BOOKS: "The Mermaid Chair" by Sue Monk Kidd

Sue Monk's The Mermaid Chair is her next best story after "The Secret Life of Bees."

The charm and allure of The Mermaid Chair is comparable to the Tituba, Black Witch novel as both implement the use of magnificent setting imagery. In Tituba, the Barbadian scenery is highlighted amidst the contrasting American setting; In The Mermaid Chair the sultry secluded Southern setting is emphasized. Nonetheless, both authors of the acclaimed books were able to use effective setting to underscore their character's emotions as shaped by their environment.

Moreover, the two book's setting descriptions were able to set the stage for their plots emphasizing their similar themes of identity and the effect of nature and spirituality on both women-characters' emotions.

With Tituba, Black Witch, The Mermaid Chair expresses the natural yearnings of a woman. Tituba and Jesse's escapade and search for identity lead them to an internal introspection, running in plea to the comfort of nature and spirituality.

The two books' emphasis on nature, both perceived and felt, are also able to highlight metaphorically the protagonists' feelings, conveying how their emotions are trapped by their conditions of personal bondage, which nonetheless seem to be a part of an inescapable nature or environment of being a woman.

On the other hand, the brilliance in the depiction of natural surroundings found in Tituba and Mermaid Chair also seems to celebrate the women's passionate awakening, after falling from grace as they willingly enslaved themselves of their own passions and become once subject to criticizing eyes...

In The Mermaid Chair, the search-for-self theme is woven into a female perspective narrative premised on the mystic search for woman-identity, caged by a limiting circumstance...

In The Mermaid Chair by a married woman Jesse Sullivan, a house-wife whose life is "molded to the smallest space possible," searches for identity and liberty as she travels to the side of her ill mother, depressed for too long from her husband's death, and whose outburst made her cut her own finger.

In the fictional south Egret Island, Jesse encountered an attractive attorney-turned monk Brother Thomas, and from there, she started to feel her struggles in keeping her morals, amidst her natural desires and thirst for ‘liberation' and independence from her conservative husband Hugh.

Her journey to self-discovery also lead her to uncover the origins of her mother's tormented past, and about the mysterious mermaid-engraved chair tucked inside the Benedictine abbey.

In Sue Kidd's book, the Mermaid Chair embodied all matters of love and forgiveness, and its ability to heal the person's confused spiritual and sensual states.

The Mermaid Chair and I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem would have been gravely criticized by most of the literary world if the writers had not been strategic with their styles. These books could have even been banned as works disruptive on the society's moral fiber for their hints of sexual immorality and adultery. On the other hand, Maryse Conde and Sue Monk Kidd are able to balance their otherwise controversial themes with the use of effective contemporary literary styles - like irony, imagery, and first-person perspective.

The personal appeal to all audiences created by the authors' expert style is able to turn towards the subject of self-search explored by all people of all types. Use of the post-modern style delivers their novels in such a way that is enchanting and enlightening rather than radically challenging only to be disapproved.

~Ae Dechavez

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