The subject of mirrors in Boy, Snow, Bird is something I find fascinating. When reading it as a re imagining of Snow White, it’s a clear nod to the evil queen’s magic mirror. Each of the women/girls in the Whitman family have a very different relationship with mirrors. Boy, possibly because of the abuse she suffered, is fixated with her reflection. She’s conventionally beautiful, as a white woman with long blonde hair. Arturo catches her staring at her reflection multiple times, and assumes it’s due to vanity. “If it was vanity, I’d have been able to disguise it, all this insipid smirking at myself...No, the only behaviors we can’t control are those caused by nerves...But I didn’t know for sure that it wasn’t vanity running the show” (21). Boy had been abused one time by the rat catcher on account of her beauty, threatening to have a rat attack her face, but seemingly never did so. She describes a mirror as “Such a reflecting surface set in a frame. In a household setting this surface adopts an inscrutable personality (possibly impish and/or immoral), presenting convincing and yet conflicting images of the same object, thereby leading onlookers astray” (129). Boy doesn’t seem to believe that the rat never attacked her, and doesn’t accept the beautiful face in the mirror to be her own.
Snow and Boy both find that their reflections won’t appear in mirrors. Bird says “The mirror stuff only tends to happen in a handful of places...maybe it happens when she steps into spots that belong to this other girl named Snow?” (177). In a letter, Snow tells Bird that her reflection doesn’t always show up either. I think each girl has a different, but somewhat related reason as to why their reflections are not faithful. Snow was always treated extremely well by her family, to the point that they often didn’t even treat her like a person, more like a living embodiment of their success of passing as white. Snow never got treated like a person, and was unable to build her identity of personhood until she was sent to live with her Aunt Clara, who can not pass as white and teaches Snow about the Whitmans’ past. Bird, in the eyes of the family, seems to have lost the genetic lottery, and her physical appearance betrays the goal they had been working for in order to blend in with a white population. As she was growing up with her sister living somewhere else, her family was always talking about how wonderful Snow was. She was never put on that same pedestal, and her family will never let her forget that there once was a girl who they seemed to prefer over Bird. Perhaps it’s the family’s feeling of missing Snow and wanting her in place of Bird is reflected in how mirrors act: “[Shifting] just a little bit off center...like it’s wondering why it isn’t reflecting all that stands in front of it. I know a girl just came in; now where’s she at?”. The mirror is looking for Snow, and since it expects Snow’s presence, it can’t reflect Bird’s. While it isn’t exactly the focal point of the novel, I take extreme umbrage with how the rat catcher was handled. Boy’s abuse is however, an inciting factor of the plot, so I feel it’s still relevant to bring up. There are so many things about the character that build up to a massive mess. Firstly, a character finding that they are transgender because of trauma, or as a direct coping mechanism from trauma, is ignorant at best. Applying it to a character that previously identified as a lesbian worsens the already bad taste in my mouth. It seems to imply that heterosexuality is the default, and that being attracted to the same sex is a sign or requirement of a transgender identity. While there are plenty of heterosexual trans persons, gender identity and sexual attraction do not go hand in hand. The rat catcher being Boy’s violent abuser is something else that bothers me deeply. In my views, there are so many different types of people, and having a character that’s a member of a minority in an antagonistic role isn’t in it of itself inherently bad. It bothers me when that character is the only sort of representation that appears in the work. The rat catcher is the only character in the book that is seen to have a lesbian or transgender identity, leading me to wonder if this negative portrayal was done accidentally on Oyeyemi’s part, or in intentional malice. Finally, as if this portrayal wasn’t messy enough, after learning of the rat catcher’s identity, Boy only refers to them as Frances, and goes on a trip with her daughters seemingly with the intention of returning the rat catcher to that identity, Placing all other problematic elements aside for a moment, that is a frankly dangerous and ignorant way to think of a trans person’s identity. Transgender people aren’t “lost” or “misguided” about their identities, and it really shouldn’t be anyone’s goal to try and convince them to return to how they identified before they transitioned. If I were given the power to change how the rat catcher was written, I would either write them as a cisgender man, or as a transgender man with no mention of a previous identity as a lesbian. I suppose the trauma that he went through could remain, if only to give a reason for his abuse of Boy (Which is, an awful reason, I believe. But this book has themes of Boy being unable to accept or find ways to cope with her trauma, so perhaps it can be a parallel to the rat catcher’s experience). Boy could try and reconcile with him, not to try and bring out his old identity, but so the both of them can learn to cope with their own traumas. This section was largely based off what I’ve learned from my friends and other members of the LGBTQ+ community. If I’ve said anything ignorant or hurtful on the matter, please let me know. Even as a member of the community myself, I am still learning and want to learn more, and I’d love to have a conversation with you about it.
1 Comment
Kirsti R Toms
3/22/2019 10:27:15 pm
Your comment about what seems to be a negative portrayal on the rat catcher connecting to the lesbian or transgender identity. I too was wondering about this aspect while reading and was bothered by it. I am wondering if this was intentional or if it were simply a misunderstanding by Oyeyemi.
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