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But by the end I was getting a distinctly "inter-generational trauma" read.
Michelle is the coping strategy personality that doesn't always work, and when Jeff's sister (the narrator) becomes part of the problem - and when 'Michelle' has to become a parent himself - Jeff's last option is to disappear completely.
I believe Michelle represents amphetamines, which something like a quarter of university students take[1]. The upbeat and outgoing attitude shift and confidence. The drive and ambition to found your own company. The total rejection by conservative parents who don’t understand how positively life-changing it can be. This story has hit so eerily close to home. https://www.michigandaily.com/research/adderall-used-24-uni…
The fact that the sister doesn’t like Michelle, but she likes her brother when Michelle is inside him. It feels like a little betrayal to learn that the person you like to talk to might only act that way when they’re using amphetamines. To me it makes no difference if the person has altered the dopamine and serotonin levels in their brain with diet and exercise or if they did it with a pill. If they’re a happy, succe…
Honest question--is Michelle a real person the author is recounting events about or is this some kind of literary device? Maybe my brain isn't working today but I gave up halfway through this without getting it.
For most of the story I was assuming Michelle was an allegory for drugs (particularly with the reference to Jane's Addiction). But by the end I was getting a distinctly "inter-generational trauma" read. Michelle is the coping strategy personality that doesn't always work, and when Jeff's sister (the narrator) becomes part of the problem - and when 'Michelle' has to become a parent himself - Jeff's last option is to d…
So, there are immigrant Asian parents. Such parents often have high expectations for their kids. These kids feel the pressure to meet them, but often can't (or feel they can't), leaving a problem to be solved. Also, parents often try to live vicariously through their children.
In the Real World, people might turn to drugs: Alcohol to numb the pain, amphetamines to increase performance, etc; they also put their kids in expensive schools and coach them in everything they wish they'd been taught growing up. In the story world presented here, some people turn to "puppeteers": One particular second generation child first relies on a puppeteer to be a "success", and then becomes one himself to live out a "success" through his child.
The fact that people do have this problem, but don't have the solution, and turn to other solutions, is why so many of the "allegory" attempts here are close but ultimately fail: Yes, drugs are a different way people sometimes deal with these problems; no, drugs are not the same as puppeteering, which is why it's not a 1-1 match.
I imagine the author giggling manically at seeing different people fully convinced of and vehemently agruing about their contradicting interpretation of what the story is an allegory for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It makes one wonder, do students need to learn how to write? The question has been asked before in a 'simpler' context. Do students need to learn long division? Seems like if not now, soon, the answer is no.
Except in the narrowest sense of "writing" meaning to put words on a page in grammatical order, it can't really be compared to learning to perform a mechanical chore like long division. It's more comparable to learning numeracy. To learn to write is to learn how to structure thoughts in human language, just as to learn math is to learn to structure thoughts in a universal framework built on logic. One could make the…
Interesting read, but did not understand the author's message or what was going on. Was it about addiction, MPD, trans discovery? Unclear, to me at least. Poor writing I think, unless the ambiguity was the intent.
Great writing leaves gaps for the reader to fill with elements and interpretations from their own life. This comment thread makes it clear it worked -- amphetamine users see it as a story about amphetamines. People who care about gender thought it was a gender story. People with social anxiety see it as a story about masking.
I watch and read too much sci-fi so interpreted it more literally, thinking about how the puppeteer thing could actually work.