This week we read “Papi” by Indiana. I really enjoyed this story and found the full storyline and approach to the book really interesting. More specifically, one aspect of the story that I found was really well depicted in this story was the approach of using a child narrator. I interact with a lot of young children at my work on a daily basis, so I have picked up on a few things on the way that they express themselves and the nature of their speech. Given that the story is told through a child’s eyes, there were a lot of little things I appreciated that illuminated the age of the narrator to the readers. For example, there are multiple times in which the narrator states an extensive list of things, repeating certain ideas to place a higher emphasis, such as the following quote on page 22:

“Now he’s got boneless skinless chicken breasts, whole boneless beef, mi nenes, Nintendos, try-on socks, taekwondo classes, cashew nuts, semaphores, hotel-style turkey breast, boneless-beef shoulder roast, center-cut bone-in smoked ham steak, domesticated tarantulas in terrariums, Ledbetter boneless-beef bacon-wrapped tenderloin filets, Japanese lanterns made from Tibetan parchment paper,  all-purpose white potatoes, women, all-purpose yellow onions, women, campbell’s tomato soup, chicken noodle, women, great bean-onion alphabet soup.”

From the point of view of an adult, they probably would of stopped after listing 2-3 items, however, if you ever had a conversation with an 8-year-old before, they don’t generally know where to stop and will give details that may not be necessary. However, I felt that in this story these minor details makes the story that much more impactful as we can clearly go into the mind of the narrator’s rather than viewing her story from an outside perspective.

Additionally, I think the author perfectly displayed the conflict that many children have (although to a much lesser extreme than what the narrator of this story experienced) of having such distaste toward someone while also admiring them and having the tendency to always go back to that thing or person. Looking at this dynamic from a child development perspective and reflecting on the question from the lecture, the narrator’s admiration for her father despite his not-so-amazing presence in her life reminds me of something one of my professors said when we were discussing attachment. In our discussion, my professor noted that a child needs an adult figure (which is generally the parents) to survive, so kids will attach quite closely to their parental figures and think super highly of them even if they are not a great role model. I believe the way my prof put it was (from the child’s perspective) “I want to think these really good things about you because I NEED you to be this consistent figure in my life”. To bring this point back to the book, I think that part of the narrator’s fixation and admiration for her father comes from her desire to have a consistent father figure within her life and the fact that she has created this strong attachment to him even though this feeling may not be reciprocal from the part of the father.

I think it was cool to apply my knowledge from my other classes to this book and would love to hear more from you all about this topic. My question to the class this week is: How do you think attachment played a part in the narrator’s and papi’s dynamic? Where do you think Mami played within the narrator’s attachment style as well?