Monologue of Bell Hook's daughter (Sub-altern Fiction)

It was a windy June Sunday. For Bell would have named the day a wuthering day but she has seen worse living in Brighton. Hence, not just yet. When Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights, Bell believed that Emily Bronte or erstwhile Currer Bell was most certainly trying to draw parallels between the internal and external torrents; there is something tragic to reflect and soothing to feel when there is an external calamity in form of thunderstorm or lightning etc., that ostensibly emulates one's internal clamour. Although far from home, yet Bell holds home nearly but it may not be possible to always hold it dearly. Though things are settling down inside Bell now, this phase is always past the phase of great upheaval and torment. Women are said to be prone to hysteria; Bell's father always defined her behaviour as hysterical too. While, she understood over time, men find it impossible to justify women's behaviour, she could never bring herself to question her behaviour; there was no way to communicate what she felt and be understood for exactly for what she was saying & where she was coming from without every cry, every scream, every tear, every frenzy, every upheaval that left along with the lump in her throat. As she sauntered on the route to university, she felt a surge of feelings and expectations twice but they settled down soon as indifference took over. When she learnt to become indifferent for the first time, it was the most pleasant feeling of all time. It was as though the struggle of the past 18 years had come to an end as she was finally mature and did not feel emotions with the great intensity that she does. However it lasted only until she was told that she might have just become numb which was not a lie because she could remember associating herself to a stoic as she could not be disturbed with either pleasure nor pain. Indifference is an act, she practiced it again and again as she told herself in response to every stimulation, expectation, desire, feeling, that this too shall pass, any actions taken would lead to regret later, think of every possibility and just be ahead. 

As a child, Bell simply wanted to be understood. With her mother, Bell could establish a bond, though it took sometime, as she stopped fighting her fate, but her father did not feel the need to until it was too late. What at first she thought to be an ill-fate and later embraced as something that requires deconstruction of the world's understanding, was based on a popular notion that runs in families where mothers are looked down upon by father and offsprings as someone who cannot comprehend complex worldly issues. 

Bell always felt betrayed by words and time as a child. She wanted her affection for her parents to be seen but somehow it would not reach them with the same intensity as she felt them. With time, she and her mother had moments when they felt the same intensity of pain and pleasure that brought them closer with shared experiences. However, as she was never understood, she made it her business to understand. She would put all her senses to decipher her father and his behaviour, she would hear too closely to what he was saying, what he was looking at it, what he was humming but could never put it all together to make sense out of it. Understanding a person fully is an intimidating undertaking for adults but children are curious beings and Bell's curiosity did know any intimidation in her formative years as any other child; however, the attempts to comprehend are adversarial on the attempter if the subject's emotional stability is questionable. Regardless of what might have been his intentions, she did feel at times hated; and in response to those sensations, she would muster every brain cell of hers to put herself in the mould of his desires to feel in return loved with the same intensity as she had felt hatred. However nothing worked. It felt like she did not matter to him or may be he was too busy to love her. He would make promises and forget; at first, it was poignant and hard to bear but when it was done repeatedly, it stopped bothering her. She thought that she grew immune to that particular pain but in fact she became immune to that sort of pain coming from any direction. 

Years ago in June, around father's day, for some reason her father had told her that she should write a letter to him filling it with every change that she would like to see in him. She thought this may be it; when everything gets better at once. Children are fanciful beings and thus more prone to getting hurt. She remembers carefully crafting that letter, writing it with diligence bearing in mind what could hurt him so as not to mention it. Not only did she write it but also propped it with all the craft she knew as a 12 y/o. She gave it to him on father's day and he took it thanking her, showering her with kisses. He never opened the envelope let alone read it. It sat there on his table gathering grime for a long time and he forgot about it. After some time, she dumped it. 

Since then, despite being a creative individual today, she has a hard time dedicating something to someone.

Now, she can write something for someone if she feels that there are words stuck in her that she better pour out. Although she has come too far as she is able to write or for that matter express her feelings to people, fighting off repression, she is still reminded that she knows the feeling of broken expectations though she might not feel it anymore. Expression has become easier but it does not come without the reminder to protect herself.