As I finished reading The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi, I kept coming back to the two same probing questions: 'What purpose(s) does Tilly serve for Jessamy?' and 'What purpose(s) does Jessamy serve for Tilly?' After I asked myself these two questions, it was like a snowball effect occured, and I found my questions spiraling out of control.
There were moments in the book where I felt Tilly was the spirit of Jessamy's dead twin, but then, why was Tilly doing evil things to Jessamy and 'getting' people? What does it even mean to 'get' someone? Is Tilly Jessamy's dead twin? and is she alive now because of her connection to the Nigerian culture, or was Tilly just an imaginary friend? Who is Tilly, truly? Does Oyeyemi give any definitive conclusions to this question? I don't believe she does. In an interview with Oyeyemi I think this ambiguity within the novel gives an accurate representation of Jessamy's character, who is so confused and unconfident. Jessamy struggles with her own identity, being brought up in a family of two different cultures (her mother, Nigerian, and father, British), discovering that she had a twin who died as a baby, and clearly not adhering to the standards of normal eight-year-olds.
From the moment the audience meets Jessamy, they are aware that she's unique. She has an extremely extended vocabulary for her age and has these random outbursts of panicking, crying, and shouting. Anyone knows that this is not normal. So when Jessamy meets Tilly and readers discover that only Jessamy has the capability to see Tilly, they know something strange is going on. Will Tilly be able to 'fix' Jessamy and cure her from all her problems, or will Tilly be more trouble for Jessamy than anything else?
In the beginning of the novel, I would've gone with my initial instinct: that Tilly would help Jessamy come out of her shell and gain some confidence in the world. This did happen, for example, when Jessamy stood up to a snotty girl at school, but then her actions turn a little violent. It's when this occurs that I discovered Tilly wasn't so 'goody-goody' after all.
Half way through the novel, it's almost as if Oyeyemi completely shifted her style of writing. The increasing horror of TillyTilly's visits and the chronicling of the
breakdown of Jess's family life under her malicious influence become almost too
much to bear, and the author's style sometimes veers from her normal mature and
delicate poise to a younger-sounding voice, although this may be an intentional
effect.
Going back to my first two questions that I posed initially in this post and attempting to answer that, I'd have to assert that Tilly first functions as Jessamy's friend, then later on becomes a controlling, dangerous influence in Jessamy's life and doesn't want her to have any friends but Tilly herself. As poisonous as Tilly can be at times, she really is the primary reason for Jessamy rediscovering her Nigerian heritage and figuring out that she had a twin, and also, for Jessamy gaining more confidence in herself. By the end of the novel, Jessamy was able to communicate better with people her own age, instead of hiding from them. So then what does Jessamy do for Tilly, if anything? Well, giving a lot of thought to this, I'm led to believe that Jessamy ultimately proves to Tilly that Tilly is not real. The things that Tilly can do throughout the novel are mystical and impossible, like flying through staircases and being the cause for Jessamy's father to become terribly sick and non-functional. I'm still wondering if these things happen because Jessamy believes them to be real, because Tilly wants her to, which then encourages Tilly to keep doing what she is doing and 'getting' people. If this is true, then Jessamy is giving even more power to Tilly, and that is why it was so hard for Jessamy to overcome Tilly at the end of the novel. Or does Jessamy really 'win' against Tilly? In the end, I think both characters are destructive towards each other, but Jessamy is the last one to do the 'getting.'
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