Memoir, Pattern, and the Inevitability of Plot

Humans are pattern-seeking animals. We find search for patterns in the artificial and in the natural, in leaves and petals, in random arrangements of tiles. We’re soothed by the presence of undisturbed patterns and alarmed by disrupted patterns. Of course we look for patterns in our own lives and the lives of others—we’re advised to, even, by pop psychologists and religious leaders. Even when we don’t seek out patterns, we reveal them in our stories. The things we emphasize, the things we repeat—those are our patterns. And patterns, patterns created and patterns disrupted, create a plot.

In Monsoon Mansion, Cinelle Barnes reveals her life’s patterns, which in turn reveals her life’s plot. The storytelling here is an attempt to break her family’s unhealthy patterns. In an interview with Bustle, she states: “I didn’t plan on telling my story. It was out of necessity. . . . I needed to confront my past so I could mother well. I had to do it” (Cooke). Soon after the beginning of the book, we see the mother’s pattern, a pattern precipitated by the loss of her child. Hers is a pattern of wild mood swings and extreme violence, a pattern of blame and cruelty.

The other members of the family excuse and endure her mother’s dysfunctional patterns until they can finally escape. The father is overcome by guilt and a feeling of inferiority. After the family’s fortune reverses from riches to poverty, he finally leaves to search for the men his company lost in the Gulf War. Though he’s aware of the mother’s abusive patterns, his own pattern of inferiority prevents him from taking Cinelle and Paolo with him, certain he could not care for them.

Paolo, the brother, has the same pattern of guilt the father has. When Cinelle is injured in an fall while they are playing, he blames himself and gives her his Gameboy. After the family falls into poverty, he takes on a caretaker role, trying to earn enough money to feed himself and her. He grows angry and helpless as he watches the mother’s neglect and abuse, and later the abuse of her lover, Norman, and begins using drugs. He’s sent away to his father (not Cinelle’s father), but is eventually able to get in touch with Cinelle’s father so his family can rescue her from the abusive home. Though he does become a drug user, his patterns also make him the most dependable person in Cinelle’s life.

Norman has a pattern of abuse, cruelty, and power-seeking. He takes out his anger and disappointment on everyone around him, beating the mother and killing Cinelle’s pet chicken. He shuts off the water to the mansion, supposedly to save money, though more realistically as an attempt at cruelty to the family.

The destructive patterns of the characters in the memoir center around the mansion, which falls into disrepair after a monsoon then is destroyed by Norman’s various money-making operations. The mansion itself has a pattern, but its pattern is unraveling. It has gone from a place of upper-crust parties reflected in the ballroom’s kaleidoscopic ceiling to a crumbling and molding bordello hosting cockfights.

Plot is created by patterns and Monsoon Mansion is the story of the snowballing and destructive patterns the author somehow managed to survive.

Works Cited

Cook, Lacy. “ Search Bustle... How 'Monsoon Mansion' Author Cinelle Barnes Turned A Painful Childhood Into A Hopeful Memoir & Personal Reckoning.” Bustle, Bustle, 17 Dec. 2018, www.bustle.com/p/how-monsoon-mansion-author-cinelle-barnes-turned-a-painful-childhood-into-a-hopeful-memoir-personal-reckoning-8989581.