The narrator and main character, Kingston, underwent a huge arc throughout the book, especially in the last chapter "A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe." In the beginning of the story, Kingston talks about how her mother cut her tongue in order to avoid her getting tongue tied and keeping her quiet. Throughout her childhood, Kingston was a very shy and reserved girl. She was unpopular and didn't say much. Seemingly because of the fact that her mother cut her tongue, Kingston was alienated, shy and quiet throughout her childhood.
The silence Kingston experienced as a child was a reflection of the Chinese culture and their view of women. The Chinese culture seemed to always try to silence women. If women tried to be successful they would be persecuted,
…show more content…
She says that she always felt that she had words kept in that couldn't get out, and in this chapter we see two instances where Kingston seems to verbally lash out. The first instance is when Kingston is a child at school, and she lashes out at a girl who is more quiet than her, trying to get her to talk. The lack of verbal language is very frustrating to Kingston, which is ironic because of how shy and reserved she was.
The next time we see Kingston change from her quiet nature is in her adult life when she blames her mother for her problems. She lashed out at her mother and says that she is responsible for many of the problems she experienced in her life. In her rant, she also brings up that her mother did not do a very good job of cutting her tongue to make her quiet, because she felt that sometimes when she had something to say and it was stuck inside of her, it ended up coming out in the wrong way, in a much more hostile way than she would have liked.
While the transition from silence to speaking seems insignificant, it is a huge change in the character as well as the resolution to the story. Throughout her life Kingston seemed to be confined to silence, her voice not being heard and character not being understood. By finding her voice, Kingston was finally able to convey her feelings and develop her true vision of the world as a
She also developed the same abrasive attitude as her father, which is common when raised by an authoritarian parent. Because she was forced to live a certain lifestyle she wanted other people to learn the same as she
If women did not work then logically no one would have been able to work. The phrase “We Can Do It” inspired women to enter in the workforce alongside other women and this
The fictional narrative Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a 9th grade girl, and reveals communication goes a long way. In the setting of her school, the reader can see that Melinda rarely talks. This affects her grades and social life significantly and gets her into trouble with her teachers. In a home environment, her silence also creates problems with her parents, which causes her to have counseling meetings and stay after school to receive help from her teachers. Since Melinda does not have a good relationship with her parents she does not talk about being rapped at the party.
The biggest impact on Jacqueline's life and identity is her family. Jacquliens family would influence her on her way of speech. Jacqulien writes that her and her sister watching her mother punishing her brother saying ”You will never my mother says say ain’t in this house you will never say ain’t anywhere each switching is a warning to us our words are to remain crisp and clear we are never to say huh ain’t or y’all git or gon na never
The real reason Kingston's mother cut her tongue was to put her in her place before she ever had a chance to rebel. Kingston writes, "The Chinese say a ready tongue is an evil"
Melinda doesn’t speak because of what happened at the party and she doesn’t think anyone will believe her. Or if they do believe her then Andy would do something to her or tell people that she was lying. Andy is popular so the students would think that Melinda had just said that to receive attention and make people forget what she had done at the party. The truth was that she was raped at the party and when she called the police, all of her friends were angry at her for getting them into trouble. They don’t understand what had actually happened.
In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda struggles with communication. Melinda is at a party, she is attacked and raped by a student who attends her school, Merryweather high. When it is time to head back to school after the summer, Melinda decides not to talk to anyone. She became completely mute. In the beginning of the book, Melinda is thinking about her attack when her " throat squeezes shut...
Her friends were all she had, without them she felt extremely isolated and
"Failure is impossible" as Susan Anthony stated to assert that she would never give up defending women rights .she believed that women and men should have equal rights. And she spent her life calling for freedom for women, and she was always standing against slavery by all its meanings. When she were young she worked at her father`s mill instead of a woman that got tired and her father paid her money but he paid much more money for the men working there.
I think Kincaid’s essay does not have a thesis or claim; the entire story contradicts itself. In the beginning of the essay she talks
In the book Speak by, Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character Melinda, tries to find her voice all throughout the book. Then she meets her art teacher Mr. Freeman. He helps her all throughout her school year express her and stand up for herself at the end of the year, when she has another problem with the same guy that hurt her before school started. Mr. Freeman helps Melinda express herself by getting better at speaking, expressing herself, and also standing up for herself. Melinda was finding her voice all throughout the school year.
This is significant because the character with the biggest change only speaks twice and is barely represented in the story. The character that goes through this is the daughter figure she goes from unknowing to knowing, this was achieved through repetition. Repetition plays a very key role in this story because it reapplies it and it forces you to engage with the material again. To be honest, this story exemplifies the teaching methods of America. Jamaica formulated a strong tone, and presented it in
A historian by the name of Ed Ayers once said “The exploitative natures of women’s work throughout history has been enormous.” I believe that this statement is true because after looking at history it shows that there were so many things that they had to overcome to get to the rights that they have today. Women during the 1700’s and 1800’s were challenged with expressing themselves in a social system that refused to grant women the right to express their views. Many events during these centuries which included things such as social and political movements that increased attention to women's issues like education reform. By the end of the 1800’s women were finally able to speak out against the injustices aimed at them.
Dialogue (defined as a person broadcasting his/her voice) within the story created a suspenseful mood to the reader, questioning what the person would say next. For example, a statement that had come unexpectedly to Martha from her principal was, “This year the Board has decided to charge fifteen dollars, which still won’t cover the complete cost of the jacket”. This evidence demonstrates that certain situations in life are sudden, impactful, and unfortunate because Martha was looking forward to receiving the scholarship jacket, but this event completely transformed her perception of the scholarship jacket. In addition, Salinas chose to include this specific dialogue because indicates how the Board ultimately promoted unfair rules. Dialogue was one of the few craft moves Salinas utilized to express the mentioned theme.
For the sake of argument let’s continue with the ‘Woman Entrepreneurship’ leading to success theory by supporting the same with the excellent evidence provided in The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future, by John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio (published in 2013) John Gerzema and his colleague Michael D’Antonio had gathered opinions and perceptions from 64,000 people in nationally representative samples in 13 countries (from the Americas and Europe to Asia). This exercise identified a widespread dissatisfaction with typically “male” ways of doing business and a growing appreciation for the traits, skills and competencies that are perceived as more feminine. The results, published in their book The Athena Doctrine, reveal that 57 percent of people were dissatisfied with the conduct of men in their country, including 79 percent of Japanese and South Koreans and more than two-thirds of people in Indonesia, Mexico, U.K and the United States.