November 4, 2016 - 15:57
In Ruth Ozeki’s novel All Over Creation, the intersection of identity with environment becomes apparent time and time again. For one character in particular, this intersection plays a large role. Yumi Fuller, the daughter of a Japanese woman and a native Idahoan, grows up in an area where she, as an Asian American, looks quite unlike any of her other peers. At age fourteen, she runs away, leaving the home environment behind and focusing on creating a new life, as well as identity, for herself. No longer does she want to be the foreigner in Idaho: she is now the self-made woman: A real-estate agent, professor, and single mother. However, when Yumi is placed into a different environment, all of her previous childhood traits come rushing back; she is still the same fourteen-year-old girl who ran away from home. At the same time, she doesn’t just revert to her fourteen-year old self completely. A part of her, shaped by the environment that she is in, changes her personality.
It is clear, first of all, that Yumi very much wants to be a different person than she originally was at fourteen. It is not so much that she desires to have grown and developed into a mature adult; she desires to be a new human, distinct even at the cellular level from the one she was at fourteen: “The mirror was the same, but the girl was gone, leaving only phantom limbs and a flicker of her excitements. The particular collection of cells that comprised her, the ones that Elliot had stroked and fucked, had long ago been sloughed off and replaced by new ones. Cellular turnover occurred in seven-year intervals, didn’t it?” (Ozeki, 208) The reason for this is simple: guilt. Yumi continues to blame herself for what Elliot did to her. She claims to be complicit in the act, even if she tries to rationalize to herself that she was a child, and couldn’t have been held responsible. She claims to have flirted with him, and that even “… in my awkward, childish way, I had seduced Elliot, hanging around the classroom after school, loitering by his desk at dusk.” (Ozeki, 209) Because of this feeling of guilt, the feeling that she, herself, is responsible for having sexual relations with an older man and getting pregnant, she desires to be a completely different woman. She now claims to be a woman that is in control, powerful, and can set a better example for her own children.
How much of that woman who she claims to be is she actually? When coming back into the environment of Idaho and her hometown, she seems to slip back into her old self quite easily. The fourteen-year-old girl who left twenty-five years ago is slowly, but surely, reappearing, as if she just left home for a few hours. She picks up smoking again, after fourteen years of having quit, within hours of touching down in Idaho. Her guilt in relation to smoking could likely be caused by her daughter, Ocean’s, condescending remarks, and her striving to be a good role model for her children. However, even when she is drinking whiskey, perfectly legally and responsibly, she remarks that she feels as if she and Cass have to be careful, as they could “get caught.” (Ozeki, 75)
Her fear of authority and policemen also establishes a link between her past and current self. When she ran away, she went through some tough times and struggled with drugs, alcohol, and addiction. Naturally, this instilled deep within in her a primal fear of authority: The fear of getting caught. Even at times when she has nothing to be afraid of, fear still lingers: “… no matter how often I assert my own authority—that of a parent, a professor, an abandoned Ph.D.—the time I spent on the street overshadows it all.” This fear of authority can also be linked to her affair with Elliot. As a young girl, having an affair with an older man was both exciting and dangerous for her. She had to hide what she was doing from her parents and other members of authority. This, wrapped up with her fear of being arrested due to her time spent on the street, perfectly explains her fear of authority. The fact that she still, after all of these years, has still not overcome this fear, makes one important aspect of human nature very clear: We never change completely. Small features of ourselves that we think we may have suppressed or covered up still linger in the dark. It only takes the right environment to bring them out.
Idaho represents an interesting place for Yumi: It is the place where she grew up, the place where she thought she had become an adult, and a place that she left freely. She also freely returns to this place, and her fourteen-year-old self freely returns as she retraces her footsteps through her childhood home and reencounters her childhood lover. The Yumi that lives and works in Hawaii has much different characteristics than the Yumi who lives and works in Idaho. The Yumi in Hawaii is carefree, loving, and easygoing, as evidenced by her reaction to the “little Hawaii” Geek creates for her in the greenhouse. In it, she relaxes and forgets her current struggles in Idaho.
It is not just the environment that affects Yumi’s personality, however; Yumi also desires to reshape her environment, to use her newfound confidence and maturity to associate new, more positive ideas with the place where she grew up. This is especially true when it comes to Yumi’s relationship with Elliot. In her youth, he enamored her. He told her she was beautiful, told her she was mature, and she ate up his praise: “’Don’t ever change, lady,’ he sang. Your heart swelled. You couldn’t help it. ‘Mmmm,’ he whispered, nibbling your neck. ‘You’ll always be yummy to me.’” (Ozeki, 28) She grew dependent on him, for love, for appreciation, for anything. Her childhood home and even Idaho in general hold such strong negative connotations for her. In an attempt to get rid of these connotations, she decides to open up the relationship with Elliot again. She reasons that by making him dependent on her, by becoming the aloof, emotionless one in the relationship, she can redefine what Idaho means to her.
The connection between identity and environment is a complex and multifaceted one. Why, or better, how, a person is affected by the environment versus affects the environment, however, is still uncertain. In the case of Yumi, one thing that can be said is the amount of guilt she carries in terms of her situation, and how she thinks she can deal with the guilt presented to her. In terms of her relationship with her parents, her guilt is harder to contain and control. Her father is a strong, authoritarian figure, whom she still looks up to in many ways. That is why being back under his roof, in his home, leads her to be more affected by the environment. In the case of Elliot, however, she can control the power that her guilt has. She feels as though she flirted with him as a young girl, and as if she is also at fault for him having sexual relations with her. At the same time, she also feels like this is a situation she can control, as Elliot does not represent the authoritarian male figure in her life. Thus, she can easily manipulate Elliot, and therefore redefine what the environment of Idaho means to her in terms of her relationship with Elliot.
Yumi is a very interesting and noteworthy character in this novel. She represents the seed itself: Once small, fragile and gentle, grown up into a sturdy and resilient plant. She represents reinvention, rebirth, and renewal, qualities we associate with a natural environment and plant life. The fact that she is able to both be affected by and affect her environment at the same time strengthens the power of the seed simile even more. A seed takes in nutrients from its environment, and the end product is often highly dependent on the quality of the soil, the abundance of water, etc. In addition, a seed is also changing the environment, pushing away the dirt, making its own path, and rising up into the sunlight.
References:
Ozeki, Ruth. All Over Creation. Penguin Books, 2003.