I want to think a bit about the first time that the narrator really discovers the extent of some of his desires. When he is climbing the hill with his mother and they cross paths with the night-soil man, he is immediately infatuated with this image. He describes the event on pages 7-9, and he articulated, “not without reason: this very image is the earliest of those that have kept tormenting and frightening me all my life” (8). He knew right away that this was a significant moment and that what he was seeing, (and how it affected him) would impact him for the rest of his life. Although it brought a positive desire, he expresses that it almost haunts him for the rest of his life. He discusses how he gained a love for what this man represented even though he didn’t really know why. “He represented my first revelation of a certain power” (8). There was an attraction to this man, but more so he found a longing to portray what he saw. He longed for something that he saw that day, but it took him a while to determine what he was responding to. He does, however, express that “the image of what I saw then has taken on meaning anew each of the countless time it has been reviewed, intensified, focused upon” (7-8). Not only is he communicating that he recounts the experience often, but he is also communicating that as he dwells on it, he begins to understand better what his desires are. As other blogs have expressed, the narration is very key. He writes this with the understanding of what he is feeling years later as an adult. This interaction with the “night-soil man” was very significant for the narrator. He was lured into something that he seemed not to have any control over.
Grace,
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you're saying, but I especially like what you point out in your last sentence. I feel that he is lured into other things similarly to the night-soil man. Immediately after I read that, I thought of how he can't control his feelings for Omi, and for Sonoko. Because he is homosexual, he can't help how he feels for his same sex, hence it is out of his control. He seems like he has to try to pretend to be someone that he is not, instead of trying to be his true self because he wants to be able to feel the control that he thinks other boys have. Moreover, with Sonoko, he suddenly realizes that he may have real feelings, not necessarily love, but is emotionally connected to someone of the opposite sex for a chance. I think this is completely out of our narrator's comfort zone, because he obviously cannot control his feelings. Also, I think that because he is experiencing a connection with a female, he sees it as being more normal.
I'm not sure if you can really call the encounter with the night soil man being lured. It's like stating a chance encounter with an escaped tiger on the street was you being lured to a mauling. But going with the hypothetical that he was lured, who's doing the luring? His mother who was leading him? I sincerely doubt she intended for anything to cause him to have such sentiments. Was it fate? That kind of assumes that only the night soil man alone would have caused that, and not some other bottom line of the career pool individual who also had a tragic existence.
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