Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.
The collection of short stories Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is, in itself, an exploration of the role of race and ethnicity in modern American society and literature. By employing the lens of a specific narrator for each story, Packer makes them more personal, filled with the experiences of a living, breathing person. Throughout the stories, the characters are met with a variety of situations that challenge their sense of self and create conflicts that ultimately affect their mentality. Not only the theme of race is spoken about there, but also other aspects of ones identity that can alienate a person from others, and ZZ Packer incorporates them into the narrative. This essay will analyze how the characters in the stories Brownies, Every Tongue Shall Confess, and Drinking Coffee Elsewhere are represented through the ways the narrators see and interpret them.
In Brownies, the conflict is built around the resentfulness and controversy African American schoolgirls feel towards White girls during their summer camping trip, and the narrators depictions reflect it clearly. First of all, the way the White girls are portrayed in the main characters Laurels eyes is generic and condescending. Their complexions a blend of ice cream: strawberry, vanilla; their rolled-up sleeping bags chromatized with Disney characters; or the generic ones cheap parents bought: washed-out rainbows, unicorns, curly-eyelashed frogs, states Laurel (Brownies, 7). As opposed to them, Laurel depicts each of the girls on her side with specific features that help identify them from one another, underlining their uniqueness. For example, she describes Daphnes attires as if they carry some sort of specific symbolism to the story. Shed always worn clean, though faded, jumpers and dresses; she wore a new dress with a velveteen bodice and a taffeta skirt as wide as an umbrella, muses Laurel, thinking about Daphne and her award-winning poem (9). It is an intentional opposition: the author strives to show the inequality between the images of Blacks and Whites as perceived by the Blacks themselves in the 1980s.
There is also a very special kind of imaging from the narrator present: the way Laurel perceives adults, in this case Mrs. Margolin, their teacher, and Mrs. Hedy, the mother of one of the girls, Octavia. Both are nearly indistinguishable to the reader, despite the fact that Mrs. Margolin wore enormous belts of cheap metallic gold or rabbit fur or covered with gigantic fake sunflowers (7). This, perhaps, serves to emphasize how little influence adults can have on children when the conflict has been established long before their birth and infiltrated all areas of their lives from the very beginning. Mrs. Margolin and Mrs. Hedy are both concerned with their own issues and pay little attention to the ugly situation brewing between the two groups.
The story Every Tongue Shall Confess builds less on the topic of racial injustice and more on the men being the symbol of destruction, as the narrator Clareese sees and portrays them in the text. The conflict, however, is set not only between Clareese and Deacon McCreedy, who degraded and molested her in her own home, but also between Clareese and the church which proclaims women unholy during their periods. Clareese wanted to curse the Church, whod decided that the Sisters had to wear white every Missionary Sunday, when her womanly troubles were always at their absolute worst (19). Her rage at the churchs ridiculous and inconsiderate demands is shown clearly, as she has to stand among other choir members and sing despite the pain and inconvenience her period brings her.
Moreover, Clareese is also put off by the presence of the Deacon McCreedy, and haunted by her constant conflicts with one of her patients, Cleopus Sanders, who was harassing her for her faith in God. To Clareese, men are equal to unkindness, mockery, and even savagery each of the male figures portrayed in the story has hurt her in one way or another. She does not feel on par with them, as their ideas, ideals, and behavior are always put above her simply because she is a woman. Clareese watches in befuddlement as as the congregation cheered, the women flagging their Bibles in the air as though the Bibles were as light and yielding as handkerchiefs in reaction to Pastors ignorant speech (23). She recognizes that men are allowed to mock, ignore, and belittle anything simply because they are men, which she sees as unfair and offensive.
Clareese believes in God deeply, and her beliefs are genuine; she sincerely wants to help her patients and the people around her to see God in everything. Her devotion is beautiful, as whenever she needed an answer, she relied on some sign from the Lord; a fresh beam of sunlight through the window, the hands of a clock folded in prayer (25). She tries to bring the light of her faith into her patient, Mr. Sanders life, and while he laughs and opposes her in it, she succeeds in the end. This story, while rather depressing in its nature, shows through subtle descriptions and contexts that ones sincere beliefs and genuine compassion are still able to change the lives of others without relying on the churchs doctrines.
Finally, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere develops on the story of African American girl Dina, who, despite being a young adult and being accepted to a university, is not mentally and emotionally stable to operate in society. Dina experiences serious struggles with her environment and the people in it, as she perceives the world through flashbacks and shuts her emotions off people. She is rather harsh towards others, especially in her head: for example, when Dina speaks about another Black person, she states that his overly elastic expressions resembled a series of facial exercises (53). It is clear from the narrative that Dina feels out of place, and instead of working out her issues, she turns them into caustic sarcasm aimed at both herself and other people.
When a girl who wishes to be a boy knocks on Dinas door crying, Dina places her attention not on the girls distress but rather on the fact that she is White. Crying had turned her face the color of raw chicken; she blew her nose into the waist end of her T-shirt, revealing a pale belly, notices Dina (54). It seems as if the color of Heidis skin is more important to Dina than her woes. With this notion, Packer reflects on the reverse situations, when skin color seems a more determining feature of society than ones identity.
The author even supplies peculiar details of other characters perceptions to underline the issue: when Dina is seen together with Heidi, she is mocked by other Black students, who are angry over her betrayal. Heidis ultimate Whiteness is showcased again by Dina there: Heidi was so plump and moonfaced that the sheer quantity of her flesh accentuated just how white she was (56). It seems more jarring with the progression of the story, as Dina, falling in love with Heidi, stops noticing that she is White altogether. Any emotional or mental issues she encounters further in their relationship are in no way tied to the differences in their skin colors.
Work Cited
Packer, ZZ. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Riverhead Books, 2004.
Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.