I hope everyone is enjoying the book so far, because I know I am. Myriam Gurba does a fantastic job at using humor to dissect different things that has happened in her life and brings us along through her story. She does a fantastic job at describing different characters as well as looking at the “ghosts” that affect her life.
The characters are well described and the detail is easily noticed. She seems to have a lot of stories involving her friends (Frida, Ashley, Conchita, and Ida). Conchita holds a job so you can tell that she has motivation, but she’s carefree at the same time, saying “I don’t care what we do as long as I can smoke” (43) and Myriam describes her as “so European.” (43) she “loved high fashion and was half black and half spanish.” (42). Myriam believes her friends are the type of “girls whose best years wouldn’t be in high school.” (42), so she believes that they will be doing bigger and better things once they get out. She allows us to look at the different personalities of her friends without ever really being too direct. It is important to know everyone in the story so we can try to experience the same thing Myriam experiences.
Myriam is comfortable with being gay and even came out to her mother. She is open with her friends about it as well, which is nice to see because not everyone has the ability to be so open. She replied with “I’m homo.” (48) when her and her friends were at a festival to get out of performing a sort of activity. After talking about a show, she let us know that “Pedro partly made (her) come out to Mom.” (59) It is important to be able to come out to loved ones so you feel more accepted and don’t have to hide anything from anyone.
She uses the ghosts to talk about guilt, her past experiences and portrays her sister. Ofelia, as a ghost when she is sick. She hangs out with ghosts (60) which can imply that she is dealing with her guilt all the time. She constantly thinks about what has occurred in her past which makes it so she shows little compassion and uses humor to cover everything up. “Guilt is a ghost…Ghosts have no etiquette…” (55). When Ofelia was sick, she “got as wispy and quiet as a ghost” (52). Anorexia is a terrible disorder that plagues many girls (and boys for that matter, everyone can have an eating disorder). Myriam uses the ghosts to explain things she can’t see or things that are sad to see.
Some questions to consider…
- Is describing her friends and family a good way to let us into her life? Or are their pieces missing?
- How does her use of humor hide the abuse she experienced and witnesses around her?
- How does being gay affect her relationships with family and friends so far? If at all?
Hi Colleen, great blog post!! Your title drew me in right away. In regards to your first question, I think that Myriam does tell us about all the good things about her friends and family to let us into her life. However, I do not think she is telling us everything, because she is insecure and wants to cover their issues up for them. Sometimes people try to cover up the bad parts they know about their friends to make them seem so much better than they actually are, and Myriam might be doing that in this case. For example, Gurba states, “He was joking of course. My mom didn’t have aids. My gay cousin did.” (21). There are definitely some pieces of information missing about Myriam’s friends and family.
I love the idea that describing her friends and family gives us an insight into her life. I think that we do learn a lot about her with her descriptions and interactions with her friends and family. For example, when we read about Ofelia, we can see how much Myriam truly does care about her sister and wants to be proactive in the situation, despite the “hard” front she puts up at times. Mryaim says “I silently prayed to a God I didn’t believe in, asking him to intervene and fix the situation” (50). This short quote tells us so much about Myraim, including her beliefs in the existence of a higher power and her unconditional love for her sister, as she hopes that anything or anyone can intervene and restore her sister’s health.
Hi Colleen!
I have officially fallen in love with this book; I’m so glad you are enjoying it as well! I liked the way you framed your blog post relating to the “three G’s – Gay, God, and Ghosts” because those are some of the main topics Myriam has presented us with in the book so far. Also, I’m happy you chose to ask your second questions because I’m intrigued by the way Myriam writes and how powerful it is. She uses humor and sarcasm to bring lightness to her serious stories. As I began thinking about why she might do this or why any writer would, it made me think about a quote from Mary Poppins. She states, “a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down,” which is what I think Myriam is attempting to do with her humorous writing and dark topics. Essentially, she uses humor in her writing to make the serious topics in her book more easier for the audience to handle. For example, when she is explaining her motivation for coming out to her mom she claims “if he could argue with a bike messenger on international TV about sticking his finger in peanut butter, the least I could do was acknowledge that I was bonkers for a white girl” (59). Instead of Myriam stating “I need to admit I am gay,” she approaches this hard situation quite differently than most. She uses dark humor to handle serious issues. She further portrays this through her writing so that, her audience can face the issue with a lighter approach. Her humor is like an arrow from a bow that is directly hitting the issue right in the bullseye without stating the actual problem. Myriam’s sharp humor is a more effective coping strategy than solemnity.
Hi Colleen! I really enjoyed your blog post because, I too, am really enjoying this book so far. And as for your second question of, how does Gurba’s use of humor hide the abuse she experienced and witnessed around her? I believe her use of humor is a shield from reality, she uses humor as a defense mechanism so she doesn’t actually have to deal with the things she’s been through. Throughout the book so far she hasn’t really spoken about how she feels or had a serious conversation, she uses her sense of humor to hide her insecurities. And similar to this concept, Gurba’s communication with ghosts can also be a shield from reality. She speaks to ghosts to relieve her pain instead of actually talking to someone. For example, when she says “I still hang out with white girls. I still hang out with ghosts”, she is almost comparing the two like they are the same (60). Ghosts and white girls are completely different, ghosts can not necessarily be seen, they can be felt or hallucinated. And with Gurba’s communication with them it is a defense mechanism to shy away from reality. Instead of actually dealing with what she has experienced she creates a fantasy to put all her emotions. Overall her use of humor throughout the book so far can be described as a defense mechanism from dealing with reality.
Hey Colleen! Great blog post! I think you had a great analysis of ghosts and it helped me read the book in a new way. To answer your question I feel like describing her friends and family is, in fact, a good way to let us into her life. When she describes them, she always finds a way to make the description humorous even if it’s unintentional. It’s also a good way to get her point of view on certain people and get a more accurate feel of how the narrator sees the situation. For example, when discussing her white neighbors she says, “Their white son was super chill and fun to hang out with… Meanwhile, his little sister acted cunty” (7). Here, Gurba is informing the readers on the people she is surrounded by in her neighborhood and their character which can help foreshadow why she feels the way she does about them.
Hey Colleen, great blog post!!
I especially love your last line, “Myriam uses the ghosts to explain things she can’t see or things that are sad to see”. I guess it didn’t really occur to me but having you include that made me read the text in a different light. On page 50, I took her praying to a god she didn’t believe in as another way in which ghosts enter her life as a way to help her cope when humor just won’t do it.
However, humor is her best tool for coping, and I think it helps the reader continue reading instead of stopping the book because the topics are too difficult. In class we talked about the different character traits of Gurba, and I think we all agree she is blunt, kind of outspoken and mean. If she didn’t soften her words with a little bit of humor, I’m not sure we would enjoy this book as much as I think we all are.
Hi Colleen, great post! I like how you discussed the ghosts in your post. The quote on page 55, “Guilt is a ghost” is a powerful one. She mentions it so briefly and then changes the subject. I’ve found her narrative to be a little jumpy and all over the place. Her memoir reads like a diary or the way people think (do we all think like this? Our thoughts all over the place?). The way she mentions the ghosts periodically shows their importance but she tries not to speak of them too much so as to dismiss them. It’s like she doesn’t want them to hold too much meaning, but they do.
And the way she speaks of her friends is an interesting note you brought up in your question. I think that she speaks of them a little harshly, and of course she’s going to be biased. I don’t know if it’s very helpful how she talks about them. It says more about her than it does about her friends, I suppose.
Hi Colleen! I think describing her friends and family to the reader, is a great way to let us into her life! Towards the beginning, she talks about her dad for a few pages and it gave me an insight of what Myriam’s dad is like and how she gets along with him. From the looks of things, he seems like he is a pretty collected guy when Myriam kept asking him weird questions about the Devil and evil. His response was, “Myriam, think of how boring life would be of nothing bad ever happened” (16). This is not the typical response of a father talking to a child. I believe this kind of insight to Myriam’s personal life, gives us ideas in why she thinks and acts the way she does. And I have to agree with Jenn that we do learn a lot from Myriam and her beliefs through that one instance. The outside forces from Myriam so far have given us most of what we know about her.
Hi Colleen! I agree I feel like Myriam Gurba is a very animated and blunt character which is interesting because I feel like many female characters we have read about besides Beneatha are very quiet and reserved. Gurba describing her family to us gives us more of an insight of her life and we can make assumptions about how she is as a person and how her family and family life could have possibly shaped her as a person. Her use of humor I feel like is a defense mechanism to stray her away from her problems. However, I feel like she is a very strong character for example on page 64, “Ida could be a dumb bitch sometimes. Like during the fifth-grade race war, as I was lamenting getting called a beaner and a wetback, she said, I know how you feel.” This part stood out to me because Gurba uses satire throughout this book because after this conversation she said a silent prayer for every blonde Mexican. How she thinks of her friend Ida is interesting and there seems to be a disconnect between the two of them. Gurba is a stronger character for sure and Ida is a bit more girly? I feel like she gets along better with girls than guys and generally speaking, I feel like sometimes for people who are gay it is easier for them to relate to people from the opposite sex because they have similar interests.
Hi Colleen! I enjoyed your post and I liked your analysis on the ghosts! I believe that her description of her friends and family is a great way to let us into her view and her life. The way in which she describes people is quite comical to me. For example, “white son” “cunty” “white girl” are adjectives that some people use on a day to day basis, but are not really seen as “acceptable” (7, 59). I like the element of Myriam’s voice and persona that the author brings into play, without that personality the descriptions wouldn’t be as great.
Great blog post Colleen! I really enjoyed how you brought her other friends into perspective because it’s important to emphasize how Myriam is telling the audience about her own life but as time goes on, her friends and family definitely shape her. To answer your first question, there could easily be pieces missing from the descriptions of her friends and family. It’s important to picture them as a three dimensional person that probably has different opinions and experiences than Myriam does. But it is significant how she personifies them in her own ways through her own encounters. A big experience I noticed was when Myriam felt comfortable and confident enough to come out to her childhood friend Ida. Especially when Ida had been very religious lately. When Myriam comes out to Ida, she describes that Ida “flinched a little” because of her religious beliefs. This came up odd to me because prior, she told Myriam that she was asexual. So far, her sexuality hasn’t made a tremendous impact on the strength of relationships but it does seem to be a big factor that comes up frequently throughout these anecdotes.
Hey Colleen! I really enjoyed reading you blog post! I think it is important to describe her friends and family because it does help us understand her life a little better. If you think about it, if you didn’t know the background of a persons life and about the people that shaped them, it is hard to truly understand someone and how they act. The fact that she is gay doesn’t seem to be an issue so far. The fact that her mother is accepting of it I feel helps.
Hey Colleen! I think there are definitely missing pieces when it comes to the descriptions, but it is understandable, she wants us to know what she wants, not more than that, nor less; so she can decide the information she is sharing and the way she explains each episode of her life. As for the second question, I honestly think using humor is such a good idea, I can relate with that because usually my way of dealing with my problems is by using humor and making fun of everything around me, I think it is a way of controlling the situation, of being the one in control and with the power to say “this affects me to a certain extend but I give myself the power to manage the situation”