I completely agree with Jason's post about the leading man's sexual experiences being a way to connect with others. The leading man is completely different from everyone else and is the only one that has these nine key fingers. He spends most of his life trying to find these doors he can open like some of us go throughout life trying everything to figure out the answers to who we are and our importance. One way that he finds a way to connect with at least someone, that someone being a girl, is to have sex. At one point in the story they even have sex in the closet, which was a door that he could open with his finger. This makes me think that he wanted someone to understand the importance of his fingers to him because they do make him different. He tried to include the girl into his life and his most important feature by sleeping with her in the closet.
I really like how Aimee Bender writes about people who try to fit in because they are different. The use of magical realism really helps to enforce the importance of fitting in and finding out what it is that makes you who you are. All her characters have to go through experiences in order to figure out who they are, whether they succeed or not, they all have to go through the journey. This is what we all do while growing up but the magical aspect just makes the topic a little more fun to look deeper into. It is definitely a twist the way she adds the magical realism to the stories.
(Kelcey Summers 14)
Very interesting observations about the use of sexuality in "The Leading Man." I think these observations could be applied to several other stories we have read by Bender as well such as "Fruit and Words."
ReplyDeleteAnd "Dearth" as well.
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