Toni-Leigh Rahim
In the novels On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong and We the Animals by Justin Torres, the relativity of time is explored through queer identities and experiences. The narrative techniques of these contemporary queer literary texts situate time and its manifestations to queer temporalities in the context of identity, gender, social constructs and self-actualization, allowing for both a deconstruction and reimagining of time through queer lens. This essay seeks to examine the manipulation of time and its interconnection with identity and queer relationships laced into the narrative structure of these two texts: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and We the Animals.
According to Jack Halberstam, “Queer uses of time and space develop, at least in part, in opposition to the institutions of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction. They also develop according to other logics of location, movement, and identification” (1). Halberstam further posits, “If we try to think about queerness as an outcome of strange temporalities, imaginative life schedules, and eccentric economic practices we detach queerness from sexual identity” (1). This understanding of queer time as that which is differentiated from heteronormative lifestyles attends to the ways temporality can impact queer identity. Time as exclusively linear marginalizes queer realities and experiences, thus becoming somewhat relative and condensed as it collides with factors such as death, marriage, violence, societal acceptance, and the family. Simply put, time for heteronormative communities is vastly different to queer ones as they grapple with the effects of living outside of socio-normative boundaries and are thus challenged with issues that impact their notion of time.
In We the Animals, time is displayed in a typical linear motion as he details the life and toxic family dynamic of three young Puerto Rican and Caucasian mixed brothers, although there are leaps in time as the narrator reflects on his childhood the disruption of time occurs mostly at the end of the novel when the unnamed protagonist reveals his homosexual desires and identity which separates him from the unifying brotherhood and the linear ideals of time and heteronormativity. Time and its binding nature are highlighted through both queer and heteronormative experiences. As the reader is introduced to the protagonist’s family we see these characters experiencing time constraints as they struggle with parenthood, adulthood, and their toxic heteronormative relationship. Teenage pregnancy and motherhood have constrained the mother’s time as she must work and support her three children without much consideration for time to spend pursuing her own dreams and aspirations. Her abusive husband and the responsibility of motherhood have bound her and constricted her to modes of domesticity.
Elizabeth Freeman notes, “By time binds, I mean something beyond the obvious point that people find themselves with less time than they need. Instead, I mean that naked flesh is bound into socially meaningful embodiment through temporal regulation: binding is what turns mere existence into a form of mastery a process I’ll refer to as chrononormativity” (4). The mother’s day-shift job results in her performing domestic duties at night flipping the normative time construct, according to Torres, “After that, we went along with whatever she came up with; we lived in dreamtime. Some nights Ma piled us into the car and drove out to the grocery store, the laundromat, the bank” (6). The physical body attuned to parenthood and its constraints are revealed in the narrative between the father and mother, the father expresses his frustration and feeling of desolation as a father. The family unit is deconstructed to reveal dysfunction despite its adherence to heteronormative constructs and time, “We’re never going to escape this, never. We didn’t know who he was talking to, but it hushed us. You talking about escaping? Ma asked. Nobody, Paps said. Not us. Not them. Nobody’s ever escaping this” (Torres 60). Through the dialogue, time is seen as cyclic and inescapable for lower-class families whose children are bound to replace their parents’ dilemma over time.
For the protagonist, however, because of his disassociation with a heteronormative lifestyle, he does not repeat this cyclic notion of time, instead, time is relative to the present. The satisfaction of his secret desires is filled in the present as he hides his true identity from his family in fear of being disconnected from the brotherly ‘pack,’ he grapples with his sexuality and sense of self as he becomes aware that he is different from his brothers. The protagonist uses time to create a liminal space for his expression of self and sex concealing his identity from his family. Ironically, his parents see his difference as a means of escape from the cyclic pattern of lower-class family life yet the protagonist himself sees his difference not as a means of escape but as a defining factor in the separation from his brothers with whom he shared a collective sense of self. Torres writes, “Both Ma and Paps had held private conversations with me about my potential, about bookishness that set me apart from my brothers; both encouraged me to apply myself- they hinted that I would have an easier time in this world than they had, that my brothers would ever have, and I hated them for that” (109). The expectations of his parents contrast with the protagonist’s reality he does not have an ‘easier time’ instead time for him is the opposite as he faces the reality of his queer identity, although he faces separation from his family he forges his comfort at the end with a sense of self-actualization this is supported by the acceleration and suspension of time.
At the end of the novel time accelerates, and the boys are no longer children; they are adults and the protagonist’s awareness of his queer identity begins to separate him from his brothers: “See me there in the snow both inside and outside their understanding. See how I made them uneasy. They smelled my difference- my sharp, sad, pansy scent… Look at us, our last night together, when we were brothers still… This is what I’d been up to behind their backs, sleazing around the bus station’s men’s room. This is the scent they’d picked up” (Torres 105-113). In the final chapter titled “Zookeeping” time is suspended and the image of the protagonist is raw and animalistic as he reaches an identity zenith, “These days I sleep with peacocks, lions, on a bed of leaves. I’ve lost my pack. I dream of standing upright, of uncurled knuckles, of a simpler life-no hot muzzles, no fangs no claws-strolling gaily, with an upright air” (125). The protagonist departs from familial time and has acclaimed his identity separate from his former ‘pack’, time is also separated from a collective past to a singular present suspending the protagonist in his sense of self.
Unlike Torres, Vuong portrays time in a non-linear motion as it spirals between the past and present to reveal a future of self-actualization and non-conformist identity. The protagonist of this story ‘Little Dog’ whose real name is never revealed similar to Torres’ work, may be labeled as a double marginalized character. Apart from being homosexual, he is also a Vietnamese immigrant reflecting on his life growing up in lower-class America. The narrative technique mimics that of a confessional to his mother whom he shared an estranged relationship, in this confessional he reveals his childhood experiences, his familial trauma, the language and class struggle faced by immigrants, his use of drugs, and his intimate relationship with Trevor. Vuong writes, “Who will be lost in the story we tell ourselves? Who will be lost in ourselves? A story after all, is a kind of swallowing. To open a mouth, in speech, is to leave only bones, which remain untold. It is a beautiful country because you are still breathing” (43). Vuong manipulates time as he travels through not only his past but that of his grandmother’s story of escape as a vehicle to narrate the Vietnam War experience and how immigrants wrestle with their new reality. The spiraling of time and swallowing of stories are intrinsic as it depicts immigrant and queer realities outside normative social bounds grafting an abnormal temporality to which the characters are bound. The use of ‘spiraling’ and ‘swallowing’ creates an image and tone of chaos, drowning and consumption which is relevant to the manifestation of time to those labeled as social deviants or immigrants. According to Vuong, “Some people say history moves in a spiral not the line we have come to expect. We travel through time in a circular trajectory our distance increasing from an epicenter only to return again, one circle removed. Lan, through her stories, was also traveling in a spiral…Shifts in the narrative would occur- the past never a fixed and dormant landscape but one that is re-seen” (27-28). While Torres’ linear portrayal of time and its binding nature is highlighted through the family and the eventual progression of the protagonist’s queer identity at the end, Vuong’s immigrant family defies nuclear familial stereotypes and so, the spiraling of time circulates the past and present as immigrant stories and identity relies on their past condition and present state. Time and its binding characteristic impact the characters in Vuong’s novel differently as they are bound within the labels that accompany immigrant realities.
According to Halberstam, “Queer time perhaps emerges most spectacularly, at the end of the twentieth century from within those gay communities, whose horizons of possibility have been severely diminished by the AIDS epidemic” (2). He further posits, “And yet queer time, even as it emerges from the AIDS crisis, is not only about compression and annihilation; it is also about the potentiality of a life unscripted by the conventions of family, inheritance and child-rearing” (2). Vuong reimagines these ‘unscripted’ conventions of time as he reflects on how time impacts the physical body especially that of the queer body which can be seen as a liminal space. This is liminality of body and time can be noted as he writes, “ We try to preserve life even when we know it has no chance of enduring its body, like breath it is the most fundamental act of our species: to sustain the body until time leaves it behind… this agency for evolution, which once made me proud to be the queer yellow faggot I was an am, now betrays me” (198-199). Time and the liminal space represented by the body are different for queer and immigrant identities, this trope is explored through the language and character development imagined by Vuong. Drug use also impacts time for queer communities as the high overdose rates are highlighted in the novel. Little Dog’s love interest Trevor dies from a heroin overdose at twenty-two, time is relational to queer realities and so subverts the heteronormative movement of time. Apart from the language which shows the transition from ‘is’ to ‘was’ shadowing the coinciding motion of death and time for queer persons, the sentence structure in this particular section of the novel is fragmented to mimic the inconsistency of time, “In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly. Trevor was a boy who had a name, who wanted to go to community college to study physical therapy. Trevor was alone in his room when he died surrounded by posters of Led Zeppelin, Trevor was twenty-two. Trevor was” (Vuong 176-178). Time is expressed through the use of language Trevor ‘is’ compared to ‘was’ highlights the shortening of time for queer individuals who struggle with issues of identity, drugs and love. The physical body is once more conditioned as a liminal space being ‘here’ and ‘gone’ as death at a young age diminishes the progression of physical time and marks the beginning of individuals as a memory suspended in the abstract time of the mind.
Rylan’s article titled ‘Heterotemporality and Queer Time’ argues that time for queer communities is curbed as they experience a loss of time trying to navigate both in and out of heteronormative societal norms whilst navigating their own sense of identity. Ryan notes, “We live it every single day, and due to the trauma that many gay, trans, and aspec people face in the world due to CIS heteronormative policy and messaging, many of us deal with a scary phenomenon known as “foreshortened future,” which is a trauma symptom that evokes the deep feeling that you will not live the length of a typical lifespan” (1). The curtailing of time regarding queer life spans and relationships as opposed to lengthy heteronormative time is evident in Vuong’s novel as he uses the narrative to project the non-linear and shortened aspect of time concerning queer relationships and identity while simultaneously showing the linear and lengthy nature of time regarding heteronormative relationships. “They’re old as fuck and they’re still trying. Who? I turned to him. The married couple they’re still trying to be happy, it’s raining like hell and they out eating soggy Reubens trying to get it right. He spits into the cup and lets out a short exhausted chuckle, I bet they’ve been eating the same sandwiches forever” (Vuong 168). Through the dialogue between Trevor and Little Dog, there is a sense of longing for time and the idea of ‘forever’ which for the queer couple is subjective to their reality which is, “Is it true though? You think you’ll be really gay, like, forever? I think me… I ‘ll be good in a few years you know? I couldn’t tell if by really he meant very gay or truly gay” (Vuong 188). Heteronormative love and experiences outlive queer realities as they operate within the normative bound of society therefore time is linear and ongoing for them. This differs vastly for queer individuals as they navigate outside of what is ‘normal’ and are therefore bombarded by issues that affect or shorten their time and identity in the physical and societal space.
In retrospect both Torres and Vuong explore the linear and non-linear movement of time in relation to queer identity, relationships, and experiences. Both their novels depict how time binds both queer and heteronormative relationships through parenthood and adulthood. For both queer and heteronormative communities time is subjective to their societal realities and the struggles with identity and self-actualization, yet this is more apparent for queer individuals who have been historically, politically, and socially marginalized. Both novels use narrative techniques and characterization to highlight the displacement of time, the liminality of the queer body and the isolation of queer relationships.
Work Cited
Freeman, Elizabeth. Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories. Duke University Press, 2010.
Halberstam, Jack. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Bodies. New York University Press, 2005.
Rylan, Jules. “Heterotemporality and ‘Queer Time.’” Medium, 16 Oct. 2020. Accessed 16 April 2024.
Torres, Justin. We the Animals. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.
Vuong, Ocean. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Penguin Press, 2019.