Pet Second Half

 The aspect of the second half of Pet that stood out to me the most was how performance was used as a metaphor for Jam’s guilt about hiding Pet. One of the earlier examples in this section was when Jam was eating breakfast with her family. Her parents are concerned more than anything else, but Jam still feels the weight of their watchful eye because she is anxious about Pet’s hiding.“Pet was a loud secret in her, a wrong note in the usual harmony of her house, making it discordant, guilty” (Emezi 103). Of all the metaphors, it is fascinating that Emezi chose to focus on music, specifically its creation. By portraying that the happiness in her house is something that Jam feels she must actively perform to achieve, Emezi is showcasing the roots of Jam’s anxieties in a really interesting way.

A similar situation happens when Redemption is over for dinner. While they are eating, Jam notices the metaphorical mask of casualness that Redemption has put on to avoid suspicion, and once again likens this feeling to hiding in the form of performance. “Masks were useful then; not quite lies, not quite truths. Just decisions about what to be and what to show. Curation” (Emezi 152). Emezi once again makes the point that the positive feelings Jam is having are for show rather than how she actually feels deep down inside. This is definitely a tactic used to obscure her anxiety about Pet, but has many more layers to it. Perhaps because of her gender identity, Jam is forced to perform everyday and it has become what she is used to. Even more notable, it is fascinating that Jam chooses performance to express her feelings, when it is art, her mother’s, that got her into the situation in the first place. Pet’s coming from her mother’s paintings creates a connection between art and Pet’s presence that is hanging over Jam’s head the entire novel, so it only makes sense that that is how she communicates her feelings about the situation.

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