Special Exits

Joyce Farmer’s Special Exits was an interesting read for me. I have yet to experience my grandparents or mother’s deterioration, and therefore the access point was difficult to pin down. I will say, though, that the relationships between Lars, Rachel, and Ching represented an emotional and intense need for companionship during times of loss.

Farmer’s first panel on page 2 is a depiction of Ching rifling through her food bag. Laura’s character and Ching do not get along throughout the memoir, and we as readers are introduced to this from the get go—Ching bites and scratches her while Laura is trying to get the cat out of Rachel’s lap. This symbolized a form of protection, and it is almost as if Ching knows what it to come of her owners: if Laura is there, that means the elderly couple needs help, and therefore must be deteriorating.

On page 12 we see Lars sitting on the couch, reading the daily paper, while Rachel gets up to go take a bath, ultimately enduring a terribly fall that leads to her couch-ridden state in the next half of the book. Ching is the only one who recognizes the fall, and we see her scratching at the bathroom door, retrieving Lars, and bringing him to his wife’s aid. In this case, Ching becomes the caretaker of the two, therefore reversing the rolls of pet and owner. It is interesting to note this transition in panel style as well on page 9: Ching looks over the bottom of the first frame, peering in on a conversation between Laura, Lars and Rachel. The cat jumps through three different panels on the same page.

The most interesting instant of the necessity of Ching’s companionship is page 110, when Charon the boatman pays Lars a visit. All but one panel includes the cat, and this representation points to the notion that animals can smell and see death. Lars finds comfort in Ching witnessing the same thing as he does, and since Rachel is practically incapacitated, the cat becomes his partner. Ching no longer stays on the couch with Rachel but solely hangs out with Lars, perhaps signifying Rachel’s closeness to death, or foreshadowing Lars’ death. I’ve always heard the myth that animals can see, hear, and smell death and sickness, and Farmer seems to employ that myth through these relationships (as Lars gets closer to his time, Ching refuses to leave his side, so much that she starts to smother him) (pages 187-88, 192).

Outside of content, I found the panel style elusive. It seems as if we aren’t really expected to read from left to right, but can infact go all over the page as much as our hearts desire. On more than one occasion I found myself reading top to bottom as opposed from left to right—really inviting, and mimicking of the story’s structure in regards to time shifting. We skip weeks and months and days in just a few pages—likewise, are invited to skip around the page as much as possible, as the story still reads just about the same.