Is Melania Trump Painted As ‘Disheveled, ‘Lonely’ And Michelle Obama ‘Obsessed’ In ‘NY Times’-Published Story?
Melania Trump is said to be the main character portrayed in a short story published by the New York Times and written by celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The story appears to create rather private moments for Melania Trump, or Mrs. T. as she’s referred to in this story, according to Newsweek. The story appears to offer up Mrs. T’s mindset from inside Trump Tower after the election but before moving into the White House. It certainly doesn’t paint Donald Trump’s wife as being surrounded by happiness in this rather gloomy setting created for this fictional tale.
Newsweek suggests the story portrays Melania (aka Mrs. T.) looking “disheveled” and “distracted” in one scene as seen through a conversation that she has with her Pilates instructor, Janelle. This Pilates instructor describes the Trump apartment as covered with “gold.” This fictional account of an incident with Melania at her Trump Tower home starts off with Janelle being called to Mrs. T.’s bedroom rather than meeting her in their usual spot, the home gym.
The name of the story is Janelle Asked to the Bedroom, and it goes on to “envision a conversation between a forlorn Trump and her pilates instructor.” Mrs. T. shows Janelle a video of Michelle Obama visiting a school classroom that she had recently been watching, and the story suggests Melania Trump has an “obsession with her predecessor, according to Newsweek.
In this story, the author, Adichie, has Melania envious of Michelle Obama’s “natural ease,” with a folder of the former first lady’s pictures displayed on a laptop Melania uses. The story continues with Melania telling her pilates instructor that it is Michelle Obama who she looks to for inspiration.
“Harvard?” Mrs. T said. “The school?”
Janelle’s body tensed. “Yes, Harvard the school.” Chimamanda Adichie writes https://t.co/8V7FSJ9y9f— Ike Anya #EndSARS (@ikeanya) October 21, 2017
The story continues to spin with Melania’s “only source of joy” coming from her 11-year-old son, Barron, reports Newsweek. Barron doesn’t escape a fictional demeanor for the sake of this story. He is described as “sweetly shy and polite, dependent on his mother for his sense of self.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie profiled in NY Times' T Magazine as part of their Greats issue https://t.co/FBVj1bNVg8
— Catalyst Press (@catalyst_press) October 19, 2017
The story describes Mrs. T. perking up when speaking with her young son, which is one of the few things Melania finds happiness in during this fictional tale. Melania learns that Janelle’s son is going to Harvard. Her Pilates instructor shares her good news with Melania in the storyline. This is where this short story suggests Mrs. T. makes a “prejudicial remark.”
Melania said to Janelle in this fictitious account, “He got a scholarship to go?”
Adichie writes, “How automatic, this assumption of a scholarship, and Janelle knew she meant a scholarship not of smarts but of skin.”
It is this line that Newsweek describes the story as portraying Mrs. T. as “a little bit racist, too.”
The author suggests that Mrs. T. in this story “exhibits a casual racism that her husband, President Donald Trump, is often accused of sharing.”
The New York Times published this story on the Times website and the T Magazine Instagram page, according to Newsweek. They refer to it as a “micro-novel.”
[Featured Image by Carolyn Kaster/AP Images]
