The importance of language

John Barth’s short story Dunyazadiad from Chimera seems to be conveying that language is the most powerful tool in anyone’s arsenal. All of the various characters throughout the story manipulate and play with language to suit their own needs.  From the genie, to Sherry, and even the kings use language as a manipulative tool. Sherry uses language to tell the stories to save her sister’s life.  The Genie who comes from the future can also magically speak the same language as Sherry and Donny, despite thinking he is speaking in English.  And the words that Shah Zaman’s first wife said stayed with him forever.

Sherry only decides to tell these tales to the king after a genie has come from the future and literally told her the outcome of their story based upon what he has read in the thousand and one Arabic nights story that he so greatly cherishes.  In fact when first communicating with this “genie” he tells them of the world he comes from and that the language he speaks is English.  Despite never hearing of this language or knowing of the land that this man comes from, they can still communicate with him fluently and without problem.

At the end of the story when Dunyazade is telling her new husband that she is going to kill him he tells her a quick story as to how he and his brother had made the horrible arrangement to sleep with and murder 1000 virgins.  While doing so he recants the first girl he had ever done this to.  And how something she said reminded him of something his first wife had said. “Even death at my hands would be sweeter to her than life at another’s”  This is clearly untrue because earlier we discover that she was with his chief cook only moments after he had left visit his brother.   This implies that language, whether it be true or not is the most powerful tool that any human can have if mastered properly.

Even while Dunyazade is holding a knife ( an actual phycial weapon) to her new husband’s manhood he fights back with the stories most powerful weapons, his words.  He tells her a story of how his brother and he had originally started that pact.  He even goes as far as to say “what your Genie said concerning marriage could have come from my own mouth if I had the gifts of words….” This just further places emphasis how important Barth considers language to be.

Selfish Absent Fathers

Ramon, the father in Negocios hides his greedy intentions behind a mask to fool the people closest to him into believing that they are more than just tools to him.  Despite the fact that what he is doing is actually for himself, and not them.  There are even times where he has himself fooled, when talking over a game of dominos with Needle, the chief cook Ramon states “I’m not forgetting them, (his family) right now is just not a good time for me to send for them.  You should see my bills.”(187)  Needle asks him what bills? And after thinking Ramon replies Electricity, my house has 88 light bulbs. 

           

            After being caught by his wife cheating with another woman, and being kicked out, Ramon is scared that the money his father-in-law promised him, along with his golden ticket to America was vanishing from his grasp. The one and only time he meets with his father-in-law he lies through his teeth telling him that he did go to see the woman, but did nothing to shame him.  He goes back to his family only after his father-in-law tells him he will talk to his daughter, and tell her he will be leaving for America soon. 

            The mother sees through his façade and does not let him close to her again for the rest of the time he is at home, although she puts up a façade of her own as to not get her children suspicious. When he leaves for America she makes sure that her children say good-bye to their father.

            When he finally makes it to New York and meets Nilda, someone who he is attracted to, he thinks of asking her to the party. He tells himself that strange women who go to strange places with strangers aren’t someone you want around, but really he is thinking about the single woman that will be at the party.  So he thinks it’s best to ask Nilda if she would help him with his English, even saying he would pay her for her time, although he had no intention to do so.

            When he finally does try to meet up with her she asks him what he is doing now, to which he replies “I wouldn’t want to intruded” to which the narrator says he was a sly one.  This implies that he only said this because he knew he was invited over and had every intention of going to her house, despite what he said. 

            After Nilda and Ramon are married he quickly loses interest in her.  When she figures out that he has a family back on the island, she questions him about them.  “Papi had to deliver some of his most polished performances to convince her that he no longer cared about us.” (187)

            This shows us that Ramon is a selfish man who is only motivated by his greed, he uses his family members as tools to achieve this goal.

Take the R's out and what are you left with?

                                                    An Old Fiend

Arnold Friend in Joyce Carol Oates’s Where are you Going, Where have you been?  represents the evil influence that a masculine society can have over young people.  More specifically in this story it is Arnold Friend who Connie is directly powerless against. His good looks, the way he is dressed, even his car are all things that Connie considers, and eventually decides she is powerless against.

                Connie is a young girl who acts two different ways while at home, and out with her friends.  While it is evident that Connie thinks her mother is scolding her because she is prettier than her, however this does not stop Connie from continuing to act the way she does.  It is even stated that her shirt is worn two different ways; one for home and one for when she out in public. 

                While Connie is out with her friend at a drive in diner (that is shaped like a giant phallic coke bottle, come on masculine society) and talking to a boy she happens to notice a boy looking at her in a beat up gold convertible.  First appearance of Arnold Friend he says to her “Gonna get you baby.” Even the wording is dominate and demeaning.

If you accept the general consensus that Arnold Friend is indeed supposed to be the devil, than you can no doubt also assume that everything he is representative of is also supposed to be evil, his good looks, his popular clothing and his beat-up freshly gold painted convertible are just evil tools used by society to warp the minds of teenagers and young adults of the 60’s.

                Then when Arnold makes his appearance at Connie’s house uninvited he seems to know everything about Connie, and about what her family is doing that day ( in a strange moment, reminiscent  of Lula the Hyena).  All of the stuff on Arnold’s car, from last year’s popular expression “Man the flying saucers” to the dent that says “hit by crazy female driver” are a direct metaphor for the way Oates’s view of pop culture’s almost mind control like ability, and it is that ability in part, that Arnold wins over Connie. The same thing goes with the way he blurts out popular sayings one after another; “he said in a rapid, meaningless voice, as if he were running through all the expressions he’d learned but was no longer sure which of them was in style,” to Ellie when frustrated with him. Arnold tells Connie what she is going to do, and inevitably she listens. “You come out here nice like a lady and give me your hand, and nobody else gets hurt.” Which she ultimately does do.  She does succumb to the evil patriarchal society machine.

Hiding tradition in order to thrive

     In Indian Education and This is what It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona Sherman Alexie’s main character Victor realizes that to survive in the modern, or white man’s world, it’s safer to hide who you are traditionally.

                In Indian Education Victor deals with white teachers trying to teach him respect the entire time he lives on the reservation. When he successfully defends himself against the boy Frenchy, he is taken to the Principals office, all the way chanting the mantra of the Native American Brave “It’ a good day to die.”(172)  Implying that Alexie believes that if Native Americans try to defend themselves outright against the government they will only be punished more harshly.

                Later when Victor is in the second grade Betty Towle, his missionary teacher attempted to humiliate him by giving him a spelling test designed for kids in junior high.  When Victor succeeded she made him eat it, telling him “You’ll learn respect.”(173) Showing that if you fight them outright you will be punished.  She then sent a letter home with him to her parents saying that he needed to cut off his braids or he couldn’t come to class.  The next day his parents came to talk to her, but essentially he said they were just showing their braids back to her, dragging them across the desk, to which the teacher scoffs “Indians ,indians, indians,” lower case, implying that are not even worthy of capitalization. His parents wear their tradition on their sleeve they are discriminated against.

                When Victor is in seventh grade kisses a white girl through her basement window.  He says he “felt the good-byes I was saying to my entire tribe,” implying that he knew when he entered into the relationship with white society he knew he would no longer be able to wear his tradition outwardly.

                In This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona Victor’s relationship with Thomas Builds-The-Fire is a representation of Victor’s relationship with his own tradition.  Victor starts off being friends with Thomas, even sharing a bike with him when they were 10, even calling him cousin, but as the story progresses their relationship turns sour, they even get into a fist fight.  While Thomas does end up helping Victor retrieve his father’s remains Victor admits that at the end of the journey he can’t be friends with Thomas. “Victor knew that he couldn’t really be friends with Thomas, even after all had happened,”(74) symbolizing Victor being too afraid to let his tradition show.