Essay Questions

From a psychoanalytic outlook, what does the ‘voice’ embody? - “Ruth: August 16, 1983”

The ‘voice’ is emblematical of Ruth’s all-pervading unconscious nostalgia: “It ( the voice) comes in a dream, a dream of fire, one here your lungs are full of smoke and the walls are crashing one by one, but you can’t get out. Read, Ruth Blue, the voice says, read the words first, and then we’ll see. And you dream the words, abide, gather hold fast. You dream that if only you could read fast enough read all the longest words aloud, you would see your own self rise, ash from paper, rise through an open door.” The presence of the voice in Ruth’s dreams surmises that the voice is related to her unconscious requirements. Fire means that the voice is ardent entreaty for Ruth to gratify her cravings. ‘Crashing walls’ are archetypal of the barricades that encumber her from progressing. Smoke is illustrative of the awe-inspiring make-up of the voice; Ruth’s longing is to transcend the subjugation which the ash embodies.

How does Andrew utilize the hazel to accentuate his stance? - “Andrew: August 16, 1983”

Andrew exploits the discernment of subjectivity to uphold his ideology. Andrew avers, “ I maintain that witch hazel has a scent. I’ve read that it is odourless, colourless, and my mother, from her personal store of wisdom, calls it a flower with no sue at all. But I want to believe in ambitions that take us beyond all we think we can be. I want to know that God does not merely exist between the pages of any book, however holy. And that love, sin or none , can walk and talk in an uprising array of forms. But I hold these notions , my most secret self, next to my own heart, like a bundle of postcards at the back of drawer I show no one.” Here, Andrew undermines the absoluteness of the hazel’s ordourlessness. His declaration blatantly suggests that he is atypical; hence, would not kowtow to the societal criteria as regards his sexuality. Beside, Andrew anticipates to pursue a subjective religious familiarity that rise above the manual pages which are emblematic of the Bible. Undeniably, Andrew is an outright ‘strange bird in the tree of heaven.’

What is the inference of Andrew’s Philosophical allusion? - “Andrew: August 16, 1983”

Andrew reports “ As Socrates said, we are not necessarily a race of two choices alone, but three. During my Inez lending library visits, I read in Plato how the sexes were originally three in number. Woman, child of earth. Man, child of sun. And a third, union of the two, a freakish creature with four of everything, feet, hands, eyes, ears, and two of what my dear mother might call the unmentionable places of the body. A creature, so Socrates says, terrible yet great. Without such a creature, he says, we cannot begin to understand the power of the heart.” The philosophical allusion is contributory in fabricating Andrew’s ideology vis-à-vis gender. By way of allusion, Andrew sustains that the binary scheme of cataloguing gender is unsatisfactory since it disregards a third gender. Accordingly, gender goes beyond the corporeal sex organs; the ‘heart’ too stimuluses an individual’s gender.