Cereus Blooms At Night

Tyler, or Nurse Tyler, is the other key protagonist of Cereus Blooms at Night, though his personal story is not foregrounded the way Mala’s is. Tyler instead takes on the important role of narrator and mediator. He is the only character whose portions of the story are conveyed in first-person narration; thus, Mala’s story, even the parts where Tyler is absent, is framed by Tyler’s perception. Although Tyler emphasizes that his goal is to share Mala’s story, his own experiences are also inextricable from hers. As he reflects on the circumstances that led his life to intersect with hers, he notes: “Judging from the way things turned out, I’m sure you will agree it was no coincidence that I and the eye of the scandal happened upon Paradise, Lantanacamara on the same day” (5). In Tyler’s mind, fate connected him to Mala Ramchandin, thereby making his presence in her story essential.

The connection or kinship that develops between Tyler and Mala becomes pivotal to both of their character developments. The care that Tyler provides Mala allows her to reenter the external world, and his motivation to provide for her stems in many ways from his relationship with his grandmother, whom he refers to as “Cigarette Smoking Nana.” His Nana is the one who first tells him the sordid tale of the Ramchandin family, thus turning the wheels of fate for Tyler even in his childhood. Mala also reminds Tyler of his Nana. He explains:

The relationship between Nana, my Cigarette Smoking Nana, and me, her Peculiar Grandson, was special, for we both had secrets from my mother, her daughter. Miss Ramchandin and I, too, had a camaraderie: we had found our own ways and fortified ourselves against the rest of the world. (48)

The shared secrecy of their identities draws Tyler and Mala together.

In much the same way that Tyler helps Mala reintegrate into the world around her, Mala also aids Tyler in his “coming out.” In a significant scene, Mala offers Tyler a nurse’s dress and stockings that she stole. She knows that Tyler is queer and that his gender identity is complex, marked by his desire to express femininity. She sees that he wants to wear this dress, and Tyler is struck by the fact that Mala has seen him so clearly. That night, he puts on the dress and stockings in Mala’s quarters so she can see how she helped him express himself. Tyler admits that he is embarrassed at first, “like a man who had put on women’s clothing for sheer sport and had forgotten to remove the outfit after the allotted period of fun” (77). Mala, however, gives him only a perfunctory glance; in that moment, Tyler realizes that his wearing a dress is perfectly normal for Mala. His gender identity and expression may be complex, but it is not to be questioned.

In the days and weeks that follow this encounter, Tyler grows to further embrace his gender and sexual identity, albeit with subtlety, highlighting the significance of gender and identity as personal. Tyler’s relationship with gender and sexuality illuminates his character and the novel’s themes.

Otoh, like Tyler, is a character that emphasizes gender and sexuality as an essential theme of Cereus Blooms at Night. The son of Ambrose Mohanty or “Boyie,” Otoh was assigned female at birth and curiously but effortlessly transforms into a boy in his childhood and adulthood. His metamorphosis is so easy and natural, that even his own family seems to forget that he ever presented as a girl: “[E]ven the nurse and doctor who attended the birth, on seeing him later, marvelled at the carelessness at having declared him a girl” (110). The “flawlessness” of Otoh’s transformation and the way he is able to intervene in his own natural development demonstrates the tension between innateness and changeability concerning gender and nature.

Otoh is also a character, like Mala, who highlights the effects of generational trauma. Although he does not suffer abuse or abandonment at the hands of his parents, he does inherit the emotional difficulties that result from his parents’ relationship and their feelings about and frustrations with Mala Ramchandin. Mala is a constant presence in his life, even in her absence, and he is forced to navigate the impact she left on Ambrose and Elsie without really understanding why. The notion of generational legacies or inheritance is evident in the way that Otoh works to embody both of his parents. The first time he goes to visit Mala, he puts on one of his mother’s dresses. As he watches himself put on the dress, he is “half-expecting to resemble his mother, but there was no resemblance” (121) calling attention to the idea that he should feel a connection with his mother in this moment, but his gender identity creates a rupture.

By contrast, when Otoh dons the clothes that his father would have worn at his age, the resemblance is striking and almost uncanny. Upon seeing his son dressed in his old clothes, Ambrose declares: “I remember now, son. You are indeed a reincarnation but not of a person, per se, merely of a forgotten memory. You are a perfect replica of me in my prime. I have never seen you look so stunningly like myself before” (144). Otoh is pleased that he is able to capture his father’s image so perfectly, as his goal is to find favor with Mala and “win her back” on her father’s behalf (144). It also suggests that his male gender identity is natural and even inherited—like father, like son. At the same time, by likening him to a memory and referring to him as a “replica,” Ambrose implies that Otoh is not him. This recognition reinforces the differences between Ambrose and Otoh, both in obvious ways and in the way Otoh feels boldly empowered to fight for Mala, quite unlike his father.