7

When thinking of a feminist approach to Paul Zindel's Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, I immediately want to start with Tillie and Ruth's mother Beatrice. One way to approach a text using feminist theory is to examine how the characters react to women within the story or how readers react to the female characters. By focusing specifically on Beatrice, a self-loathing abusive mother who bred a toxic environment in which she raised her two daughters and a slew of elderly people in her charge.

Beatrice is the omnipresent female in Zindel's play. We see how Beatrice reacts to the off-stage Mr. Goodman, the positive male role-model in her daughter Tillie's life, through phone conversations. The implication is Mr. Goodman tries to appeal to Tillie's mother, and though he might be getting frustrated when her attitude and answers interfere with Tillie's interest in school and namely the titular science experiment, he is persistent. Beatrice's reactions to him imply that he must be somewhat level-headed when he phones her in an attempt to be on Tillie's side. Beatrice reveals much of her coniving and destructive attitude to the audience during these phone calls. (Alternatively, Mr. Goodman tries to be a positive role model in Tillie's life and even gave her that pet rabbit that both Tillie and Ruth adore, so his attitude toward women is implied through the female characters reaction to him.)

As a reader, Beatrice illicits a sour reaction from me. Her intrusive and passive- (or-not-so-passive) aggressive behavior grates on my nerves and I immediately feel sympathy toward her daughters who receive the brunt of her behavior. I find her outlandish, indecent, and disillusioned. However, I do feel that the other women in the play, specifically her daughters, balance out the negative views on this one female character. Tillie, which in her quiet manner and scientific aspirations, is acting against what her mother has in mind for her daughters -- subordination as a way to completely control her world. Ruth succumbs to her mother and almost appears to be her mother's best friend or delegate and to me, seems to go to school more because she isn't an embarrassment to her mother.

Beatrice is the villain of this story but she is necessary to create the "radiation" (the environment) that Tillie (the marigolds) grows in.

6

Judy Blundell, author of several books under pen names, chose What I Saw and How I Lied as the first which she would use her own name. It won the National Book Award. I strongly suspect -- or hope -- because of the subtle societal issues and the psychological transformation of the main character.

To me, the book isn't about the scandalous parts (though there are plenty), but how the protagonist Evelyn "Evie" Spooner processes all the information surrounding her. This is a book about how Evie, with her eyes now open to the lies around her, puts the pieces together despite the adults in her family treating her like a child. She knows what it looks like and how it looks bad, even she cannot deny that. She admits to herself that she doesn't know what kind of people her parents are or what they are capable of doing.

Her testimony during her parents' trial also does something else -- it places her parents in debt to her. They were always scared that she'd tell the truth but in telling the lie to get her parents off, it reveals that she had an understanding of the events surrounding her parents. This is how little Evie Spooner grew up -- not from the unfulfilled relationship with Peter Coleridge but by processing the very grown-up situation and making decisions the would change her and her family. She no longer sees her parents as her parents, but as deeply flawed people that she no longer aspires to be.

I appreciated Blundell's attention to detail regardining anti-Semitism still prevalent in America after the War. The Graysons -- discovered to be Jews due to his mother Mrs. Garfinkle calling the hotel in Palm Beach where Jews are very unwelcome -- and Ruthie Kalman -- the Jewish girl who is seen early in the book with Evie's school crush and the target of Margie's bullying -- are two examples of anti-Semitism that Evie experiences first hand. The experience in Florida has opened Evie's eyes to the injustices of it and she makes a conscious effort to not take part. She had developed a closeness to Mrs. Grayson while in Florida and contacts her again when she returned to New York. The ending also hints at a budding friendship with Ruthie. She may not have brought justice to Peter during the trial, but she tries to separate herself from anti-Semitic acts.

I further reviewed What I Saw and How I Lied on goodreads.com.