At its core, The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin is a story
about humanity. Jemisin creates this futuristic world with magical beings but addresses
the issues that modern-day America struggles the most with. The story follows
three characters, Damaya, Syen and Essun. By the end, Jemisin reveals that all
three of the different characters with their very different personalities, are
all the same person. Damaya is an orgene before she is stripped of her freedom.
Syen is an orgene that discovers life when you have no control. Essun is an
orgene that is forced to keep her identity a secret, and who is afraid of the
world she now knows exists. All three characters have different traits and they
are all complex in various ways. They all learn different lessons throughout the
novel. By making all three characters the same character, and waiting to reveal
it, Jemisin shows how complex one person can be. No one is one-dimensional, and
she wants her audience to understand that concept and eliminate the immediate
judgements that are so-often thrust upon people.
Essun’s story-line is given in first person because although her story is the first to appear in the novel, Essun is after Damaya enters the Fulcrum and after Syen escapes the Fulcrum. Essun has lost a child and seems to have lost herself. She is “still trying to decide who to be. The self you’ve been lately doesn’t make sense anymore; She’s not useful, unobtrusive as she is, quiet as she is, ordinary as she is. Not when such extraordinary things have happened” (42). This passive personality contrasts with Damaya and Syen’s personalities. "Syen doesn’t know any of the poor fools assigned to such a tedious duty…it’s the sort of thing they give to orgenes who’ll never make it to the fourth ring- the ones who have lots of raw power and little control” (119). Syen is impulsive, and sometimes angry, because she has seen what the world has come to. Damaya has not seen the true atrocities the world has to offer, all that Damaya has ever known is secrecy and suppression. When Damaya is about to be take to Yumenes by the Guardian, she thinks, “[Mother] and father have given Damaya away. And Mother does not hate her; actually, she fears Damaya. Is there a difference? Maybe” (33). This quote shows how innocent Damaya is, how she cannot even fathom what is to come.
Jemisin gives us these opposing characters in order to show us the complexity of humanity. No one can be one thing. We can be innocent, powerful and lost…we can be anything we want to be. Along with her nontraditional method of incorporating racism, Jemisin explores the depth of human experience. I think that Jemisin wanted us to realize that every experience we encounter makes us different. We can be all things, or we can be one thing, but whatever we are is based upon what we have seen and how we choose to deal with it. No one is as simple as they appear, and the world is not black and white.
I agree that, by revealing Damaya, Syenite, and Essun to be the same person, Jemisin is making a subtle but very intentional effort to demonstrate how multifaceted one individual can be. Even the naming of the characters is strategic. Damaya chooses her new orogene name, Syenite—a coarse-grained igneous rock, similar to granite and quartz—because “‘it forms at the edge of a tectonic plate. With heat and pressure it does not degrade, but instead grows stronger’” (Jemisin 331). Just like this mineral rock, there are many different sides to Damaya/Syenite/Essun. She is both a daughter and a mother; an untamed rogga and a powerful Fulcrum-trained orogene; an innocent child and a wise young woman. Assigning such geologically meaningful names to the characters, specifically to Syenite, highlights her own complex and multifaceted identity. As you have already stated, Damaya/Syenite/Essun is not just one-dimensional. Her character possesses great depth and her life experiences ultimately shape her into her final form, Essun. As an orogene, an “outsider,” and a danger to the rest of society, Essun endures a lot of pain and suppression throughout her forty-two years, “but pain is what shapes us, after all. We are creatures born of heat and pressure and grinding, ceaseless movement. To be still is to be…not alive” (Jemisin 361). Just as the syenite rock grows stronger as it is heated, pressed, and ground at the edge of a tectonic plate, Damaya/Syenite/Essun grows stronger as a result of her pain, suffering, and oppression.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis of the use of three personas to portray one character. In doing so, Jemisin forced readers to view characters as three-dimensional, the same way we should view people. She wants readers to view oppressed groups in America as individuals with background stories, motives, and complex emotions. This is significant in a country where people are often judged based on their race, gender, or sexuality alone. The interlude regarding factions speaks to the individuality of members in oppressed groups that Jemisin advocates for. Jemisin states, "In any war, there are factions: those wanting peace, those wanting more war for a myriad of reasons, and those whose desires transcend either" (361). There are these factions existing in any given group, including the orogenes. The orogenes cannot be restrained to simply existing within that group, there are numerous differences between them. There are rogue orogenes and there are Fulcrum orogenes, some orogenes even have different unprecedented powers, such a Alabaster's ability to channel the obelisks. This diversity within the orogenes adds to Jemisin's decision to portray Damaya/Syenite/Essun as three personas by further enforcing the importance of individuality and looking past exterior characteristics to understand others. As you suggested, Jemisin wants readers to realize that nobody is as simple as they appear to be.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's really powerful to find out that Damaya, Syenite, and Essun are the same person, especially after getting to know them as separate individuals. Jemison portrays Damaya as an innocent and confused child who just might believe that her "sacrifice will make the world better for all" as Schaffa says to her when he comes to take her (32). Syenite, on the other hand, is powerful and jaded, only able to put a good spin on being forced to have sex will Alabaster because "he is the weak one" and "she is the one with all the power" (70). Syenite is also repulsed by the idea of being a mother, whereas Essun's children seem to be the only good she has in the world. Even after Uche is dead, she covers him with a blanket because "it's cold in the house" and "he could catch something" (16). This kind of caring delusion is not something one would expect from Syenite.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Jemison shows us the complexity of Essun to show the complexity of individuals, and I'd like to add how important that is considering the context of orogenes in the novel. The stills of the novel, most of whom have never even met an orogene, are taught from childhood to fear and distain them. This parallels the division between races that exists when people only get to know and understand those that are like them.
I agree that this represents human complexity, and tracks the character’s loss of innocence. I also think this representation is part of the “nontraditional method of incorporating racism” that you say Jemisin uses: each of the three represents a passive reaction to oppression in the Stillness and racism in the real world, and each fails to escape the consequences of the Stillness’s oppression, just as passive reactions to racism will ultimately fail to create change. As you say, Damaya is innocent, not fully aware of the oppression she will soon face, like the many people in America who are unaware of/choose to ignore racism. However, there is no escaping real life: Damaya soon finds out “[s]he is a rogga. All at once she does not like this word, which she has heard most of her life...suddenly it seems uglier than it already did” (89). Syenite, then, has no choice but to live under the oppressive control of the Guardians, and it is the pressure from this, culminating in Guardians arriving at Meov, that makes her “crack” (441). Similarly, racial tensions in America often reach a breaking point as blacks struggle with institutional racism, the pain this causes, and the stress of bringing children into an oppressive world. Finally, Essun attempts to hide her orogeny, just as many blacks succeed only by toning down their blackness (like straightening their hair for job interviews), but just as the truth inevitably comes out for Essun, there is a glass ceiling of sorts when it comes to full equality and acceptance for blacks. Jemisin seems to think that only completely overturning the current system, as Alabaster intends to do, will allow progress in America, and Damaya/Syenite/Essun’s character is her evidence that all passive methods will fail.
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