Ambiguity
My best friend's mother had a string of abusive boyfriends. Some of whom I met, most of whom I only heard whispered about at two o'clock in the morning on weekends. I was thirteen before I questioned it; fourteen before I thought about trying to understand it. She was a smart woman, completely capable and outwardly independent, with a weakness that was too complicated for me to grasp. Until I knew Lauren I had always written off women like her as stupid. To me, the equation was simple: if someone treats you poorly, then that someone isn't worth having around. To stay with that person, to grow accustomed to an onslaught of aggressive behavior would require some sort of will on your part. Some part of this woman had to want to stay with the man who, maybe three weeks earlier had a knife pressed against her neck. And to me, that sort of masochism seemed ridiculous. If anyone was willing to put themselves in that position, then weren't they deserving of the consequences? She wasn't. She had three children to cater to, bills to pay with jobs that shifted so frequently there was hardly enough time to settle into a home before her kids were uprooted into another, smaller apartment. I never understood how the relationships she had
If I set out to write something with a certain agenda, or a specific message in mind, that piece becomes slightly less effective. In the end, Cesar, the eternal optimist is dead, while the cynic lives on. As a writer, my redemption belonged in the words I created, the stories I built in my head. Rodriguez does not mean to imply that the optimist's perspective is wrong, or his art any less valid. In it, the woman was determined to leave the person who was taking advantage of her. In worshipping a piece of art, we subconsciously demean it. Not because she hoped to change them, and not because she could examine the abusiveness as a character flaw, but out of dependency. He talks of meeting Cesar, whose optimism challenged his cynicism. There was always the promise of change, and that hope, however dim it may have been, was enough to keep her from leaving. Morrison is speaking about her writing and the journey it takes for her to create a story; her curiosity is what brings her art into a new light. In assuming that a certain piece of writing has the right idea, the proper explanation, we are demeaning ourselves. We need to gain perspective into circumstances that we are incapable of comprehending. Morrison, a novelist, relies on images (her remains) to form the story behind that image.
Common topics in this essay:
Tony Kushner,
Salman Rushdie,
,
Richard Rodriguez,
Toni Morrison,
Song Solomon,
Obviously Lauren,
created world,
paths choose leads,
abusive boyfriends,
paths choose,
choose leads,
black eye,
words created,
explanations heart,
art writing,
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Acceptance Essays
