A Semiotic Analysis of Carla Trujillo's What Night Brings - Essay Example

A Semiotic analysis of Carla Trujillos "What Night Brings" The novel “What Night Brings" is written by a Chicana writer named Carla Trujillo. Carla is an editor and a lesbian anthropologist. The story is centred on Marci Cruz as she was developing back in the 1960s in California. Marci is who is eleven years of age has secrets that she communicates to the reader. Firstly, she hoped and prayed that her father will go away one day; this was because of the abusive character that her father possessed. Though, at times her father was affectionate and loving, he would come home late at night and explode with violence, beating Marci’s sister Corin and Marci with fists and belts. Her mother who is deeply in love with their father ignores the ever-increasing abuse that her daughters are subjected to each day. Moreover, the exclusive part of this narrative is that in many occasions Corin and Marcin do not romanticize their dad, rather they disown him and call him by his name “Eddie” instead of dad. Thus, Marci prays for this to end one day. However, his prayers are not that his dad should die but just go away. He does not pray for the death of his dad because she has a second prayer that she sees will not be answered if she did so. Her second prayer is that God will change her physically from being a girl to a boy. Marci has a deep wish for a male body which thus create the foundation of her sexual fantasies and dreams. The main reason behind her deep desire for the male figure is because she wants to have relationships with girls, and the only way that she can appropriately express her feelings to them is by changing to a boy. Both wishes of Marcin somehow sounds impossible to achieve, but religious people say God can do miracles. In the meantime, the two girls found other techniques of surviving. Majority of their relatives had no idea on what to do with Eddie’s violence but were supportive and loving. In addition, other than her mother being blind to the actions of her husband, she is approachable. Considerably, the narrative holds the inventive attempts by the girls to outsmart their father and convince their mother and at least be able to see what a monster their father was. For instance, the most delightful one was where they were lent a camera by one of their uncles and tried to capture his father in implicating positions with his fiancée. By all this, Marci becomes aware of his affection and desire for girls and hopes to become a boy one day. The lesbianism feelings are touching and subtle, and by no means inflexible. Glimpses of how varied religious and family values can be are contracted as by the girls as they play with friends in the neighbourhood. The book gives some expectation for the girls after an intense conflict with Eddie, sends esteem for their huge flexibility in the aspect of difficulty. The gun that Eddie possessed was brought to use by Corin, who shot him while he was beating her mother. After the incident, Corin and Marci manage to reach the bus station and travel to their grandmother’s residence in Gallup, New Mexico. Grandma Flor assures them that she will protect them from their father and thus this is a new beginning in their lives. Therefore, this narrative features more on how religion that is Catholicism is connected to the queer identity of lesbianism. Marci realizes that his sexual orientated is quite different from the one carried out by her people and its culture at large. Thus by this difference she recognizes that maleness provides others with authorities and demotes her to a comparative disempowerment state (Trujillo, 2). By being a male, she will have the freedom particularly in regard to having affairs with women. Due to this she turns to her spirituality and her church so as have a space of discovering the repercussions of her lesbianism. For the most part, the church seems to provide Marci with her nurturance as she demands it from the church, even though she has to do a lot of reviewing of male religious beliefs relatively so as to express the backing she wants as she moves towards realizing her rapidly increasing queerness. Racism is also witnessed in the story when Miss Patt questions Marci if her name is Spanish and sarcastically concludes by telling her that Jesus loves everyone, and she should not mind. Additionally, Miss Patt discrimination is joined up by Marci’s mother comments to Marci that he should not be having meeting with the people like Miss Patt. This sentiment conveys a message to the reader or her daughter that Catholic is not appropriate for young Chicana’s. She was not comfortable with Marci’s meetings with Miss Patt and told her that prayer meeting from her church are the only ones that she should be attending. However, she did not know that her daughter was using Catholicism and its lessons as an interplanetary where her bizarreness could be realized and interrogated. Additionally, Marci does not relate well to teaching that are against her lesbianism in the Catholic Church; she wants the religion to be changed in a way that it can accommodate her sexual identity. She speaks that she hates stupid Holy Communion; this shows that Marci only uses the religion in pursuing his abnormal behaviour of lesbianism. She ignores the homophobic and sexist ideologies so that she can openly recruit God in her pursuits to win the love of the women she is sexually attracted to. In the story, she is banned from asking questions in the church because it makes other children doubt the teachings. Her main aim of fighting to have a male figure is more on her desires for girls and not because she thinks that Catholicism and queerness can mix well. Thus, throughout the story Marci holds to the creation of a Catholic body, feminist and yet a queer. In the beginning, he says that if she ever wanted a Hollywood name she would use names that were related to the crucifixion, Mary, and Christ. This however was not a way of showing holiness or devotion nor was it a way of satisfying some sexist ideal of female flawlessness, but because she reasons that the name will help her make it to Hollywood and trail relationships with gorgeous ladies. Getting on in the story, Marci comes to realize that it is improbable for her to be converted to a boy after the uncountable hours of appeals to Jesus, Mary and God. After seeing that it is impossible she states that if she is going to be a girl she better work out what to do. As she was saying this she poses an incomplete statement saying “problem is, what?” from these we learn that though she stops going to church, but she still reflects about God. Hence, this indicates that there is a change in her holiness in which she turn out to be an agent of her alteration by discovering her lesbianism. This is displayed when she kisses her tomboy neighbor Robbie this takes place on the last page of the reading. She starts to discuss the space where spirituality and her lesbian identity interact from a point that is based more on the borders of organized religion. This is in contrary to the previous position she has in the course of the narrative in the middle of it. This change mainly emerges after her grandmother told her that God does not give wishes; she has to be the one to reform her realism. So, although Marci takes a momentous amount of time creating and demanding a space for queerness within an established spiritual setting, the reader at the conclusion of the story is left with an impression that, Marci has decided her sexuality and gender will have more space to grow outside the church, even though she articulates no plan of leaving Catholicism. Finally, what is seen from the beginning is the how Marci lacks the physical, education and spiritual nurturance that she desires from her school, family or home. Apparently, one thing that she has is the church, and she uses it to decide the roles that Mary, Jesus, and God play in her life. Moreover, the church converts into one of the rare venues where she can proclaim any unusual power. Because the community does not give her any signals that lesbianism can be accepted, she reconstructs religious iconography and symbolism in a way that relates to her personal desires. Since, her religion lends itself to the reassigning and re-appropriation of meanings, Marci is capable of structuring a queer uniqueness that is inextricable and reliant from her devotion. Carla notes that this habit is quite common among the Chicana women in achieving their desires. Furthermore, by personalization and embodiment of a religion that in numerous ways does not accept her idea and also individuals like her, Marci makes the tools she has been given to proclaim her lesbianism right. This is contrary to the religion beliefs that do not validate or accept such an identity. Work cited Trujillo, Carla Mari. What Night Brings. Only women, 2004. Print Read More