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| Image from Adam McLean's Alchemy Website |
In her introduction to Best
American Short Stories 2013, Elizabeth Strout writes about the trust a
reader must feel in order to be interested in a story. Trust is earned,
she implies, when a writer manages to sustain authority through voice, in the
face of surprise plot twists, in the face of language’s instabilities, in times
when characters are hard tried by
fates their fictional lives have handed them. For a writer like Charles
Baxter, who so often writes about varieties of staged strangeness, and desire,
and wonder, the reader's trust depends on how the “strange” is perceived by the
characters. Are Baxter’s characters ever perceiving strangeness honestly?
And if not, do they have good reason for their dishonesties?
In "Gryphon," first published in 1985, the young
narrator desperately wishes to believe in Miss Ferenczi, a character who tosses
off lines (and irresponsible logic) to children such as, "Do you think
[...] that anyone is going to be hurt by a substitute fact?" When I
first read this (as a much younger person than I am now), like the young narrator,
I was not sure of my answer to Miss Ferenczi’s question. Yes, her “substitute
fact”-finding leads the children to fear and to violence. But I wanted to
believe in her as a savior from a known tedium and conformity.
I don’t see Miss Ferenczi as a savior any
longer, maybe because I no longer trust “fact” itself, substitute or not. I trust Baxter because he shows me what I do
believe: that people’s perceptions are formed by deeply held fears and desires. Baxter shows me individuals who fail at questioning
that which informs them. Reading "Bravery,"
published 27 years later, have I changed in that I find this show quite obvious,
or has the author perhaps grown weary of misinterpretation?
In “Bravery,” Baxter exposes “truth” such as “Every mother feels this way, every mother has felt this, it’s time to
stand up” for what it is: informed by prejudice and the need for
self-definition. He reveals Susan’s
blind spot right in the beginning of the story: she needs boys to be a certain
way, to react a certain predictable way that defines them as male, so that she
can find self-worth. She believes she
has secret wisdom in knowing that boys are “not all alike”—but part of what is revealed
to the reader is that Susan doesn’t really believe this…she sustains this false
belief so that she can be special, find the special one, the one who is almost perfect
in his “variables”…but in the end, she actually believes that men should be all
alike. They should be men. They should be brave, and manly, right up
until someone gives them a black eye. And
let them have their black eye! Her
husband, Elijah, Susan confirms, “would want his badge. They all wanted that.”
In the end, she will pretend to believe his story about rescuing a
woman in danger, a story she suspects to be false, so that she can sustain a deeper falsehood that allows her self-definition. Wow! Baxter’s
magic trick is to show us what lies behind “magic”: our belief in it is in us,
in our desire to believe one thing and not another.
Does his storytelling free us to see past our own desires? Or is this just another kind of desire?
P.S. Susan believes in her heart that she has been able to
interpret the crazy woman’s message, even though the woman was speaking another
language. Know this: “Pozor” does not
mean “beware” in Czech. It means “pay attention.”
I believe Susan thought she heard what the old woman said because it was what she wanted to hear. Her fear of her husband figuratively taking her place as a mother was always in the back of her head and she refused to let herself acknowledge it. At the end of the story Susan is briefly happy and proud when Elijah beats up a couple of random guys. Elijah needed to prove his masculinity to both Susan and himself when she angered him with her fear. I foresee an unhealthy relationship in the future of Susan fearing Elijah's rather feminine instinct and letting it be known once again causing him to go out and risk himself to prove his masculinity yet again creating a cycle of repetition.
ReplyDeleteEven though she didn't group boys as being the “same” in high school and college like her friends did (“Despite what other girls said, all boys were not all alike: you had to make your way through their variables blindly, guessing at hidden qualities, the ones you could live with”), Susan still clearly sees a split between “man” and “woman.” She picks out the “kind of guy” she likes the most, rather than going by the individual—she likes the “sweet” ones. She’s more accepting of that kind of “femininity” than other girls might be, but she still expects there to be a distinct split between the sexes. She notices when Elijah uses words that she hasn’t heard other men use—“committed,” “devoted”—and that makes her love him more—but she still notices. “He was the only man she had ever loved, and she was still trying to get used to it. She had done her best not to be scared by the way she often felt about him. His intelligence, the concern for children, the quiet loving homage he paid to her, the wit, the indifference to sports, the generosity, and then the weird secret toughness—where could you find another guy like that?” She clings to him because of his uniqueness and the feeling that he is special. She has no idea what she’s getting into until her strange encounter with the Czech woman, and it doesn't make sense to her until she sees Elijah feeding their son from a bottle. Then, she feels the “jealousy” that the woman had predicted—the feeling that this is her territory and Elijah is finally crossing over where he doesn't belong. She expresses these feelings and he leaves, only to come back later after having beaten up two men.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Virginia that Elijah was trying to compensate for his femininity by doing something so distinctly “masculine,” and the satisfaction both individuals got from the incident means it might very well happen again, in a sort of “cycle.” What I really thought was interesting was the way the writer subtly brought the reader’s mind back to that conversation Susan had with her roommate near the beginning of the story. Her roommate tells her that she prefers the “troublemakers” over the “kind ones.” When Susan reminds her that troublemakers bring the trouble with them, she answers, “I can take it. I’m an old-fashioned girl.” At first, it’s hard to see what she means here by “old-fashioned,” but after watching Susan struggle with her feelings towards Elijah, the phrasing makes more sense. When it comes to gender and sex, “old-fashioned” usually means the lines are clear—men and women each act in their own specific ways and don’t cross over. The roommate felt that masculinity included “making trouble,” and she could deal with the implications because she preferred this clear split. Susan didn't agree with her then, but now that she has felt that confusing jealousy towards Elijah, maybe she wishes she was more “old-fashioned” herself.
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ReplyDeleteIn “Bravery” Susan reacts in the face of men, as many women do. She wants to believe that a man can be generous and kind but still have the attributes of a husband and that she will not face conflicts for jealousy. I think what Susan comes to find however, is that Elijah has similar personality traits that women tend to possess and she struggles with this when she feels he is taking something away from her. Growing up she was always attracted to kind and generous men. In the face of problems however, Susan doesn’t seem to enjoy Elijah’s concerns and awareness of her as a women, his wife, and the mother of his child. Elijah becomes worried after the tram hits her and Susan spends her time reassuring him that she is all right. She even knows of other times, he has peeled off her clothes to examine her every inch in order to be reassured.
ReplyDeleteElijah isn’t also just in tune with worrying about Susan, he is forthcoming with his emotions. When Susan and Elijah standing in the church he points out that Susan didn’t say “I love you” back. He is hyperaware of these instances. Susan still however, loves him for his uniqueness.
When Susan becomes jealous of Elijah when he is feeding their son with a bottle, Susan is reminded of the encounter with the crazy women. She still inherently feels a distinction between women’s roles and men’s roles in a household.
I think Baxter’s stories gives the reader a chance to see situations and people that think they know what they want and have always known what they want. In the end however, that knowingness isn’t as simple as they once thought.
Something that I noticed early on, that was in my mind the whole time I read the story and that I thought was the most interesting thing about the story, was that, for all that Susan became uncomfortable with Elijah's more "feminine" traits, she herself seemed to be traditionally masculine, making her seem even sillier for holding Elijah's sensitivity against him. Even with just the first scene, where she would shout out at boys on the street asking them if she was cute, she was reenacting a situation where the stereotype says that it's men who shout out at girls. Susan instead put the men in a situation where they respond, instead of initiate.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the incident with the tram, where she insists that she was only nudged, rather than knocked over or nearly killed. As intent as she is on toughing it out, it seems like she actually wasn't so fazed by it, just as society would expect a man, in particular, to not be fazed over a minor injury. There is also, like Caroline said, Elijah's being more concerned over the I-love-you ritual and more effusive with his compliments.
I think this all ties in well enough to the idea that runs through all of the stories we've read of Baxter's, that we don't really know what we want and discover these desires in strange ways. Susan's case seems distinct, to me, in that she seems completely unaware of how she herself defies the regressive norms that she would later try to enforce.
I agree with Shawn, I noticed that kind of role reversal from the beginning as well. What I also found interesting was how much Susan romanticized Elijah in the beginning to fit her own expectations of what she believed she wanted. In doing so, she tries to establish herself in the feminine role. When they first meet outside the art gallery and she spills the white wine on herself, the first thing that she notices is the monogrammed handkerchief and her thoughts immediately wander to money and if he has it rather than the gesture. She did, however, notice that he didn’t try to press his advantage to sopping up the dress himself as she “pretended to soak up the wine.” She also makes the observation “that his skin might taste like sugar, his smile is so kind.” Romanticized statements like that establish that she wants to be feminine in the relationship regardless of the fact that her prior actions had seemed like she was switching gender roles such as shouting to the boys in her teenage years. After meeting him, she waits three days and does “something her mother had advised her never to do with a man”, that being call him up for a date. I think that this is the beginning of her feeling as if she was fulfilling the role of the man in the relationship, at the very start of said relationship. The reader can really see her misgivings in the way that she translates pozor to mean ‘beware’ when she actually doesn’t understand any Czech words. Even though she sees these things, she writes them off until the moment that she sees her husband holding Raphael after the woman’s warning. This is the moment that “a small twig snapped inside her. Then another twig snapped.” As a reader, I believed in that moment because of the happenings that led up to it. In my opinion, the moment was earned as well as her last moment as she looks in the mirror at herself, smiling because of what her brave husband seemed to accomplish, what she wanted to believe that she had accomplished.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, the character of Susan annoyed me. Even though I could relate to the character because I've had crazy old women do the same thing to me. (Admittedly it was in Italian, not Czech, but still.) I didn't understand why Susan was so angry with Elijah, but I think that's part of what made the story interesting. Susan and Elijah are acting in the opposite way of what for so long has been seen as "normal", though is now dissipating in our current culture.
ReplyDeleteI think Baxter's writing style helps us to at least put aside our own desires and let ourselves react to the story rather than what's going on in our lives. Like most authors, I think he wants the reader to get lost in the characters he's writing about. I think it's also another type of desire because as annoyed as I got with the character of Susan and her unpredictability, I also wanted to see what happened. It's a fine line to walk with a reader because you want them to finish the story, but you also hope that the reader has a strong reaction to the characters.
I agree with everyone who stated the points about the role reversals. While I think I noticed it a little bit later than most seemed to, it was quite interesting once I did.
ReplyDeleteThe point I’m more interested in talking about is the instance with Susan and the crazy old lady. Susan makes a point of having knowing what the woman said even though she didn’t understand the language. I believe this was a instance where her mind interpreted the words as what her subconscious wanted to let her know. There are instances where the subconscious mind will do things that the conscious mind did not know.
Personally, I don’t even think the woman was saying these specifics that Susan claimed to have heard from her. The first thing that tipped me off to this was the fact Elijah didn’t seem to comment on anything the crazy old woman had said. Albeit, he could have dismissed it entirely but it doesn’t make sense that he wouldn’t have found it even a small bit strange.
Continuing, I think the instance with the women was an instance where Susan heard what she needed to hear. Susan heard what she had always felt but hadn’t the bravery to say. I think my point is reinforced when she says to herself, “Every mother feels this way, every mother has felt this, it’s time to stand up.”
Susan at her very core wanted the typical gender roles of her and Elijah. She may have been hesitant to accept that but once she did she felt happier.
What I find interesting about the character of Susan is the way that she seems to exist as this character who is hyper-aware of gender roles and expectations in a way that goes beyond personal attention and dives into the more culturally ingrained aspects of gender distinction. She seems to exist in the in-between of male and female roles, both as the one who sees herself as needing to control certain social situations (as evidenced by the opening paragraph) and feeling like she needs to fulfill the classically female roles, including breastfeeding her child.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found particularly compelling about this short story was the way that Biblical imagery was interwoven. In many ways, the references seem to build on each other to say something specific about the character of Susan. She finds something euphoric in the portrayal of angels as somewhat more childlike and sensitive (“plump winged infants in various postures of angelic gladness...cherubs not doing much of anything except engaging in a kind of abstract giggling frolic, freed from both gravity and earth, the great play of Being inviting worship. What bliss!”) and goes so far as to name her child after an angelic figure, giving the reader the impression that she is hoping that her child will emulate such qualities. These same sensitive qualities, however, that she seems to appreciate in babies and cherubs do not appeal to her in the long term as they apply to men. Naming her baby Raphael seems to point to a distinct lack of self-awareness on the part of Susan. While she revels in the sensitivity of children (“For once, the famous agony had been trumped by babies, who didn’t care about the Crucifixion or hadn’t figured it out”), she is distinctly aware of the way that these qualities in her husband grate on the nerves, reminding her too much of feminine attributes. In naming her baby Raphael, it is almost as if she is supporting the possibility of raising her baby to exhibit these sensitivities, though her incredible frustration with the actions of her husband seems to show the reader that as the baby grows, perhaps following in the pattern of his father, she will become overly aware of how she will become frustrated with those feminine qualities which she occasionally claims to appreciate.
What complicates Susan, at least slightly, towards the end of the story is the way that the reader is given a glimpse into her mental process. The reader is made to feel the way that she exhibits self-awareness by showing that she does not believe that her husband actually fought the men in the park, though this self-awareness is quickly smothered by other wants which have her believing her husband, even if a part of her remains unconvinced. This, more so than any other moment in the story, seems to define Susan and show the full scope of her feelings — a lack of self-awareness that is not as much inherent as chosen.
I feel like “Bravery” actually encourages us to delve into our own desires. Susan saw a sweet and heroic man because that is what she wanted to see. She believed his story about him saving the girl because it was easier and, quite frankly, it put him back in the place of the masculine role in their relationship which then gave her back her motherly role. She supports the idea of him lying, because that is the version of him that she wanted, not the guy who knew more about being a mother than she did.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Shawn about the role reversal, which I think with how strongly those roles are portrayed that the whole aspect of bravery makes a lot more sense because Elijah is fulfilling his role as the man while she, being the woman, takes care of him. I think that is what she wanted and desired at that point which counteracts how, when she was younger, she wanted to be with a sensitive, sweet, caring man. When, in the end, she wanted that tough guy man and when he shows up all bloodied, he’s kind of saying, “Are you happy now? I’m a man.”
In the beginning, Susan seems like she is all high and mighty because she prefers men that don’t play the tough-guy and she likes the “kind ones, the considerate ones”, but she does not quite realize when Elijah is the one that is constantly saying “I love you” and worrying about her that she then starts to take on the masculine role in their relationship, like when she gets “nudged” by the tram. She passes it off like it was nothing. And she realizes this reversal, when Elijah takes on the mother role in the relationship. So, as much as she desired for that sensitive man from the beginning, she realized that it takes her out of the role that she wanted because she was forced to wear the pants in the relationship.
I agree with the comments that people have already said about the gender roles being reversed with Susan and Elijah. I did not see how it for myself as quickly and easily, but it is there especially in that first scene. I had actually thought that may have been another female character that was as aggressive with the men on the street, that perhaps as Susan wanted a kind and gentle man that she was a similar kind of woman. The voice that Baxter gave her was strong and honest. She was not afraid of anything. One line that really struck me was “The not-so-sweet good looking guys just stood there. They were accustomed to being teased, and they always liked it. As for the other boys—well, no one ever really cared about them.” She places men into two categories, without any care for the men in between. Baxter allows his audience to see the similarity of Susan to the guys who do not care about the girls’ remarks, because she does not care herself. She likes teasing them as much as they like being teased.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the comments about Susan hearing what she wanted to hear from the madwoman. I felt like Susan liked being in control of a situation. She teased the boys and then she left. She called Elijah and asked him out. Women are traditionally more involved or hands on with raising children, but she knew Elijah would be better with their child because of his career and kind nature. I think Baxter did a good job showing Susan’s emotions. I think Susan’s remark about all new mothers acting the same way she was, was a strong generalization that Susan was using to turn the issue into a gender role situation rather than a personal one. I believe Susan began to feel her maternal role being threatened when Elijah brought them to the chapel. She makes a point of saying how much Elijah knows because he is a pediatrician and I think that made her feel inferior to him.
In Strout’s introduction to the anthology, she stressed the importance of voice. I think that Baxter used a strong voice from the very beginning, showing Susan’s character. She was honest and bold. Susan’s voice allowed the audience to see her personality better and therefore comprehend Susan and Elijah’s fight as Susan would view it.
I wouldn’t say Baxter’s storytelling allows us to see past our own desire; however, it makes us think about how we go about obtaining our desires, and makes us question how much we pretend those desires to be true in order to have what we want. From Susan, we can see just how far someone goes to craft her perfect vision of her husband. In a way, I think her desires get in the way. She wishes the perfect husband into existence, but the Czech woman is a reminder that Susan cannot have her husband live up to all she desires. Susan believes she understands the Czech woman because she subconsciously knows Elijah will overstep these bounds that she has internally set for him. She does not actually know what the Czech woman says, but rather makes herself believe she understands as a subconscious warning. I wouldn’t say Susan wants to change her ways. She wants to hold onto this vision of her husband. The Czech woman acts as her underlying fear that her desires will all eventually fall apart. I think we can see this also with both Susan and Elijah claiming Pozor means beware instead of pay attention. This detail signifies that Susan and Elijah are both weary of reality and their positions within it. Instead of paying attention to what is in front of them, they rather are weary of it. To beware is to avoid. F you see a sign on a fence that says beware of dog, you stay away. While to pay attention is to face something, focus on that something and think about it. So, Pozor is a way to show avoidance on both Susan and Elijah’s part.
ReplyDeleteAs others said in earlier posts, gender roles are key to this piece and to Susan’s desires for her husband. There is this reversal. Elijah, in the beginning, plays into the standards Susan wants. Playing into Susan’s vision for her husband, the use of gender role reversal strengthens, yet also deteriorates for the reader this synthetic construction of the world that Susan holds onto. In Susan, the role she assigns her husband strengthens her vision of their lives, while it reveals to the reader how weak her construction is. With the Czech woman’s words, Susan’s reaction to Elijah feeding their son, and her reaction to her husband’s story, we can see how loose her beliefs really are, and yet she still holds onto them. These are all signs that her vision of her husband’s role is not just as she planned. We can see her denial, and how she allows it to control her perspective of her husband. While Susan constructs her desire driven perspective, Baxter shows the reader how one’s desires can have so much control and shift one’s idea of what is and what isn’t. There can be all the signs that lead to the correct answer, but our desires can take a hold of us, resulting in an alternate view of life.
I also noticed gender roles played a big part in this story. I noticed Susan was very feminine with her need of wanting to conceive and I feel she was searching for a sense of security. At least in my opinion I think those are more feminine things to want than masculine. One of the first things she noticed about Elijah was his monogrammed handkerchief and she associated that with money. Elijah was also a pediatric resident. So here we see he is a "perfect contender" for marriage. He has a job with steady income. I find that once a woman finds that-that sense of security the next thing she'll want is to conceive. Elijah is also the name of the prophet which is a pretty big thing to admire and I feel Susan liked that a lot.
ReplyDeleteElijah himself comes off as fairly feminine or at least in touch with his sensitive side. We see this through the way he acts and the things he says, how they are so beautifully said. I also noticed a sense of need in him when Susan didn't say I love you back to him.I find that is usually something girls fret about, I found it interesting to see a man do it. Although Elijah seems fairly feminine, Susan does describe him to have the body of a gym rat, which I think is fairly masculine. But later she'll draw connections between Elijah and the Pope. I thought the play with Biblical figures was clever throughout the story as well. At the end of the story Elijah tells a story of fighting off two men. I wonder if this is true or made up. I wonder this because I want to know if Elijah felt too feminine and wanted to "prove" to Susan that he could be masculine and be the "protector" of her and the baby. However if this story was made up I would like to know how he had gotten so beat up. I think this story would have been more believable if we had seen a little more of Elijah's masculine side.
Something else I noticed was in the beginning when Susan's roommate pointed out to Susan she always went for the "kind guys" and that she wanted a trouble maker. Susan told her roommate that, "Trouble comes home. It moves in. It's contagious." I went back to this because at the end of the story I see some tension in Susan's relationship with Elijah and I predict it will only get worse. This was sort of ironic that by going for the "kind guy" could still bring home some trouble.
And I have to agree with Nick when he said he believes Susan might have only heard what she subconsciously wanted to hear from the old lady. It was mentioned before that "Pozor" doesn't even mean beware so I want to know why Susan felt that the sign read beware. I could be stretching things here but maybe it was a little foreshadowing of what is yet to come of her relationship with Elijah. We first see the tension when she doesn't say I love you back and then again after the was "nudged" by the tram and then again after the old woman and of course at the very end.
A lot of people have already commented on role reversal which I agree with, and it was one of the first things I noticed especially since the boys were on the sweet corner “marking territory” which reminded me of one of the scenes in Pretty Women (the roles reversed of course). Anyway, when she had the argument with him about saying the “I love you’s” and having never been finer after being hit by a tram, I thought brought that out more as the story went on. I really struggled with was what Susan found to be “sweet”. Elijah was one of the safer men but even when he ends up not being so “angelic” she twists the situation by dismissing it as a form of manliness and loves him still anyway like a mother and a child, “boys will be boys”. She never wanted the “boring” men she discussed with her high school roommate, she wanted a troublemaker. She was so defeminized by her husband when he knew more about their son and was feeding the child absolutely perfectly just as he would at work, every day with someone else’s child. At the end I like that she notices her swollen breasts because it reminds her of this new motherly role and the smile of her “sweet Elijah”. She really enjoyed this sense that she could twist the truth to be the most beneficial to her, changing what “sweet” really means or to even deny herself her own truths on her desires. I feel as though his storytelling does make you think about your desires, not to really free us from them or give us a new desire but to in a way seek out shat is lying under our desires.
ReplyDeleteJust to add one last note on this story, I also paid close attention to names in this story after Elijah’s name’s meaning was mentioned, admittedly to make sure it was actually correct as well. I looked up the others to see why the author chose to use all of these names. Susan means to be joyful or cheerful, Raphael (Susan and Elijah’s son) in the religious realm is a healer, Sariel (the son of the Gay couple) is the benevolent angel of death /retriever of souls, Amos (the son of the interracial couple), and Gabriel (their neighbor’s curious son) “the messenger”. After looking them up many of these names have to do with their characters and I’m glad I looked into it.
Oh, I do sleep I just sent this now because I was stupid and set my alarm wrong last night. I'm sorry for sending this at a weird time.
DeleteOne interesting point I saw with this story early on was Susan’s discussion with her roommate over what kind of man they would desire. Baxter makes an interesting comment as he juxtaposes the roommate’s desire for a “bad boy” against Susan’s opposite desire for a family man. The irony, of course, is that Susan begins to have trouble with her husband precisely because he is not troubling at all; his apparent lack of male aggression makes their marriage difficult with the birth of their first child. He seems to replace Susan as the proverbial mother, proving to be a better caretaker of Gabriel than Susan. Additionally, going off of what Shawn posted earlier, Susan seems to be the more masculine of the two, from catcalling boys when she was younger, brushing off a potentially fatal accident with a tram, and actually showing rage over her husband’s treatment of her son. Despite her rising frustration, Elijah does not budge from his calm demeanor. His only addition to the argument was when he slowly and deliberately lowered Gabriel back into his crib, a seemingly passive-aggressive move that would traditionally be associated with women.
ReplyDeleteI would say that Susan and Elijah do understand the sort of strangeness that surrounds their relationship; it is essentially a reversal of gender roles. However, the idea of Elijah being the “woman” of the relationship seems to be the only point that unsettles both of them. Of course, Elijah only becomes unsettled by this trait when Susan does. When he openly expresses his love to her in the cathedral, he only becomes worried about what he said when Susan does not return the sentiment.
What puzzles me the most about the story is the title. Why Bravery? In my opinion, these two aren’t being brave at all. Rather than accepting each other and themselves for who they are or at least talking about their relationship, they choose to try and hide it. In this sense, Elijah’s “fight” at the end of the story marks the pinnacle of this sort of cowardice. Rather than accept who he is, both Elijah and Susan try to pretend that he is “manly” for the fight.
The final question, asking whether this story sets us free from desire, is a bit loaded. Sure, it enables us to see past our desire, but whether we actually will let it stop dictating our decisions is another matter entirely. Susan and Elijah both know what their desires are, but that isn’t going to free them from being who they are.
P.S. Sorry this is coming at the last minute.
ReplyDeleteGood . I learn unique articles here. I really appreciate your job. keep updating your site. You are great and you made very lovely site.
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