Dead as a doormat: the Dead women

We've talked at length about the differences between the Dead household and Pilate's house. Besides everything else, one of those is the role women play. Obviously, Pilate's household is made up entirely of women. In Macon's house, the women seem to mostly be "seen and not heard", with the exception of Ruth when she's trying to passive-aggressively taunt Macon. Until the very end of the first section of the book, Lena and Corinthians function more as living props/background than actual people. Lena, Corinthians, and Ruth all lead very "small" lives, never stepping out of their little domestic turf. (Of course, at the end of the first section we get to see that Lena and Corinthians, even more than Milkman, are beginning to assert themselves and break away from their parents. Reading that chapter was super satisfying because I spent most of the book to that point thinking that the sisters couldn't actually be as doormat-like as they seemed.)

When the Dead women do retaliate, they usually do it in small ways too: Ruth won't actually confront Macon, but she tells innocent-seeming stories to frustrate him, and she passive-aggressively fights with him over Milkman. Corinthians starts going out with Robert Porter and lies to her parents about her job, but doesn't fight Macon when he finds out about it. Milkman and Corinthians both defy Macon, but the ways they do it fit gender stereotypes: Macon defies his father by attacking him directly, but Corinthians does it by dating a man he doesn't approve of. (Reading about her was super frustrating to me because I just wanted Corinthians to get away from her family and actually have an adult life but no, that doesn't happen) Neither Ruth nor Corinthians are willing to actually stand up to the men in their lives, and stop once they're called out.

Lena's rebellion is perhaps the most overt and "masculine" of the Dead women's: she confronts Milkman directly and tells him what a shitty person he is. The wording she uses (saying that he "pees all over them") highlights Milkman's masculine privilege in the family: women typically don't/can't (literally) piss all over things. It's true, in a way: Macon gives Milkman the respect that he doesn't give his wife or his daughters, without Milkman having to work for it like they do. Milkman doesn't seem to see his sisters or mother as full people, and takes his sisters especially for granted. He totally disrespects Corinthians when he tells Macon about her relationship with Porter. If he wanted her to stop seeing him, he could have talked to her about it instead of going to Macon. Even though she probably wouldn't have taken it well, it would be more respectful to her. Instead, Milkman shows her just how mouch she, a fortysomething-year-old woman, is under the control of her father. (As I'm writing this, I realize that there could be another reason for why Milkman went directly to Macon: if he'd talked to Corinthians about it, she probably wouldn't have believed him, and so going to Macon was the only way he could definitely shut down the relationship.)

I agree with much of what Lena said to Milkman: even though it isn't usually intentional, he takes his mother and sisters for granted and walks (pees?) all over them in the first part of the book. I really, really didn't like Milkman for most of the book, because he spends most of it totally unaware of other people's feelings. He almost reminds me of Meursault like that - he just kind of goes along and has superficially pleasant relationships with people, but doesn't really understand how they're thinking and feeling.

Annette and Antoinette

Antoinette's mother and her relationship with Antoinette really sets the stage for Antoinette's actions in the last two sections of the book. It seems like people never stop talking about how Antoinette will unavoidably turn out just like her mother. When I hear that, my first instinct is to go, "No, she can change and become her own person, she isn't doomed just because of her family." However, as the book goes on Antoinette's life mirrors her mother's and the predictions start coming true. I really wish we could learn more about Annette, or see her from a point of view that isn't Antoinette or villagers who hate her. Why did she leave Martinique to get married? What was her relationship with Cosway like? What kind of person was she before the events of the book? How are she and Antoinette similar, and how are they different?

Both women are very emotionally isolated throughout Wide Sargasso Sea. When we first meet Annette, she is fixated on the past and everything she's lost. After the burning of Coulibri, Antoinette too is haunted by the past. However, their losses are very different: Annette misses her acceptance and status in society, but Antoinette, who has been ostracized her entire life, misses the beauty of Coulibri. For both women, their perceived madness comes from their past. Annette talks to herself out on the glacis because she's remembering days gone by, and Rochester thinks Antoinette is going mad because of her family history and because she sticks with the ways of her childhood (belief in obeah, familiarity with black culture, etc.) 

Annette seems to show more agency in her decisions than Antoinette does. Maybe it's because she's older, or maybe it's just a difference in personality. We don't know the circumstances of her marriage to Mason, but it seems like a deliberate decision on her part. She married him purposely to regain social status. It seems like she was also into the marriage, at least at first (the scene where Antoinette sees them together on the glacis seemed romantic). In general, it seems like more of a decision on her part than Antoinette's marriage to Rochester. Antoinette doesn't seem to know why she married him, and even when she tried to express her wish not to marry him she let herself be talked into it easily. Most of her actions seem dreamlike, and she spends a lot of time being shepherded around by other characters. Antoinette regains her agency at the very end of the book, when she decides to burn down Thornfield Hall. This echoes both the fire at Coulibri and the time Annette tried to kill Mason.

Both women's eventual madness comes more from isolation and oppressive social mores than anything else. While there may be some genetic component as well, I know that being ostracized and stuck in a decaying house for years with no friends/being alienated your whole life and then powerless in a marriage of mutual hatred (pick one) would definitely be enough to drive me crazy. The same gendered power dynamics affect them both: even though they come to hate their husbands/situation in life, they can't leave. Rochester and Mason hold all the power, and lock their wives up in their perceived madness. As mentioned, both Antoinette and Annette try to get revenge (free themselves?) by killing their husbands; while Annette fails completely, Antoinette is nearly successful. (Sorry if this post seems kinda disjointed, I'm trying to work through a bunch of different thoughts on Annette and Antoinette.)

Wide Sargasso Sea: the Musical

As I was reading Part 2 of Wide Sargasso Sea, I was reminded of this song I stumbled on a while ago. It's called "No Children", by The Mountain Goats. (yeah, weird indie music or whatever) When I first heard the song, I thought, "WTF is this? This is one of the most spiteful things I have ever heard in my life..." It's a song about a married couple who hate each other with a burning passion, don't expect it to ever get better, and seem to almost take masochistic pleasure in how terrible their relationship is. Kind of like Rochester at the end of part 2. Some especially fun relevant lyrics:

       I hope it stays dark forever
       I hope the worst isn't over
       And I hope you blink before I do
       And I hope I never get soberand,
       I am drowning
      There is no sign of land
      You are coming down with me
      Hand in unlovable hand
It's a really weird song, but I think it fits Antoinette and Rochester pretty well as the book goes on.

Anyways, there wasn't really a point to this post beyond sharing this song. More will be coming, but this is just something I wanted to point out.

Meursault's Friends

When we read The Stranger, we only see Meursault's actions and the people around him from his point of view. Although he's undoubtedly a very truthful narrator, he is so detached from the people around him that he fails to pick up on social cues, or more often he just doesn't care. To us, Meursault seems very weird and off-putting because we can see inside his head. I keep wondering: how does Meursault appear to the people around him?
     
       Meursault seems to have friends, or at least not to appear too repulsive to the people around him. He gets along with Salamano and seems to be friends with Raymond. From what we see in the book, both of these relationships consist of Salamano/Raymond doing or saying something, and Meursault passively agreeing with them. Salamano and Raymond take that passivity as support and read more into the friendship than Meursault intends. Meursault, for his part, genuinely seems to want friendship, but more for an alliance/someone who likes him rather than because he takes any actual interest in them as a person.

      Most of Meursault's friends (Salamano and Raymond) seem to be pretty seedy characters: a mobster(?) who beats his girlfriend and a guy who's abusive to his dog. This makes me wonder if "normal" people see through Meursault better. Maybe the reason Raymond likes Meursault is because he knows Meursault will go along with anything he says, and puts up with Meursault's weirdness because it benefits him. I feel like if another person had been in the room when Raymond was telling Meursault about beating his mistress, they would be disgusted with Meursault for allowing this to happen. Meursault thinks he gets along well with people (the people he waves to from his balcony, etc.). He doesn't seem to hold long conversations with them, though, so maybe he's not as good at it as he thinks he is. Celeste is his only friend who seems like a relatively nice person, but it doesn't seem like they have a particularly close relationship besides occasionally talking in the cafe. This is just me speculating, but Meursault seems like the type of person where people would be nice to him, but think he's a little weird and make excuses to leave after some polite small talk.

      

Gregor the Wind-up Toy

As I was reading the story, I got repeatedly frustrated at all of the characters because they're so stuck in their ways. No one ever seems to challenge the situation they're in or try to work around it. They take their first impression and build all of their actions around it. Gregor is the most obvious example of this - when his father is in debt, he just automatically assumes that it's his job to pay it off on his own. As we later find out, Gregor's father is by no means too feeble to pay off his own debt, but Gregor assumes he is and so gets a job that he hates without even consulting his family. Even though he could probably get another job that paid just as well that he didn't hate so much, Gregor doesn't even seem to consider that he could pay off his debt any other way.

Once Gregor becomes the sole breadwinner, his parents and sister are content to sit back and let things go on as they are, even though they're in an apartment that they hate and have lives with no real purpose. Even though they seem to love Gregor, at no point do they offer to earn money of their own to help him out. In a way, I felt like Gregor's family fails him by not offering to make his life any easier. It even seems like they stay in the apartment all day - no friends or outside activities are mentioned. Are they actually happy like this? Don't they get bored? Until the very end of the book, Gregor's family is content to mooch and stay in a pointless situation.

Once Gregor becomes an insect, it really bugged me (pun intended) that he never questions why this happened, or if/how he can change back, or how he can make the most of his new life. He tries to continue on his same old track, even when it becomes obvious it's not going to work. It's like watching a wind-up toy run into a wall repeatedly until it stops. Gregor just accepts the fact that his family doesn't really care about him, and he just goes along with whatever would make them most comfortable. If I were Gregor, I'd be furious and I'd try as hard as I could to communicate with my family. Can't Gregor...I don't know, move his bedsheets into the shape of letters? Scratch words into the wall? There has to be some way for him to let them know he's in there. Instead, he pointlessly resigns himself to the way things are.

As the book goes on, Gregor's family at least begin to show some more creativity and independent will. They have to get jobs (as someone mentioned in class, this can be seen as either a good thing or a sign they're going to become like Gregor. I choose to think of it as a good thing) and take responsibility for their own lives. Throughout the book, they've lived in an apartment that they hate, simply because Gregor chose it and they never stopped him from choosing it. After Gregor's death, the story moves outside the apartment for the very first time, and they finally live someplace they actually want. They take the day off (again, they write Gregor-like apology letters, but they don't seem to agonize over it like Gregor would; they just skip work and then go out into the city and enjoy their freedom).