Monkeybites from Dorothy AllisonÆs Trash (56964)
The rise of multiculturalism has elevated writers to prominence from racial and cultural groups who formerly would have had difficulty even being published in the West. Lost in the ethnic shuffle has been one of AmericaÆs most invisible and voiceless minorities: poor, mostly rural whites. Variously smeared with racist epithets such as ôredneckö or ôwhite trashö, the trials and tribulations of this population have not had a major writer voice their concerns since the death of novelist John Steinbeck. In his article entitled ôHomo Redneckus: Redefining White Trash in American Cultureö, William Matthew McCarter agrees with Dorothy AllisonÆs description of their common culture as being characterized by "men who drank and couldn't keep a job; women, invariably pregnant before marriage, who quickly became worn, fat, and old from working too many hoursà and children with runny noses, watery eyes, and the wrong attitudes" (McCarter 2005).
Dorothy AllisonÆs short story ôMonkeybitesö is a reflection of the artistic credo she outlines in the preface to Trash: ôsometimes it was just grief I wanted to evoke, sometimes anger, almost always a spur to action, to changeö.
She handles the first person singular narration on which the final episode of the story especially depends with a direct and unpretentious style. ôI want you to put me in one of your stories sometimeö says her lover Toni to the narrator, clearing up nay ambiguity that the ôIö of the story might not be Dorothy Allison, writer (Allison 96).
Apart from the flashback to her childhood monkey bite, the entire story consists of the events and dialogue that occur as her girlfriend Toni visits her job cleaning up at the college biology lab. Both are poor white college girls with addictive tendencies, low self-esteem, and violent pasts, struggling to develop a healthy relationship based on trust and intimacy, tw...