Anomalies and Raina

It is heartening to follow the development of Raina and Craig’s burgeoning relationship. It seems very much like love at first sight (even though I don’t believe in ‘love’ at first sight, maybe ‘like’ at first sight). Their mirroring behavior when they first meet in Chapter 2, aptly named Stirring Furnace to reflect Craig’s increasing liking for Raina, foreshadows not only amicability but amiability. However, I fear that Craig’s escapist tendencies have transferred over to Raina. Religion seems to fail him when it becomes a “mass mentality” (Thompson 107) and he is no longer able to connect to faithful around him who form their own group through singing, something Craig is incapable of. He does not lose his faith, though, but looks for another safety net. Raina is the perfect combination of vulnerability and strength, as demonstrated by her foil with her sister’s character (her sister is rebellious and selfishly shuns responsibility, going so far as to de-personalize her own baby, while Raina holds a crushing amount of responsibility in the family).

I have decided to focus on several anomalies to attempt to draw out a deeper understanding of Blankets. The most glaring anomaly in Chapter 2 is the frame shift. It seems like a time shift, since one would have to read the pages backwards, but the panels are still in chronological sequence. Thus the flow of time has not been altered, but Craig’s world has literally been turned upside down—an effect of his newfound infatuation with Raina. The upside-down section is also where Craig becomes disillusioned with the church and he skips chapel to spend time with Raina alone in their own universe hidden in the Rec Room. Their isolation is further empathized by the use of a large area of white space around them with only some black illuminating their hideout.



The beginning of Chapter 3 starts out with some Transcendentalist musings by Craig, reflecting once again his desire to belong to a larger entity, to have a greater purpose in life. The anomalous panels, however, include the same motif of large swathes of white space surrounding the black outline of a character, indicating loneliness or isolation. When Raina and Craig reunite, for instance, their happiness blocks out the rest of the world as they focus on their affection for each other. Also, Raina’s announcement of her parents’ divorce in the loneliness of a phone booth serves to emphasize the gravity of her situation and the weight of her responsibility. The frame itself shifts when she tells Craig on the phone that she misses him—her world is out of whack because she admits to needing him. Focusing on more stylistic elements, the antagonistic characters in Craig’s childhood, such as his bus driver and his Sunday school teacher, seem to have the same creepy, clawed hands. The strangest panels, however, are psychosexual in nature, and involve Craig’s struggle to cope with his increasing sexuality in the face of fundamentalist religious beliefs in chastity.

There are unusual panels in Chapter 4 with a pattern of static in them, reflecting the chapter’s title and Craig’s memory. The static of the television Laura was watching becomes the static pattern on Craig’s face that he shaves off. Is this symbolic of Craig’s intrusion into the lives of Raina and his family, erasing the monotony? The same pattern occurs again at the end of the chapter, when Craig is watching the snowflakes falling. Apparently the snowflakes begin to blend together in the static pattern so they lose all sense of space and depth. But what does it mean? There is another denotation to static aside from its electrical one, and it is stillness. Perhaps the static indicates Craig’s restful escapist state and his desire to never have things change from the current situation.

A persistent symbol is the importance of a bed as a comforting and sacred shelter. In Chapter 3 Craig feels unwelcome in the guest bed as an intruder, but the importance of the bed is most evident when he jumps off of Raina’s bed after realizing that he was intruding on her personal space. In Chapter 5 Raina invites him to sleep with her, to share her bed, symbolizing her increased feeling of trust and connectedness with him. I am glad that despite the panicked lines from the Bible running through Craig’s head, he comes to terms with his decision and does not feel guilty for violating any norms of chastity because his love for Raina is pure.



On another note, however, there is an anomalous panel reflecting Craig’s fear of growing up into a teenager. Again, he seems to be a kid in heaven falling down as time passes into the hell of adolescence. The drawing style used for his imagined adolescent body reflects the body of his babysitter, perversely. The face of the adolescent body is even covered up by a demonic hand as the babysitter’s face is always covered up.