Boy Snow And Bird Analysis

In a world as corrupt and broken as our own, there surface many important issues that people often find uncomfortable or controversial when discussed. Often people need a sort of safety blanket or window of separation to make them feel more comfortable when dealing with difficult topics. Helen Oyeyemi’s novel Boy, Snow, Bird deals with many different tendentious issues such as abuse, race, beauty, and mother daughter relationships, and many of these issues are blatantly illustrated throughout this story between different characters. Often more than one relationship deals with each of these issues, and they deal with more than one issue at a time. That being said some of the relationships deal with their issues and themes in a much more subtle …show more content…
The main example of this issue remains the Whitman family, who have been pretending to be white for generations and hiding those whose existence would expose them, but a similar phenomenon happens between Boy and Charlie. Boy and Charlie have a constant one sided power struggle in which Boy refuses to admit her feeling, even to herself, and accept Charlie, “He wrote letters, but I didn’t reply. It wasn’t a genuine attachment” (Oyeyemi 43). A few lines prior to this Charlie says he is willing to be anything to her that she will take and Boy responses that they should stay pen pals (Oyeyemi 43). Throughout all this emotional denial her feeling remains constant it is not until she agrees to marry Arturo that she admits she loves Charlie. This emotional denial is a cloaked example of misrepresented power because Boy refuses to admit the way she is feeling she avoids admitting to her vulnerabilities, which would in turn give Charlie a power over her. Also by denying these feelings, even though Charlie has admitted his means Boy has a control over him. Boy has faked her way into a position of authority over Charlie just like the Whitman’s have faked their way into a white society giving them a power over other people of color. The relationship and its disguised issues of dishonest control becomes once again a window into the issue for the reader. Not many people have pretended to be a different race for generations, but many people have pretended not to feel a certain way to keep allow themselves to keep the position of power they would forfeit if they were to admit their vulnerabilities, because of this the relationship between Charlie and Boy acts as a safe place for the reader to identify with on a personal level which allows them to better understand the issue on its