Varieties of the Fantastic in Fiction

In “Stop Your Women’s Ears With Wax,” a band is followed by teenage fan girls that seem to cause destruction everywhere the band goes. However, it seems as though the girls are not the only entities who cause destruction. The story is about a girl band and the odd hype they are receiving; it seems rather extreme and supernatural, especially surrounding a girl band. Usually, teenage girls tend to show more obsession with boy bands. With strong roots in Feminism, the band’s energy seems to not only affect teenage girls, but attacks men that underestimate the power the all-girl band possesses.

The story contains numerous symbols like: glitter, oranges, yellows, reds, and death (or revenge). One main symbol that was repeated numerous times are the black feathers that seem to follow the band around; clogging the drain or getting picked up off the floor in heaps by one of the crew members. The significance of the black feathers are not out of the ordinary, and surprisingly, do not resemble anything negative. By interpretation, the presence of feathers are meant to signify an the presence of an angel. The black feathers mean that the angel is supposedly sending protection or the feathers are used as a tool to repel negative energy. However, it seems as though negative energy follows the band around, wreaking havoc wherever the band travels. The repetition of orange, used as the band’s signature merchandise color, can be defined as a symbol of happiness or enthusiasm. However, red-orange seems to fit this story better because it is used to represent desire, sexual passion, pleasure, domination, aggression, and thirst for action; which is basically the affect that this band has on any female that listens to their music.

The point of view is tricky here. It seems to focus on Mona, but does not tell her thoughts or feelings. It also includes the other characters and their conversations, but not their thoughts or feelings as well. Mona, the character that the story seems to focus on the most, talks of her bewilderment of the emotion and power the girl band has and its affects on teenage girls.

The band – their long hair, their flaring nostrils – reappearing on the kind of clamor Mona has only ever seen reserved for the Beatles; weeping female fans in strips of documentary footage, fingers reaching up into eye sockets, digging down with a violence made slippery by tears. It is not a reaction she is used to seeing for a girl band. (83)

The story is organized as a list, categorizing the occasions in which the supernatural or something gruesome seems to happen with connection to the band. The first incident that happens is in Liverpool. Mona goes to complain to the venue manager, which happens to be male, but is given the cold shoulder. He explains the long, star-studded history that the venue has (which happens to be all male bands) and tells her that, “Power was enough for them it’s enough for your lot, babydoll.” (83) In which, the moments to follow during the show, the equipment fails.

The sound is bad that night, unbalanced; the bassist’s amp keeps cutting out. Halfway through the set, the lead guitarist unplugs and walks offstage. The crowd heaves, a thrum like something under skin. Grief-stricken silence where a crowd might usually start to clamor, the audience clutching at each other, until the lead guitarist returns with an acoustic and an expression filled with teeth. (84)

It is later found that the venue’s manager is found dead in his office, an orange t-shirt stuffed down his throat. Whether or not the lead guitarist is associated with the death is not mentioned.

At one point in the story, a terrible accident happens while two of the crew members are in a cafe. While everyone in the cafe reacts to the horrific accident, the members act nonchalant, or rather desensitized to death and havoc or chaos.

Ava is still lining up coffee stirrers, muttering song titles under her breath, and one of them sets Mona off humming – Ava grinning at her, joining in. They are almost at the chorus – an early song about breaking and mending, about hunger and revenge – when the car-carrier, stalled at the lights, sways perceptibly in a fresh burst of wind. It is momentary, this queasy listing, but it is as the breeze dies that the backmost car on the carrier’s second story breaks its bonds and rolls gently off the platform, directly onto the Audi behind. (88)

Ava shakes her head, looks away from the sight of the crushed red Audi. Across the table, Mona taps her finger lightly on a hairline crack in the window, gaze toward the car but not quite on it, focus tightened on the glass beneath her hand. They rise to leave shortly afterward, eggs and spinach both abandoned, turning away from the wreck as they exit the cafe. Knuckle-clench, the palming of a coin. (89)

It seems as though the band is connected to the spiritual realm in some aspect. In one part of the story, the band members are described as to be part of the un-dead. One interesting note was the description of the “freshly” bought food that just happened to decay over night.

They are all hungry, white-gummed and bloodless. All of the freshly bought food on the bus rotted overnight and Catherine had to scoop it up into a plastic bucket, tipping it over the crash barrier on a lay-by. (101)

In conclusion, it is hard to determine what part of the supernatural the band is playing with; many questions are left unanswered at the end of the story. The title of the story, “Stop Your Women’s Ears With Wax,” can be interpreted that in order to not be affected by the band’s music, you mustn’t hear the music to begin with (kind of like a trance or spell). No matter where the band travels, death or destruction follows.