Drinking Coffee Elsewhere and Every Tongue Shall Confess - Essay Example

Subject: Essay on “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” and “Every Tongue Shall Confess.” Introduction The life of Dina, in “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”, learning the niceties of life, is an ongoing process. The progression of self-discovery in her is gradual, until she fully realizes her potentialities. Throughout the story, the going is tough for Dina to ascertain her place in the world. One need not take a grim look at her personality because of her choice of the revolver as the inanimate object. The selection comes naturally to her and it is extemporaneous and not malicious or calculated. Her answer is the result of release of her pent up feelings and that reaction shocks the college administration resulting in the award of one year at the therapy center. Her response is neither willful nor it has any hidden agenda. It is the spontaneous overflow of dark, suppressed emotions. Dina confesses “Until that moment I'd been good in all the ways that were meant to matter...Suddenly I was hard-bitten and recalcitrant, the kind of kid that took pleasure in sticking pins into cats” (Packer, 2003, p.106) In “Every tongue Shall Confess”, one of the important themes ingrained in the characterization of Sister Clareese, a choir member of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized, who is also a nurse, is how she has to challenge religious hypocrisy and sexual exploitation of her religious faith. She is molested by one of the so-called holy men, Deacon McCreedy, and she hates him. The combustible younger generation of African Americans, including females will cut loose from the mainstream discipline of the society and engulf the societal values like an avalanche causing enormous damage which may take long time to heal. Moreover, such incidents will remain as the permanent blots in the books on racial history of America. The inner worlds of both Dina and Heidi are portraits of innocence but the former suffers from the consequences of her neglected upbringing with other disadvantages, and the latter is the victim of circumstances. Commenting on Packer’s stories Julie Myerson writes, “What they have in common is that they're grafting away on the edge, struggling to fit in, to decide or define for them who or what they are. They may be wayward but they are essentially good - honest and funny and scathing.”(2004)I do not consider Dina as basically a violent character but there are certain tight knots in her personality which she is unable to loosen. Dr. Raeburn gives an opinionated statement that Dina is “having a crisis of identity” (p.117). There are several factors contributing to that crisis. Dina is a loner, a confirmed introvert on all counts, but things change, when Heidi knocks persistently, crying at her door. Heidi is also a student in Dina’s Contemporary Poetry class. She is a Canadian. She came to Dina under strange, tragic circumstances, crying in hiccup-like bursts. She had sucked some “cute guy’s dick” and he had made this news public and people think that she is “a slut.” To Dina’s probing question whether she is a lesbian she answers in the negative. She had a moonlike face. The relationship between Dina and Heidi begins from that unexpected incident. Thus it is not the gradually cultivated relationship, and its start is accidental. Heidi’s problem is that she gave oral sex to a boy who informs other people. Heidi is not lesbian as supposed by Dina. In another occasion Heidi publicly gives the statement that she is a lesbian. In fact, there is nothing common between Dina and Heidi. Dina wants someone to break her self-imposed solitary confinement, and she finds solace in the company of Heidi and they become close friends. But when Heidi publicly announces that she is a lesbian, Dina backtracks, avoids her, and does not speak to her for several weeks. She does not know whether to love her or hate, whether to maintain the relationship or to discard it, and in the end it undergoes total metamorphosis. Dina is certainly impacted by the frank nature of Heidi. The wise saying goes ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. That was the position of relationship of Dina and Heidi in the end. The relationship begins abruptly, and it grows consciously, Dina likes to maintain the relationship, and tries to discover her lost identity by steadily developing it. But excess of everything proves bad. From the moment Dina comes to know that Heidi is a lesbian, her attitude changes drastically. In articulating Dina’s characterization, the author does not provide firm conclusions and gives homework for the readers to judge the genuinely of the relationship between the two. In the characterization of Dina the author has also articulated how she deserves sympathy and support and not condemnation. The revolver incident is just the spark of the suppressed fire of injustice meted out to the African Americans for centuries and it is the pointer to their internal rebellion. Dina has problems galore. Her relationships with the society, as a child her relationship with her dad, her relationship with her college-pals is strained and nothing positive has happened to her in life. As such her thinking has knots within the knots. She did not enjoy even one bright phase in her life which she could continue to cherish and cling on. Several themes have to work together and cast their influences in tandem to mold a personality like Dina. Her traits are a compilation in complications and she lives her life, trying to stand apart from it. Even the psychiatrist fails to unlock the goings on in her mind and the enigma of her personality and he concludes by this observation: “Maybe it’s your survival mechanism. Black living in a white world” (p.128). Dina’s life has been a total fiasco and an unsolvable riddle and ZZ Packer has succeeded in creating a highly complicated character. In the story “Every Tongue shall confess”, even after being abused sister Clareese is willing to forgive him and this is the strange paradox of her characterization. She is candid enough to admit and the author writes “for she understood that an unmarried man might have needs,” but for his actor of ignoring her, she is not prepared to condone him. The depiction of the personal boundaries versus the religious dictions is cleverly articulated by the author her characterization. She is a religious woman and yet she is willing to forgive those who trespass the moral boundaries. Both these stories showcase a world from the standpoint of a woman of color and the problems and strain that remains tagged on to them on account of their African descent. Both these stories elucidate the churning process of the African-American experience. There is an ‘untold story’ told in every story about an author’s real-life experiences and one cannot avoid it, howsoever cleverly the author may make efforts to sweep it under the carpet. The painful past becomes more painful, if the current situations are not sound. The stories deal with the coping strategy Dina and Sister Clareese. They make conscious efforts to distance themselves from the pain-giving experiences of their life. When Dina recollects the past history of injustices meted out to her race, how the tender sapling of a quality like innocence can be nurtured? Her overall relationship with the society is Dina’s important problem. She is resigns to her fate, and becomes cynical. They say if one cannot find perfect discipline around, one has to carry-on with the available discipline! This is Dina’s plight in small and big relationships with her college-mates and pals. She finds it difficult to trust anyone unconditionally and she is suspicious about everything. Her initial encounter with a stranger-turned-friend is has been described in the paragraphs above. Even the most sober, thinking and spiritual African American will not be able to forget the history related to the color of his/her skin. The protagonists in these two short stories belong to this category. How do they try to counter their disadvantageous position? The author depicts their ineffectiveness in challenging the odds and they are unable to articulate their grievances effectively. The fire of revenge continues to engulf their psyche, and they are incapable to find the outlet to seek peace within their inner world. Their desperate reactions at the most unexpected time overpower them when not warranted in a particular situation. This goes to prove the fragile manner in which their heads and hearts react and the heavy load of atrocities inflicted on the black race stands integrated into the gene of the people of that race. When innocence of a girl is challenged, when obstacles are created in her normal psychological growth, she is bound to react availing the option of tit for tat. As such ZZ Packer (2004) is right in observing that “When you’ve been made to feel bad for so long, you jump at the chance to do it to others.”(p.27) But Dina’s problem is not related to only black versus white issue. Hers is a multi-dimensional diagnosis and she suffers more than one personality deficiencies and struggles with an identity crisis. Apart from the problem related to race, her individual problems were awesome. She had negative feeling towards men, and the roots of the sapling, which grew as the hate-tree as years rolled by, was nurtured within the family. Her ruthless statements like “my father was a dick”, I hate my father almost as much as I hate the word dad” (Packer, p.111) and “wiping out all mankind” are pointers to the atmosphere of desperation in which she was brought up. This quote from the text proves that her particular mistrust and hatred for her father. “My mother had died slowly. At the hospital, they’d said it was kidney failure, but I knew that, in the end it was my father.” (Packer, p.90) Family is the foundation stone for the healthy growth of an individual. That was denied to her. Next is the societal disposition. Being born with the dark skin, she suffered on account of the prevailing racial bias in the American society. Under such grim circumstances any individual will turn cynical and in Dina’s case revengeful attitude was ingrained in each and every molecule of her personality. Her special animosity towards men was her additional problem. The fearful household, the unkind society, the ongoing racial tensions increased her rigidity towards humankind as a whole, and she failed to appreciate the beauty in living with cultural diversity which is the hallmark of American democracy. She stoically defended her differences with the society and failed to appreciate that black and white are alternative beats of the American heart. Living and adjusting one’s life in a multicultural society needs lots of understanding. If there is no perfect discipline in the society, one needs to adjust and carry on with the available discipline! Dina seems to have failed on this count. In “Every Tongue shall confess”, sister Clareese is sexually abused and her innocence is challenged, and in “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” the agonies of living in a multicultural society are not conducive for the virtue of innocence to take root and flourish in Dina’s personality as she is African American by race. Conclusion: Due to the unending difficult circumstances faced by them, loss of innocence is thrust upon both the characters as they had no power to control the situations imposed on them. Sexual orientation is the most important and enjoyable aspect in the life of a woman and its denial molded Dina into a totally introvert and perverted personality. She developed friendship with just one girl, and when later she revealed her identity that she was a gay, Dina suffered another psychological blow and terminated her friendship with her. She would never like to be identified as part of the community that was not much respected in the society. Thus, though she had so much to discuss, she had no one to listen to! "Every Tongue Shall Confess" features a more contemptible but equally imprudent church leader, Deacon Jeffers. Packer brings to light the misogynistic elements in the African American churches. The author condemns the disgusting habit of romanticizing the gospel singing and popular enthusiasm generally found in such predominantly African American places of worship. She comes heavily against institutional/religious hypocrisies and the character of Sister Clareese highlights this aspect. Works Cited Packer, Z.Z (2004). Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Riverhead Trade; Michigan; Print Myerson, Julie. Review: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer; 6 March 2004 Web: www.theguardian.com › Read More