Amy Bloom’s story “A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You” involves a mother, Jane, dealing with her daughter deciding to become a man. Jane is the protagonist, with Jessie (eventually Jess) her antagonist. Jane’s character is as realistic and likeable and empathetic from page one until the end, and part of what makes her so is her attitude towards her daughter/son. On page two she is at the park with 5-year-old Jessie, pondering how much she has in common with her daughter and what a fantastic pair they make.
“Jane didn’t mention all this to the other mothers at play group, who would have said it was the same between them and their daughters when Jane could see it was not … Jane’s reputation as the play group’s good listener was undeserved; the mothers talked about their knock-kneed girls and backward boys and Jane smiled and her eyes followed Jessie. She watched her and thought, That smile! Those lashes! How brave! How determined!” (2)
Even though Jane has just admitted that every parent thinks the same way as her about their children, only she has a child warranting such unabashed praise. That makes Jane a good mom, or at least the cool mom that all the other kids get jealous of. She’s the mom Jessie’s boyfriends will have a crush on and who her girlfriends will want to be like.
Yet, though Amy Bloom is sparing in her depiction of struggle in Jane’s life, they are there at the pivotal moment during which the story takes place. Jessie is getting ready for surgery to officially become Jess.
Jane seems and is supportive of Jess’s choice, and only from a reference earlier on page six do we suspect this may be hard for her.
“It did not seem possible that the great joke God would play on her was to take the love of her life, a wonderfully improved piece of Jane, and say, Oops. Looks like a girl but it’s a boy! Sorry. Adjust accordingly. It took Jane all of Jessie’s childhood to figure out what the adjustment might be and to save fifty thousand dollars to pay for it.” (6).
But the struggle of figuring out what to do is trumped by the struggle of how to maintain the beautiful, perfect relationship she had with Jessie with Jess. And her insecurities about how this is accomplished sneak their way into the story. At the gender-reassignment clinic, one mom comments to Jane about the conundrum of women with breast cancer trying everything they can to keep their breasts, while the girls at this clinic are trying to lop them off. Jane replies
“Well, for them, it’s like their breasts are tumors. For them, I just don’t think their breasts ever feel to them the way ours do to us.’ She thinks, And that would be how you can tell that they’re transsexual, Sheila. Sheila looks at Jane sideways, pursing her lips as if to say, Well, aren’t you understanding? Aren’t you just Transsexual Mom of the Year?” (9).
But we are reading from Jane’s point of view. Anything Sheila’s pursed lips were supposedly saying is only what Jane is supposing them to say. Just like at the playground, Jane is looking around at other parents and making herself to be far superior. And in many ways she really is. The relationship she had with her daughter is rare, and fighting to make gender-reassignment surgery not a big deal is only natural so she can maintain her ‘awesome mother’ role with Jess. But she is trying so hard to be accepting that she fails to take stock of what she really thinks, what is really happening, and especially what she really wants.
The separation between the two, though hardly beyond repairing, and which will absolutely be repaired, begins to show as the surgery approaches. They go sunbathing and “Just two years ago, they lay naked in their backyard, sunblock on their nipples and white asses, reading and drinking club soda. Now they turn away from each other to strip down to their underwear.” (16). Jane recalls an earlier time, thinking “When she hoped that Jessie might just be a lesbian …” (17). That ‘hoped’ also skews the readers’ perception of Jane’s complete understanding of what’s going on.
But the struggle evolves not with Jessie becoming Jess, but with Jane exploring her own sexuality. Jane sees Jess as sure of himself, decisive, knowing what he wants. Jane visits Northampton, Massachusetts, the ‘Lesbian Paradise’ by herself. She once took Jessie there to explore the lesbian world, but it obviously didn’t take with Jessie. Bloom writes that Jane visits Northampton every couple of years, long after Jess’s surgery. That also means long after the end of this story, which means whatever conclusion is made about Jane has to factor that fact in. And it isn’t ironic that on the same page we learn that as Jane is approached by a man;
“Jane has goosebumps and her chest hurts, and it has been so long since she’s had these symptoms that for a moment she thinks she’s getting the flu.” (20).
As a burgeoning relationship takes form, Jane struggles to figure out if he’s gay or straight, even as she appears to be falling for him nonetheless.
When Cole is not gay and expresses a sexual interest in Jane, there is a fragile, unfamiliar quality to Jane’s demeanor that hasn’t yet been expressed. It is as though she has finally stopped trying so hard to please, and is displaying plainly exactly what she wants: A man.
And though her man, Cole, offers mostly wild, conflicting emotions and sexual frustration and insecurity all within the first few days of knowing her, Jane accepts him into her life. She returns from the hospital where there is now only Jess, and allows Cole to hope. Jane also decides to trust in hope.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
James Joyce "The Dead:" Why the title
James Joyce twisted the way I might otherwise read “The Dead” because of the title. From page one I am looking for the significance of death or dying in this seemingly simple story of an annual dinner party. And it isn’t until page 27 of this 50-page book that death in any form is even mentioned.
The topic comes about when the conversation at the dinner party turns to the monks in Mount Melleray. The monks are described as never speaking, waking at two in the morning, and they sleep in coffins. Now coffin is a pretty obvious allusion to death in and of itself, but Joyce doesn’t just throw it in haphazardly. In titling the book “The Dead,” Joyce has attuned our senses to the topic, and when coffins are mentioned, the clocks start turning and analytical thinking becomes hyper sensitive.
The coffin talk continues for less than half a page, but after the party guests have discussed the oddity of the coffin bed, the question is posed as to why the monks sleep in them.
The coffin, said Mary Jane, is to remind them of their last end. (27)
Now the connection between coffins and death has been made, and there is an awkwardness at the table. It isn’t spoken of again, and instead Joyce writes.
As the subject had grown lugubrious it was buried in a silence of the table during which Mrs Malins could be heard saying to her neighbor in an indistinct undertone:
-They are very good men, the monks, very pious men.(27)
That ends the monk talk, but the damage has been done. These people are hesitant, even fearful of talking about death. The dead hold some mystery that they won’t comprehend. It’s not that they are unable to uncover the dead, it’s that for some reason they worry what they will find. They therefore keep their conversation very light and on the surface of things in the present, never delving into serious topics (such as religion, which seems also to be a shady subject).
But this aversion to death described via the monks makes the realization Gabriel comes to at the end that much more poignant. Gabriel, the protagonist, sees his wife moved to tears by a song sung at the party. This excites him for he thinks it may have unlocked some long forgotten feelings of playfulness and carelessness. He anticipates a reversion to their younger years, and he anticipates sex.
Her change, however, is more melancholy than Gabrielle had imagined. Her mood involves the death of a teenage love; a young boy who sang the same song which was sung at the party, who braved inclement weather while very ill just to see Gabriel’s wife one last time. The boy died as a result. And through much turmoil, Gabriel’s jealousy and anger die down and he contemplates the profound effect this boy had on his wife.
So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. (48)
The realization comes that those who aren’t talking about the dead are those fearing the impact they will make when they die. But a small impact in death is a result of a small impact in life.
Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. And realizing what his wife had with the young boy Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love. (49)
The dead had more impact on his wife than the living. And even earlier in the story there is talk of a long forgotten opera singer who has passed on. He is described as having the most pure tenor voice ever. This memory has more impact on the party guests who remember him than any living opera. The dead, apparently, evoke the kind of emotions that make life worth living.
As a side note to this story, the lack of quotation marks offers a seamless quality to the work. There are no pauses, and the writing flows into and out of Gabrielle’s mind freely and easily. Joyce also leaves out periods after prefixes: Mrs, Mr, etc. This has the same effect. There is nothing to halt the reader, but words flow on to other words.
The topic comes about when the conversation at the dinner party turns to the monks in Mount Melleray. The monks are described as never speaking, waking at two in the morning, and they sleep in coffins. Now coffin is a pretty obvious allusion to death in and of itself, but Joyce doesn’t just throw it in haphazardly. In titling the book “The Dead,” Joyce has attuned our senses to the topic, and when coffins are mentioned, the clocks start turning and analytical thinking becomes hyper sensitive.
The coffin talk continues for less than half a page, but after the party guests have discussed the oddity of the coffin bed, the question is posed as to why the monks sleep in them.
The coffin, said Mary Jane, is to remind them of their last end. (27)
Now the connection between coffins and death has been made, and there is an awkwardness at the table. It isn’t spoken of again, and instead Joyce writes.
As the subject had grown lugubrious it was buried in a silence of the table during which Mrs Malins could be heard saying to her neighbor in an indistinct undertone:
-They are very good men, the monks, very pious men.(27)
That ends the monk talk, but the damage has been done. These people are hesitant, even fearful of talking about death. The dead hold some mystery that they won’t comprehend. It’s not that they are unable to uncover the dead, it’s that for some reason they worry what they will find. They therefore keep their conversation very light and on the surface of things in the present, never delving into serious topics (such as religion, which seems also to be a shady subject).
But this aversion to death described via the monks makes the realization Gabriel comes to at the end that much more poignant. Gabriel, the protagonist, sees his wife moved to tears by a song sung at the party. This excites him for he thinks it may have unlocked some long forgotten feelings of playfulness and carelessness. He anticipates a reversion to their younger years, and he anticipates sex.
Her change, however, is more melancholy than Gabrielle had imagined. Her mood involves the death of a teenage love; a young boy who sang the same song which was sung at the party, who braved inclement weather while very ill just to see Gabriel’s wife one last time. The boy died as a result. And through much turmoil, Gabriel’s jealousy and anger die down and he contemplates the profound effect this boy had on his wife.
So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. (48)
The realization comes that those who aren’t talking about the dead are those fearing the impact they will make when they die. But a small impact in death is a result of a small impact in life.
Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. And realizing what his wife had with the young boy Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love. (49)
The dead had more impact on his wife than the living. And even earlier in the story there is talk of a long forgotten opera singer who has passed on. He is described as having the most pure tenor voice ever. This memory has more impact on the party guests who remember him than any living opera. The dead, apparently, evoke the kind of emotions that make life worth living.
As a side note to this story, the lack of quotation marks offers a seamless quality to the work. There are no pauses, and the writing flows into and out of Gabrielle’s mind freely and easily. Joyce also leaves out periods after prefixes: Mrs, Mr, etc. This has the same effect. There is nothing to halt the reader, but words flow on to other words.
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