While reading Change Me Into Zeus's Daughter I kept remembering our discussion from last week. I think it was Elmaz who talked about how the adult looking back perspective gave the readers needed distance from the abuse occurring between Jeanette and Winterson. I wasn't convinced then that I wanted the distance. But now I know I need it.
It was such a struggle to get through this book despite Moss's brisk prose. I couldn't handle all the terrible things happening to Barbara as a kid, and all the 3 am chapters suffocated me. My breaking point was on pg. 104 when her mom warns her to never tattle on her sister again: "Later that night, as I rocked myself to sleep, Mother came and sat on the edge of the bed. I was startled and stopped rocking. There were no good-night rituals in our house; she never looked in on us at night. I immediately imagined she was concerned about me and my heart leaped with happiness. She leaned over until I could feel her breath on my face and whispered, 'If you ever tell on Alice again, I'll beat you within an inch of your life.' Then she walked away. I rocked, rocked harder, wept and hated them even more." This scene was so devastating to me because it's the first time we see her mother be especially cruel. She is kind of the foil to their father in most of the scenes, the one whose calm demeanor while their father destroys the house lets the children know everything is okay. But for Barbara, who is constantly ignored because she is the middle kid and who must sacrifice her childhood to raise her youngest sibling, it was especially hard to see her mother mistreat her. And Moss does do a good job at conveying the loneliness of her childhood.
At times Moss' sentence structure confused me, and I had a hard time following some of her descriptions. But I was the most confused by the timeline throughout her memoir. She jumps through time, back and forth, without many signalers. In one scene Barbara is nine, in another a few pages later she is thirteen. I think Moss meant for the locations to signify her character's age, but it was hard following everything when she was constantly interweaving scenes together. But ultimately I think it was the way her scenes were separated that confused me. There were a lot of places where I didn't understand why she ended a scene only to continue or repeat herself after the scene break. I was also confused by how Moss handled her character's recovery of rheumatic fever. She gives us a very scary scene where we know her friend dies and no one in her family wants to take her to hospital even though she is deathly ill. Then we are given a scene of a family friend taking care of her . . . but then we hear nothing else about it for some pages until on pg. 194 Moss writes: "The year before, while I was recovering from rheumatic fever . . . ." And I had to stop: Wait. A whole year has gone by in a matter of pages? I thought she was still in recovery!
Ultimately, I found myself confused by Moss' portrayal of the mother. She writes on pg. 108 that the mom seems to crave the father as much as he craved alcohol but I didn't see every evidence for that. I don't think being captive in an abuse relationship is a craving; I just think her mother had all these kids to take care of and she was terrified of leaving the dad. I would be more inclined to think the mom craved the dad if all she talked about was him, if she neglected her children because she was obsessed with her husband. The way Moss wrote it, she seemed more obsessed with Alice, her oldest daughter, than her husband.
I completely agree with what you explained regarding the line, "She seemed to crave him as much as he craved alcohol" (108). She does seem to favor Alice more than any of the other kids, but there was this part when the dad comes back on page 71 where she straightens up and tries not to shed a single tear. This could be read as relief, that she now has a partner in which to share the burden of raising so many kids. That he is a "savior" albeit a broken, alcoholic savior. It can also be seem as a sort of frightened reaction to his arrival as well. She is so shocked and does not know what to say. Maybe she craves his presence, not his character. Maybe she is sick of doing everything on her own. But maybe she is just frightened of his outbursts and cannot protect herself or her kids, but is trapped in the tight reign of marriage and can see no way out of it yet.
ReplyDeleteLinsey,
ReplyDeleteall the points you find confusing are surrounded by space, in a way, she moves in and out of those scenes so quickly that i'm convinced that she was just trying to present that particular trauma and move on. I was not only confused by the mother, but their attachment to the father. It's almost too much for one book.
e
I was similarly confused at certain holes in the story, like when they're all trying to solve riddles around the table there's no mention about the father noticing Moss writing with her left hand, like it didn't matter anymore. I also was searching the text for evidence of the relationship between the mother and father which I wanted more of. I thought Moss did a great job at balancing the mother and father's presence in the book and in the kids lives.
ReplyDelete" She writes on pg. 108 that the mom seems to crave the father as much as he craved alcohol but I didn't see every evidence for that. I don't think being captive in an abuse relationship is a craving; I just think her mother had all these kids to take care of and she was terrified of leaving the dad."
I do have to disagree with you on the mother's relationship to the father; oversimplifies oversimplify. So many people in abusive relationships express having been in love with their abusers and definitely a craving. I also don't think it was as easy for the mother to just leave with if she had any financial security, it was also about their dynamic, which we don't necessarily we don't see all of.
I agree that her relationship to both parents is complex and at times, confusing. I also agree that describing her mother's attachment to her father as a 'craving' feels strange and inaccurate. There are a couple of instances in the book (such as during Betty's visit) when she paints her mother as wanting nothing more than to tend to her husband and care for him. I think there was a real missed opportunity to examine the effect of the abuse on her mother during this moment but it also seems that Moss says these things because she is still coming to terms with her own trauma and it is too painful to fully explore her mother's pain as well. I would have really liked her to use the scene at the funeral more strategically to maybe frame the whole narrative of looking back on him and his violence and what each sibling took away from it.
ReplyDeleteI disagree in that I really enjoyed the child perspective in this book (well enjoyed may be the wrong word). I think we see a lot of hardships throughout the young life of Moss but without the child telling the story I feel like that would have been all we got. I enjoy that while there are these terrible heartbreaking scenes they are weaved in with scenes of her playing with her siblings, loving Janet, enjoying her father's stories, and caring for her family. I almost feel that without such attachment in the child perspective these happy moments wouldn't feel like such a retreat or may not have been in the book at all. As adults when we look back we only remember certain things there are limitations, we may not remember happy moments. Writing as a child however one must get inside the young head and realize that as a child it is easier to put a positive spin on negative moments. It does put pressure on the reader though to be able to detach from the events in a certain way and can be very stressful to read if one cannot detach in this way.
ReplyDeleteI was also confused about the attachment. For me I was lacking some explanation and exploration as to the why this existed. I feel like this was due to the child voice and the lack of distance to the events. Las t week there was too much this week not enough. We are never satisfied.
ReplyDelete