Essay 1- Gautier (for Mar. 23 discussion)

This is what the group on Gautier's story, "Now We Will Be Happy" wrote:

C. Amina Gautier, "Now We Will Be Happy": What kind of narrator is there in the story? Through this method of narration, what are we able to learn (or not learn) that is important about Rosa, Pedro, and Yauba? What is the significance of the story's title?

1. Narrator - Third Person point of view
2. Rosa - Is in an physically and mentally abusive relationship with Pedro. Feels very disconnected from her Hispanic heritage.
    Pedro - Husband of Rosa, very dominant in their relationship. Uses his knowledge of their heritage to condescend to Rosa.
    Yauba - The other "Lover" of Rosa, more respectful than Pedro. Is often compared to Pedro in a positive way. Of Puerto Rican descent and used to serve the privileged.
3. The title is significant by coming together and forgetting all issues that is happening in each person's life. The title is a statement of letting go and allowing yourself to be happy. This can also be seen as Ironic because even though they had a moment of peace at the end of the day they still have to go back to their lives and face their problems again.

For discussion on Mar. 23, 2020:

TF:  You've given us a strong sense of the psychological dynamics involving Rosa, Pedro, and Yauba. I think that you've captured the essence of the story's title. And I would elaborate on what you're saying but adding that "now" can mean 2 things: "now but not necessarily later," and "from now on" (like "happily ever after").

Yes, it's a Hispanic heritage, but it's specifically Puerto Rican, and all of the major characters (Rosa, Pedro, Yauba) and the minor characters (Rosa's parents) share this particular heritage. Pay careful attention to what Yauba says to himself when the third person narrator presents Yauba's interior monologue near the bottom of the seventh paragraph of the story: "Thanks to the Jones Act, no Puerto Rican is an immigrant, a fact Jim always pretends not to know. He hates to pay him his due, give him his rights, treat him like the citizen he is." Think about the ironic history of Puerto Rico and the U.S., which "won" the island in the Spanish America War as a "colony," which then became a territory, making Puerto Ricans who live on the island and those who live in the mainland U.S. citizens, but as we know from the recent botching of disaster relief after Hurricane Maria in September 2017, Puerto Rico doesn't get the privileges of the mainland. (In fact, there's been a lot of debate on the island for decades about whether or not their people want it to become a state rather than a territory, and some want complete independence from the U.S.)

Note: If a student cannot attend during the class hours but give comments BEFORE the class, I will often post their comments in the body of a blog post, but once class starts, everyone will use the comments section.

You say that the story has a third-person narrator. But what kind of third-person narrator is it? Limited? Subjective? Omniscient? Or even free/indirect?  (Look at the glossary in the Writing and Literature Textbook.) An omniscient narrator can give us interior monologues for ALL major characters:  Is the narrator able to get into the minds of Yauba, Rosa, and Pedro with interior monologues? Or do you disagree with the idea that Pedro is a major character? If you think he IS a major character, does the narrator represent what's going on in his thoughts?

 Frances C.: The narrator gives a character’s thoughts and emotions as though they were reporting inner monologues as herself/himself within a text that otherwise uses a general third-person narrator (Rosa and Yauba only).  Therefore the narration is in the 3rd person free/indirect.
 Pedro is not a major character, he is a contributing factor (Foil character) towards the Rosa and Yauba plot. If The narrator does not depict what is occuring inside Pedro’s thoughts, he is subjectively depicted through Rosa’s point of view… biased. 

TF: OK, but if Pedro is NOT a major character, then is the story third person omniscient, because ALL major characters are covered by inner monologues that seem to come from them? I'm really asking this question; it's not rhetorical, because I'm not sure what a scholar in narrative theory--which is not my specialty--would say. So I think students can make decent arguments on both sides: third person omniscient or third person free/indirect.

TF:  In this story, are there 3 plots: Rosa's (with Pedro and her parents) and Yauba's (in his job) separately and Rosa and Yauba's together? Or is there a main plot (Rosa/Yauba) with 2 less important sub-plots?

TF:  Are there any flashbacks that help us understand some of the characters' circumstances?

Frances: Yes. Rosa’s past and present is filled with emotional neglect and dissonance from her parents, more so with Rosa’s mother rather than her father.   During Rosa’s childhood, her parents purposely deprived her of a wide range of Puerto Rican cultural immersion stemming from music, to language as well as culinary techniques.

Yauba’s flashback enables us to understand his appreciation of simple and humble women, living quarters and the love of cooking.  

TF:  Does dialogue add to what we learn about the conflicts in the story from the interior monologues?

Frances: Yes, it adds subliminal layers to the conflicts.

Are the last few paragraphs of the story a climax or a resolution or both a climax and a resolution?

Frances C.:  The idea of “now” signifies  the climax of Rosa and Yauba’s discretely revealing their true love towards each other from here on which occurred  at the end of the story. Climax is reached during the last few paragraphs of the story, yet a resolution has yet to come.  Rosa and Yauba are in a state of temporary elation come the end of the story.

SUMMARY OF 3/23/20 DISCUSSION

The discussion was too complex to provide a summary that does full justice to it, so I recommend that you read the actual comments and replies in the comments section, and this may help you focus your own interpretation of the story if you choose to write about it in Essay 1. But what I can do is provide some general areas in which class members had various views:

1. Some believe that there is a third-person subjective narrator because we get into the minds of two major characters, Rosa and Yauba, but not Pedro. A small number, perhaps only one person, maintain that all the characters are important, and therefore, we have a third-person omniscient narrator. Some consider this a third-person limited narrator because they think that we can only get into the mind of Rosa, not Yauba; I cautioned these interpreters to be careful about asserting that there is no interior monologue for Yauba. Finally, some consider the narrator to be free/indirect, and this pertains to  Rosa and Yauba seeming to directly relay their thoughts to the readers, but the issue arose as to whether this was really happening. (Also, see my uncertain reply to Frances about 30 lines above this.)
Remember that, when you write your paper, the identification of the narrator and the support for this identification is probably going to take up 1-3 sentences for each story; it's not going to be a large part of the paper. We just want to know the impact that a narrative point of view has on the development of this story's theme in relation to how point of view affects the other story.

2.  Some contributors to the discussion say that there were 3 equal plots, because these plots were interdependent and interlocking, but some claim that the Rosa/Yauba plot is the main focus and that the other 2 were subplots.
In writing the paper, this will not necessarily come up, but if you can  relate it to the overall theme, you might discuss it, if there's a link with the other story you're comparing/contrasting it to.

3. There is general agreement that flashbacks are important to give background information about Rosa's conflict with Pedro, her relationship with her parents that influences her present circumstances, her inner conflict, her relationship with Yauba (to a lesser extent, since a lot of that happens in the narrative present of the story), and Yauba's conflict at his job.
Mentioning flashbacks can come up naturally (not in a forced way) in the essay when you are discussing a conflict in the story that is similar or different from a conflict in another story.

4. There is also agreement that dialogue is useful, especially because it underlines the positive relationship between Rosa and Yauba and also emphasizes points that come from the interior monologues.
Mentioning dialogue can come up naturally (not in a forced way) in the essay when you are discussing a conflict in the story that is similar or different from a conflict in another story.

5. Most contributors believe that the story's climax is at the end with the tub scene, where the love of Rosa and Yauba is fully confirmed and celebrated. Some consider Rosa and Yauba to have reached a full resolution embodied in their expression of commitment to each other, indicating that the resolution of the story can be in characters' minds rather than in some "final" action; some read the story's ending as a partial resolution, since we don't know if Rosa will leave Pedro, and some see this uncertainty or suspense as evidence that there is no resolution.
Similarities or differences in climax and or resolution between this and another story can be important to your essay.