Mother's Madness Part 2 Electric Bugaloo

In my previous post I wrote about Annette and how people perceive her as "mad" and the unfairness of this judgement. As we sat in class and talked about the craziness of everyone in Milkman's life, I felt the same urge to protect Pilate as I did with Annette, so here we go. Pilate isn't perceived in the same way as Annette is; that is, she's not seen so much as crazy as she is strange, but nevertheless, she is not for "respectable people" to interact with.
Like Annette, it seems that she will do anything for her children, or children she feels very close to. She feels a strong protective urge for them. We see this most obviously with Reba, her actual daughter, when one of her boyfriends was hitting her over trying to get more money out of her. Pilate arrives on scene and without missing a beat or batting an eye puts a knife just a wee bit into his chest. She is disturbingly calm and rational as she talks to this man with a knife up against his heart, and explains to him how her babies are all she's got and she'll do anything for them. This to me resonated the most with Annette, and how Annette was threatening to kill her husband for what he had done to Pierre. This fierce need to protect her children is also seen with Milkman, as every time Hagar goes out to try to kill him, we are told that Pilate beats her. As much as Hagar is her child, she fought for Milkman's life and holds undeniable maternal feelings for him, and as such also needs to protect him, even from her own kin. Likewise, she breaks a bottle over Milkman's head after he causes Hagar's death. As much as she cares for Milkman, she would never let him just live without taking responsibility for Hagar's life.
Both Pilate and Annette are outcast members of society, and Pilate herself admits that that factor contributes greatly to her extreme protectiveness of her children. She mentions this while pushing the knife into the man's chest, saying that her babies are all she has and she would do anything to keep them safe. Though Pilate and Annette share their intense maternal protective instincts and place in the social hierarchy, there are differences in how they receive this placement. Because Annette had a taste of what it was like to be a member of society, she takes the fall much harder and truly does fall into madness. Pilate on the other hand, never had a chance to be part of normal society. When she began to get close to people they would discover her navel-lessness and push her away. All her life that had been how she lived, so she accepts her place much more willingly. In my head, I like to imagine at one point she just said "screw this" to everyone pushing her away and made her own way in life, knowing that the only people who would accept her would be her family, possibly only her children, and she was okay with that.
So, is it really fair to call Pilate crazy? Well, who can judge for sure?

Mother's Madness

In class we had a review of the characters in Wide Sargasso Sea to orient ourselves in the story. One of the characters we discussed was Annette, Antoinette's mother. In the story, Annette is thought of as "mad" or "crazy". She talks to herself, coldly brushes Antoinette off, and screams at Mr. Mason about how she is going to kill him. However, as we got to know Annette more, I wondered if she truly was crazy or if the people around her were just misinterpreting her actions. Closer to her death, I do believe that she may have started developing a mental disorder, but certainly before Coulibri was burned down I think an argument could be made about how she was not crazy, but simply suffering in multiple ways.
One of the ways that really stuck out to me in how she was struggling was as a mother. We are told a few times about Pierre, who probably has both mental and physical disabilities. With this hovering over Annette, it's no wonder that she is worried and stressed a lot of the time. Her pushing Antoinette away can be attributed to this. After all, Antoinette can mostly take care of herself, at least so it seems on the surface. It is only natural for Annette to worry and care more for Pierre than Antoinette in that sense. I don't think this was the best way for Annette to handle parenting her children, but I think it's a much more reasonable way to describe Annette than simply mad.
Another way that she is struggling is that she has been removed from society. We are told that before Mr. Mason arrived she was used to having guests, but around the time Antoinette was born or even before, she stopped having guests. She is described as talking to herself on the glacis, which could point to madness. However, I think it more likely points to loneliness. After all, she was used to having people around her to talk to, but with no one else, it's natural for her to want to speak aloud to herself. Hell, even I talk to myself outloud, and I do have social interactions.
Almost as a final tipping point for Annette was the burning of Coulibri. She loses her son in the fire, and the fire is directly Mr. Mason's fault. She threatens Mr. Mason, her husband, that she is going to kill him, and make him pay for what he has done. Of course this seems insane to outsiders, a kind of final puzzle piece to their suspicions of her madness. But this, out of all the symptoms of her so-called madness is the most understandable. She lost her baby, her son who she had tended to so much. She risked her own life without a second thought to try and bring him back from the fire. Of course she is going to be absolutely furious with whoever is to blame for his death, and as we discussed in class, Mr. Mason is that person. On this point, I think she is completely justified. No mother would be able to forgive the person who killed her child.
At the center of all of Annette's "madness" is everyone else's hatred of her. If she were surrounded by more supportive people, people who she could talk to and understood, she probably wouldn't be portrayed to the wider society as mad. She would probably be spoken of in a more sympathetic fashion, one that painted her in a more understanding way. She is a mother who is just trying to get by. But because of her social context, she is portrayed rather unfairly in my opinion as a madwoman.

Marie's Love

Throughout The Stranger, we get accounts of Meursault's relationships with others, including that with Marie. Marie and him seem to have a slightly complicated relationship, in that Marie clearly loves Meursault, and he recognizes that he does not feel the same way. Yet they stay together. Or more specifically, Marie still stays. It's unclear just how much Meursault is holding onto Marie, whereas it's obvious how much effort Marie needs to put into the relationship to continue it. In this way, Marie almost perfectly portrays how some women feel obligated to stay in relationships that may not be healthy to "save the man". In Marie and Meursault's case, the unhealthy relationship is characterized by how uneven the give-and-take is: Marie gives so much more to it than Meursault does.
The first example I immediately think of is how Marie asks multiple times whether or not Meursault loves her. His answer of not knowing, but probably not obviously is not what Marie wants to hear. After all, she herself had just told him she loves him, which implies that she wants to hear that he feels the same way. Though it's not explicitly said, this answer probably hurt Marie, and yet she continues to go back to Meursault afterward, and even talks about marrying him. Meursault seems indifferent to the prospect of marriage, saying they'll get married if she wants to. To me, it seems like Meursault would be indifferent to Marie staying or leaving, and it is up to Marie really to keep the relationship going.
Another example of this is when Marie comes to Meursault's trial. At first, she is just observing the trial, almost acting as an emotional support. Then she actively becomes a witness and defends Meursault, even crying on stand for him; crying because of how the court is twisting her words against Meursault. She tries to protect him, to save him, and the court is working against her. Still, she has hope for him, and even says that they'll get married once he gets out. She writes him letters fora  while as well, obviously showing how she is trying to keep contact and maintain a relationship, maybe even to give him something to look forward to when he gets out. Yet after she stops writing and visiting, the only thing he thinks about her is that he didn't really care if she was dead or a live. Granted, he was in a situation where it wouldn't ultimately matter to him objectively, but this is still a cold kind of statement to make.
Marie obviously doesn't like the current relationship the two of them have, yet she continuously comes back and tries to change it, and essentially change Meursault, for the better. This in the end only brings her sadness as she watches the man she thought she loved get condemned to death. To me, it seems evident that Marie would have been much happier if she had let Meursault go early on and found someone who could reciprocate her feelings, but because of the obligation she felt she had to defend Meursault and stand by him, she caused herself suffering.

The Sun's Rising

As we closed the novel The Sun Also Rises this week, I found myself wondering why the title is The Sun Also Rises. After all, Jake never really actively talks about or describes sunrise. The most we've ever gotten in terms of description of the sun is about how it's warm or bright. I thought about the nature of the ending of the novel, and I came to a realization and interpretation that I was satisfied with, but of course, please offer your own interpretations. I believe that The Sun Also Rises refers to Jake and Brett's relationship.
Specifically, it seems like it's referring to Jake and Brett's relationship resurfacing as calm and "good", or at least stable. At the beginning of the novel, Brett and Jake's relationship starts dipping down into negativity, in that it starts with the tense car ride. From there, it goes down, as Brett engages in a fling with Cohn. Jake becomes agitated at this, and his agitation only grows as Cohn continues to follow them around in Spain as well.
Their relationship seems to continue to spiral downwards. In Spain, it finally hits the bottom when Brett begins sleeping with Romero, and Jake hammers himself with alcohol to deal with this. They don't contact each other for a short period of time, and things calm down suddenly for Jake, something we haven't experienced often in the story.
This time period in which Jake seems genuinely calm seems like that grey time in the morning just before the sun rises. Though the sun hasn't begun to rise yet, it's obvious that it is going to and that light will shine again. When Brett calls him back to Madrid, they're meeting is relatively calm, considering the circumstances. Not only that, but they seem to have a genuinely nice time, other than Jake's drinking and Brett's lingering mind on Romero. Finally, on the last page, the book settles in to a peaceful ending, when they share a truly peaceful moment together, one that feels perhaps not rid of all tension, but rid of much of the tension that had existed when we first saw them in a car together. Thus, the sun has risen again, mostly calm and collected. But of course, it rises differently today than it did yesterday, and in this way I also believe that the sun rising refers to how Brett and Jake's relationship has changed, if only slightly. It seems at the end of the novel, that Jake is more accepting of his position in their relationship, depending on how you read his last words. The sun has not only risen again, but risen on a new age of their relationship.

Slut Shaming

In class we have briefly discussed the character of Brett. Whether or not you or I like Brett, we can agree that Hemingway portrays her as a character of problems. By this, I mean that a lot of the conflicts of the novel are centered around Brett. Through this, I'm going to make the argument that Hemingway is slut shaming. This might seem like a stretch, but hear me out. 

Brett's relationships often entail sleeping around, and are generally not very serious. We can see this in her multiple marriages and in her confession to Jake that if they were together she would be unfaithful to him. She is also open about this aspect of herself, as she tells Jake and even Mike knows about it. We can see this in the way they address Brett's relationship with Cohn, criticizing him for not realizing that it isn't serious and he is not particularly special to Brett. Though we don't know if Brett for sure slept with Cohn or not, the general principle is there. With her being so open about her sleeping around and many relationships, it might've been easy for the men close to her to feel disgusted by her, or at the very least disapproving of her actions, but we don't really see that, which seems to refute my point of her being slut shamed. However, I'm not arguing that the characters are slut shaming Brett, but that Hemingway himself is slut shaming Brett. 

I argue this because of where Brett stands in terms of the plot. The conflict between Mike and Cohn and the conflict between Jake and Cohn are arguably centered around Brett. Additionally, Jake's relationship with Paris and his own inner conflict are also arguably centered around Brett. These are all major conflict points within the novel, not small sideplots. They all also seem to revolve about not just Brett, but the fact that she sleeps around and has these open relationships. The way that it is phrased within the novel is that if Brett could just keep it in her pants, these conflicts would go away. Indeed, it seems that Brett at least feels this way to some extent when she talks to Jake and talks of how horrible she is. However, it isn't necessarily just Brett's fault that these conflicts arise, it's also the fault of the men involved. If the men involved truly understood where they stood with Brett and where each other stood with her, then the conflicts would have a much smaller degree of importance. However, both Hemingway and the characters involved only seem to see this with Cohn, and that may be for a whole different set of reasons. It is in this way that Hemingway slut shames Brett, and gives the men little responsibility for their own actions in their affairs with her.  

Let It Go

Septimus Smith is a very complex character in the novel Mrs. Dalloway, who isn't understood by many of the people around him. Do you know who else is a very complex character who isn't understood by the people around them in their story? Queen Elsa of Arendelle. Yes, the pretty ice queen from that Disney movie with the annoying song is very similar to the seriously damaged man Septimus Smith. Both are told by the people around them to just be normal, or at least to act normal. Going along with the Frozen analogy, Dr. Holmes is like Elsa's parents, who tell her to "conceal, don't feel," and she tries her hardest to follow their words, but throughout the first ten minutes of the movie one can see that she struggles with keeping her powers down. Likewise, Dr. Holmes essentially tells Septimus to snap out of his state and take up a hobby, and be normal. We see that Septimus, like Elsa, is aware that he is not the same as other people when in his last ten minutes he is seeing his home staying still, and we know that he struggles a lot with trying to seem normal to people.

If Dr. Holmes is Elsa's parents, then it isn't too much of a reach to claim that Lucrezia is Anna, Elsa's sister. Anna knows about Elsa's powers, but doesn't know how to help Elsa with them, just that she wants to help. She sees Elsa struggling and wants more than anything for them to be how they used to. Lucrezia is the same with Septimus. She knows that there's something wrong (granted, she doesn't know what exactly), doesn't know how to help, but knows she wants to help and make things back to normal. We see this especially in the moments leading up to Septimus's suicide when she is ecstatic about how they joke around like they used to.

After a trigger Frozen, Elsa runs away and finally lets go of her powers, freeing herself emotionally of the burden she held and allowing herself to do whatever she wants. For Septimus, letting go mean committing suicide and letting go of life, essentially doing the same as Elsa; freeing himself of his burden. Both characters originally didn't want to let go, but felt they were forced to by a trigger.

The question then, is what was the trigger? Or rather, who was the trigger? For Elsa, it was Hans, a prince who comes to her inauguration and wants to marry her sister. So, who is Septimus's Hans? I don't actually have a solid answer for this, but I have two thoughts of who it could be. Either Dr. Bradshaw is Hans, who causes emotions in Anna (Lucrezia) more so than he does into Elsa (Septimus), or Dr. Holmes again is Hans, who pushes Elsa to flee. What are your thoughts?

Uplifting or Depressing?

In class the other day, we began a discussion on if The Mezzanine is an uplifting look on our possible futures or a depressing one. Overall, the class seemed to come to conclusion that it is a depressing look into our future, which is understandable. After all, Howie is working in a corporate office building where he doesn't even seem to care about his work and amuses himself with office supplies and what seems to be complex day dreaming. The ways that he describes what has actually happened in his life may not be outright horrible in that he doesn't have a tragic backstory or really any conflicts that we would call major life conflicts, but his life seems to simply be static. Whenever we see this stereotypical situation in fiction, it's associated with a grouchy main character who hates life. The Mezzanine has a different take, and makes it seem that the protagonist is searching for ways to keep himself occupied. It's almost as if he is using the little things around him as coping mechanisms for the boring life that he has now. After all, it seems almost impossible that anybody could be so enthusiastic about anything as simple as stapler heads. It must be the only thing that he can focus on without feeling absolutely bored out of his mind at his depressing job, right? Well, maybe not.

On the other side of the coin that is Howie's life, perhaps this is an uplifting look on what is in the future. After all, could anyone fake the level of enthusiasm Howie has for the little things in life? It's not just him being overly obsessed over small things, it's also that he enjoys thinking about them and looking into them. The tone that he takes is never just neutral, he is genuinely interested in what he's talking about. Going back to stereotypical fiction and Howie's habitual extreme observations, maybe these aren't just coping mechanisms, but what he really thinks his life is. His life isn't his work, he doesn't want to tell the reader about whatever he's doing at work, he wants to tell us what interests him, and what interests him is what makes his life, life. In a way, it feels like Baker is showing people that even with a job that on the surface is boring, mundane, and dull, that life is exciting and has meaning. That life is not just about whatever you do being some glorious adventure, but it really is about stopping and seeing what is going on in the world specifically around you and appreciating it for what it truly is. If this is what Baker intended, or if it's just the way we approach the book, then The Mezzanine is a very uplifting look into our future, like a safety net of hope saying that no matter what you end up doing in life, it matters and it will be enjoyable even if it isn't in the conventional ways that we are so used to seeing and hearing about.