06 March 2014Jessica Zambrano
Biography
Z.Z. Packer (given name Zuwena) is an African-American writer born January 12, 1973 in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in Atlanta and Louisville growing up. Packer holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale, a Master’s degree from John Hopkins University, and a Master’s of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa. Among her work a couple of the most acclaimed and well known short stories are “Brownies” and “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”, the later being the title story in the collection. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and selected as New York Times Notable Book. It only contains eight stories but they all contain themes of racism and identity presented in very different ways with the stories told through young narrators who see race as a very surface level concept to a narrator who uses imagining as a mechanism for dealing with a developing sense of self and surrounding.
Short Story Summaries
“Brownies”
The story starts off introducing Troop 909, an all African-American Girl Scout troop and its narrator. The narrator immediately picks up on this segregation and goes on to describe the complexions of the all white Girl Scout troop. While the narrator isn’t as argumentative as some of her fellow troop members, she serves as an observer for the conflict that arises rather than actively participates or executes any deed. One of the troop members, Arnetta claims to have overheard Daphne being called a “nigger” by one of the white girls from the other troop. Daphne never definitively claims that it occurred, but Arnetta decides to exact revenge to teach the other troop a lesson. Troop 909 sneak out to the other troop and surround them, ready to fight, when one of the white girls insist that they didn’t use “bad words”. The narrator realizes there’s something off about these girls and it is mentioned, “they’re retarded”. This leads to the counselors trying to remedy the problems with language and it’s discovered the troop of white girls are delayed learners. The story comes full circle when the narrator, whose name we find out is Laurel, speaks about an experience her father had with Mennonites, who painted their porch. Laurel’s father explains that it’s the only time a white man would do something for free for a black man. Laurel closes the story with the understanding that “When you’ve been made to feel bad for so long, you jump at the chance to do it to others.”
“Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”
This story takes place at Yale University and revolves largely around the narrator, Dina, and her experience growing as a person in a surrounding that consists of the elite whites with money. In the beginning she is playing a game where she is asked what object she would be, to which she replies, “I guess I’d be a revolver.” When asked why and she says to wipe out mankind. This earns her a year in psychiatric counseling and makes people weary of her until one day a girl named Heidi shows up at Dina’s door sobbing. Dina is rather unsympathetic to Heidi, but heir friendship grows and develops from this point on and one night while they are getting off from work Dina comes to the conclusion that she has fallen in love with Heidi. One day, Dina looks outside of her window to see Heidi participating in a “Coming Out Day” and taking in all of the speeches being given. Weeks pass without them speaking to each other until Heidi shows up at Dina’s door crying because her mother has died. Dina has a blunt response that “It’s not a big deal”. However, it causes her to come to terms with her own mother’s death while in counseling where she reveals that the morning of the funeral she had “…imagined [she] was drinking coffee elsewhere”, and coffee so strong it could keep her awake for days. She is finally at peace with it.
“Geese”
Dina returns as a character in this story, but it takes place in Japan where she tries to find a job. There are not many jobs for Americans to start with, but she finds it especially difficult because she is African-American. She works at an amusement park and is living in a hostel until her visa expires and money runs out. When this happens she moves in with her friend Ari, not knowing that there are two other people also living there in the small quarters, with another person later joining. The story revolves around how they’re outsiders who have fallen far from their ambitions and are left with no prospects. Ari is the only one bringing in money and as it begins to run out with the amount of people living with him, they resort to stealing to survive, until, they are caught and the area puts out announcements to beware of suspicious foreigners. Ari takes them all to the park and tells them he lost his job. As the group takes it in they see geese flying and one of them, Zoltan chase after them. At first it seems sentimental, but Dina realizes he’s trying to kill one for food, because they’re all desperate. Dina’s desperation though, takes her on a train to Shinjuku where she is approached by a man she has sex with for money. The story ends with her leaving with the money as she reflects upon the mission of kamikaze pilots.
Literary Analysis of Z.Z. Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Z.Z. Packer demonstrates the central theme of race at the core of each story in unique ways. Each progresses differently through each of its characters and those characters’ backgrounds and integrate other aspects of identity. The variety of each story only adds to how relatable and applicable it is for any person of any race or identity.
The short story entitled “Brownies” follows the narrator around her summer camp and focuses on the conflicts regarding race that are projected onto Troop 909, an all girls African-American group. To show this Packer displays the stigma surrounding the language we use when talking about race and puts a twist on it; she makes the term Caucasian an insult. “The word took off from there, and soon everything was Caucasian. If you ate too fast you ate like a Caucasian, if you ate too slow you ate like a Caucasian.” By showing normal acts that are attributed to the politically correct term Caucasian and exaggerating them she is showing the audience what it is that African-Americans go through when their normal actions are attributed to skin color. Using the exaggeration in her story is a key element in getting these perceptions across to the reader.
In the second sentence of the story Packer immediately starts off by giving a description of the white girls at Camp Crescendo. She calls their skin color “…a blend of ice cream: strawberry and vanilla.” The word choice of this statement is what sticks out. Rather than saying that their complexions were like ice cream she states that they are ice cream, making it seem definitive. The narrator is viewing them as a different classification of being entirely from her own. Not only does this description reveal the narrator’s perceptions of the other girls, but it also reveals her character. She goes on to describe the “white girls” coming off of the bus holding their sleeping bags with Disney character print and comparing them to Troop 909’s that are more generic. To the reader she is conveying a sense of inferiority about herself, inferiority that is brought on by the outward appearances of the other girls that remind her of her lower class and the differences in race—reducing her to a second-class citizen.
Another important tool that Packer utilizes are the parallel uses of words, specifically “nigger” when used against Troop 909, and “retarded” when used against the delayed learners. It’s especially important because it shows that even as children they can separate themselves based on defining characteristics. Laurel, the narrator, most explicitly brings this concept up when speaking about her experience with the Mennonites and how her father asked them to paint their porch, knowing that they couldn’t refuse. The line: “It was the only time he’d have a white man on his knees doing something for a black man for free” sums up what the plot was in “Brownies”; it was a group of black girls getting revenge on a group of white girls, who are disabled learners, because they feel they have to do something about the problem while they have the opportunity to, because it may not arise again.
“Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”, the story for which the book is named capitalizes on the concepts of identity—both sexual and racial in regards to coming to terms with all aspects of one’s self. The narrator, Dina, is a female African-American college student at Yale. When asked what object she would be if she could be one she replies “I’d be a revolver”. This metaphor is what lands her in a year of psychiatric counseling.
She faces projections that are placed on her by other people such as being presumed lesbian or troubled and the stigma that comes with those projections; projections she also puts on the other character Heidi, who later becomes her friend. Dina asks Heidi, “Aren’t you a lesbian?” and it is fueled by an accusatory tone brought on by physical attributes Heidi has that is associated with being a lesbian. Following this sentence is an inner monologue that Dina has going over a checklist of what characteristics lesbians have (“She fit the bill. Short hair, hard, roach-stomping shoes.”) with the last sentence of her monologue firmly noting that lesbians have cats. She then asks if Heidi has a cat. The monologue Dina has here stands out the most because she is actively stereotyping another person as she feels they stereotype her for being an African-American woman at Yale where the population is white. This is part of her character, picking up on how people perceive her and other marginalized groups of people, but not acknowledging that she, herself, is also an active participant in stereotyping.
The whole story is told from Dina’s point of view, so biases are presented that she holds and perceptions that she makes. In the beginning of the story when Dina is playing an icebreaker game with peers she immediately announces to the reader that there were only two black people in her group, herself and an unnamed male. There is no other sense of anyone else around her until she develops a friendship (and later love) for Heidi. When Dina develops this connection we get a little more insight into her character because she isn’t negotiating how much of herself she gives away, at least until there’s something she is not ready to deal with. This is most prevalent in the memory she relays when she was buying groceries. She goes out of her way to buy groceries rather than use the food stamps she is given because she does not want to invite the perceptions other people have based on this detail. When the boy offers to help her carry the groceries she declines to avoid the embarrassment of bringing him to her home and seeing her poverty. In her eyes, positive correlations exist between outward appearance of anything or anyone to a category that a person falls under.
The character Dina returns in another one of Packer’s short story “Geese” which actually takes place in Japan. The sense of place is one of the strongest aspects of this story because it is the story. Without it Dina wouldn’t be in the position she is in. However, Japan is not the only focal point for place. Ari’s six tatami room is where Dina and the other characters spend most of their time. It is a small-enclosed space that is soon holding five people in it, all of which are foreigners. It integrates issues beyond the scope of racial prejudices and explores the group of misfits living together in poverty. Because they are all foreigners some of the dialogue is broken up into fragments to reflect that they retain their native tongue, such as when the former model, Petra explains that in America they will “Fix face for actual” her face. The living quarters is a constant reminder that they are all together because there is no place in Japanese society for outsiders.
Unlike the last story, this story is not told from Dina’s point of view; it’s actually a third person omniscient narrator, but the focus retains more of Dina’s emotions during her experience in Japan than any other character in the story. There is a visibility that exists in the Japanese culture between natives and foreigners which Dina experiences when trying to find a job that will accept an American, and an African-American at that. Select native Japanese words are emphasized to reflect prejudice, characteristics of culture, or general separateness such as the word gaijin, (“…the great gaijin dumping ground, the one place where a non-Japanese foreigner was sure to land a job”) which means reflects an “outsider” status. By incorporating the Japanese word gaijin aspects of exclusion prevail as a theme and as a representation of Dina’s feelings of separateness and exclusion. The lack of success finding a job adds to the exasperation the reader feels in the piece as a whole. While she fails at finding a job, her friend Ari is offered one that he does not want to do and suggests that she should take it; it’s a job sweeping floors.
Despite the fact that Dina has no money by this point she doesn’t take the job out of a form of pride or stubbornness; her reason being that “…too many Japanese had already seen American movies in which blacks were either criminals or custodians.” If she were to take that job it would mean she is succumbing to what the Japanese people are already presuming about her. It’s an important aspect of the story because it shows that Dina would rather live poorly than fitting into molds based on her race, which characterizes her. But, Dina later finds out what it’s like to live in real poverty and puts aside her dignity to make money by having sex with a white collar Japanese man. She evolves from being to stubborn or proud to sweep floors to being hopeless and desperate enough to sell herself.
The resonating theme of race permeates through each one of Packer’s stories. While there is a microscope on both narrators’ own identity of being African-American, there are other prejudices exposed in the stories. By being the person exposed in the stories and by responding to acts of prejudice, the narrator is opening up the reader to their opinions and biases based on their perceptions and teachings regarding race and identity. Packer does this in a subtle way to demonstrate to the audience that not one group of people is responsible for discriminating or stereotyping one particular race or group. It is prevalent in all areas no matter the class, race, gender, or sexual orientation, but despite that, we take most notice when it pertains to us and the identity or group that we, the readers, associate ourselves with.
Sources
Birnbaum, Robert. “ZZ Packer.”Identity Theory. Identity Theory, Web. 27 Feb. 2014. <
Mallegg, Kristen B. “Packer, ZZ (Zuwena).”Who’s Who Among African Americans.Detriot: Gale, 2007. 893.Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. <
Petty , Jill. “ZZ Packer: Write On.”Liberty Media for Women8 Aug. 2001: 1.GenderWatch. Web. 28 Feb. 2014. <
Klems, Brian A. “Selling Short Story Short:An Interview with ZZ Packer .”Writer’s Digest. Writer’s Digest, 20 July 2011. Web. 28 Feb. 2014. <
Packer, Z.Z.Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. New York: Riverhead Books, 2003. Print.