Michael Lassell's poem How to watch your brother die made me feel like Lassell was sort of dictating how the reader should behave when a sibling passes away.
The diction he uses in this poem is mechanical: do this, do that, say this, say that...
It reminded me of when we wrote Shakespeare, for example, in a different style like the user's manual.
In the poem, the narrator recounts what and how it was like to loose his homosexual brother in the user's manual tone.
The neutral, dictating tone could also represent the grief of loosing a loved one: the pain is so intense that we are somewhat out of our own shoes and observe the situation from above, from a "blank" standpoint.
The fact that the author employed "you" throughout the poem was very effective in communicating emotions to the reader because the reader actually pictures him/herself in the situation of loosing a sibling and is able to feel what it must be like much more vividly.The narrator is describing a personal experience, yet he does a good job at incorporating the reader into his own emotions.
I am not sure that I noticed heterosexuality in the narrator: he was simply being nice and compassionate towards his brother's lover. The narrator is simply turning his love for his brother towards the lover.
The homosexual character, though, acts like we think homosexuals should behave: he is weak, he cries, he needs to be held, yet he is also strong in a different manner since he endures all the predjudice against homosexuals.
We picture male homosexuals as more femine, in the way that they will tear up more easily and they won't be as "strong" as men. Yet I have known a gay couple, and I can assure that these two men were nothing like that. One wouldn't have known, just by seeing them, that they were homosexuals, and it was only months after knowing them that I realized they were lovers (I was a child then, so I just thought they were friends, but I was aware of the concept of homosexuality).
We have a tendency to build a stereotypical image around them, just like in the clips that we viewed in class (especially the Modern Family one), where it presented homosexuals as women in male form.
I really like your interpretations of the diction ( do this, do that...). But, when I was reading the poem I felt as if I was being comforted. When we go through hard times, the advice we tend to take most to-heart comes from the people who have "been in your shoes". That was what I felt when I was reading this poem. Even though I am not losing my brother, I felt as if I was been consoled for future reference.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part of you journal was when you said, "yet he is also strong in a different manner since he endures all the predjudice against homosexuals". This statement was so intriguing to me but I didn't feel like you went deep enough in explaining this. For instance, the writing activity we had to do in class was a perfect example of this. I don't know about you, but when I stopped to realize what it must be like to be a controversial minority in not just an intolerant society, but a harsh society where the majority acts on their beliefs, I wasn't so sure I could really handle it if I were put into that situation.
A show reference that would have also been a good argument for the statement that you had made was Glee. When Kurt was talking to his father and described how it felt to not have the ability to walk hand-in-hand with someone he cares about.