Monsoon Mansion - Plot Choices and Memoir

One of the first things we learn about stories is plot. We are told that in order for a story to go somewhere, anywhere, there have to be events which happen and move the story along to get us to the place where the story ends, where some kind of resolution is reached and the character can say, “look how I’ve grown and the lessons I’ve learned along the way!” Of course, this is what occurs in fiction. When it comes to memoir, there is that question of, “what is the plot?” But in memoir, this is the writer’s life which they are writing about, so while they might write a conclusion, an ending, to their memoir, the end is only one of many beginnings. In this memoir, Barnes uses plot devices that we are familiar with to craft the way she recounts and presents to us the time in which she lived in Mansion Royale.

Her use of descriptive language to recreate Mansion Royale and its surroundings draws us into her narrative and makes the mansion itself into a character which morphs and mirrors Barnes’ mother. Like the mansion, Barnes’ mother is presented with two sides: the first being “soft like the curves of her teaspoon and the collar of her robe” (24) while the other, “made of cosmetics” (28) who “smiled the smile she used for the press” (30). These two versions of her gradually become less balanced with each chapter as the state of the mansion also goes from one which hosted garden parties and is gilded with golden tassels in her attempt to keep up the upper class appearance which the mansion offers to one which is “always dark” and “always sad” (139). In doing this, Barnes amplifies our emotional response as readers by dropping us into this once opulent home which has begun to decay over time due to neglect followed by the actions of her mother which, more often than not, put the wants of others and greed before the needs of her daughter.

Barnes furthers a facsimile of plot by her use of chapters with titles to organize the varying events which move the narrative along through time. While not all memoir likely needs to use plot or a variation of it, this choice in particular keeps the reader grounded in the large span of time in which the events take place rather than simply having sections with dates. I could say that she didn’t need to use chapter titles, which is true since she does make a point to include the year for each section as it occurs, however the titles create a focus and tension within section which organizes the flow of time into concise and purposeful sections and creates those events we are so familiar with in plot. This becomes most crucial with the chapter “Sleep Now.” The overall content of the memoir is heavy, but the events of this section occur later in the same year as the previous section, “Woman at the Well” in which Barnes gets her first period and finds kinship with Diyosa. In “Sleep Now,” the vulnerability and solitude which she experienced in the mansion really weighs on us with lines such as “I knew to flee before the men arrived [...] But that didn’t mean they never came” (173, 175) and “I drew X’s and O’s [...] Hugs and kisses. Death and dark wishes” (177). These lines in particular punched me in the gut and touched me in familiar ways which I have wished to forget and in this way built tension not with the initial trauma but with the ways in which she coped following. This tension is eventually resolved (as in other chapters) with the speaker in the moment calling back to the chapter titled “Falling” when she “remembered not bleeding [...] not showing signs of trauma besides lying still, being unable to move, and, seemingly, deceptively, as only a kid can do, appearing tranquil” (178). This moment mimics in fiction when the character recalls an earlier obstacle which they then use overcome the challenge at hand. But then, fiction reflects real life, so it’s not much of a surprise that memoir would mimic plot.

Barnes, however, breaks from what would be a facsimile of plot in her final chapter “The Season of the Sun.” If this were fiction, it would end at “I was going somewhere” (226), but in a move to remind us that these events happened, that they happened to her, she chooses to give us a glimpse at her life after Mansion Royale in which she fulfilled her dream of becoming a writer. Some might think that this chapter was unnecessary, that it makes the work as a whole not as strong as if she had ended it sooner. But it makes it stronger because recounting events which have caused harm, tried time and again to break a warrior’s spirit, and tried to make them give up hope brings about a healing, a forgiveness which Barnes has come to terms with. This is not a forgiveness that is “everything shitty and awful you did is okay because I forgive you!” but rather one which says, “none of it was okay, but it wasn’t my fault.” It gives light to the future that is real and not some intangible possibility where we assume that everything turned out okay once she got out of the mansion. It’s something that gives hope to those still in the dark, to those reading books by the dim light of leftover mosquito coils.