Focus & Inspiration


Untwine  by Edwidge Danticat was and is a hard book to analyze the craft of because of the weight of content. Sorting the focus of Untwine is fairly difficult because of the numerous stakes, characters, truths and etc that become present as the story unfolds. When I think about focus and Untwine I am drawn to the way in which Danticat lays out the first act. How we are deliberately thrown into the inciting incident within the first 5 pages and introduced to 4 of the main characters within the first chapter (this is a very short amount of time taking into consideration the weight of the story and page length.) One of the many reasons Danticat is able to do that is by introducing other elements of the story such as music (the song that was playing at the time of the crash, Isabelle’s instruments, the dynamic between Mom and Dad, being multi-lingual, family’s ethnicity, the closeness between Isabelle and Giselle, Russian folktale (another detail about Isabelle) and the grandparents. Because we are introduced to these many interesting sub/adjacent/congruent topics Danticat is able to open the story up to more than just the crash and the pain her and her family feel losing Isabelle.
By weaving between an array of topics from chapter to chapter Danticat gives a full scope of the inner and outer workings of Giselle’s family, the variations of grief and a pace that allowed the narrator to give the story on her time. The pace of the narrator matched/reflected the process of grief or even just the process of processing. With that, the reader was also slowed to being revealed information that hooked the reader in the first place. This craft practice was where much of my attention was drawn to.

In correlation, because of the pace of the narrator it allows inspiration to function initially in parts of the body for Giselle and eventually leading to entire body. The first scene that captured this for me was when Giselle had a “dream” where she got to talk to Isabelle about what happened. This scene was particularly tender because Giselle got to speak to Isabelle about things that were weighing on her and Isabelle responded loving. After this scene and into chapter 16 is the first time the other characters hear Giselle speak and after this point the inspiration came piece by piece. (Because Giselle spoke to Isabelle -- Giselle was able to speak to everyone else.) The next scene (chapter 17) that captured this for me again was at the hospital when the nurses and family were trying to get Giselle to walk. In order to inspire her when she did try to walk the grandmother brought Isabelle’s slippers for her to wear. After Isabelle realized they were Giselle’s and she put them on she self coached herself on walking so she can go Isabelle’s funeral. In this scene there were two inspirations to talk (Isabelle’s slippers and Isabelle’s funeral.) After these two scenes it seemed as though more kept being unrolled and inspired within Giselle. Almost like a domino effect that kept her moving through her process of grief and finding herself. Additionally, you could say that inspiration is a function of the entire body because of a domino effect or how one vein of inspiration may lead the body to the next vein of inspiration.

-Jameka Townsend

Comments

  1. Lila KOctober 16, 2017 at 11:16 PM

    I'm so curious about this last line. Is that how inspiration happens? I like the idea of it folding out vein by vein like that. I appreciate the points you make about how smaller experiences connect to the greater body of the narrator, and how that mirrors the processes we experience in the body. I agree that it was a very difficult book to analyze because of the weight of the story. I wonder in a way if that's a form of analysis for each of us: feeling this book in our bodies and stepping away from traditional forms of analysis to take it in viscerally.

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  2. ElmazwritesOctober 17, 2017 at 2:38 PM

    True things here: which make me think this would be a good book to map. As the beginning and the ending have so much functionality. The power of the body is major as the communication is blocked. The interior conversations with Isabelle are her only vital link. well done

    e

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  3. MelodyOctober 18, 2017 at 4:59 PM

    That is a really interesting detail to note -- how Danticat tells us what could be the climax in the first few pages. We don't get a chance to know the characters, or really understand the twin bond, before the accident. In this way, the focus is more on Giselle's process of grief and then of her healing. It's also an interesting craft technique, to also lay out all the other themes during those first few pages. I wonder if she wrote the beginning after she finished the rest of the book.

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  4. AnonymousOctober 25, 2017 at 12:13 PM

    Hello, Jameka Townsend

    I appreciate the way in which you interpret and phrase Danticat's use of focus and inspiration in the body, "...you could say that inspiration is a function of the entire body because of a domino effect or how one vein of inspiration may lad the body to the next vein of inspiration." This is reminiscent of the veins on the charm both twins were given by their aunt. The domino effect of her flooded memories and sensations do all seem to stem from her connections to her sister--their holding hands during the crash, and the veins that bound them in the womb, are present with them on their protective charms.

    I also like they way you describe the movement of the narration of Giselle, "the pace of the narrator matched/reflected the process of grie or even just the process of processing." I agree that the inclusion of multiple ideas, sensations, and motifs all work together because the protagonist is in a state where grief and processing is warranted. I briefly described Danticat's use of "stream of consciousness" as a method for focusing on multiple inspirations within Giselle's psyche.

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