Narrative style plays a huge role in the story "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie" from Junot Diaz's Drown. The distinguishing feature that makes this story so different from the others in the collection is that it is written in the second person, constantly using the imperative mood throughout. Our narrator is once again Yunior, and the story progresses as he discloses to the reader his step-by-step process on what to do when on a date with a girl, based off 2 main things: her race and her location. Yunior proceeds to explain to the reader the different scenarios that might occur with each permutation of race and location, starting when his family leaves all the way to later in the night, when the girl finally leaves, and tells the reader, using imperative, and how to handle each of them to ensure the optimal outcome of the date. Yunior is very methodical and critical about this process, but his vast knowledge doesn't appear to be very natural in the story. Instead it appears rehearsed, almost as if Yunior had sat down and memorized what to do in each and every situation so that when the time came for another date, he would be fully prepared and not have to worry over a lapse of mind. Ironically, it is this vast knowledge of dating that results in the notion that Yunior is actually overall insecure about himself while dating. While Yunior appears to put on this facade of confidence while dating, his obsessive habit of planning out what to do in every situation, depending on a girl's race and location, show that Yunior is above else worried about his image and that he will mess up. By memorizing all these different scenarios and through the use of second person, Yunior is able to minimize mistakes and hide these worries while dating, which only proves to accentuate his insecurities overall.
We can observe Yunior's insecurities about his image by observing his obsessive and perfectionist behavior on the very first page of the story. Yunior waits to have girls over until his entire family is gone and he has the house to himself, already establishing that he feels too insecure and embarrassed to have the girls he brings over meet his family. Quickly after his mom leaves, Yunior rushes to rearrange the house: "Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator. If the girl's from the Terrace stack the boxes behind the milk. If she's from the Park or Society Hill hide the cheese in the cabinet above the oven, way up where she'll never see" (143). Yunior has a unique scenario on what to do with the cheese in his refrigerator depending on where the girl is from. Already we see Yunior putting to use his expertise on women based on location, as he knows exactly where to move the cheese depending on where the girl is from. The fact that Yunior is bothering with moving something as trivial as cheese from the refrigerator in the first place, even if it is from the government, in itself shows how obsessive he is about protecting his image. He thinks that a girl seeing that he is living on welfare must be prevented at all costs, as it could soil his reputation early into the date, even if that means moving the government cheese out of sight of the refrigerator. The fact that he memorized exactly where to move it based on the girl's location simply shows the extent to which Yunior will go to preserve his image. A similar notion of Yunior's obsession for perfection appears when he is waiting for his date to arrive: "The directions were in your best handwriting, so her parents won't think you're an idiot. Get up from the couch and check the parking lot [...] Wait and after an hour go out to your corner" (144). Yunior again is primarily concerned about his image to the parents at the beginning of this scene, as he is depicted writing as best as he can to impress them. When his date doesn't show up on time he checks several times and is clearly concerned, but when she finally shows up later in that scene, he quickly tries to put up facade of coolness by unsuccessfully running his hand through his hair.
Interestingly, even though the story is written in the second person, and it appears that Yunior is simply throwing the reader into a date and providing he or she with several different scenarios, it almost has the opposite effect of making Yunior himself look even more insecure. We can draw an important connection here between this story and several stories of Lorrie Moore's characteristic second person narration style. The difference with this story is that the word "you" seems to appear a lot less than it does in any Lorrie Moore story. Instead, it is replaced with a multitude of imperatives that on the surface are simply telling the reader what he or she is doing in the story. At first, this simply seems like a nuanced form of the second person writing style, but upon further inspection we can observe that this is not the case. The specific imperatives that Yunior uses include short, two-word phrases such as "be prepared," "stay alert," and "don't panic". While these imperatives do appear in a second person context, several of them take the form of reassuring phrases. The lack of prevalence of the word "you" and instead increased frequency of these short imperative commands give a feeling that the reason Yunior doesn't use "you" as much as Moore is because a lot of the advice he is offering through these imperative commands he is actually speaking to himself. It's as if Yunior is giving himself a pep-talk to reassure himself to "be prepared" and "don't panic" during different times of the date. We already observed how obsessive Yunior is when it comes to memorizing and playing out all the different scenarios depending on the race of a girl or her location, and keeping in mind something like this it isn't unreasonable to assume that Yunior isn't just speaking his directions and advice to the reader, but also to himself. This notion that Yunior uses the second person and knowledge of every scenario to cover up his insecurities culminates well with what he narrates with the whitegirl where we finally see the full extent of Yunior's insecurities about his image: "Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your own" (147).
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Friday, April 1, 2016
Trudy's Paranoia
In the story "Amahl and the Night Visitors: A Guide to the Tenor of Love" from Lorrie Moore's Self Help, we are prompted to decide for ourselves whether or not Moss, the boyfriend of the main character in the story, Trudy, is cheating on his girlfriend. Trudy has suspicions that Moss is lying about staying out and coming home late due to his constant rehearsals, but that instead he is having an affair with another woman. As the story progresses and more and more evidence is uncovered that points towards the notion that Moss is in fact having an affair with another woman, Trudy gets more and more paranoid and obsessive about the situation as a whole. This creates an unhealthy cycle in which Trudy's suspicions initially cause no drastic changes in the relationship, but simply badger and wear Moss out over time, as he slowly grows annoyed with Trudy's behavior. One possible angle in looking at it is that Moss simply stays out late not to have an affair, but to avoid his constantly paranoid girlfriend who won't even let the cat out of the house, which in turn causes Trudy to grow even more paranoid as Moss is out more and for longer time periods. This entire dynamic and lack of communication between the two characters results in a deteriorating relationship which neither of them address or attempt to improve. In reality, whether Moss is cheating on Trudy or not doesn't matter in itself, but instead it is the obsessively paranoid behavior of Trudy that acts as the catalyst for this gradual deterioration and eventual end of the relationship.
Starting from the second of Trudy's "diary entries" in the story, Trudy already expresses her beliefs that Moss may be cheating on her. She is met with a slightly sarcastic response and ends the entry right there, but her suspicion is still present and has grown since that night, as we can see in the scene where Moss and Trudy invite the principals to dinner the before the rehearsal. Sonia asks about the strange noise that the cat is making by rolling around a marble in the bathtub, and Moss replies: "It's the beast," says Moss. "We should put her outside, Trudy. He pours Sonia more wine, and she murmurs, "Thanks" (103). By making this comment, Moss essentially aligns himself with Sonia in this scene, and more importantly detaches himself from Trudy. He knows that Trudy absolutely adores the cat, and by ruthlessly calling it a "beast", he is calling Trudy out on something she refuses to do: take the cat outside. Normally this wouldn't be too big a deal, as Moss complains about the cat often, but what's important to observe is how he follows up his comment. Moss follows his comment by simply pouring Sonia more wine, but what's important is Trudy's reaction to this, when she immediately jumps up to go and get the marble from the cat. Trudy is so paranoid from Moss' previous comment when he connected with Sonia that she feels threatened by this simple act of pouring wine. It's as though she is made so uncomfortable by the thought of Moss cheating on her with Sonia that she feels the need to physically jump up out of her chair, using the excuse of the marble as a way to excuse and recompose herself.
This whole scene gains a lot more meaning when Trudy questions Moss about whether or not he is seeing Sonia later in the book. The fact that even eleven days after the dinner, Trudy believes Moss is involved with Sonia shows how paranoid she is, as she is connecting this entire theory to Sonia almost solely based on the simple interactions that occurred between her and Moss at the dinner. Moss is evidently annoyed by this though: "Stop," says Moss. "You're being my wife. Things are repeating themselves. [...] "Trudy You've got to stop this. [...] "I'm going out to get a hamburger. Do you want anything?" (108). Moss is tired of the paranoid Trudy's constant fretting that he is cheating on him, and repeatedly tells her to stop doing what she's doing; he's getting fed up with her. After hearing Trudy say the same things again, Moss states that he is leaving to go get a hamburger twice. Here Trudy's apprehensions about the relationship are actually driving Moss away, as he simply feels annoyed by her and thus feels the need to go and get a hamburger to get away from her. The fact that he must say it twice only reinforces this notion and exacerbates the fact that Trudy's obsession is tearing the relationship apart.
Trudy's paranoia, in particular her lack of knowledge of her own obsessive nature, culminates with the final scene outside of Sammy's bar. Trudy sees Moss walking with Bob out of the bar and states: "Well, Moss. Here all along I thought it was Sonia, and it's really Bob" (110). This shows the extent to which Trudy will take her obsession over the relationship. Even if she is slightly joking in this scene, the fact that she would even go to the point of making a statement like that depicts the desire she has to know anything and everything that's going on with Moss. For Moss, however, this is the last straw, as he tells Trudy to "Fuck off" and charges towards the exit. Trudy desperately runs after him not even knowing what she was doing wrong, showing just how oblivious she is to her behavior and absolute disregard of personal space/time in the relationship. Whether or not Moss is having a separate affair or not, he draws the line as this scene, yelling at Trudy that the reason he is so angry is that she "just won't let people be" (111). Moss essentially sums up the situation with this sentence, implying that the reason he has been away from her so often is that he simply can't handle her constant nagging anymore. Ever obsessive, Trudy makes one last desperate attempt to restore the relationship, which ends up simply angering Moss even more as she's essentially doing the exact things Moss told her he hated. Moss leaves, once again stating that he's going to get a hamburger, effectively showing that Trudy's paranoia and obsessive nature about the relationship and Moss in general plays a major role in the separation of the characters.
Starting from the second of Trudy's "diary entries" in the story, Trudy already expresses her beliefs that Moss may be cheating on her. She is met with a slightly sarcastic response and ends the entry right there, but her suspicion is still present and has grown since that night, as we can see in the scene where Moss and Trudy invite the principals to dinner the before the rehearsal. Sonia asks about the strange noise that the cat is making by rolling around a marble in the bathtub, and Moss replies: "It's the beast," says Moss. "We should put her outside, Trudy. He pours Sonia more wine, and she murmurs, "Thanks" (103). By making this comment, Moss essentially aligns himself with Sonia in this scene, and more importantly detaches himself from Trudy. He knows that Trudy absolutely adores the cat, and by ruthlessly calling it a "beast", he is calling Trudy out on something she refuses to do: take the cat outside. Normally this wouldn't be too big a deal, as Moss complains about the cat often, but what's important to observe is how he follows up his comment. Moss follows his comment by simply pouring Sonia more wine, but what's important is Trudy's reaction to this, when she immediately jumps up to go and get the marble from the cat. Trudy is so paranoid from Moss' previous comment when he connected with Sonia that she feels threatened by this simple act of pouring wine. It's as though she is made so uncomfortable by the thought of Moss cheating on her with Sonia that she feels the need to physically jump up out of her chair, using the excuse of the marble as a way to excuse and recompose herself.
This whole scene gains a lot more meaning when Trudy questions Moss about whether or not he is seeing Sonia later in the book. The fact that even eleven days after the dinner, Trudy believes Moss is involved with Sonia shows how paranoid she is, as she is connecting this entire theory to Sonia almost solely based on the simple interactions that occurred between her and Moss at the dinner. Moss is evidently annoyed by this though: "Stop," says Moss. "You're being my wife. Things are repeating themselves. [...] "Trudy You've got to stop this. [...] "I'm going out to get a hamburger. Do you want anything?" (108). Moss is tired of the paranoid Trudy's constant fretting that he is cheating on him, and repeatedly tells her to stop doing what she's doing; he's getting fed up with her. After hearing Trudy say the same things again, Moss states that he is leaving to go get a hamburger twice. Here Trudy's apprehensions about the relationship are actually driving Moss away, as he simply feels annoyed by her and thus feels the need to go and get a hamburger to get away from her. The fact that he must say it twice only reinforces this notion and exacerbates the fact that Trudy's obsession is tearing the relationship apart.
Trudy's paranoia, in particular her lack of knowledge of her own obsessive nature, culminates with the final scene outside of Sammy's bar. Trudy sees Moss walking with Bob out of the bar and states: "Well, Moss. Here all along I thought it was Sonia, and it's really Bob" (110). This shows the extent to which Trudy will take her obsession over the relationship. Even if she is slightly joking in this scene, the fact that she would even go to the point of making a statement like that depicts the desire she has to know anything and everything that's going on with Moss. For Moss, however, this is the last straw, as he tells Trudy to "Fuck off" and charges towards the exit. Trudy desperately runs after him not even knowing what she was doing wrong, showing just how oblivious she is to her behavior and absolute disregard of personal space/time in the relationship. Whether or not Moss is having a separate affair or not, he draws the line as this scene, yelling at Trudy that the reason he is so angry is that she "just won't let people be" (111). Moss essentially sums up the situation with this sentence, implying that the reason he has been away from her so often is that he simply can't handle her constant nagging anymore. Ever obsessive, Trudy makes one last desperate attempt to restore the relationship, which ends up simply angering Moss even more as she's essentially doing the exact things Moss told her he hated. Moss leaves, once again stating that he's going to get a hamburger, effectively showing that Trudy's paranoia and obsessive nature about the relationship and Moss in general plays a major role in the separation of the characters.
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