Saturday, February 12, 2011

"Trickers and Truthtellers"

One thing that I found really surprising was when Sontag talks about Lorde's book, The Cancer Journals. Lorde writes about how the nurse was trying to convince her to wear her prosthesis. Instead of telling Lorde to wear it for her health, the nurse said that without it, "it's bad for the morale of the office"(190). I mean, how outrageous is that?! Shouldn't a nurse, a person considered an angel of the hospital, be concerned about the health of her patients?
I liked how Lorde talks about two different types of characters: truthtellers and trickers. The truthtellers speak truth for power, while the tricksters have the ability to slip out of definitions that seek to limit whatever is defined. It kind of defines the structure we have in society. The truthtellers can represent lobbyists or protestors, those who proclaim their opinions outwardly. The trickers don't really represent certain people but they portray those who quietly go against the rules. I particularly like the line Sontag wrote, "Trickers know that they have a different calling: to heal the world" (196). It makes the trickers look like mysterious superheroes!

1 comment:

  1. I feel that even though tricksters might go against the rules, in the end it seems that they were trying to make way for others, and are actually doing them a favor. They put others before themselves very much like a superhero.

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