(Sorry for the lateness)
I expected something completely different out of this comic
based on the title alone. The title, One Hundred Demons, brings to mind dark
themes and perhaps a good vs. evil plot. However, reading the comic told a
completely different story. It’s a coming of age comic littered with bright
colors and characters reminiscent of those I once watch on Saturday morning
cartoons.
Now that we’ve finished reading the comic, I would like to
explore what exactly Barry’s demons were. The one hundred demons she faces are
really just lessons she learned as she grew up, and many of them don’t deserve
the ominous title of demon. Why do you think Barry chooses the word demons?
What does the word demons mean to you (does it bring to mind religion, or like
Barry do you think of inner demons or obstacles that you struggle to overcome?) What do you think were the biggest demons she faced and why?
One of the things I loved most about this novel is the fact that the demons that Barry wrote about were truly reminiscent of the demons in Japanese lore. Not all the demons were necessarily bad experiences just ones that helped shape who she grew up to be. One of the best lines of the book comes when Barry faces her demon of Dancing. "I am grateful to those who are the keepers of the groove, the babies and the grandmas who hang on to it and help us remember when we forget that any kind of dancing is better than no dancing at all. The term demon to me takes on a mythical meaning. As a kid I used to watch all types of movies, tv shows, anime and cartoons. While I was growing up i mostly thought of demons in the old biblical sense, and shows like charmed reinforced that demons were these terrible beings that preyed on the innocent. It was a western centric ideal that got challenged when I started watching shows from the east. Where demons were just another form of spirit that wasn't necessarily a bad or dangerous creature. The Manga Yu Yu Hakusho got me to research what constitutes demons in Japan and from there I learned that it could take on many shapes. Demons varied from Oni to Tengu, and were supernatural beings that caused more mischief than being overly ominous. Barry's demons followed a similar vibe to me. Some of the demons were the destructive beasts that threatened to break you down to your core, and others were simply lessons in mischievousness that everyone goes through. From the demon of dancing to the demon that is San Francisco, each of these transformations range from harmful to playful. From kids playing kickball on the street to drugged out hippies using her for free labor. Barry's biggest demons came from her mother, her peers, and her drug use. The demons that formed from the never-ending torment from her peers, and the exasperation she received from her mother created the harshest demons that Barry faced. Her fall into drugs for acceptance, the eagerness she through herself into one-sided relationships came from a place of desperation created by the need to fit in and be loved. Her grandmother presented one of the only people that truly supported her. While Barry loved her mother she constantly sought her approval and love. Our demons form within ourselves and reveal our insecurities and our own shortcomings. They are part who we are as individuals and tend to pile up over time. Just like Barry's one hundred demons we are all made shaped by these demons. Sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.
ReplyDeleteOne! Hundred! Demons!
ReplyDeleteEach section in “One! Hundred! Demons!” gives a part of Barry’s life that shaped who she is in the present. Each section gives a demon that you wouldn’t otherwise call a demon. In one section, we are given the demon “Common Scents” because she refers to smell as a sort of representation of who a person is. I think she chooses the word demon because they are creatures to creep into your soul and change you into something else. I believe that all of these chapters are different parts of her personality that are given a life of their own no matter if it’s good or bad. They can come in any form they desire and cause any sort of trouble. To me, demons are evil entities, though, while watching a lot of television, I have acquired another idea of who they are. Buffy the Vampire Slayer presents demons as bad for the most part, but we are introduced to some that are good and would rather do nothing than something awful. I feel like the whole word demon is vast and it targets high emotion. That emotion is usually fear or hate, but these words don’t always have to mean something awful. We all can hate something without being evil. Barry tones down the word demon so that its seen as something that causes change in all of us.
I feel like one of the biggest demons that she faced was “Dancing” because it opened her up to how she saw herself. A friend showed that she looked different and weird when she danced and this forced her at an early age to not want to do things because of what other may think. I feel like this demon changed her the most as a person because she began to tear down her own innocent walls and start building up larger and sturdier ones keeping her from enjoying herself. Another demon that seemed to have a large amount of importance was “dogs” because it explored Barry’s personality and how it was easily imitating others. She was treated somewhat by her mother, and this made her treat her dog the same way and Barry saw this in her. She felt bad that she treated such a creature so harshly for no reason. This chapter focuses on a person’s growth in character and how easily others affect it. This chapter really explored her youth in respect to external influences.
To me, the “demons” that Barry refers to don't necessarily mean something evil, or the usual connotations that demon gives. I just thought of her demons as things that she wouldn't share with someone that she didn't know intimately, or things that may be experiences that are unique to her. It's all about self-reflection, and that is evidenced throughout the book. Often when she is talking about her childhood, there will be a frame of the author as an adult, talking about her thoughts in retrospect. Although this is an “autobifictionalography,” it's hard to tell what's true and what isn't. I kind of got the sense that a lot of the situations that she describes were ones that she really experienced, but her reactions may be embellished to prove a point, or to show what she should have done, or certain details are highlighted to make the story seem more dramatic than it really was. It's hard to tell from what Barry gives us, if she didn't tell us at the beginning that parts of the story were fictional, than I wouldn't have known. Although Barry's story is a little bit crazy, it's just crazy enough to be believable.
ReplyDeleteI really liked One Hundred Demons, as well as the concept of using a creative outlet to exorcize and defeat inner demons. I think it's probably very healthy to overcome inner demons in this way, and it makes me think of the psychology practice of talk therapy, or simply of sharing our feelings with someone close to us. It's another way of getting rid of "demons" that would otherwise suck the joy out of our lives. In particular, I thought of this quote by Sigmund Freud: "Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways." As I was reading, I almost felt that this comic, and the process of revealing and destroying demons instead of not confronting them, was a sort of therapeutic exercise for Barry. I especially like that she includes instructions for drawing your own demons. And I would say that even though some of her demons might seem like lesser ones, the impact that experiences have on people is really personal, so it might seem insignificant to us, but mean a lot more to Barry and have a really big impact on her life, especially as a child. Definitely a great read!
ReplyDeleteI saw "demons" as something that she has been absolved of. Things she had to face to become who she is today. We all have these "demons" she just had a neat way of displaying them in a relateable sense. The largest one was likely the lous, though it seemed the most timid as to what was emotionally tormenting, they made appearances throughout. That is something the other demons did not do nearly as much of. Her worst demon? perhaps not. Certainly a demon that followed her for a large part of her life.
ReplyDeleteI think the implication here is less about physical "enemy" demons and more about demons that a person struggles with. I believe the duality of the title brings forward thoughts of the way that we struggle with our problems. Sometimes the things we face in our every day lives can feel like true evil itself is staring us in the face, but in the end, we get through it. We learn and we grow.
ReplyDeleteI would say that hate is the biggest demon that she struggled with. Thats not because she actually struggled with anger problems or the real issues of hate, more so that she struggled with people who couldn't understand the way she felt when she hated someone. It can be a real struggle growing up with emotions and being told that those emotions are bad and that they cant feel them.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same exact way, I was expecting something completely different as well based on the title, but there we go again, humans doing exactly what we’re told not to do, judging a book by it’s cover, or in this sense, by its title. I like how you related it to the colors and characters that reminded you of Saturday morning cartoons, that is true for me as well.
I think it was interesting that she used the term “demons,” because you’re right the lessons and problems she endured throughout her life didn’t seem to deserve such a crude word. Demons to me, is something that you feel you can never overcome, whether it is someone or something to you. I think the best way someone can describe a demon is to say their own inner demon they struggle with everyday, that fights with the voice in your head keeping you from saying and doing all the things your inner demon convinces you it is okay to do. I think I relate to Barry very well, some obstacles we may seem as insignificant may mean life or death to someone else, it’s all in a matter of who is enduring the actual struggle.
I think Barry chose the word "demons" because it has so many meanings. It can have religious connotations, as well as mental ones. It actually draws you in because you don't know what type of demons she's going to be talking about based on the title, unlike other works we've read thus far like King or Maus. There's multiple meanings to her title too. One! Hundred! Demons! she explains is based on an Asian artist's work where he drew 100 demons across a page in order to perfect his art. She's using it as story telling measure.
ReplyDeleteI think her most prevalent demon is her awkwardness even in adulthood. She brings up every time her mother tells her she's weird, even as an adult. Her mother could actually be seen as the demon for her awkwardness.
I like this question because the demon-examining exercise was the first orienting factor of the text to the reader, so I feel like it's very significant to this personal exploration project.
ReplyDeleteThere's a common meaning for demons in culture "something that causes a person to have a lot of trouble or unhappiness" (Merriam-Webster) and this can range anything from spending habits to addictions, mental health, and childhood trauma that one has to wrestle with for basically their entire life.
I noticed that at the beginning she has a sort of friendly comradery with these demons. In the opening panels they aren't scary, but they're just depicted as friendly little monsters. In a way I guess this conveys a sort of acceptance of these demons, even a sense of becoming allies with them, despite the fact that so many of her demons and the memories connected to them are quite dark. I feel like they keep her company and have a physical presence in her life and home. There's a playful sort of light heartedness to the text, but at the same time I feel as if a lot of the deco elements have very loaded, subjective meaning behind them. The fact that some of the only moments we see the artist depicted in adulthood is her secluded in her own home (e.g. alone at her workstation, yelling at the TV, laying with her animals in bed) makes the demons feel more sinister despite their friendly faces-- perhaps they keep her bound more than we can understand.
The entire book is in a sense a literal self-discovery process complete with a prompt that even the reader can replicate, and if anyone is familiar with art therapy that's what this reminds me of. It's not even so much about "solving" anything so much as it is processing, and realizing the role that these demons have in her life. As she writes, these deeply internalized memories are made external, and given bodies that are separate from herself. But as a reader the question I was brought to when finishing was the question of once the demons are distanced from herself, what is left as far as identity goes? In a way it's very much a work-in-progress.
Like others have mentioned, I feel like the biggest demon and theme that pops up around all of the demons brought up in the text is this conflict between identity and acceptance. Obviously, she was taught from a very young age that she was flawed and strange and not worthy of love. I think this deficit caused her to sacrifice selfhood for feeling, acceptance, and social belonging (thinking back to the boyfriends, the drug use, or otherwise her attempts to "escape"). Being herself as a child was punished and so she struggled with identity as she tried on features for the sake of being acceptable to other people, and because she was always in flux, she never had a piece that was her for her sake. Perhaps her identity as a writer seen in the last section is one piece that she finally was able to solidify and honor as an adult.
This was a cute book. Like we are saying, it didn’t pan out to be what I thought. I was thinking demons on an evil realm. But I liked the way she used demons better. These were all the demons she grew up with and we can relate to similar stories that could of happened to us when we were little. She really played up the hand made comic book feel. It was pretty cool to witness at the end how she made the comics. I remember studying different inking techniques in class. I have even used the same bamboo brushes that she did. But instead of using compressed blocks like she uses, I use india ink. It’s just as permanent as hers but it comes in liquid form already. I feel she captured herself in this comic very well. The whole time I just imagined her sitting in her studio drawing these flashbacks to her childhood. It’s very believable. She mentioned in the beginning the difference between fiction/non fiction if some parts are true and some aren’t, how to categorize that. To be honest I don’t know which parts would be made up and which parts aren’t. It all flowed together well. But overall, I think the biggest demon’s she faced was just accepting the family life she grew into. She wasn’t a girly, girl (as she mentioned) and would fight with herself if she should be or if she would have been. Just finding herself and accepting herself was her biggest demon.
ReplyDeleteI understand your questions but I don't really see the deep connections past the introduction where Lynda explains that the title came from a painting exercise she learned about and began to practice. She's just visualizing the good that came out of the bad in her life through her stories. (I think so at the very least). So as for choosing wording I just see it as her reference to this book she read in the library.
ReplyDeleteAs for her biggest demons it's hard to say what was the biggest. There's big as in exciting or detrimental or painful or even depressing. I found them all to have different goals and do different things, so comparing them all in this way is actually kind of difficult. But as for the title I do enjoy how it was just taken from the painting style and wasn't changed for her new quantity. I jokingly call this book "Seven! Teen! Demons!"
I think that Barry's use of the word demon evokes an internal struggle, one that is universal yet always highly personal. Life is made up of numerous "arcs" for all of us, where we find ongoing patterns in day to day experiences, organizing them to best appreciate and make sense of things. Like story arcs, conflict is almost always the crux of these lessons, whether it's concerning lice, our parents, or crushes.
ReplyDeletethe idea of categorizing these experiences as "demons" seems highly fitting, and it is to Barry's credit that the book is arranged around this concept. Not only does the word, as well as the work's fanciful art style, capture the distance we create between these experiences and the rest of what we consider "reality," it captures that intoxicating mix of intimidation and obsession that surrounds these moments.
What makes this work so memorable for myself is just how care-free it feels in its execution. Of course, it must have taken Barry countless days of work to plan out her stories, to arrange, embellish, and fine tune them. But as I read through One! Hundred! Demons!, it all comes across as playful, if surprisingly pensive. With all the reflection and poignancy, it only feels like a conversation; it's a street-side conversation, with ten-year-old Lynda, sitting in the hot suburban sun.
I think she really took the idea from the scroll she mentioned in the beginning and then again at the end where she teaches us how to paint our own scrolls.
ReplyDeleteI think her hardest or biggest demon was never fitting in. Wanting to belong and yet finding no where to belong.
This is a well told story, and could have been a great memoir alone, and by using images it allows us to know the author even better. We see how she envisions herself and all the little side drawings are very important to the author, and gives us snippets of her personality.
She reminds us to remember things that we lost as we grew up and those that got left behind as we became adults.
Does anyone know where I can get a copy of Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me? I checked everywhere and there are no digital copies online.
ReplyDeleteWhen Barry started the book with the scroll thing, I really though this comic was going to be some sort of picture book that just showcased the 100 demons she came up with. I think I was also mislead by the cover and the borders in the first pages that are filled with monsters. When she called her first demon her first boyfriend, I think I actually caught on quickly that these were going to be personal demons and there was going to be an actual story. I think the word "demon" in the context of the Japanese scroll thing does not have the same connotation as the Christian demon. The Christian demon is connected to unwavering evil and completely unbalanced morality. The Japanese demon might not be so black and white, but have more moral ambiguity which I think the demons of Barry's life have. Her problems were generally bad but also ambiguous and helped her to change and grow, where as Christian demons just want to ruin your soul. It is interesting to me that she didn't actually find 100 demons to describe. I'm sure she could have, her life seems to be quite full of things she could have labeled a demon. I don't know which was the worst for her or the best. It is interesting she ends with "Lost and Found" which seems to be mostly positive and inspiring, where she started with the boyfriend who was rude and always trying to put her down.
ReplyDelete