Child Voice in Monsoon Mansion

While reading this book, I tried to keep in mind what craft elements were being utilized and when, what I found effective, what choices Cinelle Barnes made and why. There is most notably, the use of a child narrator to tell the chapters; the reader’s understanding of the events in Barnes world are limited to the understanding of the narrator at the age she was when the events occured. This, naturally, works to establish trust in the narrator as reliable and uncorrupt, and to form an emotional attachment to her quickly. There is the added benefit of allowing the narrator to explore the world in this story as a child would. Wars feel more inhumane, poverty more unjust, beauty more spectacular out of the mouth of a child and Barnes uses this to her story’s advantage. A child’s lack of understanding can be used to inform the reader of the absurdity of a situation or simply, of its danger. But a child narrator can also employ crude, aggressive descriptors of the world most adults have taken great pains to unlearn. The way the girl describes being shamed for having dark skin, the descriptors of the cock fight, the passing of her infant brother, are all painted carefully by someone with the guts to name what is and is no longer, what is immoral, what causes pain. Many times, she calls Tachio “the dead baby” and “dead cold” (23).  

Again, with young narrators, an author is afforded the ability to use a backdrop of tragedy and write scenes of play. In Monsoon Mansion, the setting is political unrest, it is financial instability, it is adults who abandon their roles as designated caregivers, and eventually the grueling realities of growing up without anything required for a safe and healthy upbringing. She learns to fetch water in buckets to have enough to boil and filter to drink and bathe in but will make friends and play house with Elma—as children in close proximity will ultimately do. She traumatically witnesses a cock fight in her own yard but can still describe the affection she has for the cat who gave birth in her closet, how warm she feels when her three-legged puppy accepts them too. Every moment of connection and joy feels more resilient, more revolutionary for a child who might easily give up after so much loss and so little stability. But we get to see her again and again simply being a kid. She swims, she makes up songs, eats ice cream, loses herself in books and imagination, she plays with Kuya’s Gameboy, wants to be a ninja turtle. Her childhood was sandwiched by the extreme pressures of affluent life with her family in the mansion, being a three-year old debutant, and then by the crushing weight of poverty—not having running water, sanitary pads when her period came, starving at school when other students could afford lunch. But in both scenarios, she makes friends, finds hobbies, entertains herself and finds opportunities to play that a child outside of such extreme circumstances might do just the same. It was a powerful choice to center a memoir around a child narrator and not interject adult knowledge the author has now, does not use hindsight and modern context for the events. Barnes allows them to unfold and trusts, as we do, the small hands of her younger self will catch them.  

Monsoon Mansion

I really liked how the author slowed down time and really expanded on the differences between her mother at the breakfast table and after she’s dressed.  I often feel, when I write, like there’s an hourglass running out and that I have to cram in a lot of information at once or spread out that amount of detail over a longer period of time in the book.  But this section gives us access to a lot of information at a digestible pace, all at the beginning of a chapter.  It slowly, and very visually, shows the duality that Estrella holds within her and how it effects the narrator.  “Mama was soft at breakfast.” (Barnes 24) and, “When breakfast ended, there was no orange left on Mama’s plate, just the peel.” (Barnes 28).  The author slows down time in a very natural way and allows the reader to absorb details about this important character, whose personality will come under scrutiny over and over again.  Because of all this detail, it’s easier to understand her, and know in our hearts her nature.  Instead of being completely shocked by her actions, we know what she has a capacity for. 

            When I first started reading the chapter about the narrator’s father’s life, I was a bit skeptical.  It was a big jump in time and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about him.  But instead of trying to recreate his younger days the way the author pieces hers back together, she changes tactics and gives his section a whole new voice.  His story takes on the veneer of a fairy tale, “Papa hiked down the cordillera, a man—a lawyer, a genie, an advisor to the prince—found him filling out forms at a recruitment agency in Manila.”  (Barnes 89).  His story sounds altogether different from the narrator’s, something that she can barely imagine to be true, and yet, down the line, changed her life, like an enchantment, for a short time.  The author gives her father’s story space, and focuses more on details of ambition.  It’s his story, and although it’s important to hers, she leaves him the mystery of his most personal details.  The poetry focuses on his circumstances, “Papa, the engineer and designer, the leader, the magician.  In the desert, Papa became like many of the stars he watched at night: Leo, the Lion; Orion, the Hunter; and Perseus, the Hero.” (Barnes 95).  Instead, she gives more attention to metaphors she associates with him, the stars, the cactus, and how they contribute to her myth of her father.  

            I thought the sense of foreboding we get before we meet Estrella’s new lover was very well done.  I thought he sounded particularly ogre-ish and had the image in my head before I saw she chose that word for him.  Even before he’s revealed, his presence sets off an instinctual alarm of danger for the narrator.  I thought his comparison to Elvis was interesting, an American icon, and the character had spent time there, and this un-canniness only makes him more monstrous.  There’s isn’t a massive amount of detail about him, but just enough that we despise him.    

            Water, swimming, the ocean, it comes up again and again in the book.  It became a symbol for her fight for survival.  Learning to swim to avoid drowning, yearning for the ocean and a new home, enduring tainted water, the element comes up a lot, but in a more self conscious way.  It felt more like a personal symbol, decided on after the fact, than an organic force in her life.

            I thought the author was able to smoothly weave in the colorist beauty ideals her culture has, and relate them to her personal experience in a way that didn’t feel forced.  It can be difficult to make sure a reader understands the greater cultural issues the character is dealing with, while still staying focused on the emotional impact it has on her.  When her young, newborn brother dies, the author is able to compare the features that each family member has.  From there she compares the features of the Virgin Mary statue.  “My parents chose to bury Tachio at the foot of the hill, within arm’s reach of Our Lady, where a mestizo—her sacred power encased in white Castilian skin—could watch over him…displaying the colonizer’s gift to the bloodline: Christianity, education, and rank.” (Barnes 22).  This passage includes the colonial history of the Philippines, as well as her personal experience, comparing herself with her mother and brother.        

-Iris

Blind Loyalty, Neglect, and Survival

In Monsoon Mansion, Cinelle's character worships her mother despite her failings. She is neglected by her significantly, yet Cinelle is always ready to take her back, even when she steals her piggy bank savings and leaves unexpectedly, or when she takes over the jeepney scheme that Cinelle and Paolo worked hard to put together. Throughout the story the mother consistently displays selfishness and disregard for her children, yet Cinelle tries to show the humanity of her spirit. She paints a portrait of a wife wronged by the external forces that make her lose her social standing, and her struggle to maintain her standard of living. Cinelle writes in the author's note that she wanted to create beauty out of truth, and I think she does that very well in the construction of her mother's character. We see a woman who is dedicated to a certain way of life, who prioritizes fashion (keeping her hundreds of pairs of shoes when the family is trying to sell things to make money) and breakfast rituals to keep the family together. After the death of her infant son, she goes into a depression that she never fully recovers from. Yet she works hard to keep the family afloat, whether it is by selling illegal deeds with Norman or concocting schemes to rent out the ballroom, we see her doing what she can to maintain the lifestyle. Cinelle shows her three dimensionally, beautiful in her habits and smells, and gentle with her as long as she is in a good mood, while all the same exhibiting colorism, "A young lady like you should never be out in the sun. Besides, you're already dark. Too dark. We have to keep you out of the sun or you'll look like those poor farmers." (prologue, 5) and questionable morals stealing from both her children and expecting them to contribute money to the household.
Cinelle remains devoted through out the narrative, both to her parents and her brother Paolo, as well to Elma, her friend across class barriers. When the family has lost their wealth and begins to rely on a meal and a half per day, lose power and even running water, Cinelle never blames anyone in her family for the descent, but becomes increasingly loyal. She treasures her relationships and the memories she has with her brother and her young playmate. She is particularly devoted to her father, who she portrays with dignity. He grew up poor and made his living being clever with people, charismatic and great at planning, adaptable and in the right place at the right time—to be able to strategically import workers from the Philippines to Saudi Arabia takes a lot of organization and trust between people. It's no wonder that she ultimately goes back to him when it's time to save herself from the Mansion. I find the ending beautiful, that she connects with her brother again, and the family she never knew, while her father was strategically trying to earn the right to parent her again when he had it all along.
I was horrified by the cockfighting, and the way that the Mansion began to fall into moldy disrepair and decay because of the storms and the family resorting to renting so much of it to gamblers and housing the birds. Norman was such a despicable character, larger than life, I wonder if most of the memories she has of him are exaggerated because she was young when she dealt with him, but then, a lot of the story takes place before she reaches puberty. I was relieved when he didn't become governor, and relieved when the children that labored over the campaign materials didn't get sucked into some other enterprise that Norman could come up with to exploit people. Still, it seems that Cinelle was a loyal stepdaughter throughout this time period.
Does memoir need plot? Absolutely! It's still a book, it's still a story. I think Cinelle pulls it off, going fairly linearly through her childhood pulling out the interesting and the dark, weird and charming bits of her life. Thematically she rendered the travails of poverty beautifully, and the trauma of neglect with care. She dealt with different threads of conflict woven through the characters' lives, loss of Tachio, loss of wealth, strength of survival, betrayal, and friendships. What a sad and epic household.

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.

Building Character in Monsoon Mansion

     One of the things I was most struck by in Cinelle Barnes's Monsoon Mansion is the way in which she uses time and space. We briefly discussed last class how characters live and move in their spac and the objects they key reveals key character traits without being overt. While reading, I couldn't stop thinking about this idea, especially since the space -- the mansion -- is so monstrous and all encompassing, even when it isn't present (like in Abra).
     From the very start we know that the mansion is the emblem of status. It is larger than life and at first, our narrator moves as such. She's a small girl, mesmerized by the vastness. Her innocence is on full display as she plucks crystals from the ceiling by stacking mismatched objects together for a ladder. The mansion is pristine, kept up; it houses staff and the rest of Cinelle's family -- a mother, father, brother. But just beyond the border lays conflict in the middle east that'll eventually destroy the nuclear family. We watch (or read) as the Cinelle's world begins to break down and the mansion provides a concrete reflection of the intangible (the middle east conflict).
     The mansion's breakdown also serves as a sort of sharpening block for our narrator. The more it breaks down, the harder Cinelle becomes. Of course this is a memoir, so we know that there is some level of fiction, some level of truth to the details included by the author, but what Barnes chooses to include is where the character development comes from. As previously mentioned, the crystals and our narrator's curiosity of them are signs of her innocence. Fast forward and contrast this moment with Cinelle's curiosity of Diyosas's room after Diyosas leaves. There's still an air of curiosity present in our narrator, but in between the years, she's grown much like the mansion, weather beaten. Once she realises Diyosas's smell is gone, she leaves, too. She doesn't bother with trying to find Diyosas, the only character in ages who's shown her any affection; she gives up. But think about the objects that Cinelle includes in her descriptions of Diyosas, the ones Cinelle fingers before she realises she's alone once more. A tin filled with makeup, some name brand, but most handmade all makeup the things that this young prostitute have held onto, that Cinelle has even used and they're markers, reminders that Cinelle is becoming a young woman in the midst of this chaos. She must rely on a more than likely underage sex worker to find a way to womanhood.
     Books are another way in which Barnes's shows our narrator's growth (or decent, hardening, etc). More towards the middle of the book, around page 146, we see how literature/books functions as reflection. Now alone fully, Cinelle relies on books, including A Little Princess and To Kill a Mockingbird. These books reflect the narrator's innermost wants and give the reader a frame of reference for the world in which she's in.
     Outside of the narrator, we can also see characterisation through objects in how 'Mama' acts. How as the situation inside the mansion becomes more desperate, what she's willing to give up - and has to give up - grows. At first she fights with papa about losing her necessities -- handmade designer clothes, a chauffeur, brand new cars -- to forgoing showers, but holding onto Hermes shoes. She essentially barters with her own children for money, power, etc. We see a woman unhinged, but it's all in the details the narrator choses to include.

Objectification, Symbolism, and Idols, discussing Monsoon Mansion

Objectification, Symbolism, and Idols

By Jamie Harper

In reading Cinelle Barnes’ memoir Monsoon Mansion, I found, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, that it continues a theme addressed in our last class discussion. The use of objects to tell a story.  Where The Cautioner’s Tale was a graphic novel focusing on visuals of symbolic meaning to tell a story of political satire and a woman struggling to prevail in a world of corrupt politics, in Monsoon Mansion we are presented with a story focusing on descriptions of symbolic objects to infer subtext in a story of a young girl struggling to survive in a corrupted household.

At the beginning of Barnes’ memoir, we enter the story through the beginning of the corruption that seeps throughout the author’s home, the stillbirth of her baby brother, which manifests the beginning of the mother’s descent, as well as the descent of the household, both literally and metaphorically. “My mother is the mansion” (p. 221) Barnes writes toward the end of the novel, clearly spelling out for us the symbolism built up in her mind. Mother, home, house, childhood, mansion, all end up becoming synonymous with ruin for Barnes. Starting off with objects and toys representative of the opulent lifestyle Barnes experienced her first few years in the mansion, she paints us a picture with chandelier crystals, golden tassels, marble floors, fondant roses, perfumes, and a basement full of high fashion clothes, shoes, and handbags. In this section of her life Barnes experiences with world through gold-gilt and objectification. Barnes’ mother objectifies her as just another expensive accessory or decoration, speaking to and of her daughter as if she were a flower (p. 27) or doll to be dressed up and paraded around (p.26). This behavior was passed down from Barnes’ grandfather, or Lolo, and eventually learned by Barnes as she begins objectifying things she feels she can exert control over in much the same way her mother controls her. The imagined neonate of her deceased little brother, the serving girl Elma, all become Barnes’ “toy and...friend” (p.32). This socialized objectification sticks in Barnes’ subconscious throughout the rest of her storytelling, even after she matures enough to begin to see people as people rather than things, in her tendency to, almost an obsession with, describing to us and listing physical objects.

Moving forward in the story, Barnes paints us the decay in her parents’ marriage and the mansion, making note of golden letter openers, floating slippers, cans, satin ribbons, disintegrating cardboard, and molding wallpaper. She symbolizes both her father’s leaving and the coming of her mother’s new lover with suitcases, using their sizes as a means to describe their personalities and the impacts they have on her life. As her mother’s mental health deteriorates and step-father Norman’s abuse escalates, so does the deterioration of the mansion and the escalation of it’s ruin, focusing on things such as broken furniture, cock fighting rings, cigarettes, chicken shit, and the eventual termite holes.

Barnes also finds both herself and her mother represented in the water that is so prevalent within the narrative, with her mother taking the role of the monsoon which swept through the mansion, starting the root of the destruction with her narcissism “blast[ing] to drown [them]” (p.222). Taking the other side of the coin, Barnes signifies herself in the water that soothes, that cleans and refreshes, that she can take refuge in, be it the pools of the flood, the pump of the pozo, or the balm of the ocean, a symbol of creation and destruction which features clearly in Barnes’ narrative.

All of these objects and symbols in Barnes’ story seem to lead to it’s ultimate question, what happens when you put a young child in an unstable, destructive home, rather than a healthy, nurturing one? Barnes is often placed in parallel with Elma, who is from the poor, serving class but beloved and supported by her parents, and in this parallel she forces the reader to compare their own experiences growing up with the two girls’. Furthering this, we then have the question of, what will happen to Barnes? It is obvious that we know she survives her abuse and malnutrition in that we are actively reading her memoir, but we do not know to what extent she will suffer or prevail. It is this secondary question which gives us the plot for Barnes’ story, allowing us to follow the arc of her growing up, maturing, learning to stand up for herself, treat others well, and to separate from the toxicity of her mother, all while we root for her to succeed. Does this memoir need more of a plot than this simple search for freedom? In my opinion no, memoirs do not. To me, a good memoir is one that shares with us the growth of another human being, their triumphs over their difficulties and the ways in which they survived and learned from these experiences. As much as we all love a happy ending, the point of a memoir is the journey, not the destination, and in my opinion, Barnes did a wonderful job of sharing her clearly traumatic journey with us using the artful crafting of events, emotions, feelings, and people through symbolic idols.  

Stable Tone in Monsoon Mansion - Narrative Device and Psychological Necessity

I think that anytime you tell a story that catalogues dysfunction, it is important that your own voice maintain stability and/or neutrality. Otherwise, your audience risks finding you less credible. If this is a desired outcome, then great. But I didn’t see evidence that Barnes wanted her readers to “forgive” her for any of her behaviors. Rather, I saw the character’s deliberate effort to find stability in spite of the madness around her.

It is one thing if Cinelle Barnes were to have assumed some of her mother’s histrionic characteristics, but entirely something else to write a memoir without any traces of a cruel and unusual personality. Who knows (or cares) if Barnes exhibits similar impulsive behaviors as her mother from time to time? It sure as hell isn’t present in this memoir. In fact, there is a self-conscious absence of crappy actions. When she rebels on p. 222 after her mother and Norman make her write in the contest, I understand why Barnes crumples her essay in her pocket and lies about it. This small act was a tremendous rebellion. However, it isn’t an action that scratches the surface of evil in any way, shape or form, unlike Norman and her mother constantly bamboozling the community or fighting chickens in their living room.

Barnes as a mother in her own story is stable and nurturing. It is intentional that she tells us about her daughter learning to swim (p. 234) and how patient she is, saying “I receive her with open arms.” Though I’m 100% sure that parenting has moments where you want to break everything in sight but you can’t because your arms are too full of diapers, Barnes doesn’t go there. We don’t see the moments where she slinks down the wall covered in tears. Her breakdowns are private, if they exist, and that is because her life experiences have made her especially susceptible to that kind of microscopic scrutiny where people look at you and ask “what are you doing that is the product of your shitty upbringing?”

In all honesty, I was prepared for this memoir to have patterns of cruelty, the way that waves ripple out from their point of origin. Her father left, her mother was trapped in an abusive and toxic relationship, and her brother became addicted to drugs. The author had to be the anchor in her own life, and continues to (have to) be the anchor in her own story.