Questionable Genders

To a lot of people gender seems to be one of the most important things in society that is taught to children. In this story, "And Salome Danced" gender seems to be ambiguous for some of the characters that are involved. The author, Kelley Eskridge wants to enforce the fact that gender is not the most important thing and that character can be built up without it.
Throughout reading the story I was really not sure whether or not Mars was a female or a male. The different characters within the story seem to not give clues on the gender or to point to anything that would give insight to the fact. It is totally up to the reader to determine whether or not Mars is a man, woman, trans, lesbian, gay, etc. When Mars addresses Jo and her gender ambiguity they state, “I don’t really care how they pee or whether they shave under their chins. Gender’s not important.” Throughout the story Mars seems to reinforce that statement by never exactly reveling their gender.
The character of Jo literally changes genders throughout the story. You can never really be sure whether she is a woman that had dressed up as a man one day or vice-versa. When Lucky and Mars talk about her they are not sure how to address her. This makes Mars highly uncomfortable because of the attraction between the two of them. The scene of Jo making love to Mars shows how uncomfortable it is, “Jo making love to me until I gasp and then she begins to change, to change, until it is Joe with me, Joe on me.” Jos ambiguity bothers people that are involved with her because she does not fill a gender.
The author Kelley Eskridge makes it a habit to make her stories characters gender neutral. Her other story "Dangerous Space", has the character Mars as well. Mars in that story also does not have a specific gender. Eskridge seems to enjoy having her readers be able to choose what gender that her characters are. Or it could be the fact that gender is not supposed to be important and having a gender neutral character makes a statement to societies over analyzing of gender as a whole. It relates to the story "Love Might Be Too Strong a Word", because it challenges the way we view gender and makes us realize how uncomfortable we are when we are not able to use the pronouns we have been taught to use our whole life.
We as humans have made gender so important to us. Like Theresa had mentioned in her blog we don’t know how to address people that people that do not claim a gender. Through Eskridges stories she makes a statement that we have to learn how to bend the rules we have set for ourselves as a gender focused society.

Androgyny or Confusion?

And Salome Danced is a perfect example of gender bending. The story shows that someone doesn't have to know the gender or someone else in order for the point of the story to get across. The gender of the character Mars is never revealed so it leaves space for interpretation. I personally saw Mars as woman who is a lesbian. I don't want to encourage stereotypical gender roles but I believe I saw Mars as a woman because Mars was so submissive to Lucky in the beginning and in the end Jo was able to dominant Mars.

During the class discussion however it came up that different people saw Mars differently. There were some who saw Mars as a straight man, some saw Mars as a woman who was a lesbian and there were even some that didn't give Mars a gender. I think Mars is never given a gender so that it can be left to the reader to decide who they want Mars to be.

I don't think the story would have changed if Mars' gender was made more important but I do realize that we do live in a society where gender is a very important factor. We live in a society where we are taught that every thing has a to have a gender specific pronoun otherwise something has to be called "it", which can be highly offensive in some instances or to call something "they". I know in my own personal experience I feel the need to place a gender specific pronoun on something because calling something "they" just isn't grammatically correct for me and I don't want to be offensive by saying "it" either.

The character of Jo(e) is used to show that gender shouldn't be something that's so important as well. The fact that Jo(e) can so easily switch from one gender to the other in a matter of seconds shows that.

One part of the story that stuck out the most to be was when they were all discussing doing the play Jesus Superstar and Jo wanted to play the role of Judas. Someone said she couldn't play that role because she was female and someone instantly said that gender wasn't important. That particular part stuck out to me because I remember my teacher saying that there was once a time where men played both male and female roles and it made me wonder why women aren't allowed to have the same privilege of choosing which role they would want to play.

Do you think gender is something that people will always see and will it always be something that's important in society? If so, why?

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas and The Pragmatical Princess

I wanted to compare "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" to a more recent story, "The Pragmatical Princess." What stood out to me as being similar in the two stories was how the dragon had introduced a new for of religion, Islam, to the Princess. I related this to how the young adults were introduced, or rather showed the boy in the cellar. Once the Princess was introduced to the religion she converted similar to how some of the young adults who were exposed to the boy in the cellar wound up walking away from Omelas. These young adults, like the Princess, changed the beliefs which allowed them to view their surroundings differently. They began to realize that the village of Omelas that was so happy wound up to be unappealing to the young adults after they viewed the starving specimen that was held in the cellar. I also compared the skeletons of bodies that the dragon had eaten to the boy in the cellar himself. These two were similar considering people were sacrificed or held against their will in order to make the lives of others pleasant. The Princess was able to be happy especially when the dragon freed her from the chains, which was like the people of Omelas being freed of a terrible life by the sacrifice of the boy in the cellar.

Love Might Be Too Strong a Word

The short story, "Love Might be too Strong a Word," created a setting in which gender did not remain within our own binary concepts. However, I noticed during class that we seemed to be unable to attempt to assign each of the newly introduced genders a binary form. For instance, we assumed that if someone had parts described as "outie" parts, we automatically assumed that person was to be masculine. We also made an assumption that, should someone's gender pronouns end in a similar fashion to "him" or "her," they should keep with our perceptions of male and female.

It was interesting to note this, especially since our class is meant to study the queer within literature. It was indeed quite queer to read a story that created new genders. But it was more interesting to see how difficult it was too discard society's standards of male and female. Regardless of how open-minded each of us in class is, in our discussion, we still struggled to use the proper pronouns instead of "he" and "she."
It might have been difficult to discard these roles simply because of the roles we were shown. It seemed that any character we assumed was male had a leadership position and was generally above the strictly "female" (by our standards) characters, the dailys. Any character to whom the maintenance and less desirable tasks were left was perceived as female.
I also found it interesting that this story showed us a character that went against its gender roles in most aspects of the society. Mab did adhere to gender roles if yr job is taken into account, because y worked as a cleaner, as all the other dailys did. However, Mab became the more bossy member of the relationship between Dot and Mab, even deciding how they would interact sexually. This would be, typically, a task left up to the pilots, but Mab chose to take this over.

The Green Book

In this story I was wondering the whole time whether or not the book really held magic. Did Leuwin just go mad and had an alter ego through the book? When Dominic wrote in the book the girl Cynthia wrote back which changed my opinion somewhat. Or was it Leuwin pretending to be her? Leuwin talked to Cynthia like she was an actual human. He got lost in the translation of a book. I felt like the author was maybe trying to portray how people can fall in love with their books and really lose sight of reality. The one part that made me believe that the book held magic was when Dominic said he couldn't burn or rip up the book.
I liked how the story showed how someone can love something so much even if it might not be real. It shows how strong the brains imagination is. The moral of the story could be beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Cynthia felt beautiful every time Leuwin read her, but when Dominic read her she did not have this feeling. She explained to him how amazing it is for someone to feel that beauty.
I wonder, like Cynthia did, what was the reasoning of the first hand writing in the text. Was there a reasoning behind this? Who was the mistress in the crossroads?
The one part of the text that I was confused with was the sisterhood. Who were they? Did they kill Cynthia?
Comparing The Green Book to In the Night Garden. There was magic in both stories both used for good. I don't believe Cynthia was trying to make Leuwin go mad, I felt like she was there to give company. In the Night Garden Knife was surrounded by magic and at first I thought of her as a witch, but she was helpful throughout the story.

The Pragmatical Princess

The Pragmatical Princess was a difficult read for me. Personally, I have a hard time understanding religious themes in depth because I have little understanding of religion as a whole or specific religions as I don't know their individual practices and beliefs. But I did understand The Pragmatical Princess's underlying theme as religion based. What I took from it was that the dragon said he changed his religion to protect his life and to stay and hang out with the princess forever. If he hadn't claimed that he was Muslim, the king would have had him killed.

The more interesting part of the story for me was the relationship between the dragon and the princess. Usually in fairytales, a princess is saved by a prince and they're then supposed to fall in love or whatever. Instead, the dragon falls in love with the princess and changes his religion so that they can stay together. This is relateable to Valente's backwards and upside-down fairytale telling. She focuses on not-so-traditional relationships (e.g. The Marsh King & the Leucrotta, the Leucrotta & the Beast-Maiden). Both authors put an interesting twist on traditional relationships.

The Green Book and In The Night Garden

"The Green Book", by Amal El-Mohtar, is a story fraught with an air of mystery. It is somewhat suspenseful, has a touch of horror, and leaves the reader in question. The story does not have many apparent morals or themes to it. However, something the reader may gather from the story as a whole is the power a book and writing can have on an individual. It is difficult to say wether or not the Green Book itself really was magically filled with the woman Cynthia or not. If it was, then the reader's imagination is opened up to possible symbols that the book and Cynthia may be. The book may be a symbol for the identifiability of literature. It has the power to captivate many different readers and draw them in. If perhaps Cynthia is simply a figment of Leuwin's imagination then she represents the predicament that comes from too much identification with literature and the unnatural world.
These representations and issues can be related to the use of magic in "In the Night Garden". As "The Green Book" has many different users of the book, in "In the Night Garden" there are many different performers of magic. And as the characters in "In the Night Garden" use magic in different ways, the readers and writers in "The Green Book" use the book differently. Some characters, such as Omir, use magic for corrupt things. Corresponding to this would be "the sisters" use of the book to cast Cynthia into it. However, some good does come out of these corruptions. In "The Green Book", Leuwin and Cynthia are able to fall in love through the casting of Cynthia into the book. In "In the Night Garden", Knife is able to rescue the princess who stays a strong and intelligent woman despite of the tortures Omir cast upon her. As there are evil ways magic and the book are used, there are also good found in both. "The Green Book" is mostly full of not-well-intentioned writing. However, I find that Cynthia has not had bad intentions and has simply been a kind woman. Magic in "In the Night Garden" is used for good often, specifically by Knife and her grandmother in order to save people
A conclusory thought to these things would be that perhaps books and magic can be seen as almost the same thing. They both have effects on people, both good and bad. In relation to "The Green Book" and "In the Night Garden", one can find that regardless of the intention and outcome, both magic and the book are powerful both on the surface and symbolically.

The "Pragmatical" Princess

Nisi Shawl’s The Pragmatical Princess is a modern bestiary: “a medieval allegorical or moralizing work on the appearance and habits of real or imaginary animals,” (Merriam Webster). The prevalent connotation of the word “bestiary” involves an array of different tales; however as noted above a single tale can also be defined as such. Shawl’s bestiary is an ambiguous story concerning a dragon and a Muslim princess. Their identities, circumstance, and conversations are not for the purpose of escapism entertainment or furthering the genre of fantasy; upon scrutiny the story contains pragmatic moralizing concerned with bigotry, feminism, freedom, religion, correlations and causations, education, colonization, wisps of wisdom, and the very notion of living. And while escapism entertainment or fantasy (or any genre for that matter) can never fully escape ideas of morality and living, Shawl’s tale is of a philosophical nature, hence “bestiary”.

The tale begins when a princess, legs and arms chained to stone, meets a dragon and is freed from bondage with his aid. The dragon flies the princess back to his lair; conversing, the dragon learns the princess is an intended sacrifice for him, because her Father the King seeks to conquer the whole of France as a result of his mania (Greek: “μανία" (mania), “madness, frenzy”) and endangers the dragon because of potential colonization (creating a large surplus of food with “an abominably high salt content”) and slaughter.

The princess names the dragon Aegyptus because he is the very seat of reason; his name is important, because it symbolizes reason, “Finally at my age, consuming large quantities of humans is a luxury I simply can no longer afford,” as the princess symbolizes pragmatic thinking, “But in my experience of religious claims they are all ‘true’ and all similarly singular in this truth”… And pragmatically speaking I have been throughout my life a follower of the prophet Mohammed. But now that I am here with you, I should no doubt subscribe to some more dragonish creed.” It is pragmatic to practice another’s religion within their home/culture because there is truth within all religion; such a practice thwarts violence and is respectful. Rational persons have reason, and “the retention of fluids which inevitably results when we succumb is damaging to our delicate constitution,”- when we as people (with reason) continue to wage cannibalism against each other’s lives, ideals we injure and maim our physical, emotional, and spiritual selves. The princess persuades the dragon to convert to Islam so he is not forced to flee and together they drop a scroll at her father’s war camp detailing the dragon’s conversion.

Islam is a religion with currents of misogyny; the shackles chaining the princess to the rock are symbols of these currents. The dragon, representative of reason, yells to the princess, “Patience!” Patience is often a virtue which is often hard to endure amidst oppression, “The Princess Ousmani wondered when, if ever, some other virtue would be urged upon her, such as courage or resourcefulness,”- Nisi Shawl urges the message of patience towards Islamic women and a message of responsibility towards rational people of the world to melt their bindings or else the princess’ “lions will be the battlefield” between malevolent Muslim extremists such as her father and Imam (a Muslim leader of the line of Ali held by Shiites) and Caliph (a successor of Muhammad as temporal and spiritual head of Islam).

One minute wisdoms are everywhere in the modern world: Facebook statuses, billboards, home décor, gas stations, etc. Many are cliché but it is important to remember they become cliché because of universal declaration and acceptance. Shawl’s story contains many: “Though rejecting as false the conclusion that because offerings made to a dragon disappeared, ergo there must be a dragon” “If my perceptions remain unclouded by expectations of any sort, the possibilities inherent in the moment will present themselves to me with much more readiness” “Let us see what wisdom sleep procures” “If breath alone meant life.” These snippets of wisdom are indeed one minute wisdoms, but who of us can say a good night’s sleep doesn’t sometimes help in the formulation of a decision? Within these miniature sentiments there are metaphors, “‘Will you plunder me of my books, then?” “Not I, but mice and insects have made a very good start. You should keep a cat.”’ The books (plays, infidel doctrines, histories) contain ideas, and the suggestion of a cat is the suggestion of an education. An education prevents such harmful pests as bigotry from plundering reasoned peoples of differing ideas and doctrines.

It is useless to examine religion with science, “The princess was not afraid of darkness. But conditions made a scientific program of exploration impossible,”- the princess is pragmatic; she understands religion’s purpose is often to explain the unexplainable in physical and human nature: darkness. We cannot scientifically argue any religion’s truth over another, because religion does not concern itself with science as mythological literature does not concern itself with natural truths: historical accuracies, physical limitations, etc.

Nisi Shawls’ The Pragmatical Princess confronts various problems within Islam and all religions; she offers a “pragmatic” solution which calls for oppressed peoples to be patient, reasoned peoples to aid the oppressed, and conversion towards a differing doctrine when the benefits of doing so trump opposition. Nisi Shawl’s ideas however are not original and are reminiscent of the White moderate within the Civil Rights Movement.

In Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter to Birmingham Jail he writes, “I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.” Shawl’s tale deals merely with effects; she does not seek to wrestle with the underlying causes of mania but rather suggests a flight response as opposed to a fight response. King writes, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”Misogynist Islamic extremists will not stop the subjugation against women unless the women and others demand it; Shawl hopes for reasoned peoples to demand women’s liberation and asks the oppressed to be patient. She forgets the virus of apathy within America. How can one ask the oppressed to be patient, “when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society?” The oppressed cannot simply wait out their oppression in hopes the world will utilize their reason and come to their need.

Lastly King writes in his letter, “I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection,” The ideas of the White moderate are very similar to the ideas proposed by Nisi Shawl. The solution is not to be patient; the solution is to demand freedom. The solution is not to convert to another’s religion in their midst for safety; the solution is to learn how to live with another culture’s or persons’ religion in the same setting as your own. The solution lies in the problem of mania; the pragmatical princess and dragon of reason should not adhere to the King’s whims out of fear, because such a solution is neither practical or of reason for the underlying cause will continue to persist.

Nisi Shawl’s Pragmatical Princess is very alike to Catherynne M. Valente’s In the Night Garden. The Pragmatical Princess is queer as it is a modern day bestiary; In the Night Garden is also a bestiary of sorts. It is a collection of tales involving beasts, and the tales are allegorical and moralizing. In the Night Garden addresses Kings, lay persons, life and death, magic, the creation of the world, issues of respect, and differing ideals of morality. It is a bestiary of sorts but not completely; the best definition would be mythological literature.

The Pragmatical Princess is written with fantastic descriptions, “Its irises were formed like slits, as were the nostrils from her own, from which an occasional wisp of steam escaped,” but the descriptions are not purple; they do not command attention to themselves, causing a distraction between reader and text because within the description there is action whereas Valente’s descriptions dictate the action and go on with “like.” The reader can easily bypass a simile in Valente’s sentence formulations, losing only a description not necessary to the story but to the mood. If one skips Shawl’s descriptions, they lose vital information necessary to the story. Her description indicates the physical nearness between the Princess and the Dragon.

The Pragmatical Princess is philosophical in intention and therefore unlike any other text we have read in class. The graphic novels addressed many issues as did Shawl, but in the manner of a long story with illustration. And The Arabian Nights was inspiration for Valente’s In the Night Garden. However the length (4690 words) and philosophical nature of The Pragmatical Princess allows it to carve out its own niche within the texts we have read for class.

Omelas and In the Night Garden

Though both In The Night Garden and Omelas are fairy tales, there are several stylistic differences among them.

First, In The Night Garden has a complex plot that intertwines several story arcs into one. Omelas on the other hand is plotless. The story could be considered more accurately as a vignette, albeit a long one. A vignette is "a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting and sometimes an object" (I got that definition from wikipedia; don't judge me). It can be argued that this piece is a vignette of the setting of the land of Omelas. A related point is that Omelas lacks any specific characters. All characters in the story are known by their station in the society.

One thing I noticed is that this short story very obviously has a moral theme, but it is embedded and must be deciphered by the reader. In the Night Garden on the other hand does not directly give the impression that it has a moral, but its themes are much more easy to decipher. I'll put it a different way. ITNG addresses themes such as sexism and classism, but doesn't make it obvious that themes are being addressed. In Omelas it is very hard to figure out what the meaning is, but it's obvious that there is something larger being addressed.

Another thing I noticed is that ITNG has a very varied geography; the story moves throughout radically different lands and cultures. Omelas on the other hand has a stationary setting. The story remains in the land of Omelas and the climate and culture is generally homogenous.

Though both fairy tales, these two stories are written very differently.