Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Is this all I will ever use this page for?
BLAME AP ENGLISH 11 FOR PERPETUATING THIS

DICTION

"Like so many other vital pieces of information in my childhood, I was supposed to know without being told."

Lorde details most of her story through what appear to be pure facts. She speaks in a way as if she is trying to lay everything out exactly as it happened, so as to make one's opinions of the events based solely off of what happened, and not influenced by her personal opinion. However, as in the sentence above, she also throws in plenty of almost bitter remarks about her childhood to give the reader a bit of perspective on her mindset at the time/

IMAGERY

"Even the pavement on the streets was a shade lighter in color than back home."

Other than to add to the utter whiteness of every inch of DC, this sentence helps the reader to imagine the difference in social status between white and black Americans. It is evident that the streets in Washington DC are more clean and bright as a sign of a wealthy community. It's to say that white people were living in the upscale cities while Lorde's family had come from the dirtier city.

DETAIL

"There were little violently yellow iced cakes"

The term "violently yellow" indicates that these cakes were unbearably ugly or otherwise difficult to look at. The yellow could have been bright to the point of hurting one's eyes. Lorde insinuated throughout the story her disdain for bright colors, so it is possible that she found the brightness of the cakes actually painful.

TONE

"I was left to write my angry letter to the president of the united states all by myself"

Lorde's story has a very innocent tone all the way through in the way she describes the actions of her young self. Even when she is infuriated and obviously very serious, it is still kind of cute to imagine that she is writing her letter straight to the president of the united states. It also carries the vibe of being just a kid with a limited yet clear view of the world - the age at which one understands things at their purest value and hasn't come to understand why anyone else doesn't do the same. In that respect, the tone could almost be called depressing, though more so for the reader who has to think about it that way.

LANGUAGE

"i started eating as soon as we were comfortable ensconced in our seats."

Lorde has a very descriptive vocabulary and most of the things she describes fall into two categories - unique descriptions and descriptions that use unique words. Personally, I have never even heard of the word "ensconced" before and had to look it up just to know it meant "seated". Lorde uses these intense descriptions to make sure that no detail is overlooked so that her story is imagined perfectly so that one can judge it with every fact on the table.

SYNTAX

"Even though they were all that same problematic color so different from my father and me, even from my sisters, who were somewhere in-between."

In this sentence, through careful use of words, Lorde describes her family situation. One can surmise that Lorde's mother was a white woman and her father was black, and that she took on more characteristics from her father, while her sisters had a mixed look. She never outright says that her family is multi-racial, but this line gives it away.

MESSAGE

"Or because she was "colored," my father said as he told us the story."

The message of Lorde's story is that racism is a problem which people often try to overlook and pretend to be nonexistent. Because many feel that there is nothing they can do to stop it (like Antiguans) they simply ignore it and let it pass around them. Lorde's story of how she came to be aware of racism despite the sheltering of her father is one that details the fact that racism is inescapable unless confronted.