compelled to do so out of her own volition.  But whether or not the narrator's plans are internally or externally motivated, what is significant in this moment is the comparison that the narrator makes.  Somehow, "thick glossy pages" filled with "photographs of white dresses, articles with to-do lists, and advertisements for wedding planners" remind her of a ceremony that was devoid of all of these things. 

Considering the narrator describes the wedding as dignified and intimate, I don't think the she draws this comparison as a judgement against Rochelle's failed attempt at her dream wedding.  Instead, the notion of personal happiness (or at least contentment) is the similarity that allows the narrator to compare those glossy magazines to a ceremony that "was nothing like she had expected" (4).  That is, Rochelle's wedding is much like those in the magazines.  The details don't matter if the bride looks at her groom "as if they were the only two people" in the room (8). 

But perhaps my lenses are too salmon-tinted.  Does the story suggest another reason why the narrator compares these two dissimilar weddings? 

Happily Ever After

"Even though Rochelle didn't get her elegant autumn wedding, she stood before Judge Grijalva in her off-white linen pantsuit, which was damp on the shoulder and smeared with Mom's mascara, erect and with as much dignity as if she were under a tent at the Chamizal." (pg. 8)

In this story, Granados uses Lily's recollection of her sister's dream in order to critique the social standards and norms presented within American weddings. Throughout the story, Granados goes on about how Rochelle wanted to have a typical, white wedding. She didn't want anything that could related to her Mexican American heritage. However, in the end, her wedding ended up being completely opposite of what she had imagined it to be. Instead of a classic, conventional wedding, she had a stereotypical, lower class got-married-because-you-got-knocked-up-at-prom wedding. Nevertheless, it seems as if it is not Rochelle that has a problem with this, but Lily. In the end, Rochelle could be described as being satisfied and happy, her love for her husband overtaking her love for her dream wedding. It is Lily that is confused at the end. The tone in which she describes her sister's wedding can be said to be dumbfounded.  Furthermore, maybe it is Lily that wanted more than what was given to her by her Mexican heritage. As Lily continues with her life, she seems to keep hold to the idealistic wedding her sister had, for she went back in June to buy those magazines with pictures of  women that were "white, skinny, and rich" (6).

Why do you think Lily does seem a bit disappointed in her sister's rushed wedding? Was it because of her sister's own young, foolish mistake or because of the dream that never came true?

Staying True To Yourself

"Rochelle was obsessed. Because all those ridiculous magazines never listed mariachis or dollar dances, she decided her wedding was going to have a string quartet, no bajo, horns, or anything, no dollar dance, and it was going to be in October. It was going to be a bland affair, outside in a tent, like the wedding up North in the "elegance of autumn" that she read about in the thick glossy pages of the magazines" (4).

This quote is the epitome of Rochelle's obsession with the idealized Anglo culture because denies all Hispanic influences in her perfect wedding. Instead of being prideful of her culture she turns against it and only accepts what is in the "thick glossy pages of the magazines" (4). She attempts to shed her Hispanic ancestry in an effort to become something she is not, an overly idealized version of a Caucasian woman. Rochelle casts off all that is unique about her, her family, and her ancestry to try and conform to the magazines caricature of a perfect wedding. She is consumed by the unrealistic and unattainable goal of this one-size fits all model for her life. She does not view Hispanic culture as part of her future because she cannot see this as a realistic model for herself due to the influence of mainstream media on Rochelle. This lack of Hispanic presence in her media is what leads to her demise. Rochelle cannot picture her family, her friends, and culture fitting into this naive and impractical model so she tries with everything she has to deny her true identity.

How much of our identity is attached to our heritage? Do you think Granados is stressing the importance of being true to your heritage?

Secret Shame

"When the month of June rolls around, I have to buy the five-pound bride magazine off the rack at the grocery store. The photographs of white dresses, articles with to-do lists, and advertisements for wedding planners reminds me of my older sister Rochelle's wedding" (3).

I was originally going to write about a different moment, but I realized as I looked back on the story that this was the most important moment in the story, which almost seemed to be lost in the story about Rochelle's wedding. This is not a story about Rochelle wanting to reject her ethnic culture by means of her wedding, but in fact, it is a story about our narrator rejecting her ethnic roots in her marriage.

These first few lines immediately bring our attention to the present: the fact that our narrator is in fact buying the same magazines her sister had when she was planning her wedding. In an attempt to keep from bringing this issue to the surface, our narrator tries to bury this information from us by talking about her sister and all the ways she tried to reject the traditional type of wedding that her mother had.

Throughout the story, our narrator puts a lot of stress on the fact that Rochelle is not following the customs of their people. Is our narrator embarrassed that she is planning a wedding that doesn't follow her culture's idea of a wedding?

Proud in Denial

“I told her that she was ridiculous and that she was going to be a laughingstock, not knowing how close my words were to the truth. She didn’t care what anyone thought. She said her wedding was hers, and it was one thing no one could ruin.” (7)

Rochelle attempts to deny her Latina identity and escape the culture she appears to resent by constructing this alternate reality of an “Anglo” wedding. However, it is Rochelle’s effort to expel this lifestyle from her identity that ultimately confines her to it. The night of her prom she wore “a salmon colored version of her wedding dress,” foreshadowing the night as the closest she would come to having a “classy” wedding. “Ro didn’t have a plan B,” and when confronted with the reality of her pregnancy she was forced to adapt her perspectives in order to survive the clash of her class ideals with the stark truth of her situation and the future it implied. Instead of rejecting her Latina heritage to demonstrate her pride at the wedding, she embraces it, maintaining her dignity in the face of the gender and culture challenges she confronted. Her denial transforms from a denunciation of her cultural roots, to a refusal to admit the tragic nature of being a young mother without a “money tree,” essentially, to the tragedy of becoming the opposite of what she had for so long planned to be.

Is Ro’s denial admirable? As she stands “erect” in the courthouse, ignoring the very things she had declared would never be at her wedding, do you see her as immature in her denial, or brave in the preservation of her pride?

The Dilemma

"The real punishment was not the raid swiftly inflicted by the villagers, but the family's deliberately forgetting her. Her betrayal so maddened them, they saw to it that she would suffer forever, even after death. Always hungry, always needing..." (140)

Whenever the narrator of No Name Woman is faced with a change in her life, her mother supplies her with a parable; a story to grow up on as if these tales could somehow establish a reality. In this case it is the story of her mother's brother, an aunt forgotten by both family and time. The intended lesson of the story was one of abstinence, an alternative to the expected story of the birds and the bees. The narrator instead took a different meaning, one tied to her struggles assimilating into U.S. culture as a first American generation.

The societal and cultural expectations of the United States and China are two sides of different coins of different currency. American women are flirtatious and bold while Chinese women are expected to be meek and follow orders, as seen in the back story the narrator created for her aunt. The narrator is confused by which role she should take and is further torn by the impact such a decision has on her role in the family. Should she adapt to an American lifestyle where she forgets the past and live in the present? Or should she live in the past, worshiping ancestors and hoping to be remembered?

Question: Does the narrator's anonymity in the story reflect the choice she made to devote pages to her forgotten aunt's spirit?

Is Silence "Golden"?

Silence is customary in the Chinese culture.  No Name Woman begins with silence when the narrator's mother says, "You must not tell anyone" (139). Throughout the story, the narrator has a constant struggle with the idea of silence. "But there is more to this silence: they want me to participate in her punishment. And I have" (146). By following her mother's instructions, the narrator has actively participated in her aunt's punishment by remaining silent and allowing her aunt to remain anonymous and forgotten.

Ultimately, she knows that if she were to do wrong, her family would shame her through silence as well. "The real punishment was not the raid swiftly inflicted by the villagers, but the family's deliberately forgetting her. Her betrayal so maddened them, they saw to it that she would suffer forever, even after death" (146). This story is proof that the imposed/implied culture of silence and shame, within a traditional Chinese family, is not always golden.


Is the fact that the narrator is anonymous, also an example of silence and secrecy?

Who is the No Name Woman?

"In the twenty years since I heard this story, I have not asked for details nor said my aunt's name: I do not know it. People who can comfort the dead can also chase after the, to hurt them further-- a reverse ancestor worship. The real punishment was not the raid swiftly inflicted by the village, but the family's deliberately forgetting her. " p. 16, No Name Woman


Throughout No Name Woman, the narrator shown a struggle with her family's silence as she attempts to determine where she fits into the world as a woman, as a person who is Chinese, and as a person who is from her specific family.  The story progresses in a series of conjectures about who the aunt was, and how her life came to pass, but because of the family's silence, the narrator doesn't actually know the reality of her aunt's situation, and even more importantly, has not asked. The passage above seems to be a moment of clarity about the role of family-- that within family exists a power over (and to some degree, a responsibility for) their own kin's existence. And so, in the overarching question of what is determined by culture and what is determined by family, we see that while both have the potential and the convention to pass along tradition and history, within the idea of "family' lies this much darker power. Thus, we are affronted by the idea of a "No Name Woman": perhaps a woman such as the narrator's aunt who has been pushed into nonexistence by her family's silence or perhaps a woman such as the narrator (who, it is to be noted, does not present us with her own name) whose identity is being formed under the heavy influence of things unspoken.

Question:

How has the identity of both the narrator and her aunt been affected by the repression of her aunt's memory?

Parallels and Circles

Maxine Hong Kingston's "No Name Woman" from the book, The Woman Warrior (1975)

There are two points that stood out to me in this story, parallels and circles.

This story highlights how traditions in cultures affect families for generations to come. The narrator receives the warning from her mother, 'Don't humiliate us' (5). She instills fear into the narrator by relating the story of her aunt, who broke the rules, bringing shame to the family.

Throughout the story, the narrator contemplates actions and consequences for this unknown aunt while  processing how the aunt's story applies to her own life: "Unless I see her life branching into mine, she gives me no ancestral help (10). What strikes me the most here is that the narrator has only been told a brief story about her unnamed aunt, but the narrator (also unnamed), has developed several different scenarios about how her aunt had become pregnant and defiled the family name. It is obvious that women had no value of their own, for even if she was raped, she would still have faced the same consequences.

The narrator tries to make sense of what happened to the aunt, or could happen to her, through a parallel of what her own life and actions could be, especially in light of her newer Chinese-American lifestyle. She tells the readers that her aunt "once found a freckle on her chin" and seared it with a needle to remove it, cleaning it with peroxide. There is no way that she could have this information since no one will talk about the aunt. I believe that she is talking about herself here, and overlapping her life with her aunt's.

The symbol of circles, of things that are "round" also stand out in the story. "The round moon cakes and round doorways, the round tables...one roundness inside another, round windows and rice bowls...this roundness had to be made coin-sized so that she would see its circumference"(13).

These circles are representative of the family circle, which, in Chinese culture, is also encompassed by the community circle. The circle keeps the family and community strong. It protects each of them and keeps intruders out, but it also keeps the narrator imprisoned by her own family culture and tormented by the possibility of her own failures.

Question: Do you think the narrator is defending the aunt or is she condemning her too?

Fear, Bondage, and Anonymity: A Bildungsroman

              “No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston is an exquisitely written exploratory journey of a young girl trying to assimilate into American culture while struggling to balance her ancestral traditions and lifestyle. This is a sort of coming of age story, the maturation of a young Chinese-American girl during her formative years. Such ostracism and struggle often occur amongst emigrants in the “melting pot” of America where ideals and old traditions are threatened by a new environment, society, and community. After being informed of her aunt's demise, the narrator launches into perplexity and imaginative thoughts. She relates to her aunt because she too is struggling with keeping the customs, but in a different environment entirely. As she matures into womanhood, indicated by menstruation, she grows along with her ideas about her aunt's life. It is interesting how delicately and detailed she describes her imagined aunt’s scenarios with. Initially, her youth shines through as expressed in her choice of metaphors paired with an insuppressible infatuation with the opposite sex. As the hypotheses went on, they became more detailed and intertwined with her vernacular are tinges of corruption, sexually forbidden information, and crude jargon. 

There were many moments that made me stop and think, but this epiphanic moment was impossible to ignore.  "But there is more to this silence: they want me to participate in her punishment. And I have. (Kingston, )"Up to this point, she had spent her life hypothesizing six or seven different scenarios for her aunt's turn of fate. Using her hypotheses as a distraction from her family and her struggles by relating small instances between old China and new China along with the past and the present. Now, she comes to the realization that her struggle is bigger than internal, it is one of generations, past and future. So instead of continually fantasizing she incorporates it into her life purpose.  The ending of the story is structured as an afterward, the narrator rendering her work in progress and how it shaped and continues to shape her life through a no name woman who means everything to her.

Two questions in particular arose after further analysis: 1. Since there is a reoccurring theme of bondage and enclosure, whether it be feet or the "round" community, was it irony that the no name woman met her fate inside a circular enclosed space? 2. Does the story give any hints on how to escape the circuity, or if Kingston desires to be freed?

No Name Village

The moment:

Page 13

"The frightened villagers, who depended on one another to maintain the real, went to my aunt to show her a personal, physical representation of the break she had made in the "roundness". Misallying couples snapped off the future, which was the be embodied in true offspring. The villagers punished her for acting as if she could have a private life, secret and apart from them."

This moment was chosen because it sheds light on the complexity of villager's motives to raid the aunt's home. The pregancy is seen as something more than an isolated moral infraction contained within one person (a la Hester Prynne), but rather as an act against the village itself. The villagers, in fear, seem to feel they are raiding out of self defense. The calculated nature of the raid suggests this as well; amidst all the chaos, there remains some conformity to protocol, and the villagers sob only in anticipation of future hunger pangs. They know that despite their rectifying actions, this doesn't change the fact that there will be another mouth to feed. Uncertainty presses itself upon this village, and the very poor of rural China feel that the only way to have a chance at survival is to dissolve all notions of individuality for the sake of community. The issue with the pregnancy is not one of sexuality, but of compromised lineage. It seems that the aunt had compromised the future.

Yet, in resurrecting the aunt, the narrator considers that maybe the aunt wasn't trying to have a separate life at all. Maybe she was being raped, and knowing that drama like that would shake an already fragile community, she put herself second and "did as she was told" (page 6). Throughout her pregnancy and birth she refused to identify the father, again putting community and others before herself. Yet class has determined the severity of the aunt's punishment, the famine times enhancing the group mentality and turning mistake into crime (page 13). The village, jaded by hunger and uncertainty, created a rift in their community that came back to hurt them. After giving birth, the aunt refused to leave her baby in the mud in exchange for the outcast table because she realized the cost of destroying people for the sake of survival. In an act mirroring her own ostracism, she rejected the village, forgetting it completely as she lie on her back becoming "...one of the stars, a bright dot in blackness." Yet where the village raid was coldly methodological, the aunt has malice in her heart, and chooses to taint the village well in her final, and only, act of retribution.

Question:

What does is the story suggesting about the state of the village, which is vigilant about maintaining order, when it is clear that some find death a more welcoming alternative?

Edit: on revisiting The Scarlet Letter, I am questioning my statement that the aunt's situation is very different from Hester Prynne's.

Necessity, Adultery, and Wastefulness

“No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston (1975) Chapter from the book: The Woman Warrior

As a Chinese-American woman, the narrator is trying to make sense of her aunt story in order to draw up a comparison between her own life as a first generation American and her aunt’s life in a poverty stricken Chinese village in order to form her own identity.

Moment: When the narrator explains traditional Chinese views about Necessity and Adultery/Extravagance, “My mother has told me once and for all the useful parts. She will add nothing unless powered by Necessity, a riverbank that guides her life…Adultery is extravagance… –Could such people engender a prodigal aunt? To be a women, to have a daughter in starvation time was a waste enough. ” Pg. 6 (141 of Course Packet)

This moment is key in understanding the critique that the narrator is making about traditional Chinese culture and race. Her mother telling her the useful parts means that her mother has only revealed enough of the story to teach her a lesson about the values of her culture. The mother’s life is guided by necessity with a capital N and it becomes an important reoccurring theme in the narrator’s understanding of her race and why members of her family chose to immigrate to California. The “useful parts” are what the narrator associates with being the traditional Chinese views. The story of her aunt with no name, whether true or not, makes the narrator aware of at least three maxims that must guide her actions. She must not be extravagant. She must not be adulterous. And she must not be wasteful. The narrator describes the “wastefulness” of being a woman in “old China” as originating from poverty. She later attributes the perceived severity of adultery as also stemming from the poverty of the village. The phrase “prodigal aunt” is an interesting word choice because prodigal means wasteful or recklessly extravagant and relates back to the offenses, which her mother warns her against. There is plot holes in the aunt’s story which the narrator fills with the aforementioned maxims inculcated in her by her mother while at the same time attempting to compromise these views with her own anxieties regarding rape or being “American pretty/feminine” in order to attract boys her age in America without losing the values of her race.

Question:

Particularly in immigrant cultures, is it possible to fully acculturate into a country that propagates values that directly contradict those of your Race?

A Negro's Lot in Life

Joe uses an old Testament verse to describe the situation Missie May has introduced into their happy, simple lives. The story of Lot, his wife, and his daughters fleeing the city of Sodom during it's destruction by fire and brimstone.

When she turned from the stove and bent to set the cup beside Joe's plate, she saw the yellow coin on the table between them. She slumped into her seat and wept into her arms. Presently Joe said calmly, "Missie May, you cry too much. Don't look back lak Lot's wife and turn to salt" (993).  

This parable has so many controversial themes that I was unprepared for it's use by Joe. Sodomy comes to mind first. But I think Joe reflects on the virtues of Lot who was steadfast under the temptation to watch Sodom fall. Essentially, I concluded that Joe comes to the revelation that his humble, Negro life is comparable to the Rockefellers, Fords, and Slemmons in the world. Joe urges his wife "not to look back" and he means she should not dwell on the past and more importantly not to envy others lives. He realizes there may be severe repercussions to envy from a distance and that he and Missie Mae don't have to look at others to determine the value of their lives.

Why does Joe eventually use Slemmon's gold piece to purchase his wife candy?

"Big Pimpin" - Jay Z (again)

“Good Lawd, Missie! You womens sho is hard to sense into things. He’s got a five-dollar gold piece for a stick-pin and he got a ten-dollar gold piece on his watch chain and his mouf is jes’ crammed full of gold teethes. Sho wisht it wuz mine. And whut make it so cool, he got money ‘cummulated. And womens give it all to ‘im” (989).

            When a new man comes to town, Joe is fascinated with his wealth. Joe adamantly wishes to have the same wealth as Slemmons; even though Missie tells him, “Ah’m satisfied wid you jes’ lak you is, baby” (988). However, this does not suppress Joe’s desire for riches, and he devises a plan to get it, Missie. In the 1930’s, African Americans faced inequality in every way, and Joe sees Missie as a way for obtaining the wealth he longed for. During dinner one Saturday, Joe and Missie are discussing Slemmons’s liking for pretty women, and Joe tells Missie, “Go ‘head on now, honey and put on yo’ clothes. He talkin’ ‘bout his pritty womens – Ah want ‘im to see mine” (989). Joe hopes that Missie will entice Slemmons so that he will want to give her “gold money” to sleep with him. Joe comes home from work early one night and finds Slemmons in his bed with Missie. There is an altercation in which Joe knocks Slemmons to the floor breaking Slemmons watch off its chain in the process. After Slemmons runs out the door, Joe does not seem too upset, and “he put Slemmons’ watch charm in his pants pocket and took a good laugh and went to bed” (992). Missie is frantic and says, “Oh Joe, honey, he said he wuz gointer give me dat gold money and he jes’ kept on after me.” Joe replies with, “Well, don’t cry no mo’, Missie May. Ah got yo’ gold piece for you” (992). Joe is a poor black man in the 1930’s who desperately seeks wealth; however, with no opportunities of achieving his dream, he resorts to using his wife.

So, do you think Joe used Missie?

The Significance of Slemmons' Money

"Before morning, youth triumphed and Missie exulted. But the next day, as she joyfully made up their bed, beneath her pillow she found the piece of money with the bit of chain attached.

Alone to herself, she looked at the thing with loathing, but look she must. She took it into her hands with trembling and saw first thing that it was no gold piece. It was a gilded half dollar."

At this point in the story, Missie feels foolish for sleeping with Slemmons for his money when his money was fake all along. Its curious that, after Missie and Joe each have a clear understanding that the money was fake, things end happily ever after as far as the reader can tell. Joe seems contented to find that his wife slept with a man who was rich in counterfeit money instead of real money. This suggests that Joe is less worried about the fidelity (or prostitution, essentially) of his wife than he is about his financial standing compared to the man who slept with his wife.

After researching the story a bit, I learned that, to a certain extent, it was a comment on America's abandonment of the gold standard, but I believe there is the significance of Slemmons' money apart from being a critique on America's currency. What difference does the legitimacy of Slemmons' money make in the situation? Why do Missie and Joe both seem to feel more contented knowing that it is counterfeit?

The Money Monster

"There were no more Saturday romps. No pockets to rifle. In fact the yellow coin in his trousers was like a monster hiding in the cave of his pockets to destroy her." It can be argued that Missie May and Joe’s marriage thrived on the delight created by Joe’s weekly treats. In turn, this led Missie May to the assumption that the source of happiness was indeed monetary and because of this she slept with Mr. Slemmons in hopes of receiving some of the gold he claimed to have. She is painted as a simple and naïve woman and thus her actions do not appear to be done with ill intentions. This is one of the many moments in which she realizes that the loving relationship she shared with her husband is forever tarnished. It also shows that she finally acknowledges that money isn’t everything. How do Missie May and Joe’s perception of money differ?

Empty Bellies

"Joe looked down at his own abdomen and said wistfully 'Wisht Ah had a build on me lak he got. He ain't puzzle-gutted, honey. He jus' got a corperation. Dat make 'm look lak a rich white man. All rich mens is got some belly on 'em."

The Gilded Six Bits seems to be a cautionary tale against dissatisfaction. Joe and Missie May are poor but content before a supposedly wealthy man comes to town and spoils their harmony. Joe wants to be like Slemmons, envying his gold teeth and fine clothes, and especially the belly that suggests an easy, prosperous life. Slemmons himself is imitating rich, white men, claiming that all his money was given to him by "white womens." Missie May claims to be completely happy with Joe and their modest life until the first night at the ice cream parlor, when she gets a glimpse of more. There is a question of worth in the story- how much are things, people, relationships worth? With the conclusion, Hurston seems to be saying that 50 cents is worth more when exchanged for candy kisses and the hope of renewed contentment than as a kept reminder of envy and betrayal.

Is this story more about race relations or socioeconomic ones? Could this story have been cast with characters of a different race and still be valid?

Gold Piece

"Alone to herself, she looked at the thing with loathing,but look she must. She took it into her hands with trembling and saw first thing that it was no gold piece. It was a gilded half dollar. Then she knew why Slemmons had forbidden anyone to touch his gold. He trusted village eyes at a distance not to recognize his stick-pin as a gilded quarter, and his watch as a four-bit piece." pg.994

 As Slemmons comes into town wearing his fancy suit and glittering gold teeth, Joe reveres him to be one notch lower than a rich white man. As Missie May sees Joe's desire for wealth and respect, she sleeps with Slemmons in order to try to get some gold. However, the plan backfires on her when she sees that the gold Slemmons has is all fake. The situation came out to be extremely ironic, because as she tries to secure her husbands happiness, she ends up losing it and her self respect for an imitation. This comes to show how the African Americans had to deal with social success, or lack of, at the time. For as hard as they tried, and for as much money they made, wealth was all an illusion. They were still stuck at the bottom, dealing with preconceived notions of wealth and success through the lens of white Americans. The only thing they could count on in the end, Joe realizes, was each other.

Do you think it would have made a difference if Slemmons was portrayed as a white man? What if Joe and Missie had been or a different race?

"go on brush your shoulders off" - Jay-Z :)

"Wisht I could be like these darkies. Laughin' all the time. Nothin' worries 'em" (996).

            The store clerk utters these words without a true understanding of human character. Traditionally, a consumer does not divulge personal information to a store clerk. Instead, the consumer remains detached for the duration of the encounter. Not only is Joe's disengagement in this instance indicative of standard impersonal interaction, it is also characteristic of black culture during this time period.  The 1930's were a time where many African Americans couldn't catch a break with regard to racism and inequality. Instead of obsessing over troublesome situations in which they had no power to singularly overcome, one brushed it off. To say that Joe was unaffected by Missie's infidelity is misguided. I'm sure it bothered/worried him to no end. Nevertheless, he eventually "laughed" it off and continued his day-to-day like because for African Americans existence itself was a constant battle and decisions were made regarding which battles were worth forgetting. He chose to leave behind the memory of Missie and Slemmons because he felt their love benefitted him in the long run.

Question: Why else would Joe choose to stay with Missie despite her infidelity?

No difference between a Knight and abuser?

In Raymond Carver's short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," Carver depicts a middle-aged man named Mel, who believes he has enough authority over the subject to declare, that love is cut and dry. Such as, he believes Ed to be a bad man, who could have never possibly loved Terri, becuase of his violent nature. Mel has a very respectible understanding of love, when he declares it to be "that impulse that drives you to someone special" (133), yet he believes that love can easliy come and go from one's life. He is under the belief that if one were a Knight they would have the ultimate protection from heartbreak because they were, "pretty safe with all that armor" (135). However, even this dream is crashed when Nick abrubtly states,

"But sometimes they suffocated in all that armor, Mel. They'd even have heart attacks if it got to hot and they were too tired and worn out. I read somewhere they were to tired to stand with all that armor on them. They got trampled by their own horses sometimes"... "Thats right" said Mel "Some vassal would come along and spear the bastard in the name of love." (136)

Ultimatley revealing that whether your a crazy man like Ed or a portected Knight in Shinning Armor, you are diseptible to danger- whether thats a broken heart leading you to suicide or overcompensating and wearing to much armor; one stil suficates. Which leads him to drink more and more to avoid the painful realization that love is dangerous and there is no way to protect yourself from heartbreak.

Therefore, where does Mel go from this understanding? Is love really dangerous?

Jeremy's Burden

"Jeremy was different. He'd lost everything -- his walk, his smile, the muscles of his upper arms and shoulders. Even his hair lay flat now, as if he couldn't bother with a tube of gel and a comb. When she saw him at the arraignment, saw him for the first time since she'd climbed out of the car and limped into the dorm with the blood wet on her legs, he looked like a refugee, like a ghost" (8).

T.C. Boyle's story "The Love of My Life" begins with two teenagers, Jeremy and China, completely and totally infatuated with each other. After a night of unprotected sex, China gets pregnant and decides to keep it a secret from everyone. Even after Jeremy makes a feeble attempt at helping her, she forces him to remain quiet and not to reach out for help. Jeremy delivers the baby in secret and then leaves the baby "in the Dumpster out back" (6). When confronted with his wrongdoing by the police Jeremy is completely dumbfounded. Jeremy was so blindly confused all he can say was "What's this all about?" (7). Jeremy remains in shock as he vaguely recalls "that thing in the garbage sack" that he "fling... into the dumpster like a sack of flour"(7). Jeremy cannot even think of the baby as a human life but merely a "thing" that he was forced to get rid of. Jeremy's lack of emotion and complete confusion of his actions are indicators that he might have been in mental shock when he disposed of the baby.

Is Jeremy acting as a selfish murder or just an immature, emotionally disturbed boy looking to preserve his current life?

Babies Having Babies

"...she pulled open the freezer door and extracted a pint box of ice cream. She was in her socks, socks so thick they were like slippers, and a pair of black leggings under an oversize sweater. Beneath her feet, the polished floor boards were as slick as the sidewalk outside, and she liked the feel of that, skating indoors in her big socks.... She dug a finger into the ice cream and stuck it in her mouth."

The details in this passage could be describing a child- eating ice cream with your finger, playing slip-and-slide in your socks. At this and several other points in the story, Boyle references immaturity, irresponsibility, and a sense of entitlement to describe Jeremy and China, and I think it starts right here. The many "definitions" of love sprinkled throughout- kissing at every opportunity was love, not bringing a fishing pole on their fateful camping trip was love- are all naive oversimplifications of a complex process that often necessitates sacrifice, which these characters clearly know nothing about. These are two privileged teenagers who were so wrapped up in themselves that they easily justified committing a crime that no normal person in their position would even contemplate.


But....
Although Jeremy and China's selfishness and the horror of their crime are both evident, this is still, essentially, a love story, and lovers are generally sympathetic characters. Are we supposed to feel sympathy for Jeremy and China? Are we intended to champion their love, even while abhorring the moral depths to which it led them?

Lifeless Love

“At first, she called him every day, but mostly what she did was cry—‘I want to see it,’ she sobbed. ‘I want to see out daughter’s grave.’ That froze him inside. He tried to picture her—her now, China, the love of his life—and he couldn’t… because all he could remember was the thing that had come out of her…” (86)

After the death of the baby everything in Jeremy’s life was cold, still, and lifeless, just like the child he knowingly murdered. Most notably, his love for China faded into a cool regard. Even as he called her the love of his life, he could not picture her, just as he couldn’t picture his mother earlier in the story. The death of his father and of the baby result in the same loss of connection to someone he loved. When he describes both the baby and kissing China, he relates them to “cold meat,” emphasizing his perception of them as objects undeserving of compassion or value. Essentially, Jeremy is selfish. His love was founded more in an immature lust than any real connection, which is evident in how he handles the entire situation with a chilling passivity, even in the face of his crime. He sees his mother’s arguments, which demand empathy, as “pathetic” and ultimately his heart becomes “like sand turning to stone under all the pressure the planet can bring to bear.” However, this selfishness existed prior to his arrest, most evidently demonstrated in his ability to throw the baby in the dumpster despite its “rattle of a breath.” The only love Jeremy could foster was a love for himself and his interests. He did not consider the repercussions China would endure, both emotionally and physically in her life. While China may have truly loved Jeremy, the eventual distance that pervaded their relationship proves the shallow nature of their “love” that transformed into contempt under the strain of their situation.

Can what Jeremy and China had be called love, or were they simply two teenagers entranced by lust? Was it only Jeremy’s fault their lives were ruined, or by telling him to “get rid of it,” was China also to blame despite that she didn’t know the baby was alive?

When Two Socks Fall In Love

T.C. Boyle's "The Love of My Life", tells the story of two ambitious selfish so totally in "love" teenagers whose whole world revolve around each other and nothing else. What supposedly start's out as a great loving relationship, end's in deep tragedy with the love experienced between China and Jeremy becoming nothing more then a shadow of it's former glory. One of the moment's in the story come's in the form of imagery during the camping scene:

"What else? The rain, of course. It came midway through the third day, clouds the color of iron fillings, the lake hammered to iron, too, and the storm that crashed through the trees and beat at their tent with a thousand angry fists."

During this unforgettable week there was to be nothing but sunshine yet the rain came through and shattered the sunshine. This scene in many way's imitates what happened to China and Jeremy's relationship as they suddenly got swept into this unplanned path with the pregnancy and the media attention and the public bashing's they received during the trial.

Throughout the story, the love they have for each other is mentioned repeatedly yet by the end and particularly when Jeremy throw's away the baby they both made while making love, it has to be asked if the love they had was as strong as they lead themselves to believe. Despite their agreement about being always safe with sex they still proceed to do it with no thought for the consequences and afterward's in every way act very selfish. By essentially throwing away the baby as Jeremy so easily did, they threw out their "love" and failed to weather the storm together. It is also interesting how Boyle opened this story be calling them a pair of sock's because a pair will always be together until eventually one sock becomes lost and in a pair of sock's there can never be a third.

Question's:
1. What do you think was the problem with Jeremy and China?
2.At the very end of the story, can it be said that China really does still love Jeremy?
3.Why are they in particular trying to prosecute Jeremy and willing to let China off the hook?

More than moon… and That Was Love - The Love of My Life

In T.C. Boyle’s, “The Love of My Life”, China and Jeremy’s love consists of a matter-of-fact statement written in speech form.

When the narrator says, “Five days. And it wasn’t going to rain, not a drop. He didn’t even bring his fishing rod, and that was love.”

This phrase defines love as something that exists when individuals are united. The idea was, when these people are together, nothing else matters. However, after their unprotected sexual encounter, Jeremy and China had to part ways.

The Moment: The moment when Jeremy and China must part ways to go to different schools and she reads him, “A Valediction of Weeping.”

“More than moon, that was it, lovers parting and their tears swelling like the ocean til the girl—the woman—the female—had more power to raise the tides than the moon itself, or some such. More than moon. That’s what he called her after that, because she was white and round and getting rounder, and it was no joke, and it was no term of endearment.

She was pregnant.”

In the poem they talk about a girl who is impregnated with tears from her lover, which John Donne describes as, “Fruit of much grief,” due to their farewell. In this short story, T.C. Boyle uses this poem as a way to show how separation can change the love between two people. Being pregnant draws them apart even more than their physical separation. At the end of the story, all she can remember is the time when they were camping together, and all he can remember is the way she looked when she was giving birth. Perhaps Jeremy killed their child to save their love. He rationalized that he was doing the world a favor, but by the end of the ordeal and incarceration he could hardly remember what “his love” (China) looked like.

Question: If this story is a commentary on the effects separation can have on love, do you believe that love can exist in the absence of physical and/or emotional togetherness?

with brokeback in your rearview mirror

"Dad says, you got to take him unawares, don't say nothin to him, make him feel some pain, get out fast and keep doin it until he takes the message. Nothin like hurtin somebody to make him hear good" (269).

Throughout the story relationships are built on the incommunicable, the violent, and the separation. That is, information is shared or discovered after the fact. These discoveries then result in moments of aggression, violence, and depression. It takes Ennis years to realize why he fell sick to his stomach after parting ways with Jack. Jack gets angry with Ennis for waiting a week before telling him they can't meet up again until November. And Ennis comes to "know" that Jack was killed with a tire iron. Indeed, it seems pain makes these characters "hear good," even if it takes some time.

And so I wonder: what argument do these moments make about the nature of memory in this story?

Desire or Love

“He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.” Memory plays an important part in the complex relationship between Ennis and Jack and raises interesting questions about the line between desire and love. When the author writes “there was no real scent, only the memory of it” the author is implying the lack of substance the relationship held giving it the ability to fade away into a mere distant memory. The author leads readers to believe that the love experienced between the two was merely the product of desire and not really love at all. Each encounter, as infrequent and brief as they were, was driven by sexual desire and the memory of each visit kept alive by the remembrance of their shared sexual pleasure. There was never enough time spent together to allow the relationship to grow beyond the first few stages of love; desire and attraction. Thus, the only thing the two had to build the relationship was based on the memory of the sex they shared. Can the relationship shared between Ennis and Jack even be classified as love at its youngest stage or is it the product of sexual obsession?

Love vs. Commitment

"'Listen. I'm thinkin, tell you what, if you and me had a little ranch together, little cow and calf operation, your horses, it'd be some sweet life'...'Whoa, whoa, whoa. It ain't goin be that way. We can't. I'm stuck with what I got, caught in my own loop. Can't get out of it" (pg. 270) "Jack, I got a work. Them earlier days I used a quit the jobs. You got a wife with money, a good job. You forget how it is bein broke all the time...I can't quit this one...You got a better idea?' 'I did once.'" (pg. 277)

That Jack and Ennis were never able to live with each other, or to be together for an extended period of time is one of the biggest conflicts in the story. Both characters were profoundly scared of their attraction to each other and their homosexuality was clearly not on par with their lifestyles and upbringings. However, though they never said it, they loved each other enough to go out of their ways to spend time with one another, and even to quit jobs. Jack and Ennis show far more compassion for one another than they show for any woman throughout the story. And, though their fear is understandable considering their cultural climate, it's clear that the two would have been more happy together than they were apart. Had they lived together, it seems that Jack and Ennis would have had a more fulfilling life.

To keep one's promises and honor one's commitments is admirable, but there are prevailing idea in love stories that 'love conquers all' and that one should 'gamble everything for love.' At what point is abandoning one's commitments(family, career, etc.) for a relationship an acceptable thing to do? Were Jack and Ennis past that point?

Wrong Place, Wrong Time?

                Throughout the story Jack and Ennis struggle with not only accepting their feelings towards each other, but also their public image. Ennis tells Jack about two men who lived and worked a ranch together. One of the men was brutally murdered because of their queer relationship. When discussing a recent embrace with Jack, Ennis says, “You and me can’t hardly be decent together if what happened back there… grabs on us like that. We do that in the wrong place we’ll be dead” (269).

                My question is where is the right place for them to be together? Is it Brokeback Mountain, even though their relationship has been seen there? 

Basic Instincts

             After Jack and Ennis passionately reunite after a four year separation, Jack suggests they dump their families, move in together, get a little ranch and do what they do best. Ennis refuses explicitly and does so by saying

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. It ain't goin a be that way. We can't. I'm stuck with what I got,  caught in my own loop. Can't get out of it...And I don't want a be dead" (270).

         
              In previous stories we have discussed the public nature of relationships and how the success of some relationships depends on public approval and encouragement. Unfortunately, Jack and Ennis's relationship only flourishes in the isolated natural locations they visit. Ironically, the 'unnatural' nature of their relationship in the eyes of the people around them can only grow and take root in pure nature. As we are told in the story, from the 1960s through the 1980s gay men were being killed in a manner paralleling lynching. Ennis's instincts seem privy to this fact and although he loves Jack, he loves breathing a little more. In the lines above, Ennis is explaining 'Survival 101' to Jack. He is explaining how society, not nature, decides the acceptable parameters for the way we should love, copulate, and with whom. The loop of life gives Ennis a guideline to living successfully and it's why he doesn't ask Jack to be with him after his divorce. In fact he has relationships with other women in his town. Society wouldn't allow two men to live together and Ennis knows that if he crosses the boundaries that dictate his life then he will get the tire iron. However, Jack seems more tuned to his natural instincts instead of his societal instincts. We see the consequences of breaching those parameters when Jack doesn't get rehired by Joe Aguirre, Alma finally leaves Ennis, and the eventual death of Jack Twist. Although nature accepts Ennis and Jack for who they are, eventually society decides if it's right.

How are nature and the forces of nature used to illustrate this love story? Why don't Ennis and Jack return to the first place they discovered their love for each other, Brokeback Mountain?

Brutal Love

"Jack, I don't want a be like them guys you see around sometimes. And I don't want a be dead. There was these two old guys ranched together down home, Earl and Rich--Dad would pass a remark when he seen them. They was a joke even though they was pretty touch old birds. I was what, nine years old and they found Earl dead in a irrigation ditch. They'd took a tire iron to him, spurred him up, drug him around by his dick until it pulled off, just bloody pulp. What the tire iron done looked like pieces a burned tomatoes all over him, nose tore down from skiddin on gravel" (270).

When I first read this scene I was struck by how gruesome it was and how gruesome the people who committed this murder must have been, but when I thought about the story as a whole, I was brought back to this scene not only because it is possibly what happened to Jack, but also because it shows the way people looked on gay love at the time. It actually goes a long way in telling the reader exactly how much they were risking in continuing their relationship. Because this story reflects backward in time, this scene does a lot to show the reader how gay love was thought of.

There is an interesting symmetry in the way Jack and Ennis's love for each other and the death they possibly face in continuing to love each other. Because they seem so violent with each other in the bedroom, they therefore must also face a very violent death should the society at large discover their relationship. If their love for each other was not so brutal, but rather passive on one side or both, it would be impossible to believe that they would stay together facing such a gruesome deaths.

In this story, love is always represented in a brutal way. Does this story reflect on society in the fact that love might always be brutal, either emotionally or physically?

The Art of Communication

"They never talked about the sex... saying not a goddamn word except once Ennis said, "I'm not no queer," and Jack jumped in with "Me neither. A one shot thing. Nobody's business but ours" (262).

This passage comes just after Ennis and Jack's relationship turns sexual. Both men find them selves denying the fact, that their relationship is not "normal" among friends, colleges and men. Since they never speak about their feeling and the situation, neither man knows what the relationship means. Especially, at the end of summer, when they finish the job, and go home without either man expressing his desire to the other about maintaing a relationship. Dating and sex are already complicated, but then add two straight men (one whom is engaged) and their lack of communication into the mix, and it makes for a disastrous outcome. This single-handedly ruined their lives, ultimately leading both men to live unhappy lives apart from one another.

Do you think if Jack and Ennis had established their relationship early on during their first summer, they would have been able to maintain their relationship, while live a "good life together" (277)?

"But I think what you're saying is that love is an absolute."

In "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," Carver pushes the expectations and comforts of the reader. The story is centered on two couples, and very different opinions on love which the couples discuss over drinks one afternoon.

Love is both the most difficult and complex emotion we have. As a child, we're taught of the different basic loves: familial love, friendship love, romantic love. We all have a picture of what love is, what it should be like. This picture is often very different from reality.

In the story, Mel's wife describes an abusive relationship from her past. Mel refutes, saying that that type of relationship could never be love; however, Terri is convinced that it was a form of love. When asked if the behavior of the abusive man sounded like love, the narrator responds:

"I'm the wrong person to ask," I said. "I didn't even know the man. I've only heard his name mentioned is passing. I wouldn't know. You'd have to know the particulars. But I think what you're saying is that love is an absolute." (129)

While reading this story, the reader almost innately sides with Mel, assuming that such a love could not be love at all. As the story progresses, however, Carver's core argument which I believe to be that love is not an absolute puts the reader in the uncomfortable position of reconsidering just what this basic emotion is and means.

My question for class is: Can love be sick, and still be love?

The Dialogue of Love

In the short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,"Raymond Carver illustrates two couples interactions and their discussion about love. Terri describes her past relationship with an abusive partner as being truly loving. Her current partner, Mel, cannot understand Terri's reasoning behind her belief that her ex-partner, Ed, truly loved her.

"He kept saying,"I love you, I love you, you bitch." He went on dragging me around the living room. My head knocking on things"(128).

As a reader, you automatically side with Mel and cannot see how this is a display of love, but Terri is convinced saying "But he loved me. In his own way maybe, but he loved me" (129). This relationship and the reactions of the other characters symbolize the convoluted and twisted nature love can take. No character can give an assured description of what they think love is, besides Terri and her obvious dark answer. Terri's description of her situation represents the empty dialogue that resonates between the characters throughout the story that somehow brings them together while also forcing them apart.

The characters toast to "to true love," and Mel attempts to describe "what real love is,"but I'm not convinced any character in the story has truly experienced or can explain what love is (132). Over the course of the story, dialogue bounces between the characters, dancing around the fact that none of them know or can articulate what love is.


Is love something that can be effectively described or merely just felt? What character gives the best explanation or display of love in the story?

Superficial Love

"For an answer, I took Laura's hank and raised it to my lips. I made a big production out of kissing her hand. Everyone was amused." (132)

This moment sheds light on a superficial yet standard form of what love should be. At the surface this physical expression of touch is merely a public gesture of affection. Raymond Carver uses the phrase "big production" to argue this superficial image of love. The argument is setup in a intricate fashion to entertain the reader with different perspectives on love. One could consider his reason for kissing her hand was because people were watching, in a sense it is all a show. Another would argue it was out of pure affection. Carver wants to scuff under the skin of society by showing how love could be just a "big production" to some couples. Indeed "everyone was amused" by it.  

Is love superficial? 

Love Actually

"Laura is a legal secretary. We'd met in a professional capacity. Before we knew it, it was a courtship. She's thirty-five, three years younger than I am. In addition to being in love, we like each other and enjoy one another's company. She's easy to be with." (Carver 131)

Mel, Terri, Nick, and Laura present the reader with a discourse on the ambiguity and depth of true love and resulting consequences of such. It is interesting to note the extreme contrast in romantic beginnings each couple comes from, giving way to the many roles love can take in one's life. The whole story circles around the true purpose of love and its concrete definition in a real-world sense, but no single character can give a full filling answer. The whole story feels me with an uneasy feeling because no single conclusion is brought forth other than the realization that love is significantly more complicated than thought. Nick finds love to be an entity separate from emotional and physical attraction, implying love should be easy and smooth-sailing. Then again, if relationships and love were so easy to abide to, wouldn't everyone be in a relationship? His reasoning for their marriage and love is a list of simplistic qualities alienated from love as a whole. Love goes hand in hand with good company and attraction. Without either, love cannot survive in a relationship, as neither love nor relationships last easily. Mel's description of the elderly couple's accident seems to be the only accurate description of love, while Terri's prior relationship can so easily be deemed domestic violence. Then again, her ex had such devotion to his love for her, he wouldn't live without it…literally. Each character provides insight to the possible depths love dives into, giving way to the ultimate message that love has no true bounds or means. The whole framework behind love is so ambiguous, it falls to the perception of each person differently, giving way to no real limitation or definition on love. At the end of the day, love is in the eye of the beholder. 

Is the idea of love true to its form or is it commercialized and molded to what society finds true love to be, restricted to societal pressures and influence? Why so?

These People Don't Know What Love Is

In "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", two couples spend a of day drinking and trying to decipher the meaning of love. It was a bit hard to identify an overall big moment, and instead I found what could best be called mini moment's. One such moment was at the beginning when Nick, "....encircled the broad wrist with my fingers, and I held her (129)." This sentence came right after Terri told everyone about her abusive ex-husband and insisted that her ex-husband lover her. It stood out to me because it felt that the way Nick decided to hold her wrist, instead of her hand was a way of showing an act of possession, more then being a sweet gesture. Another instance of the relationship that can be seen between Nick and Laura is how he comment's on how," In addition to being in love, we like each other and enjoy one another's company. She's easy to be with" (131). Why he said this confused me greatly because in order to be truly in love, you should already like the person and enjoy their company or else what would be the point of being with that person? It almost  made the relationship between them seem shallow. As for Terri and Mel, I could not decide if they still had their so called love between them or not due to the dialogue becoming confusing as more alcohol was consumed. Mel out of all of them seemed to think that he knew the most about love and yet with his failed marriage and his desire for his ex- wife to be killed by bee's I feel that perhaps he knew not one bit more then the other's.The fact that Mel was a heart surgeon but didn't know how the heart or love worked was also greatly ironic. Terri on the other hand only knew love in form of abuse, and it was sad to read as she said,"...Sure,sometimes he may have acted crazy. Okay. But he loved me. In his own way maybe, but he loved me. There was love there, Mel. Don't say there wasn't" (129). From what can be seen by this, it seem's that she in no way, despite having a better relationship with Mel, has come to terms emotionally with what she was put through. Alcohol of course was one of the biggest part's of the story and it served to keep the conversation going and loosening tongues as in Mel's case.

Questions: What are the varying other opinion's on the relationships between these two couples? What was the significance of the ending?

The Dangers of Love

 Mel believes he has authority over the subject to declare, what love is and what love isn't. Such as, he declares Ed to be a heartless man, who never loved Terri, because of his violent nature. Mel is also under the belief that if one were a Knight they would have the ultimate protection from heartbreak, because Knights are, "pretty safe with all that armor" (135). However, this ideal is debunked when Nick abruptly states,

"But sometimes they suffocated in all that armor, Mel. They'd even have heart attacks if it got too hot and they were too tired and worn out. I read somewhere they were too tired to stand with all that armor on them. They got trampled by their own horses sometimes"... "That’s right" said Mel "Some vassal would come along and spear the bastard in the name of love" (136).

Nicks graphic statement ultimately reveals, that whether one is a crazy man like Ed or a protected Knight in Shining Armor, one is still susceptible to danger, when it comes to love. Which leads Mel to drink more to avoid the painful realization, that love is dangerous and there is no way to protect oneself from heartbreak.

Therefore, do you agree that this story serves to warn against the deadly powerfulness of love?

Something to Talk About

Having read Carver's "Cathedral" a few years ago, I was already aware of his style of writing that makes readers feel as if they are present in the room while conversations take place. I was not disappointed with this story. Raymond Carver's short story, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" is so deeply packed with meaning that I find it difficult to choose one quote to discuss. Themes of varying kinds of love fill these few pages so thoroughly that one cannot unpack it all in a brief blog.

In this story, Mel, notably a cardiologist, (heart surgeon) shares his views on love with his wife of four years, Terri; the narrator, Nick; and his newlywed wife of over a year, Laura. Their talk takes place over massive amount of alcoholic beverages at Mel's house. "'What do any of us really know about love?' Mel said. It seems to me we're just beginners at love. We say we love each other and we do...I must have loved my first wife too...now I hate her guts...What happened to that love?'"(132-133). For Mel, love is ephemeral and disposable like a razor that gets dull. When it cuts you, you just throw it out and grab a new one. Mel covers the gamut of love in his discourse much the same way we did as we described love in our last class.
According to Mel's wife, Terri, love is obsession, as her ex, Ed tried to kill her and later committed suicide for love. Nick and Laura represent young love, fresh, new and idealistic. Terri and Mel's love is chilly and fading as they are superficially kind to one another, but are seething underneath. Finally, Mel talks about the elderly couple in an accident. The elderly man is devastated because his bandages prevent him from gazing into his wife's eyes. This is the demonstration of love to be emulated, a love that reveres and adores and stands the test of time. This is the love that is missing from the heart of Mel, the heart surgeon who medicates his love deficiency with alcohol, hoping for a cure.

Love Poition

"It is known that if a message is written with lemon juice on a clean sheet of paper there will be no sign of it. But if the paper is held for a moment to the fire then the letters turn brown and the meaning becomes clear. Imagine that the whisky is the fire and that the message is that which is known only in the soul of a man - then the worth of Miss Amelia's liquor can be understood." (10)

Liquor plays an important role in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. The townspeople love it as well as Cousin Lymon, who enjoys the company and attention that the liquor brings in the cafe. I found this interesting since liquor is usually associated with substituting sadness for bliss, then sooner or later the effect wears off and back to sadness.

Is McCullers making some kind of similarity between liquor and love? Would this story have the same impact if food, another thing that can bring someone happiness, or anything else were used to bring people together? Is there any connection between the description of Amelia's whisky and the characters?

Unrequited Love

“Through the open door the crowd could see her sitting at her desk, her head in the crook of her arm, and she was sobbing with the last of her grating, winded breath.  Once she gathered her right fist together and knocked it three times on the top of her office desk, then her hand opened feebly and lay palm upward and still.”

One of McCuller’s running themes throughout the story is unrequited and isolated love.  McCuller depicts the less relished side of love by subjecting her characters Amelia, Cousin Lymon and Marvin Macy to a doomed love that is unreciprocated by their beloved.  While unrequited love leads Cousin Lymon and Marvin Macy to a life of lawless action, it leads Amelia to an even more isolated life forever haunted by heartbreak.  This section in the novel is especially important because it marks the moment in which Amelia relinquishes her strength and pride which made her both feared and revered by the townspeople.  Before, her pain could only be seen by a flicker in her eyes but now her indifference to the open door shows she is broken to the point where she can no longer hide her anguish.  Her last hand gesture conveys to the reader that her fight and vigor has fled and in its place has settled the perpetual aches of an unrequited love.          

Why did Amelia, whose strength and independence was at one point notable, allow herself to make such an emotional investment into Cousin Lymon giving him the power to bring her to ruins?  

Lover and Beloved: The Chorus to The Ballad of The Sad Cafe

"First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons-- but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored up love which has lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow, every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. " (25)

This passage is key because it outlines the nature of the three main relationships of the story: the relationship between Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy, the relationship between Miss Amelia and Cousin Lymon, and the relationship between Cousin Lymon and Marvin Macy. We see in each of these relationships that there is in fact a lover and a beloved. Thus in this passage and throughout the story Carson McCullers demonstrates a belief that the concept of love is defined  and created by inequality. As the story plays out, we watch the way the dichotomy of "lover" and "beloved" brings distress to each person involved, and how it causes irrational behavior. McCullers's idea of love is not one of health, nor of happiness, but of continuous struggle.

Discussion Question:
How does the role of "lover" or "beloved" manifest itself in the behavior of each character as they exist in each role?

Opposites Attract

"There is a type of person who has a quality about him that sets him apart from other and more ordinary human beings. Such a person has an instinct which is usually found only in small children, an instinct to establish immediate and vital contact between himself and all things in the world. Certainly the hunchback was of this type" (20).

 The relationship between Miss Amelia, the hunchback, and Marvin Macy is that of a love triangle. While  the "love" is not always romantic, each character is allured by, or is drawn to, the "oppositeness" of another character. For example, Miss Amelia develops love for the hunchback because because he is everything she is not. His social and child-like personality paired with his simple mischeviousness nicely compliments her need for oder. Similarly, Cousin Lymon finds excitement in Marvin Macy because his character appeals to his interest in crime. While I'm skeptical to touch on the relationship between Marvin Macy and Miss Amelia, I think Marvin's interest in Amelia stems from her orderly life. She grew up in a nice home and has a lot going for her, yet she also has a "badass" side to her. I feel that Marvin, a hard criminal, is drawn to her ability to balance these traits, something he is unable to do.

Why do you think Marvin Macy is initially drawn to Miss Amelia?

Stay. Sit. Good girl, Nisha.

"A woman of color does not clean house, that was what her mother always told her, and it had become a kind of mantra when she was growing up, a way of reinforcing core values, of promoting education and the life of the mind, but she couldn't help wondering how much higher a dog-sitter was on the socioeconomic scale than a maid." (Boyle, 2)

T.C. Boyle's short story "Admiral" proves to be study of class and socio-economic status, utilizing Nisha as a contrast to the harsh and standoffish nature of the Strikers. Boyle creates the stereotypical, flaunting, self-interested rich class of people in the Strikers, portraying the neglect and lack of interest they have towards Nisha, emphasizing their pure interest in her services with Admiral. Nisha's mother consistently raised her with the indoctrinated idea of societal structure and job applicability for an independent, class-conscious, African American woman. Her mother detests second rate jobs, and instills the drive in Nisha to succeed, to further her education, to progress her place in society. She even convinces herself that the job is temporary, but when faced with the downtrodden state of her mother, she finds the necessity to continue with the opportunity. In reality, her mother would detest the job, seeing it as an inferior position, not worthy of her. She realizes her true worth over the course of the story. After Nisha starts her trials with Admiral, "She'd had the acceptance letter in her hand to show her, thinking how proud of her Mrs. Striker would be, how she'd take her in her arms, for a hug and congratulate her, but the first thing she'd said was What about Admiral?" (Boyle, 5) From the start, we see the difference in attitude, as the Strikers purely use Nisha Admiral's sake, uninterested in her worth and success. In essence, the Strikers buy Nisha just as they nought Admiral, treating her like an expendable asset, and not as a human being of equal right. Only "as the days beat on, she began to understand what her role was, her true role,"in the Striker family (Boyle, 21). She hits rock bottom, realizing her lack of success, her lack of potential, stagnant by the hands of the Strikers. She tries to rationalize her current situation, her dying mother, her current ties to the Striker family, thus realizing she must pave a new path and future for herself and Admiral. Her release of Admiral parallels her release from her shackled life with the Strikers, and subsequent lack of success and educational progress. She is free from her past, and looks forward, toward her life after this debacle. 

Discussion Question: 

Do you feel sympathy towards Nisha 's exploits or do you find her demise to be a consequence of her own actions? How would the story differ had the Strikers not foiled her plan to expose them?