Valencia and Tales of the City - Essay Example

Valencia and Tales of the Both Mary Ann Singleton and Michelle tea are impulsive characters. Mary Ann Singleton is on a vacation to San Francisco from Cleveland where she was a secretary and decides to make her vacation a permanent move. She impulsively makes a decision to go away from her boring and sheltered life, turning her vacation into a fresh life chapter. She called her mother after failing to catch her flight and tells her that she would not be coming back to work, “Would you call Mr. Lassister and say that I won’t be in on Monday” (Goupil and Josh 122), she tells her mother, indicating the impulsive nature of her decision. In Valencia, Michelle Tea is also impulsive, and self indulgent, especially with her job choices and quits many of her jobs then hops onto other jobs. She moves in confusion from one job to another. She falls in love with a succession of girls, going onto the next one as soon as she left the earlier girlfriend. At one point, she even turns to prostitution just for the fun of it. She attends gay marches and parties with regular abandon, usually at the slightest encouragement. Michelle also cannot keep a job and quits jobs at a moment’s notice. Both Mary-Ann Singleton and Michelle Tea have eccentric friends. Mary Ann has an eccentric collection of friends. Mona who describes herself as a fag hag helps her get a job. Mona’s best pal is a gay man called Mouse, who also becomes her friend and is in constant search for love in gay bars. Another of her acquaintances is her landlady Mrs. Madrigal whose past is as mysterious as her eccentric behavior and marijuana growing obsession. Her boss is Edgar Halcyon, whose miserable daughter is married to an adulterous man, Beauchamp. Beauchamp has an affair with Mrs. Madrigal. Norman, a vitamin hawking nerd, takes care of his pal’s young daughter and Mary befriends him, as he seems more left field than she is. Michelle Tea has similar eccentric friends. Petra is a revelation to Tea’s thrilling side as she is a knife brandishing bossy girl, who is a lesbian. Willa is depressive and refuses to strip her clothes of even when they are caught in the moment’s passion. Iris, on the other hand, is described is a scrumptious girl from Georgia who Michelle falls head over heels for before realizing that she is not what she had first deciphered of her. Michelle Tea and Mary-Ann Singleton both have dramatic relationships with girlfriends and family. Tea was in love with Iris, and all was going well for them. When she meets Willa, she tries to sleep with her despite the fact that she loves Iris and that she knew Willa deeply loved Ashley. When Laurel came in to the picture with claiming that she loved Iris, this made the main character confused with the situation. The main character had to get drunk to muster the necessary courage to tell Iris that they had to break up since Laurel was a friend to the main character; the main character is sacrificing her love for Iris for her friendship with Laurel. However, this does not go according to plan since the main character is moved by the love that Iris has for her, she cried her heart out to the main character telling her that she liked her and wanted to continue going out with her. “Laurel is in love with you. She’s my friend. What? Iris looked seriously confused. She had just started smoking again and pulled an American spirit from a mangled blue pack. But I don’t want not to go out with you, she said. I like you so much. Maybe she was crying now too, I like you more than anything.” When Laurel heard of this, she gave the main character a big shrug that signified her disgust at her. Laurel had a stable and responsible job working for a software company that was located in Berkeley while the main character was a poet (Goupil and Josh 124). Mary Ann Singleton’s relationships are no less dramatic. However, unlike Michele, she does not engage in errant sexual relationships with her acquaintances. She instead tries to get to know them better and forge connections, despite the fact that she has feelings for these other women. Some friends that she makes include Mona Ramsey. Michelle Tea and Mary Ann are both emotional and sensitive characters. This is especially evident for Tea in the scene where she is to meet in the cafe with Laurel and feels terrified. In fact, she wanted to cry and apologize for what she had done even before the accusations were levelled against her. Mary was on the verge of tears in this scene and actually looked older than Laurel who was older than her. “At the café with laurel, I had a tasteless, little bagel with a thin layer of cream cheese on it, and I couldn’t eat because my stomach was tangled and heavy with thus sense of impending doom it like I was ten years old and in big trouble, I hate people being mad at me” (Goupil and Josh 122). She had trouble dealing with emotions, and her conflict with Laurel was one example of her sensitive emotions. Tea was also daring since she has to come together with eccentric characters that changed her world view. Tea is a conflicted character. She is in love with a woman with whom she had just broken up with; though the relationship ended in a civilized manner, the main character is still not sure if ending the relationship was the best idea. Mary Ann is also daring as shown in her navigation of the boozy and druggy dyke scene of San Francisco while at the same time relating with a number of eccentric friends. These include Mona, Mrs. Madrigal, and Norman. She is also a sensitive character who is fraught with trivialities as seen when she snaps at her mother for asking her on the identity of the strange man who picked her phone call. “What difference does it make what his last name is”, she asks her mother. The characters all have different behavior, tastes and likes, their experiences, and attitudes tell us something about the town of San Francisco. From the tattoos that Iris drew on Michelle, we are able to gather that in San Francisco tattoos are common and that the government recognizes the unemployed people and gives them some support (Goupil and Josh 126). The two novels show San Francisco as a liberal area. These liberal values are descended from the 60s to 70s flooding of the hippie culture, which is when Mary Ann was created as a character by the author. She holds the mirror in the society as an outsider who is not sure what to make of the sexual liberties inherent in the cities. The liberal values most prevalent in San Francisco include anarchist and socialist ideas, heavy government regulation of business, acceptance of immigrants moving into the city illegally, new era spirituality, anti-militarism, gun control, pro-abortion lobbying, marijuana legalization, environmentalism, and gay rights. Marijuana use is widespread as shown by the notorious marijuana lover in Mrs. Madrigal, who is Mary Ann’s landlady. Prostitution is also rampant and not highly policed, as tea’s fleeting trials at the prostitution show. Michelle Tea also talks of the bar where she goes to meet other poets who give her advice on her relationship issues. Here, we are able to see that the people of San Francisco are social people who have the love to help others at their moments of need. The main character does not have money to buy any beer at the bar, but still walks into the bar with the knowledge that she will meet a friend who will listen to her troubles as he or she buys her beer to drown out her sorrows (Goupil and Josh 130). Work Cited Goupil, H. & Josh, K. San Francisco: the unknown city. Vancouver : Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005. Print. Read More