So Much Pretty (20 page)

Alice Piper

Freshman English

Ms. Lourde

7th period

4/6/2008

Monique Wittig’s
Les Guérillères
is an epic poem and a memorial to the dead. The right-hand page at the end of each scene is simply a list of names capitalized in bold that the reader soon recognizes as names of dead soldiers.

Les Guérillères
embodies the traditional epic plot of “conquering the monster.” The magical and practical things that society and its heroes have done to “kill the monster and return to harmony” are revealed throughout the text.

Les Guérillères
is an epic of violence, battle, and conquest and the entire book calls for war—even a war on the language of the enemy.

“The language you speak is made up of words that are killing you. The language you speak is made up of signs that rightly designate what men have appropriated.” (4)

Later she expresses that the central mistake people make is acceptance or happiness in either being dominated or dominating. She refutes this false choice:

“Better to see your guts in the sun and utter a death rattle than to live a life that anyone can appropriate. What
belongs to you on this earth? Only death. No power on earth can take that away from you. And—consider, explain, tell yourself—
if happiness consists in the possession of something then hold fast to this sovereign happiness—to die
.” (47) (italics are hers!)

Like true epic heroes, Wittig’s characters are only satisfied with freedom and fighting for the cause. This also turns upside down the “essentialist” (or what people call natural) understanding of women as givers of life, symbols of life, and nurturers.

In
Les Guérillères
, they become bringers of death, celebrants of life and death, and individuals who are active, violent, malevolent or protecting, or nurturing or funny, all kinds of things. (Which makes more sense because really if you think about it a person can’t be a symbol of a thing or a metaphor. Unfortunately Wittig makes people into symbols of something else. Which proves that the whole thing is bogus. I don’t even get how this works given the fact that people are biological entities. When I was reading about the epic and the idea of a person being a symbol I almost called you because it seems to be an enormous flaw in logic. And really takes the pleasure out of reading about characters and what they want to do or who they are.) (I know you hate my parentheses—but this relates directly to
Les Guérillères
.)

The form of the narrative itself is a symbol—a circle beginning and ending with a postapocalyptic society in which the sexes are divided and a war has already been waged. So, men and women are divided, come together, and are divided again. Like they are one creature that keeps destroying itself. The book could be finished and started over perpetually because of this form.
Les Guérillères
is also an epic in that it can be cut apart and any piece can stand on its own.

The description of the monster is my favorite part:

“He has enslaved you by trickery, you who were great strong valiant. He has stolen your wisdom from you, he has closed your memory to what you were, he has made of you that which is not, which does not speak, which does not possess, which does not write. He has made you a vile and fallen creature. He has gagged abused and betrayed you by means of stratagems, he has stultified your understanding, he has woven around you a long list of defects that he declared essential to your well being, to your nature.” (130)

This is a far better monster than the Cyclops or Minotaur or Golem.

Wittig’s book is also about wrath. For example: Men are skinned, tortured, hacked to pieces, and buried in mass graves. Some men have joined the women in battle, must be reeducated, and then are heroes. An end of violence is declared and “Paradise,” Wittig says, “exists in the shadow of the sword.”

This kind of idea can only be taken seriously in an epic. (Skinning men or killing suitors all day long, like Odysseus, or fighting for years because someone is beautiful, or gods wanting battles to take place or even that “monsters” exist, etc. . . . it’s absurd.) The epic overlooks the causes of war (gold, land) but it is meant to be a story
about
the causes and outcomes of war. It replaces real reasons with symbolic reasons and inserts human characters as symbols, too. Which I said earlier I think is completely illogical. Wittig’s piece is a classic example of an epic poem (meets ALL the criteria discussed in class). The real question is what is the value of the epic—even if you change who does the killing? It might be the worst form of literature. (Ms. Lourde, can I stop in during lunch Thursday to work on this more? I want to get it right. Alice.)

Beth Ann

HAEDEN, NY, AUGUST 2008

A
FTER THE RAIN
, Beth Ann and Wendy put the girls in the double stroller and walked through town so they could see how the river had risen and throw sticks into the muddy water.

The air smelled like wet pavement, and there was a light mist rising up from the sidewalks. Getting warmer already, that late-summer rainy season made Beth Ann feel drowsy, made her want to spend all day with the girls, stay up late and eat dinner on the porch and look at the stars. Summer made her love the simple things, and she wished Wendy were around more these days to do all the things with them like they used to. Crystal and Kenzie kicked their feet as they rolled along. They wore matching jelly shoes with Ariel and Sleeping Beauty on them, their hair in ponytails on the top of their heads.

Wendy had been talking about Dale since they left the house, and Beth Ann was beginning to get a little tired of it.

“It’s like it’s a whole different life,” Wendy told her. “I feel like we can do everything together. And I feel like I can learn to do stuff I never thought of, how to play golf or drink shots or even how to draw better. You know I can really draw? I don’t know why I never took any art classes. I don’t remember even going in the art room at school except when I was really little. Like Kenzie.”

“
What
wike Kenthie?” Kenzie shouted.

“Like me, too, right?” Crystal asked.

“Like both you girls,” Beth Ann said matter-of-factly. Then she said, “Yeah, Wen. Love makes you feel pretty sure of yourself, but you know what? So does just getting older.”

“My Widdo Mowmaid thoeth awe wike Cwythtal’th!” Kenzie shouted. Beth Ann mouthed the words “Oh my God” to Wendy, and they laughed. Some sentences came out all lisp, and it was hard not to laugh at her daughters no matter how hard she tried.

“That’s right,” Beth Ann said. “Now you girls talk amongst yourselves while Mommy and Aunt Wen talk. Big girls talk to each other now.”

Wendy in love was something her family was happy to see, and they didn’t care if it was Dale or somebody else. She was happy, she laughed even more than usual, and she seemed confident in a way she hadn’t been at school. At school, Beth Ann thought Wendy looked a little worn out. Now she looked so pretty, had such a dark tan from being out playing golf and swimming.

She was growing up, Beth Ann thought, wouldn’t be such a daddy’s girl anymore. A little more self-sufficient. Wendy had always had so much more than Beth Ann—she didn’t know hard work or worry. She got to work in an office. Take whole weekends to drive places with the swim team. It made Beth Ann mad sometimes, and she’d hate to see Wendy become one of those people who was out socializing all the time, not have time for family. Her family, anyway, not just Dale’s.

“It’s nice to have a first love,” Beth Ann said finally. “But don’t sell yourself short. You’re a really pretty gal, Wen, and maybe you’ll want to date other boys.”

“You don’t like Dale.”

“I do, honey, I just don’t like golf that much. And that shit smell coming from their whole place up there bothers a lot of people.” Wendy looked offended for a quick moment and then touched her arm and they both laughed.

Beth Ann also thought Dale was stuck up, that Wendy was too smart for him, and sometimes she couldn’t stand the way he talked. But she didn’t say so. Plus she knew it wouldn’t make a difference if she did. Wendy loved him, and Beth Ann figured a
big boy like Dale was probably fun in bed, and that mattered. She wanted Wendy to be happy and have fun.

The little girls were singing a song from preschool, stopping to say “No no no, like this,” to each other and then laughing and starting over with made-up words. Suddenly, Beth Ann remembered she wanted to tell Wendy about a story she’d read in
House Beautiful
at the salon. It was about a lady architect.

“Oh! You know what architects do, right?” Beth Ann asked her.

“Uh, yeah?”

Beth Ann said, “They draw houses out on paper. Like what you and DW used to do when you were a kid. You ever think of doing that? You looked at plenty of blueprints.”

Right then Beth Ann thought she could see Wendy’s whole future. See the girls going to stay with Aunt Wen in some nice house for the summer while she and Davy had their own fun time. Thought Wendy could be one of those women who didn’t just get out of Haeden but got everything. Wendy could be one of those people you read about, who started doing math and drawing houses when she was five but didn’t know what it all meant until her sister-in-law asked her one day, out walking, did she know what architects did. Then she’d go to school. Beth Ann could do interior decorating, and then the two of them could have their own business. Maybe buy the old Masonic temple, put up a sign that said white and white architecture and design, and call it a studio, like in
House Beautiful
.

“No,” Wendy said. “I never thought of it.” Beth Ann could see she was still distracted, thinking about Dale.

“Well, you might want to,” Beth Ann said.

They stood on the bridge, looking down into the river, while the girls sang and swung their feet in the stroller.

“You might want to do a lot of things, Wen,” Beth Ann said. “You got the whole world waiting for you.”

Claire

HAEDEN, NY, DECEMBER 2008

T
HE LINE OF
volunteer searchers stretched halfway across the field beside the intersection of Himrod Road and County Road 33. Gene and Claire and Alice walked holding hands over the blunt and broken stalks of harvested corn sticking up from the frozen ground.

Alice had asked to come with them, Claire kept telling herself. She had asked and they had said yes, but now she believed it had been a horrible mistake to bring her. It didn’t matter that she was almost grown up, that several boys from her school had wanted to come, too. That it was the right thing for the community to do or that Alice shared Gene’s constitution. Those things didn’t matter. This was not the way a fifteen-year-old girl should be spending her day—looking for the body of another young woman. That’s what they were doing, and there was no pretending they were looking for anything other than a body at this point. It was a show of community solidarity, standing together to do this for the Whites. It suited them better than joining a prayer group, but in the back of her head, Claire knew it would have about the same impact on the situation.

For all of Claire’s worry, Alice seemed fine. Talking with them about raising money for the team and about school. Eventually, she got around to talking about why they were there.

“Here’s an example of an ethical obligation, right?” Alice asked them as they walked. “What we’re doing right now?”

“How do you mean?” Claire asked.

“We’re ethically obligated to care for a resident of our town—it’s part of the greater good.”

“That’s always true,” Gene said.

“Well I guess we’re not caring for a resident,” Alice said. “Because we don’t know where she is. Technically, we’re showing care symbolically, right? We’re more like caring for her family.”

“I don’t know if this falls into the category you’re talking about,” Claire said.

“Connie said stuff like this is better suited to a cost-benefit analysis.”

Her words chilled them for a moment. Claire could feel Gene’s tension as they walked on either side of Alice.

“Not really,” Claire said.

“Does finding Wendy benefit her family and the town more than the difficulty or fear or whatever
takes
from the town? Isn’t that like talking about a greater good, anyway? Con says what’s practical is almost always ethical.”

“Not quite,” Gene said.

“Why not? If we find clues that prevent another person from disappearing, or that lead to catching someone, or if we find her alive! We might find her alive. It’s not out of the question at all. We don’t know.”

Claire put her arm around Alice’s waist and walked in step with her over the hard clumpy earth. She could feel her husband’s sadness meeting her own when Alice said it. They walked quietly for a while.

“So the risk benefit is the right thing to base all this on,” Alice said almost to herself.

Claire didn’t speak for a moment. She was genuinely surprised that Alice had been sold on the kind of business-speak Con used. “Sometimes you have ethical obligations to do things that are hard or not practical for you as an individual, or difficult to understand within the social context you’re in,” she said, stopping to look into the cool blue of her daughter’s eyes. “Like, none of the things people did during civil rights were really practical for themselves or their families, right? The individual risk benefit to
sitting at a lunch counter where you know your head is going to get knocked in by racists or the police doesn’t work out, right? Or the Panthers arming themselves when obviously the police and the army can take them out pretty quickly.”

“In the short term, things like that don’t work out,” Alice said. “But in the long term, everyone knows it made sense.”

“Right,” her parents said in unison. “Exactly,” Gene went on. “And that’s why Con’s idea is not always a good model for reasoning. That’s the model that gets you companies like Gen-Ag-Tech doing what they’re doing.”

“Oh. My. GOD!” Alice groaned. “How did even
this
conversation get around to Gen-Ag-Tech that quickly?” They laughed, and Claire felt some tension lift from her shoulders.