The Unusual Narration Style of Aimee Bender - Essay Example

Number] The Study: Aimee Bender Aimee is an American novelist as well as a short story Her work is unique, because of her exceptional way of using words and metaphors. Her father at a very early age would make her realize the relationship between thing such as fear and anger. Due to the insight provided, she came to grips with the usage of metaphors. Her mother also helped her in enhancing her creative abilities. The efforts of both her parents bear fruits in the form of her writing. Aimee exhibited mature writing qualities at an unusually early age. Her teaching experience from an elementary school, which had a huge population of children of Russian immigrants not only made her a determined and confident writer but also provided immense material for her work later. Her work falls in the category of Magical Realism, which is a sort of a wrapping which is done to cover the actual present. A form of fiction in which the elements of magic are blended in the realm of reality in order to get a better understanding out of it. The explanation of the elements of magic is such that it allows the real and the unreal to be understood in the same way. Bender’s use of realism, magical realism and surrealism to provide an amusing description and interpretation of old subjects such as death, hate, sex. She is magician with words and uses words as an entry point to the storyline. Drunken Mimi is a story about an imp and a mermaid. In the story Aimee shows how a mermaid is able to have sensual pleasure, which is a common human experience, through the stimulation of her hair, which of course is a magical description of a very human experience. The fairy tale characters of her stories, consists an element of simplicity. It is because of the fact that these characters lack setting in terms of geography, history and time. In another short story naming The Healer, Bender’s description of the story and the characters is like: “There were two mutant girls in the town: one had a hand made of fire and the other had a hand made of ice. Everyone else’s hands were normal. The girls first met in elementary school and were friends for about three weeks…… one afternoon, on the playground, the fire girls grabbed hold of the ice girl’s hand and Poof just like that, each equalized the other. Their hands dissolved in to regular flesh exit mutant enter normal…..” (Girl 121). The story is about two mutant girls who are mutant and their skills are of complementary nature. The subsequent connection that the fire girl establishes with a boy who is from her high school and the communal prohibitions, takes a person back down the memory lane to the period of adolescence. Afterward it again brings back to adulthood. The story is a sort of a reminder, enabling us to recall the ordinary nature of our fears. Bender’s characters do not interact with one another in a conventional manner, which is like conversing or loving, instead their approach is more of carnal in nature. For example in one of her stories, a doctor heals a rabbi, who he loves through transfusion of her blood with the blood of atheists like himself. Bender’s writing catches the reader in the web of her beautifully crafted comprehensible circumstances. Due to the concrete nature of her presentation, nothing seems unrealistic or strange in her writing. On a Saturday Afternoon is another short story, which goes like this: “They both look great, thriving out of control. These are solid men, with square kneecaps and loving mothers, who are still sort of awed by women. They have line of fur instead of hair at the napes of their necks, sometimes shaving the hinges of their shaven jaws. Me, I am clothed and workman-like in overalls with many pockets. A red tank top, legs covered. They have had crushes on me at some point and me on them…” (Bender 384). It is a blunt, real and emotionally rich description of a three-way sensual experience turning in to a two way. A story of a single woman who speaks of her fantasy on night in July while sitting on a staircase. Although the story is a description of human nature, yet it has a feel of a magic charm. Bender’s stories are about men and women whose desires shape and twist their lives. The reader might not able to relate with the plain situation, but the emotional experience of the main character is certainly relatable. Each story is astonishing because the level of imaginative effort put in to it. Not only this, the manner in which these stories are written is flawless. Lisa Zeidner a professor of English at Rutgers University, described bender’s work to be driven by voice and has essentials of controlled impertinence. In an interview, where she was asked to tell how she felt when her work is classified as magical realism and the use of magic to expose human flaws, she responded by saying: “I hope so! All I know is when I am using magic it’s to try to get to something that I can’t quite get to without that tool, it has given me access. I respond to that in books I read, too feels like something in my DNA, that I just often feel more deeply if the story is told via metaphor or magical storytelling in some way.” Bender when asked in an interview titled Conversation with American Women Writers, about her inclination toward fairy tale method of storytelling. She replied like this: “Everything. The imagination, the brevity, the violence, the sexuality, the humor, the great weird simple laden images like glass coffins, the melting feeling of being of being told a story. All of it.” (Bender 126) If we read her stories, we find every element of her liking, story after story. The characters in her fiction have a restricted role. For example the lover, the orphan, the loser et cetera. Their names are also of generic nature. There is no psychological complexity associated with the characters because of their simple nature. The expression of ideas and thoughts is done through actions rather than a detailed self-examination. Bender’s stories exhibit a lack of details relating to the internal situations of mind. However it does not mean that characters lack substance. Underneath the veil of simplicity, the characters are victims of severe feelings of disconnection and disturbance. In one of her stories, What You left in the Ditch, Bender writes: “She kept her back to him and shoved tin cans into the cupboard. Maybe, she was thinking, if you’d concentrated better you’d still have lips. Maybe you’re not supposed to think of your wife at the market while people are throwing bombs at you.” (Bender 487) In this story the character Mary, is angry and is being stunned at her husband’s injury, which has caused a disfigurement. Upon his unexpected return, she overpowers her fears, not to traumatize her husband any further. External actions together with composure is an outlet for her expression of feelings. At the end of the story she reestablishes emotional relation with her husband. Bender creates strange and unique plots, in order to highlight the strangeness of her characters in different contemporary situations. For example showing a world where boys are born, with key shaped finger and a lonely man, going to a pet store to buy himself a little man foe company, are methods Bender uses to show the alienation from the contemporary. Each of Bender’s work is unique and stands different from the rest, yet various frequent themes like for instance the use of fairy tale genre, connects them. The unusual way in which Bender tells her stories, be it a case of morals, actions or the physical characters, the intent behind it, always is to tell a certain truth relating to real life. Bender’s style of writing is concise and the way she exposes her character, has an element of eccentricity to it. For instance in The Remember she portrays a situation where her husband goes through the process of reverse evolution and loses his human identity. She pictures the torment of a broken relationship, in a very unique and interesting way. Bender’s uses outrageous themes as an entry in to her surreal stories. The strangeness in her stories makes the readers alert and anticipate the unusual, not as a phenomenon of interest in itself but because of the disruption and disaffection of real life portrayed behind it. Works cited Liza Zeidner. “What We Talk About When We Talk About Lust.” New York Times. August 23, 1998. Web. 27 November 2014. Aimee Bender. “The Girl in the Flammable Skirt: Drunken Mimi, The Healer, On a Saturday Afternoon.” Monica Peterson. “An Interview with Aimee Bender.” Superstition review. Web. 27 November 2014. Polly Rosenwaike. “Writing Outside Realism: Aimee Bender’s Magical Power.” The Millions. 15 July. Web. 27 Nov 2014. Sarah Anne Johnson. “Conversation with American Women Writers.” 1 December 2001. Read More