wickedsnack-art:

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Usagi Tsukino in a style inspired by Alphonse Mucha

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In the 1999 novel Sputnik Sweetheart, by Haruki Murakami, one of the main characters, Miu, takes herself out for a day at the amusement park that ends with her locked in the car of a Ferris wheel as it shuts off midair. From inside the car, she experiences a split of her ego/identity/self when, gazing from her high vantage point across the city into her apartment window, she spots what looks to be a double of herself, in the same clothes she’s wearing that day, making love on her own bed with man she knows from town (whom she finds repulsive, by the way).

The 2019 movie Us, directed by Jordan Peele, centers on a the protagonist’s childhood memory of wandering into a mysterious fun house on the outskirts of an amusement park. She quickly becomes lost in the dark house and, in the inciting incident, comes across a double of herself in a distorted fun-house-styled mirror. This double seems to have a mind and life of its own and pose a threat to the original protagonist. Terrified, she struggles to escape the house.

Although Miu was 25 at the time of her amusement park “split,” and the film protagonist merely a young child, both of their experiences represented a turning point in their development. Both were traumatic events with lasting consequences, psychological and tangible. Though the consequences appeared personal to Miu, with her hair turning white and the loss of her libido–these are seen as side effects to a larger split in the fabric of reality. Similarly with Peele’s character, whose trauma manifests more on an mental than physical level, as she exhibits hallmark symptoms of paranoia and avoidance that characterize post-traumatic stress. Either way, these characters are subject to forces outside of their control that threaten to unveil the true nature of the darkness behind the curtain–the ugliest, antisocial sides of their humanity. The stuff that makes people dissociate as a protective response.

I’m often at a loss when it comes to stories involving multiverses, that challenge the reader to envisage what essentially comes down to forking. If we assume the dissociative trauma response, then the forked “selves” are the parts of the individual that become sealed off after the traumatic event but still manage to corrupt one’s life in insidious ways.

When extrapolated beyond the microcosm of an individual character’s story to fit a worldview or universal theme, forking often leads to a nihilistic conclusion, to which the consumer of classic literature in me balks. Are reality splits the best storytelling tool to get the themes of dualism across to readers? Have they been endemic to literature all along? I believe that the tool was helpful in Murakami’s case, with the ultimate function of developing Miu’s character and letting us into her psyche. The traumatic event had the effect of depleting her self-trust; if she–or some version of her–would sleep with a man she finds objectionable, then who knows what else she’s capable of? As for Us, I’m less sure what reality-splitting did to further the themes and/or character development, but then again, I couldn’t finish the film. My inkling about the significance of the amusement park incident, is the doubt and suppression of the child’s story. Perhaps the parents didn’t want such a traumatic event to spoil their success in moving up the ladder of the American dream. To achieve equality or success is to sacrifice one’s innocence, weakness, or what have you, into the ether, and take on an invulnerable persona despite legacies of trauma. I’m curious what others–more seasoned consumers of such storylines–think.

What stings about losing a friendship

Is that sinking feeling

You’ve regressed—

Fallen backwards, foiled

In your efforts to be

A decent human being

To quash that self-loathing

That resurfaces, almighty