Kingston

In her 1975 essay "No Name Woman", Maxine Hong Kingston talks about silence and secret pasts. She does this by telling the story of an aunt who was exiled from her family for bearing a man's child who was not her husband. Kingston merges this story into something she can learn something from and it helps shape the woman she becomes.

Silence is obviously the main theme in this essay. Her aunt was silent about her pregnancy and silent about the man she was having an affair with. Also, Kingston's family is silent to the fact that her aunt ever existed because of the shame she put on their family name. According to Kingston’s mother her father has "all brothers because it is as if she had never been born" (Kingston 383). I believe that in the case of her aunt silence meant love and protection. She did not want her lover to be prosecuted. In order to achieve this protection, this anonymity, "she kept the man's name to herself throughout her labor and dying" (Kingston 390) so that he would not be punished with her. She also did not want to slander the families name with her actions. She kept silent to protect the ones she loved. For her family, however, their silence was about hate and unforgiving anger toward her aunt. They do not want to remember her, so they dare not speak of her. Kingston is trying to create a clear difference between the silence of her aunt and of her family. Ghosts are often used to connect to the aunt and the past in the story. Ghosts, in essence, are things that are almost there but not quite. With her aunt being forgotten but not really forgotten, she is a ghost that haunts the family. She picks at their conscience for forgetting her and she picks at the author's conscience for keeping her a secret.

How did Kingston use this story to shape her? I do not understand the way in which the story ties into Kingston's life.

Hughes

In his 1949 essay "Bop", Langston Hughes discusses "be-bop", a popular style of music in the 40's. He uses another character, Simple, to describe the music and why it is special to only the colored people.

Hughes uses vernacular wording to paint a picture of the craziness of bop music. The words spoken are not actually words but syllables and sounds, crazy sounds in this crazy music. When the author asks what the difference between re- and be-bop, Simple tells Hughes that the difference is race. Of course, it's always race to Simple, but the way he describes the reasoning behind why only colored people understand be-bop takes us to the streets of a 1940's street riot. Simple says that "bop" and "mop" sound is heard when the police beat on the heads of the negro people. So why can't white people appreciate good bop music? Because they are not being treated the way the blacks are, according to our main character. He argues that "folks who ain't suffered much cannot play Bop, neither appreciate it" (Hughes 191). Therefore he is implying that re-bop is different from be-bop because re-bop, an imitation of be-bop performed by white people, does not have the same pain and soul behind it as be-bop does, it does not come from the same dark days. Hughes uses the word nonsense a lot in this essay. I believe that he is using a certain word to paint a certain picture of misunderstanding. It will be nonsense to who ever does not understand this type of music, and his misunderstanding will be nonsense to anyone who perfectly understands it.

Simple tells the author that white people cannot understand bop the way black people do. Do you think Langston Hughes is white because of this, or is he more of a black man trying hard to fit into the white world? Or maybe he has not been through what Simple has?

Wolfe

In Tom Wolfe's 1964 essay "Putting Daddy On," he tells a story about a guy who is going to find his son. He uses a lot of metaphors and tells the story from the perspective of another person, Parker, who has lost his son to the "flipnick" life style. When he finds his son he is surrounded by the weight of the life style he has chosen. Nothing in the way of an agreement is made and Parker goes home to his wife sonless.

There are a lot of extended metaphors in this essay. Even one of his characters is noted to speak in ironic metaphors. I think that the way he describes the crumminess of his sons apartment, how "the walls actually have big slags of plaster missing and the lathing showing, as in a caricature of an extremely crummy place" (283). Caricature, by definition, means a picture that ludicrously exaggerates something. I think that comparing his son's apartment to a caricature of a crummy place also makes his son a caricature of a crummy son. Also, the way they have created names for each other, like Jaywak and Aywak, showing that they're really trying to create something new and different, and I think that when Parker addresses his son in this manner he is poking fun at their attempt at rebellion. Overall, Parker just thinks his son is unoriginal and crummy, just like his apartment, just like his "rebellion", and just like his crummy friends. I get the feeling that he didn't want to find his son, that he was just "putting daddy on", putting that roll on, to make it seem like his son was the guilty party. Now he can tell his wife that he tried, but his son just wouldn't budge.

I think it's interesting that every generation the different groups get called an interesting new word. "Beatniks" and "Hippies" are good examples of these names. Have you ever been called something totally bizarre by a grandparent or other member of the family?