No time for a clever title, there are more important things to write about!
The revelation of what Belicia went through puts her character in a whole new light. Her life has been almost nothing but suffering, varying degrees of torment. Little wonder that she has belittled and abused her own children throughout their lives--she is so damaged by her experiences that all she can do is lash out and hurt those around her, even those who need her the most. "It was the sort of beating that breaks people, breaks them utterly," (147). That kind of damage taints a person forever, changes their core being and can make them into terrible people.
All of this does not excuse what she did to her children. It does not make her actions more sympathetic. She is still a terrible mother and a cruel, hateful shell of a person. It doesn't change my mind about her at all. But it does make me pity her. I've found that it's possible to hate a person entirely, but still feel pity for what has happened to them to make them so broken. Woo-jin from Oldboy, Sweeney Todd, Francis Dolarhyde from Red Dragon...it's possible to divorce the person that was from the person that is, and so feel the deepest remorse for what happened to someone but at the same time hate the monster that they've become.
Your thoughts?
I think that these characters are some of the most intriguing. They make us really question our thoughts, and even our own judgments. Beli is such an awesome/terrible character.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Shelbi. These characters are the best to read about because it makes you wonder why they would treat others in a way that is similar to their own terrible upbringing and it makes for such a love/hate feeling for a character. Beli is, like you said, such an awesome/terrible character and for me that makes this book that much better.
ReplyDeleteBeli is like one of those parents who is physically abused as a child, and turns around and does the same thing to her own children. I don't know why that happens, it is a vicious cycle. I don't care what happened to Beli as a child, she has no right to treat her children like that. When your children can talk about your illness and upcoming death in such an unsympathetic tone, you know you did something wrong as a parent.
ReplyDeleteBut Ryan: no one is saying that she has the right to treat her kids that way. No one. No one is saying she did nothing wrong as a parent. What we are saying is that black and white absolutes ("She's an awful person! Period!") aren't compassionate, productive, or even thoughtful responses to have to such a complex character.
ReplyDeleteRe-read Bennett's last paragraph and you'll see that's basically what he's saying.
Considering the hell she went through (and you haven't read it all yet), including being attacked, (possibly) raped, and almost beaten to death, I'd say she did succeed in giving her kids a better life than she had. (Even if Oscar's is "brief.") And that's something, right?
Coming from working with young children on a daily basis, I can not feel pity for Beli. Not only is she psychically abusive, she is also psychologically abusive. It wasn't the love for his mother that keeps Oscar from trying suicide again, but the FEAR of his mother (I wrote about this in my post). I just can't respect anyone whose children fear them. I am definetily not for coddling, but Beli is a downright cruel. Sure, Beli's kids have a better life than her (but that's not saying much), but I feel that more correlates with Trulijo's death and the death of the dictatorship more so than anything Beli has done. I can't feel pity for her, as Lola says, it's not a curse, it's just life.
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ReplyDeleteLike I said, I detest Beli too. The Beli that came to America and raised children, that is. But even while I hate her, I pity her for what she has endured. Kind of an Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader thing (if Diaz is allowed to nerd the socks off of readers then I can make one Star Wars reference): the way Obi-Wan told it, Anakin was a good man who exuded many virtues, but once he became Vader the good man in him ceased to be. But even while he's a monster, you can look back at the good person he used to be and still feel sympathy and admiration for him. Separate him into two people. Same with Beli.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely agree with feeling sympathy for the way a person was in the past and detesting the person they ended up becoming. It still happens today with people. they are treated so horribly that it turns them into a monster. Like Ryan said earlier, it pretty much is a vicious cycle.
ReplyDeleteI also feel for Beli because she was subjected to so much abuse. The saddest part is she does not end the cycle of abuse. I know we talked about this in class. When people are abused they tend to continue the cycle because it's what they know. However there are also people who come from abuse and end the cycle. Beli had physical and emotional scars as a reminder of her own abuse, you would think she would have wanted to spare her children from that pain.
ReplyDeleteI would simply make the point (again) that given everything she has gone through, Beli seems to do her best as a parent--or the best that she's capable of doing (in a world without money, therapy, feminism as we know it...). You can't doubt that she loves her kids, that she lives and works and strives for them, even if she goes about it the worst way.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we are focusing *too* much on her as abusive?
Eh...for me it goes beyond the abuse she heaps on her children. That's bad enough, but she does show moments of care for them, like when she quietly respects Lola's grief over Max and defends her from the other passenger, or when she tries tooth and nail to bring Oscar back from the Dominican Republic (twice). If she had hated her children, she wouldn't have helped them.
ReplyDeleteBut she has no redeeming qualities. These instances of care for her children are almost completely eclipsed by the rest of her attitude towards them, and again, stepping away from the abuse she has no virtues or saving graces. It's hard to like a character that is doesn't have anything redeeming about them.
But Bennett--don't you see how your two paragraphs contradict each other?
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