Week 12 Readings and Responses

Enid Dame's Drowning Kittens

                Drowning Kittens, by Enid Dame, is a story rich in metaphor and symbolism. Perhaps the strongest of the many symbols that make up this story is that of the Persian cat, “a placid aristocrat with large feet, tufts of hair in her ears, and guileless blue eyes.”  This cat, which appears (both in an original version, as well as a “reincarnated” one) throughout the story, serves as a strong symbol of male domination, female rebellion, sexual liberation, and historical memory, as we see in both the ways in which the cat itself behaves as well as the ways in which the characters in the story behave in relation to it.

                When we first are introduced to the cat, we learn that the narrator’s grandfather has received the cat as payment from a customer unable to pay, and that the grandfather, not a lover of the animal, sees it as a means to making money.  The grandfather, in effect, wishes to impose his own desires on this animal, which he sees simply as a kitten-making device (which should translate to a money-making device).  He acts, to put it simply, as a cat pimp. As we see, however, this cat (her name was Dinah) acts in a way contrary to the grandfather’s interests, rejecting the purebred male cat that he brings for her, and instead choosing to mate with a “striped, marauding tom with one ear missing.” 

                This behavior is important, of course, for we see how this “liberated” feline’s behavior enrages Jake, the narrator’s grandfather.  Also important, however, is the fact that Renee, the narrator’s grandmother, is pleased with the cat’s behavior, revealing a rebellious and liberated streak of her own that is generally obscured by her skill at “becoming invisible when necessary.”  We read: “She was pleased when Dinah rejected his advances, giving him a sharp rap just below his hairy right ear.  She drew blood, and Sultan sulked in a corner.”

                Renee’s own liberated stance in life is not a complete secret, of course.  At other points in the story, we see the manner in which she makes decisions and takes action in a way that reveals an inner strength, fortitude, and willingness to “fight.”  We see, for instance, how she elopes with Jake, going contrary to general societal expectations by spurning the man to whom she is engaged. 

                Jake’s reactions to Dinah’s pregnancy, and the appearance of her kittens, goes further in illustrating his somewhat tyrannical, patriarchal attitude, for we see how he wishes to destroy/murder the kittens, who are the fruits and proof of an un-sanctioned coupling.  We also see, in Renee’s reaction to Jake’s fierce act, the ways in which she is able to make use of subversive and clever means to getting what she wants.  Hiding within the guise of subjugation, she subverts male privilege by allowing Jake to think that he is saving the kittens because of their incredible talents, when in fact he’s saving them because of his own ignorance (and Renee’s knowledge) of normal feline behavior. 

                Renee is simultaneously, of course, not like Dinah in many ways, for though she chooses to elope with Jake rather than marry the more suitable man (“maybe he just isn’t her type”), she proceeds within her marriage in a more subdued, quiet fashion, and certainly is not giving anyone a “sharp rap just below his hairy right ear.” 

                Annie (Renee’s daughter, and the narrator’s mother), from the little that we know of her, seems to act in way much more in line with the Dinah’s behavior.  Like the cat, she seems to act in life in a way that is much more direct.   She is angry with her mother’s “long-game” manner of saving the kittens, and enraged that she could “take such changes with the great, stupid, dangerous forces.”  We see that she becomes political, and involved in strikes, and that even later in life is somewhat iconoclastic, mistrustful of marriage and in support of women being liberated and independent (“Every woman needs a little money of her own”). (As Burt Kimmelman points out in his article "Enid Dame's Householdry," relationships between daughters and mothers come up often in Dame's work.  He writes, "At the heart of Dame's understanding of fate lies her vexed relationship with her mother" (Kimmleman)).    

                This feline symbol, however, should not be considered solely as a quid-pro-quo type of symbol, though it is important in that way too (as discussed above).  Rather, we can also consider the use of the cat as a symbol deliberately employed by the characters in the story (in particular Annie) to express the ideas delineated above.  Said differently, this is a literary symbol that isn’t just literary—it is a real symbol within the world of the story, and the characters seem to see it that way.  It is for this reason that Annie gives her daughter a Persian cat, which she very importantly pairs with another gift – the very story that the narrator tells us about the cat.  “The story of the attempted drowing [sic],” when paired with the physical animal, serve as a means by which Annie can pass on her personal history, and that of her mother, to her daughter.  It serves as a living memory of the story, a constant reminder of the lessons that the story is meant to impart, and a symbol of the strength of women and the power of the dispossessed “undercat.”  

Works Cited
Kimmleman, Burt. "Enid Dame's Householdry." Rain Taxi Online Edition. Summer 2009. Web. 5 November 2013.

Powwow Polaroid, by Sherman Alexie

                 Sherman Alexie’s poem Powwow Polaroid examines the powwow as a simulated event that “freezes” Native American cultures in a timeless and false past upon which the “gaze” of the outside world has its way.  By purposefully confusing the actual movement of the dancers in the poem with the frozen image captured by the camera of a tourist, Alexie calls into question the relationship between the performer and those for whom he is performing.

            There is something surreal about this poem, and we as viewers must accept the alternate reality presented here – a reality in which a photograph literally captures someone (Alexie is also, it seems, playing with popular conceptions of Native American beliefs here – the old “photograph will take your soul” trope).  This photograph is something magical (not in the sense of a wonderful thing, but something possessing power) and stops the movement of reality:

She took the picture, the flashbulb burned, and none of us could

move.  I was frozen between steps, my right foot three inches off

the ground, my mouth open and waiting to finish the last sound.

In this case, the photograph, which by its very nature is reductive and limiting, capturing only a moment within a constant and never-ending stream of movement, is seen doing what it always does—separating moments, examining them out of context and by themselves. 

            What perhaps makes this even more complex is the fact that a powwow such as this one, attended by camera-toting tourists, is already something separate, something taken out of context.  It is already a simulacrum, a copy of something that may have once existed, but which at the moment is simply an image out of time presented for the outside population.  In this sense, the photograph is a copy of a copy (of a copy of a copy, perhaps). 

            The response of people is illustrative as well, in that this captured moment is a point of success for the photographer-tourist—she is triumphant at this moment, but for others in attendance, as well as the now frozen dancers, this is a frightening event.  For the other members of the community, the speaker’s aunt for example, this is also frightening – the aunt weeps “into the public address system.” 

            Importantly, at this moment, frozen in time, as the crowd flees and the dancers remain still, the only ones moving, the elders, are those expressing sadness and, importantly, as the uncle says, “forgiveness.”  As Jennifer Gillan has convincingly shown, in her article Reservation Home Movies: Sherman Alexie’s Poetry, these final lines serve to both express the continued community of the tribe, but also a “reconciliation with the Anglo world,” which she (wisely) categorizes as “tentative.” 

Works Cited

Gillan, Jennifer.  Reservation Home Movies: Sherman Alexie’s Poetry. American Literature , Vol. 68, No. 1, Write Now: American Literature in the 1980s and 1990s (Mar., 1996), pp. 91-110