Radeesha Jayewickreme: "Dear Elsa Sjunneson-Henry: The Power of Mary Sue"

Dear Elsa Sjunneson-Henry: The Power of Mary Sue

By Radeesha Jayewickreme

            An author, like any other artist, uses their craft to express themselves and their thoughts and ideas. Each piece of work serves as a reflection of a component of their identity, and no part of this identity should be belittled by a term like ‘Mary Sue’. The term itself takes away from the beauty of speculative fiction elements and how they enhance a character to emphasize certain themes and ideas. The connection between the author and a protagonist furthers the reader’s understanding and appreciation of the text, and these characters should be analyzed in the context of their own narratives rather than in a comparison to the author.

            As a Sri Lankan-American, I’ve seen no representation of my culture in books or any other type of media. In most of the media I’ve seen pertaining to Asian-Americans there’s the standard antisocial nerd with strict parents. Alyssa Wong, in “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” takes her Asian-American heritage and uses it to strengthen her characters. When the main character’s mother is first introduced, Wong places her in a room with “floral curtains pulled tight over the windows to shut out the rest of the world,” making her mom seem like the stereotypical closed-off Asian mother. Her mother is still stereotypically critical, but they share a bond stronger than being immigrants or chatting about academics. Instead, her mother guides her through her “gift” of eating souls, teaching her how to control it. Written by an Asian-American author, you may think Jen is just a copy of Wong, equipped with a power that makes her different from Asian-Americans. But this isn’t the case. Wong writes Jen to be a character that struggles with learning her own bounds and morality, trying to decide what traits to take from her mother and what she should leave behind. I’ve had to decide which parts of my culture to reject and which to grasp onto. Jen’s struggle lets me, the reader, relate to her even though the speculative elements of the story aren’t directly connected to my perspective or experience. Alyssa Wong drew from her own life experiences to create Jen, but this should not overshadow who Jen is as a character, or her narrative. As a reader, I’ve found a text where an Asian-American woman is more than her nerdiness, quirkiness, and the damage from a Tiger parent-child dynamic. I’ve found a piece of art where I can open new parts of my own identity.

            Even though I’ve struggled with finding a character who I can relate to easily, there are some Asian-American characters who do portray strength and are more than their ‘Asian-ness’. For Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, however, her struggle with finding deaf-blind protagonists who are more than a disability reveals that classifying characters as Mary Sue’s takes the narrative away from the reader as well as the writer. In Sjunneson-Henry’s “I Built My Own Godd*mn Castle,” she feels the need to “[remove] disability from [her] narrative [because this] means [she fits] in here,” and she deletes the story she wrote where the main character was a reflection of herself due to the social pressure to not be a Mary Sue. Sjunneson-Henry recognizes that the character was not whole yet, but the time she spent with her helped her understand her own identity more. For her readers, she needed to “reclaim that narrative later for [herself], and for other disabled girls who don’t know how to stand up and say that they want a piece of it.” The character in her first story was more than a reflection of herself. She was a protagonist for readers who could not find themselves in stories. She was a protagonist for readers who could not see the power in their identities in stories.

            For both readers and authors, using elements of an author’s identity does not take away from the validity of a story, and does not make the protagonist a Mary Sue. Instead, it deepens the connection between the text and the reader’s identity, allowing the reader to find comfort in their differences. It allows the author to limitlessly share their story and tell their own narrative, including their experiences with marginalization. This power should not be taken from the author, nor should the reader be deprived of the opportunity to witness and embrace the power for themselves.