One of the themes of the novel is identity. Identity, as it exists in the novel, is a malleable thing that can be manipulated and recreated. Many of the characters take on different personas and in some cases they literally impersonate others. Mary’s mother pretends to be her sister Helen in order to deceive Mary’s doctor, but also to avoid potential humiliation. Late in the novel, we are treated to two important figures in Mary’s life (her mother and her doctor) both misrepresenting themselves at a fundraiser. Mary feels forced to pretend she is someone else, someone more complex, more adult in order to gain and keep the attention of those around her. She does not have that label that her sisters have. Regina, “the poet” and Gaby, “the athlete,” overshadow Mary, “the unexceptional.” Desperate for an identity of her own, she settles for Mary “the liar” and accepts this role for much of her life. It is only with the death of her mother that she is forced to confront the damage that she has done to herself and those around her. The complexity of the narratives make this a difficult confrontation for her. How much responsibility should be placed on her mother, who was unable to communicate real feelings with her children? On her various doctors, who used her for their own future success? On her ”abductor” who shouldn’t have let her in his car in the first place? Julavits does not provide an easy answer for any of these questions. All the characters are struggling with their own identity crises and are unable to recognize this in others. Julavits captures something that is rarely discussed among adults. While many people like to stress the importance of just being oneself so much time of our time is spent adjusting who we are for the benefit of others. As students we have a specific classroom persona, with our friends another, with our family another and so on. The eternal question (who am I?), that Mary is grappling with at sixteen and at thirty will continue throughout her life and can not be resolved.
Blog Post #2: The Uses of Enchantment
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September 16, 2009 at 10:13 pm |
Sean,
It’s interesting that you bring up the fact that we all have different selves that we use in different situations. I guess that kind of means that no one ever really knows anyone else. But do we ever know ourselves if we’re constantly adjusting who we are to please others? I wonder about the Mary that lives out in Oregon. Maybe that’s where she became her “real” self, reclaimed her narrative. Or maybe she became the self she wanted to be, the self she liked most. When Mary and her sisters are around each other, they just seem to fall back into the same old behaviors–one sister even digging out old jackets and hats–despite who they’ve become. Mary seems to be unhappy with how she’s acting, wanting to act differently towards her sisters, but just can’t seem to break the pattern.
It’s also interesting that you point out how so many people impersonate other characters in the novel. Maybe Mary is just a series of impersonations. After reading all of the posts, I think the reader never really meets Mary. She’s still out in Oregon.
September 17, 2009 at 12:15 pm |
Sean,
I will say this about Mary, Regina, and Gaby: There comes a time in a person’s life when you have to take ownership of/for what happened in your youth, the mistakes/choices you made along the way, etc. The whole “I’m this way because…” argument doesn’t hold water and it sure as hell doesn’t get you anywhere. I’m talking about self-honesty, I guess. Our ability to be honest with ourselves has a direct correlation on how we treat others because, as fallible human beings, we have the nasty little habit of tranferring our internal “truths” onto those around us. I think that’s what drove me nuts about this novel: no one seemed to have screwed up the courage to confront their demons, grow, change. Instead, everybody was just pointing fingers. I love how you touched on the concept of “adjusting who we are for the benefit of others.” It seems to me that the three sisters do this because they never really learned how to show their love in a non-hurtful way. How sad.
September 17, 2009 at 1:33 pm |
Sean,
I, like Paula mentioned, am interested, and like the way you bring up the issue of our different selves. I’ve always thought of that regarding my friends from high school, once we all went away to college. I feel like I am a different “Caitlin” when I go home at times, and I wonder just what some of my friends are like at school. Mary is the same way, and I wonder, as well as you, if Mary ever really will find herself. I think because she lacks any form of support within her family that it will be very difficult for her to come to terms with just who/what her identity is. As Randy said, it really is quite sad.
September 17, 2009 at 5:39 pm |
I think that when you grow up or participate in a dysfunctional family, although what is a functional family, your identity in that family is hard to overcome. Mary falls back into the same structure of dealing or not dealing with her past the second that she walks back into her parent’s house. Perhaps, as Paula pointed out, she has found her true identity in Oregon, but she cannot escape her troubled identity in her hometown. It will forever define who she is. Just as Sean points out, we are different people in different settings. And, sometimes this is a conscious thing and sometimes not. In this scenario, Mary is unable to transform how she is identified, and I suppose Randy and Caitlin are correct, it is sad.
September 19, 2009 at 8:37 pm |
You make a very good point in saying that identity is not a stable in this novel. Identity is always shifting. We see a lot of this in Mary. The identity she has in the sections which are taking place in present day is completely opposite of the identity we see in the other two sections of the novel. Younger Mary was confident and cunning and we could see that she was clearly in charge of the situations involving both Dr. Hammer and her abductor. However, she is lacking this in her older self. Mary also tells the reader that even though her sisters seemed to have a niche, she discredited them. Saying that Gaby wasn’t really all that pretty and Regina was a poor poet. Perhaps the change in Mary was an attempt on her part to distance herself from her perceived niche as she did with her sisters.
-Ryan