Analysis Of Maggie Nelson's Essay 'Great To Watch'

Maggie Nelson emphasizes in her essay “Great to Watch” that constrictive or restrictive boundaries contribute to the formation of liberating boundaries by allowing different sub-spaces to be created. If there wasn’t a factor limiting one’s ability to act as they wish, there would be no opportunity and need to find a sub space to act freely. Too much freedom and having no limitations on what one can do, makes the need to break free and be different disappear because there are no boundaries to what is allowed and what isn’t. This is evident in both “Selections from reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi and “The Naked Citadel” by Susan Faludi. In all three essays, the environment in which the people live have exclusive rules and standards,

Maggie Nelson states how the third term “relates people to each other, with relation signifying the process of being brought together and given a measure of space from each other at the same time”(308). In Nafisi’s essay, the book club represents a third term being created by a liberating boundary. The book club is a safe space where the women are able to connect to each other while being themselves and even disagreeing on things. They are able to have shared confusion and opposing thoughts because they are sharing this sacred book club experience together. This represents a middle ground for the women, while they are living in such an age of extremity. In the essay, Nafisi brings up the term called “Upsilamba” which possesses no particular meaning but is used however the women chose to use it. Nafisi states, “Upsilamba became a part of our increasing repository of coded words and expressions, a repository that grew over time until gradually we had created a secret language of our own”(292). The purpose of the term “Upsilamba” is to show that there is not one distinct meaning of things, everything is up to interpretation and is allowed to have multiple meanings. For the women in the book club, this gives them a chance to use the word as they please and play a game that the liberating boundary makes possible. Being able to take

Maggie Nelson makes it clear that the only way to not feel pressured and contaminated is to change people’s attitudes towards life. This is evident in Azar Nafisi’s essay and Susan Faludi’s where both groups of people create a liberating boundary from the harsh environments they’re currently living in. A few lonely woman living the Islamic Republic of Iran create a book club that enables them to escape from their totalitarian reality and act as they wish. Creating this safe space, liberated the woman and gave them the freedom they’ve been striving for in their lives. Making the choice to create this book club and act however they please with a disregard to breaking the law, they have let their positive attitudes allow them to be happy. In the Naked Citadel, it is relatively the same situation. The Cadet’s found liberation while being suffocated and confined in the pressures of becoming a “Whole Man”. While living in an environment that punishes emotional behavior, the Cadet’s look to their feminine qualities to feel liberated in such a reserved institution. Their attitudes allowed them to escape their required job, and feel and explore different emotions they were not able to. Restricting boundaries have a