In Junot Diaz’s collections of short stories he writes about a young man named Ysrael who had his face bitten off by a pig when he was an infant. In his short story “No Face” the reader is given a day in the life of this boy and the tribulations that he has to endure. Not only does he have to deal with the fact that he will most likely have to live with his disfigurement for the rest of his life but he also has to endure persecution from the cruelty of others. He spends his days running and building up the muscle to escape the boys that bully him on a daily basis. The last line in “No Face” states “he runs, down towards town, never slipping or stumbling. No body’s faster” (106). This final sentence, in my mind, represents that he will forever be running thanks to the country he was born in whose poor infrastructure gave him the disfigured face in the first place with no way to correct it.

The text in “No Face” does not explicitly tell the reader why he has to wear a mask in public, but it is through his nightmares that we find out that it was a pig that had broken into his home and bitten it off (157). From birth he seems to be already cursed with disadvantage by the poverty of the nation. It is when he visits temporary Canadian doctors who are visiting the country that he realizes that he is not alone in his ailment. He witnesses two young children who were also disadvantaged by being born without arms and without proper fusing growth plates in the skull (159).

While visiting the Canadian doctors we also learn that there is almost nothing that they can do to improve Ysrael’s situation unless he travels to another country. This further shows how the author wants to show how hostile the environment of his birthplace is and how the only way to find hope in a better life is to move away. There seems to be only heartbreak and troubles waiting for Ysrael if he decides to stay. His home has brought him nothing but reasons to escape in search for a better life elsewhere.

I believe that the author in “No Face” uses physical disabilities to better illustrate how much poor a infrastructure in a country can disadvantage people even from birth. People throughout the short stories are constantly looking to flee from their poverty by moving out of the nation. Ysrael is plagued with disability right off the bat along with many others due to a poor government. As illustrated his home has brought little safety and nutrition to its people. Due to being born into the nation, Ysrael is destined to live a life of running away. He has to either run away from the bullies that throw rocks and balk at his face or he has to move away to the US or Canada in search for a better life.

When reading Joyce Carol Oats’ Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, I couldn’t help but find Arnold Friend a peculiar character in many ways. The way in which the author writes him in feels as though he does not possess natural human qualities. He seems to appear from nowhere and attach to Connie upon first sight, yet he knows everything about her, her social life and her family. Clearly it seems as though he is supernatural in some way almost like Satan himself or the mythic Pan.

           

When Arnold arrives at Connie’s Doorstep, I immediately began to find this either extremely convenient or sinisterly purposeful. He somehow knew exactly where Connie lived and knew that she would be alone. He goes on to explain to Connie that he knows who she is, the names of all her friends, who her family is, where they are and even what they were wearing. This kind of omniscience right away gives the character devilish qualities. There is no way that a mortal man would be able to know this much about a person unless he spent days or even months spying and stalking an individual.

 

Furthermore, Arnold’s appearance also contributes to the comparison of Satan. Upon first seeing him, Connie immediately squints her eyes in disgust almost as a reflex. Even the sight of him initially gives her uneasiness. She also describes him in a very unflattering manner talking about his scruffy hair and sullen eyes. The most telling sign of this devilishness or similarity to Pan is revealed when the narrator describes his feet however. He walks strangely and seems to wobble when he tries to get near her. This may be interpreted as a sign that he actually has hooves like traditional Satanic like figures have. After observing this Connie seems to finally realize who he really is and she begins to panic and scream.

Arnold’s seductive nature seems to be the most prominent feature in interpreting him as Pan or Satan. He lusts after Connie and tries to persuade her into “coming along for a drive” in an effort to gain control over her and turn her into something she does not want. She is immediately feels uncomfortable because she is so used to only showing her conservative side at home and by arriving at her house Arnold is acting like Pan would in trying to force her sexual side to come out. She resists, wanting to hold onto her innocence and it only makes Arnolds upset and more hard pressing. He eventually begins stop sugar coating want he wants by discussing the possibility of “Sunday drives” and beings to explain to her that there is no longer a way out of this situation. The closer he gets to invading her home the more Connie recedes, panics, and screams. The power in language and presence that Arnold Friend has to push Connie to such extremes of emotion are elements of only true evil in its purest form.

In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel recounts certain life events as being monumental in shaping how she became the person she is today. She writes from her memories of having a distant father, a melancholy mother and two brothers including herself who were caught in between. What struck me on a sympathetic level was when she compared her family to the popular comic series “The Addams Family”. As she mentions, there are many striking similarities between the two families but she fails to mention the one thing missing. Even though the Addams family were best known for being a bunch of estranged individuals, they loved each other and stuck together. I believe that as she grew up, the idea of the Addams Family gave her comfort and a sense of normality that maybe her family wasn’t as untraditional as she thought.

Bechdel explains that as she was growing up, she often confused herself and her family with characters from “The Addams Family” (17). She saw many likenesses including the old Victorian homes that they both lived in, the cold stoic like façade that her mother and Morticia Addams both possessed, the fact that Wednesday Addams and herself looked almost identical, memories of having to chase bats out of her house while bats often were attracted to the Addams house also, and the fact that the family business was a to run a funeral home while the Addams family delighted in all things dark and deadly. She presents these revelations as only a passing thought in her childhood, however, I believe that there exists a deeper meaning to her bringing it up. 

The Addams are a very peculiar family who liked all things macabre and untraditional. However, they love each other, remain close, and look out for one another. Maybe Bechdel’s familiarization with the Addams gave her hope that if a family as strange as that one could succeed that maybe hers could as well.  I’m sure that as a child Bechdel soon began to realize that her family was unconventional. She had two preoccupied parents who barely showed affection for each other let alone towards her.  Her father only seemed to really care after the dead people he was preparing for funerals and the house he was restoring. The house décor and the obsession with the dead are two common themes in The Addams Family comics and for Bechdel to compare those to her own life could have given her a sense of normality after all.

Growing up having to figure out life on your own without the help of such important figures such as your parents can be a difficult task. Alison Bechdel’s life was exceedingly tremulous given those circumstances and many others. She, as a child, was probably as curiously minded as all young ones are and was searching for answers about her family whether consciously or subconsciously. Her being able to mirror her own life with the Addams life showed that she was excited about realizing that her family’s lifestyle was not unlike another’s and it acted as a way for her to fill the void that parents had failed to fill so far in her life.