There are many difficult and complex things occurring in the book The More You Ignore Me by Jo Brand. The main character, Alice, goes through and has to deal with a lot of difficult things in her life, starting around the age of five.
Some of the complex things in the book are that Alice's mother, Gina, is mentally ill and out of control, and Alice has to adjust her life and herself in order to not anger Gina and not draw attention to herself. Alice's father, Keith, smokes pot all the time and doesn't fully know how to raise a child with a mentally ill wife, but he tries. Gina's two brothers, Wobbly and Bighead are crazy and usually drunk and they beat up anyone they can find that they are capable of beating up. And Gina's mother is a lunatic as well, and intimidates Keith.
These complex things are happening all throughout Alice's life. Alice learns to deal with these things in her own way when she's just around five years old. Everyone at her school talk about Gina and are scared and hesitant to be near or to talk to Alice. This and Gina and her uncontrollable moods cause Alice to try to hide her personality. In the book on page 3 it says "underneath lay a fairly well-balanced unremarkable little girl who rarely showed her true colours at home for fear of Gina noticing and washing them away." This is why Alice keeps an emotionless cover, so that her mother won't disappointed that she wasn't as "unique" as Gina is. She develops a personality that charms and protects her from society. A young child should not be scared of showing their true colors in fear that they would be disappointed, it's not fair!
Gina sat on roofs naked, holding a guinea pig, and yelling for no reason. She ate a letter that was really important to Alice, so that she would have the writer of the letter "inside of her". She was totally unpredictable, which did not help Alice get a normal childhood. However, after a few years of that, Gina was put on medicated that took away her energy. She sat around all day, smoking, barely eating and speaking one word sentences from time to time. She slowly aged, her hair getting slightly grey and she lost all the "fire" that used to be there. She wasn't very present in Alice's life from that point on.
Adding on to all of those things, Alice also had to be without money somewhere she didn't know, alone as she watched her grandmother die without being able to do anything. She got pregnant and then had a miscarriage. She had to realize that she probably had the same illness as her mother, and that maybe that was why she felt a strong connection to Morrissey, someone who she had never even met. And she watched her best friend get beat up by his own father, and had to promise not to tell anyone about it.
Alice went through life dealing with these things and at the same time, slowly uncovering her true personality for those she felt comfortable with. She grew up and discovered herself more and in a new way. Building her own life and not letting her mother or any other things that were tough to deal with in her life, change her or be in control of her life.
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post! I love what you said at the end, that building her own life and not allowing her mother change her allowed her to discover herself more in new ways. I think that sometimes, even though no person or child should have to go the kind of trauma you described takes place in this book, that makes the strongest people. The people who can break away from their past are able to have such a strong perspective on who they don't want to become, and the kind of person they do want to become. You mentioned that Alice develops a very emotionless personality as a way of dealing with all this at a young age, so I was wondering, do you think this is a "normal" way to deal with those kinds of problems? Or do you think it is more typical for kids to take on more of a "bully" attitude and personality?
ReplyDeleteThank You!
ReplyDeleteAnd I think that in different situations and different cases, children deal with problems in different ways,and there really is no "normal" way. I think that for Alice, developing a sort of emotionless cover personality worked better for her in some ways than other ways of dealing with her issues would have. It didn't provoke her mom in any way, which I think was better for everyone since Gina's mood and behavior affected a lot of people. Also I don't think Alice wanted to share and talk about her feelings with other people, which she didn't really have to. And I think that in a way, Alice could control, or know how people would act towards her because of the things she would do, for example, drooling. I think that with the problems and Issues she had in her life, the way she dealt with them was probably one of the better and normal ways for her.