Barbara Mujica mentions the exlcusion suffered by Frida as a result of her outstanding intellectual capacities. Kahlo was the perpetual focal point of discrimination. Mujica uses both mental and physical uniqueness in the character to accentuate this social rejection. A victim of polio at the age of six, Frida is subject to debasing remarks and sexist mockery from her fellow Mexican peers .
“ Come let’s see ya’
peg-leg Frida!
One leg’s good
The other’s just wood!”
Her extensive and often vulgar vocabulary was socially demeaned and ditched out of the conservative circle of Coyoacán. Considering the literay impact on both novels, it is appreciated that the effect of the narrative voices on the reader is far stronger in the autobiographical Wurtzel story. Taking into account the limitations which povides second person narrator, it is viable to conclude that Elizabeth’s personal account and introspective analysis of her actions, takes the reader inside the character’s tempestuous mind.
Social rejection is also experienced in “Prozac Nation” as a result of Wurtzel’s extraordinaire erudite qualities. Through the first person narrative, the reader is able to perceive the angst of cultural exclusion suffered by the leading character. Such a feeling is emotionally manifested through symptoms of abandonment and solitude.
“I am alone in the world. I am alone in the dark (...) that familiar black wave which starts creeping over me, threatening to drag me away”
Unlike Mujica, Wurzel is more able to manifest the solitude experienced by Elizabeth through literary symbolism, just as Kahlo’s affliction was exclusively portrayed by Frida through art and painting. The recurring symbolic persecution of a black wave and delusion of entrapment within a small room, are some examples used by Elizabeth Wurtzel to manifest the dark solitude which haunted her existence. Such vivid imagery used to narrate the actual predicament suffered by the author, generates a greater emotional impact on the reader due to its biographical significance.
Rejection not only comes from society to the individual but, is automatically vicerversa, thus psycologically corresponding to Lacan’s mirror image:
“Its IMAGO (image) (...) is more stable than the individual and is always “other” than the individual---something ouside it (i.e.society). The individual, for the rest of his life, will misrecognize its self as ‘other, as the image in the mirror that provides an ilusion of self and of mastery’...”
As sustained by Lacan, it is deduced that the individual acts, according to the cultural evaluation of its “self” . Therefore, if the individual sees him/herself “unfit” according to general archetypes of his culture, it will feel and act according to such perception. Women across the continent are restrained to the archetypes of the rigid American culture. Mexican and US societies are considered as manipulative and regimentary in spite of democratic principles. The American publicity market moulds its consumer into one sole, uniform block. On the other hand, the traditionalist Latin American is characterized for rejecting innovative trends and throughts which may deform established principles. This is why characters such as Frida and Elizabeth respond with a sense of of rebellion against cultural conventionalisms, as a response to the “excentric” image engraved by society on both females.
In spite of such an intelligent and corageous approach to academic and tempestous life circumstances, both protagonists find themselves unable to break the social boundaries of male chauvinism which their culture imposes. As a result, both women are submitted to the masculine figure of their lives. In Wurtzel´s case, the cultural dependance on the male gender is exemplified through her constant necessity of romantic relationships. About sentimental relationships with men, Elizabeth’s strong and decisive features are converted into insecure and depending female cultural characteristics.
“...but it was clear to me by late that night that there was no way –no way- I was going to survive without him...and I didn´t know what to do with myself...I was being destroyed”
Frida Kahlo’s determined and self-assertive personality is also weakened by the cultural cognotation of masculine dominance over women. Kahlo is also seduced and submitted by the men who come into her existence, especially by her husband Diego.
“She couldn’t go on any longer without Diego, she told me. She needed him back. She knew he wouldn’t change... but she was willing to pay the price...”
The reader infers, from both protagonists’ behaviour around men that they are equally uncapable of breaking the barrier which society has set over women, in spite of their intelligence and perspicaciousness.
In spite of such aweakness both characters are filled with rebelliousness and questionable personalities towards the system. One of the main cultural issues which both females refuse to embrace is that of religion and their reluctance to accept its sacred traditional principles. The “virgin myth” is a concurrent theme in “Frida”, as it represents an issue of immense controversy on the contemporary reader, due to its importance and debatable implication. Such phenomena initially created by a translation error has envisioned virgin women as a sort of precious commodity and romanticism on the part of the Greeks who wanted to render the Bible more exciting and passionate to read.
“The "Virgin Mary" was not actually a virgin, but became known as being so only when the Bible was translated in Greek. In the original Biblical version...the mother of Jesus, was a young woman, not a virgin..."almah" has no connection whatsoever with the idea of virginity. The meaning "virgin" was never denoted until...the word "parthenos", which in Greek does literally mean virgin, was used. ”
Kahlo believed in the falshood of Virgin Mary, and therefore defied the taboos of the Catholic church, as she believed that the support of the Virgin Myth had been responsible for the subjugation of women and their unequal status in society. Because of this, she disagreed with God and everything related to religious beliefs. As a result, Frida constantly alluded to religion in a mocking and contemptuous tone:
“ The common people...they don’t feel ashamed about these things...Sex and having babies for them is just natural. So why shouldn’t it be the same for us?What do yu think a girl with tits like Maty´s does with her boyfriend? You think they shell peas together on embroidered pillowcases? Of course they’re fucking...”
The aforementioned quote depicts Frida’s strong, defiant femenine voice, which challenged the male oppression of women which has come as a direct result of cultural conventionalisms such as the virgin myth. The reader is confronted with an unfamiliar femmenine image which is not often heard of... a voice questioning the system.
Wurtzel’s strength depicts certain truculent positions against conventional principles through the revolutionary religious status of atheism. By supporting such an innovative position, Elizabeth agrees with abortion and believes in the existance of fate as the only dominant issue over human life. The use of such controversial and offensive vocabulary intends to emphasize on the importance of the aforementioned ideals as basis of the struggle against female subjugation:
“I hate to admit it, but even after years of religious training I really don’t believe in the afterlife. I still think human beings are just biology...”
Kahlo and Wurtzel find alternative escape routes to evade the social oppression suffered from their unique character and vulnerability. Because of the social suffocation suffered in both novels, the character is compeled to encounter some inner strength and escape from reality. Such devices are used by both women as means of protection against the entrapment of cultural stigmas. Frida Kahlo recurred to the abuse of painkillers and alcohol to drown the pain which assaulted her.
“She’d be suffering horribly, and she’d mix herself a coktail of liquor and painkillers to put herself out of her misery for a few hours”
Elizabeth Wurtzel uses drugs and alcohol as means of escaping the devouring depressive illness which she suffers.
“I would do anything not to be Elizabeth...When I want to escape, when I need to escape, its amazing what I am able to do...it is shocking what hidden reserves of strength I can find to undertake the task”
In both literary cases, the reader is confronted with two individuals submerged in many layers of unpreceeding pain and sorrow. The additional angst provoked by social discrimination leads both characters into a labyrinth of addiction which never ceases to exist.
Increasing thirst for escape eventually leads to an intimate obsession with death and an obsession with self-anihilation. Death is the ultimate panacea, as it is seen in both cases as the place of infinite discrimination, where the individual is no longer judged or alienated for his physical and mental condition. It is the final and perpetous resting station for mankind. Therefore, it is envisioned by Frida and Elizabeth as a neurotic but eventually pleasant achievement.
Because self-anihilation is not death itself but its utterly destruction, it is percieved as a small prelude of it and consecuently; a joyful, pleasant act of redemption. In “Frida”, Cristina narrates how her sister Frida enjoyed the process of self-anihilation, through the self-tortouring contemplation of her desintegrating flesh.
“She had a perverse pleasure in watching her body lose flesh and her eyes sink into their sockets...”
The unceasing obsession with rottenness was due to various near-to-death experiences which guide Frida into unrestricted infatuation towards self-inflicted pain and death. As seen through the eyes of the reader, Kahlo’s deterioration and obsession for the self, was an escape mechanism to elude the angst of social rejection and the emptiness which accompanied her uniqueness. Nonetheless, the fact that Frida is not the narrator of her own life account, forms a barrier between the reader and the character’s true feelings. Weather a subjective view or not, it is evidenced and stressed trhough the narrative voice of Cristina, that Kahlo suffered a living hell of physical pain:
“Poor aunt Frida, her back is killing her. Her leg is killing her. Her hip is killing her, her hip is killing her, her kidneys are killing her, her foot is killing her, her head is killing her, her eyes are killing her herankleiskillingherherpelvisiskillingherherfingeriskillingher...”
Self-anihilation took many shapes and forms throughout Kahlo’s existence. It was initially embodied through the rejection of food and later transformed into the deceiving addiction to drug and alcohol. Everything which gave her the unconscious state of physical unawareness was considered convenient by Frida.
“She drank to deaden the pain in her body. She drank to deaden the pain in her soul. (...)you just couldn’t control her. The booze combined with the painkillers, that’s what made her crazy”
The craving voices of escape from reality are more evidenced through Wurzel’s autobiographical account of depressive illness, as it provides a more personal approach to the emotional response from the character to its environment. Elizabeth expresses to the reader the resulting anguish from social and sentimental constrainment. As a result of social rejection, Wurtzel finds herself dissatisfied with her depressive condition. The author narrates how self-esteem is eroded because of social perspectives, making way to pesimistic thinking, portrayed in the negative language and symbolism of the novel . Through such literary expressions, the character reveals th reader her deepest pains combined with desires of death and self-destruction.
“ I refuse to get better. I only hope that whatever pil she gives me makes me feel well enough to plot my own end...in order to make this suicide a success and not just one more wimpy attempt by another hysterical girl who wants help. Because I don’t want their fucking help anymore”
Another compelling influential issue over femenine features in both narrative accounts is that of male chauvinism. Although distinctly portrayed in each novel, the man is always portrayed as the moulding tool in both female’s personal aqcuaintance of society and their own characteristics. Even though Frida and Elizabeth are intellectually superior to most of the male characters presented in he novels, they humbly submit their own will to the male desire, causing feelings of shallowness and frustration when failing to acomplish what is expected of them. Man is therefore, the female weakening source which directs Wurtzel and Kahlo to the ultimate point of depression and self destruction. In spite of the difference in time and culture, the male figure is equally powerful in both novels. Although in Mujica’s novel the male figure is generally represented by one leading character known as Diego Rivera, man is portrayed also in “Prozac Nation” as the the dominant, ruling image of society.
In the Mexican case of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera is the character who exemplifies male domination over woman. Despite Frida’s intelligence, he was the ultimate female oppressor, the chauvinist pig, always wanting women to mantain their expected role in society by conquering women from their weakest setimental spot (their angsts), and from it, dominating their mental and rational bodies . As Frida later recalls in one of her letters to Cristina.
“I’m just an accessory. Diego’s wife. Diego’s bootstrap...Frida always went along, the silent, admiring bride, so beautiful. She was playing her part”
Frida’s agonizing feminist voice as a subject of Diego’s oppression is reflected in Cristina herself, as she was also a victim of his sexist personality:
“He was so sensual.He had such a reputation...it was the way he talked to you,. He made you feel that you mattered, that you were really different...”
Sex discrimination is perceived by the reader as the most influential social issue for the femenine voice, due to its debasing and humilliating nature. The fact that there are two narrative testimonies of betrayal and female subjugation makes it a far more reaching statement which invites women to reflect on their condition towards the opposite sex.
Wurtzel’s addictive and debasing relationship with men is also an example of male domination over women. Elizabeth adopts such dependant behaviour as an ultimate quest for love which is never fulfilled.
“The only way to achieve love is through suffocating passion”
Wurtzel even contrasts her quest for love to an addictive drug which is being deprived from her. Such analogical statements are yet another example of the pessismistc and destructive tone which evolves around “Prozac Nation” . In contrast to Mujica, love isn’t always seeked in the eyes of men. It is utopic and impossible, for an exceptional woman such as Elizabeth to achieve some kind of acceptance from society. Because of her unique personality, she is banned from affection.
Indubitably, therefore, after a close scrutiny of these two hugely similar texts, the perspicacious reader is led to the conclusion that Frida Kahlo and Elizabeth Wurtzel are two trans- American voices who portray the following essential femmenine strengths and angsts throughout history: Intelligence versus neurosis, ariginality versus eccentricity, sensitivity versus self- anihilation, idealism versus death paranoia and romanticism versus cynicism. Thus, regardless of time and space, these are two enduring feminist statements of universal relevance.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
-
DROUIN, Jennifer The Role of Xianity in the Oppression of Women. www.geocities.com/capitolhill/senate/2525/wxian12.html
-
GROSZ, Elizabeth. Jacques Lacan-A Feminist Introduction. 1990. London and New York: Routledge, 1995
-
MUJICA, Barbara. Frida: A NOVEL BASED ON THE LIFE OF FRIDA KAHLO. New York, NY USA: Penguin Books Ltd, 2002
-
WURTZEL, Elizabeth Prozac Nation: YOUNG AND DEPRESSED IN AMERICA. New York, NY USA: Riverhead Books, 2000
MUJICA, Barbara. Frida: A NOVEL BASED ON THE LIFE OF FRIDA KAHLO. New York, NY USA: Penguin Books Ltd, 2002, page 76
WURTZEL, Elizabeth Prozac Nation: YOUNG AND DEPRESSED IN AMERICA. New York, NY USA: Riverhead Books, 2000. Page 39
Mujica Barbara. Op. Cit. Page 52
GROSZ, Elizabeth. Jacques Lacan-A Feminist Introduction. 1990. London and New York: Routledge, 1995 N.p.
Wurtzel, Elizabeth. Op.cit. Page 220
Mujica, Barbara. Op.cit. Page 323
The Role of Xianity in the Oppression of Women By Jennifer Drouin www.geocities.com/capitolhill/senate/2525/wxian12.html
Mujica, Barbara. Op.cit. Page 96
Mujica, Barbara. Op.cit. Page 316
Mujica, Barbara. Op.cit. Page 282
Wurtzel, Elizabeth. Op.cit. Page 280
Mujica, Barbara. Op.cit. Page 44
Mujica, Barbara. Op.cit. Page 299
Mujica, Barbara. Op.cit. Page 325
Wurtzel, Elizabeth. Op.cit. Page 294
Mujica, Barbara. Op.cit. Page 215
Mujica, Barbara. Op.cit. Page 184
Wurtzel, Elizabeth. Op.cit. Page 215