Despite what the cheeky title suggests, I would actually like to discuss a short story of which I actually do know the name, “Another Manhattan”. Through the first read, I actually really liked this story and its depiction of mental illness, showing how confusing and nonsensical is can be for someone like Jim to try and navigate normal social situations when he is weighed down by his own mind. I also really liked the way it treated Jim and Kate’s relationship, how it refused to show love in the clean, simple boxes that so many narratives seem to reiterate. However, when we brought up the different relationship dynamics the story presents, the heavy emphasis on Elliot and Kate’s relationship was noted as opposed to the lesser importance of Jim and Susan’s relationship. After going back and considering the story, I started to see the way Antrim’s story fits into the pattern that many male authors fall into when writing stories with female characters.
The story opens with Jim talking about his tense relationship with Kate and how “it was wrong to hate her.” The perspective then shifts to Kate, although all she talks about is her relationship with Jim, and her relationship with Elliot, and how he manipulates her. Right from the get-go we see Kate’s character defined only by her relationships with other men. We then move back to Jim’s perspective, and we get interesting history about him and an inner struggle that really defines the narrative. There’s nothing wrong with that per say, but with him being really our only choice for a protagonist combined with his weird treatment of women (Kate, Susan, the “twenty years younger” flowershop clerk), it just rubs me the wrong way.
My main issue with this story, however, is Susan. Now, I understand it’s supposed to be a short story, and therefore maybe the author can’t do everything he wants to develop the characters, but his treatment of Susan was just pathetic. Elliot was at least interesting, had something of a backstory, and a few witty one-liners to make him a perfectly acceptable side character. If a houseplant could speak, it could’ve played Susan. Her most interesting line is “I love you,” directed at Jim, over the phone, after she does her most interesting action, when goes to the bathroom. She’s literally just a shell that Jim had an affair with five months ago, and I hate it.
This story isn’t one of the worst examples of sexism in literature I’ve read, but it still had a lot of room to improve. I think it was a good lesson on how we need to work harder to create positive representation of women in narratives, and not just write women lazily to support your male characters. I still liked this story, but I wish it was better in this aspect.
I also had a problem with Susan in this story. It seemed like her character only existed to be there for Jim since Kate had Elliot. I expected to learn more about Susan since we learn a lot more about Kate and Elliot through their interactions. I thought the story was interesting, but I was definitely disappointed in the lack of character development for Susan. I guess it's just another MANhattan.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all nice one Michelle ^. Anyway, this was a really interesting post. Honestly, this did not actually cross my mind when I read the story but now that you've mentioned it I agree that the character developments of women in this story are problematic. I would be curious to know if you feel similarly about the portrayal of characters like Mary Jane and Eloise. The somewhat distant voice of the narrator may contribute to their still somewhat ambiguous characters yet they also both spend a large portion of the story discussing their relationships with men.
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression that Susan and Jim had recently ended their affair, which might be why Susan didn't get much attention in the story. The story seems to revolve the most around Jim, and his relationship with Kate, his wife.
ReplyDeleteRegardless though, I agree with your post and I wish that the story was longer so that we could get more about Susan, and even Elliot and Kate. I think it would honestly make an interesting dynamic (Susan, Kate, Elliot, Jim) for a TV show or something like that.
It's true that, from what we see of Kate in the limited window of this story (which covers about two hours or so in these people's lives), her character is primarily defined by her relationship with Jim. But it does become clear over the course of the story that this is partly because Jim is something of a handful--that she's been having to deal with a lot of complicated stuff, in terms of medical care and finances, over the last year or two. A big part of the challenge in their relationship seems to be precisely this--a simple night out with friends can't ever be simple, and she never knows when Jim might go off the rails again. For all her impatience with him in the initial stages of the story, the final scene, with them both weeping in the restaurant, Jim disheveled and bleeding from the face, presents her in a compassionate and sympathetic light. Jim is still the story's nexus, structurally--the foursome definitely revolves around him, and your comments about how Susan is comparatively underdeveloped are apt. It would be interesting to hear more from her, even in the way we hear from Kate--Jim must have been kind of a handful as a guy to have an affair with, too. I wonder how much she's aware of his struggles with mental illness, and how much her situation might have resembled Kate's. (This is definitely an example of a short story that could be the template for a novel--there's a lot of back story and potential future development in this densely packed snapshot.)
ReplyDelete