Oh Damn T_T

Dat Mai
Arbitrary Lines
Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons is a work that is denounced by many as a bunch of gibberish. It may seem that way, as the combination of words and sentences do not follow the conventions of modern English. The deviance from normal conventions that Stein practices is a means to show to the readers the true ambiguity of language, how words are what we make it to be, how the understanding of language is very highly malleable. By creating a work seemingly devoid of logic, Stein brings her readers to a different realm—a dimension where the senses prevail over common sense. In this way, she recreates an experience akin to where people first learn a language with which there is no comparison and points out man’s instinctual mechanism of attempting to piece everything together to create a proper whole.
Stein expresses these ideas through a variety of ways throughout Tender Buttons. On the micro scale, she plays with the preconceived similarities and differences between words that are embedded in our minds. This is a means for her to slowly loosen the barriers between like or unlike things, depending on one’s point of view. With the boundaries between two words broken down, she uses them interchangeably in sentences, thereby blending words together even further. To ease the extreme transition from what we understand to something almost entirely different, she utilizes a patterned writing scheme to have the passages flow. Under each category in Tender Buttons, there is a range from a sentence to a large passage that attempts to define the subject of interest with the distorted language. These derived uses of words break down the walls of logic and recreate it using what feels right, one of Stein’s intentions with Tender Buttons. On the macro scale, she slowly strings ideas together to create a whole. The creation of cohesive passages and sections in the work can only be attainable through the fitting together of words and ideas. Stein’s decision to separate the passages into different groups, as opposed to just having a book full of uncategorized passages, pushes the idea of an innate necessity of man to have everything they know to fit into a large whole.
Stein breaks down small and seemingly insignificant boundaries between words to ease readers to the eventual mess of words to come. It should not come as a surprise that her first passage of choice, “A Carafe, That is a Blind Glass,” does just that. In this passage, Stein brings two different objects closer together through the focus of similarities between a carafe and a glass while knowing that they are different from each other: “A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange…The difference is spreading” (3). A carafe is like a cousin of the glass in that they both serve the same function, and that it is not and oddity next to a glass. This is a prime example of Stein’s method of melding words together; the carafe and glass are no longer different. The bit about the spreading difference is representative of the small inkling of logic that helps us to differentiate between the two. Another instance where Stein makes attempts to place two words into the same category is in her “Roast Beef”: “Why should ancient lambs be goats and young colts and never beef…” (23). She asks for the reason why lambs cannot be beef; after all, they are both cooked and consumed. In our minds, lamb is lamb and beef is beef; those are two different kinds of meat. The difference between lamb and beef just got smaller. A third example of the broken boundaries between words is when Stein describes a chicken as a “pheasant and chicken…” (35). In our minds, a pheasant and a chicken are not the same—one is a game bird and the other is a fame animal. Then why does Stein define a chicken as both? It is quite possible that the similarities she draws from them lead to the claim—both are birds and both are eaten, possibly tasting similarly. This brings us to question ourselves as to whether or not the names and meanings given to everything are appropriate when the things we see as different are actually the same.
The next step above the breaking of boundaries is the mixing of definitions between the mesh of like words. A passage describing a chicken says that it is “alas a dirty word…alas a dirty bird” (35). Chicken as a dirty word is probably a reference to other languages, where the word “chicken” is a slang term for prostitute. She then follows a train of thought where the slang term for chicken and the actual bird are interchangeable, making a chicken a dirty bird. The slang term and actual animal don’t have anything in common, but their meanings are continual since they are one and the same word; at least, that is a probable logic behind this play on words. Another passage where Stein intermingles definitions of words with each other can be found in her “Glazed Glitter”: “There can be breakages in Japanese” (3). Japanese doesn’t break, so what could she be meaning? Japanese people come from Japan and Japan is an Asian country; it is possible to replace it with another one—China would make a plausible substitute for the word. The rewritten sentence would then be read as “there can be breakages in China,” making sense to our ears. The superimposing of definitions of one word onto another, similar one gives Stein more leeway with the chaotic sentences that appear, forcing readers to hold onto something else if not their sense of logic.
When things cease to make sense, people will try to latch onto anything that feels right to them in hopes that the act will bring them closer to the jumble of words if not to the hidden meanings. Stein offers a form of release by following a writing scheme that flows well, akin to poetry. In “Rooms,” Stein makes a point of lying that is seemingly undecipherable, but with poetic motion: “Lying in a conundrum, lying so makes the springs restless, lying so is a reduction, not lying is so arrangeable” (47). Starting from the second time the word lying is mentioned, a repetition in the format is observed; the format seen is in the form of “lying so etc.” The poem like sentence starts and ends highly similar phrases, which offers a sentence like feel where the beginning and ending is important with the middle section being just including information that stems from the beginning. When Stein writes “Vegetables,” she starts off with a pyramid like scheme: “What is cut. What is cut by it. What is cut by it in” (34). The sentences are all fragments that don’t say anything, but it sounds right in some way; the progression from one small fragment to additional words to slowly make it more sensible enables the readers to wait for the moment everything comes together later on. It creates a sense of anticipation that allows readers to get lost in the senses. Stein’s “Milk” contains a line containing the phrase “guessing again and golfing again…” (30). The meaning may be lost on us, but the emphasis on the “g” sound in the alliteration allows for easy acceptance of the phrase. When meaning is no longer a viable choice, an appeal to the senses is the next best thing to man; that way there is comfort to be found in the foreign language.
Even though Stein manipulates the barriers of language, she inevitable falls into the habit of categorizing things despite her attempts at doing the opposite. Why are there three sections labeled “Objects,” “Food,” and “Room?” It is also interesting that each section contains passages whose titles appropriately match the section. What is globally considered to be objects are found in “Objects” and it extends to the other sections as well. Man will innately put things together on a large scale no matter what. Stein’s choice or lack of in creating these walls shows just that. Even with the redefinition of language, it is impossible to let go of the natural sensibilities of man to organize everything.
Stein blends words together and mixes around their meanings to create syntax so farfetched from the norm that all if not most forms of traditional logic would fail to define what is written. With that, Stein brings us back to our raw, instinctual nature by using prose-like structure in her writing to keep us attracted to the coded message in the pages of Tender Buttons. Though indefinable, the categories they fall under show the human inability to completely separate from the idea that certain things “belong to” certain labels. Stein uses these mechanisms to explore a completely new experience for herself and her readers and to point out man’s instinctual need to put things together on some level.