Exploring the In-Between space in Untwine

Miguel Cervantes

10/16/17

           As it turns out, the physical spaces we occupy are a bit more porous than we thought.        

           Throughout the semester, we’ve been reading books that explore the experience of the body.  We’ve questioned the body, lamented it and seen it unravel.  We’ve acknowledged its frailties and seen how it changes, becoming a symbol of such immensity that our attentions center solely on its journey; for us, the experience of the body is the experience of our lives.  The two cannot be seen as separate. 

In Untwine however, Edwidge Danticat gives us our first glimpse at the connecting space between body and mind, that quiet, strangely powerful place that allows us to see the body through the mind’s eye, coming to know ourselves in a way that transcends ordinary consciousness.  After Giselle Boyer’s tragic car crash, we are taken to this in-between state.  It becomes Giselle's home as well as our own, an expansive and sheltered place where her mind might begin to make sense of the tragedy that has just befallen her while her body struggles to maintain its equilibrium. 

From here, Giselle is able to transcend time, likening her surges in consciousness to the act of staying above water.  From this vantage point Giselle is witness to the present, observing her hospital room, her doctor and her visitors.  Yet when it comes time to ‘go under’ Giselle moves throughout all spaces, revisiting those parts of her life that hold great significance to her.  Giselle herself describes it in this way,

“They would show Pastor Ben praying for me to a God that I could probably reach out and touch now, since I feel so far from actual people, and so close to the unknown.” (p. 40)

Here, for the very first time in her life, Giselle experiences a genuine sense of separation from the life she had been living, an ideal, family-centered existence in which her mother and father and her identical twin, Isabelle, formed the core of a reality that was always exciting, always expanding before her. 

As a teenager, Giselle was just beginning to explore the world around her, seeing her surroundings through the lens of her identity as an identical twin.  Yet after the accident and Isabelle’s death, this seemingly unshakeable sense of identity is violently torn away, moving Giselle into what seems like one of the many ‘dark spaces’ her art history teacher alludes to in one of his class lectures (p. 29).  Mr. Rhys believes that the dark spaces of the world outnumber the light, lending the impression that they possess an intrinsic power of some kind, a quiet, yet ever-present potentiality that continually threatens to overwhelm those spaces where light persists.  Yet what Giselle soon discovers is that ‘dark space’ is merely one way to describe the in-between space she now occupies – an open and limitless state of mind that, for the very first time, shows her just how intertwined her consciousness was with her core sense of identity as Isabelle’s twin.     

“Until the policewoman appeared with her star, I didn’t realize that I was surrounded by both too much darkness and too much light.  I was used to living two lives at once, sometimes carrying around in my head both Isabelle’s memories and mine, both her dreams and mine.”

(p. 29) 

For Giselle, journeying across the landscape of her young life provides moments for reflection and understanding.  Unable to move her body in her hospital bed, she learns that her conscious awareness of the world around her is not tied to physical existence alone.  Yet everything she knows, or has known up until this point in her life has pointed her toward the physical, making it paramount for her to experience her world from this in-between state. 

Giselle does not resist this opportunity.  Despite moments when she thinks of her body as a limiting factor, or a prison (p. 63), she ends up flowing with the course of her memory, revisiting moments in time that remind her of the good, the exciting and even painful aspects of her life.  The result is a much more profound sense of understanding, as Giselle comes to see that her healing process is not limited to the body alone.

“But I am starting to understand that some internal injuries are worse than the ones you can actually see.” (p. 96)

Giselle is young, but she is also very brave and resilient, and she looks upon her life with the plain-spoken honesty of someone who simply wants things to be back the way they were – her life, her family, her twin-sister – all of them returned to a state of safety and wholeness.  For a while it almost seems as if these are the terms of her return, that some reassurance of normalcy must be given to Giselle if she is ever to awaken from her coma-like state.  She knows that her sister is dead.  She knows that she cannot bring her back.  She knows that her own life and that of her family will never be the same again.  And because of this, she wants to remain in her in-between state, seeing in it a place of refuge from the turmoil that awaits her in the realm of reality.

“Because waking up might mean leaving Isabelle behind forever.” (p. 89)

As readers we resonate with Giselle’s desire here too – it’s a powerful reminder of our own desire to remain in a state – whether of body or mind – that shields us from the reality of the world, from the unknown. 

This becomes the journey then, for Giselle, to understand herself as someone who will eventually awaken, stand up, leave her hospital room and venture out into a world where her twin-sister no longer abides.  Through her internal awareness, she knows that she is eternally connected to Isabelle.  They will never be truly separate.  But, she is also cognizant of the aftermath that has yet to come – her sister’s funeral, her own slow, physical recovery and the already fragmented relationship of her parents – all of this and more is awaiting her once she opens her eyes and returns to life in the physical realm. 

“I do want out of this unmoving body.  I do want out of this place.  I do want my life back.  I want my parents back.  I want my sister back.” (p. 64)

It’s hard not to agree with Giselle; she is only a young teen, after all, and it would be difficult not to identify with her desire to have things simply return to normal.  To have everything become safe once again.  But in the in-between space, Giselle becomes privy to an understanding that allows her to see her own life (as well as that of her family) in a way that now integrates change in all its many forms: chaos, separation and death.  Her reflections on the mental and physical decline of Grandma Sandrine are especially poignant here, because even as Giselle acknowledges the scientific explanation behind her grandmother’s illness she extends that awareness to include the recognition of her own changing world, an awareness that both she and her sister shared.

“Isabelle knew before everyone else that Grandma Sandrine was going to die.  Just as sitting in that car before the crash, each of us knew, in our own way, that our little fortress was crumbling.  Not in the way it turned out, but in some other way that seemed beyond repair.” (p. 34-35)

Giselle’s experience in the in-between state is powerful and transformative, but perhaps the most important aspect of her journey there comes from the opportunity to meet with her sister and tell her everything that she has been wanting to say since the accident. 

To tell her sister that she loves her.  To tell her that she’s sorry.  To tease her, to laugh with her.  To say goodbye, knowing that she will never truly have to say goodbye. 

This is the culmination of her journey in the in-between state, a place where dreams and reality intersect.  It is a dream that guides her there, but when the moment arrives Giselle allows all of her feelings to come forth, speaking to Isabelle in a way that is at once familiar and true, communicating her love, her grief and her uncertainty.  It is this moment that proves to be one of the most profoundly healing in the book, for meeting with her sister allows Giselle to recognize that Isabelle is not truly lost to her, that their connection goes far beyond twin-speak, thinking similar thoughts or even feeling similar pain.  They are connected at the level of the soul, something that becomes fully internalized when they come together in this in-between space.  

 It gives life to Giselle’s voice.  She cries out in the dream, calling to her parents, calling to Isabelle, propelling her out of the in-between state, out of her dream and back into the realm of reality, fully immersed and ready to embark on the next stage of her healing journey.