Textual Analysis Essay

In the short essay The Fourth of July, author Audre Lorde tells the coming-of-age story of her first trip to Washington, D.C. as a young black teen in pre-Civil Rights movement America. The year was 1947. This family vacation exposes Lorde to racism, something her parents choose to ignore in an effort to protect their children, and ultimately leads to a fall from innocence as she must come to terms with her place as a “colored”(Lorde,568) in the white world. Throughout the work, Lorde uses imagery and symbolism to convey her newly discovered awareness of her incompatibility with her surroundings.

Banned from the dining car, her mother packs a bountiful lunch for their train ride to the city: “slices of brown bread and butter and green pepper and carrot sticks…little violently yellow iced cakes…a spice bun and rock-cakes…iced tea in a wrapped mayonnaise jar…sweet pickles…dill pickles…and peaches with the fuzz still on them.”(Lorde,567.568) The food detailed is sustaining and brilliantly colored, much like her own family. They encompass a variegated rainbow of blacks and browns. Her mother is light-skinned while Lorde and her father are of a much darker complexion. And her two sisters are depicted as “somewhere in-between.”(Lorde,568) This rich, intensely hued world that Lorde resides in is in stark contrast to the “whiteness”(Lorde,569) she encounters that summer in D.C.

As the colorful quintet traverse the streets of Washington, Lorde squints up at the monuments as their whiteness is reflected onto her “dilated and vulnerable eyes.”(Lorde,569) She notices too that “even the pavement on the streets [is] a shade lighter in color than back home.”(Lorde,569) At the close of the day the family heads to a Breyer’s ice cream shop where they sit at a “white mottled marble counter”(Lorde,569) and order vanilla ice-cream from the Caucasian waitress who politely informs them that she cannot serve them. Lorde realizes then that she and her multi-colored family do not belong in the sterile, hard whiteness of the achromatic city. They rise and march out.

This “dazzling [white]”(Lorde,569) summer reveals the “new and crushing reality”(Lorde,568) that American racism imposes onto her and her family that she had yet to experience in her hometown of New York City. Lorde’s rich imagery and symbolism help express the deep contrast between her full-toned world and the concrete, dull actuality that she has become wise to.

"Prime Directive"

I enjoyed reading “Prime Directive” by Dave Griffith. I am particularly interested in his thoughts about human nature. The author is very honest about the human capacity for both hate and sympathy. He writes, “this is the part of tragedy that exposes our own violent, desirous, prideful human natures, and also our capacity for true sympathy.” He discusses how many people have moralized the situation at Abu Ghraib as a few “hicks from the sticks” doing what was in their nature to do and that they, “educated, metropolitan people”, could and would never be capable of such atrocities due to their supreme “awareness.” Griffith then states that it is this denial of commonality, of the capacity in each of us to sin, which allows “all that is most despicable and ugly in our nature to thrive.” He wrestles with his own opposing human capacities for sin and awareness. He poses for the photo, which degrades the victims of Abu Ghraib, but the picture also serves to commemorate, it becomes “sacramental, a reminder of my fall from grace”, because Griffith is “mindful” of the basic fact that in some ways he is exactly like Graner. And so we all are.

Domestic Dispute

Sometimes, when we grow up with siblings, we have a brother or sister that is so close in age with us that we cannot help but fight with that sibling. This rivalry can be vicious at times, but for the most part, things take a turn in the right direction, and the pair sees how much they need each other.

Mat and his younger brother Sean are an ideal example of this. When they were younger, the two brothers had so much in common that their rivalry brought them into what seemed to be a never ending dispute of words and hatred of even the thought of each other. Mat was the smart, artistic musician, whereas Sean played all of the sports he could without passing out from exhaustion. It is not difficult to imagine that two boys with an age difference of less than two years would get into arguments, skirmishes, and violent outbursts.

Their rivalry would seem like hell to anyone else unless they had also been through it as well, and this is where we find Molly and Sarah. Not only are they sisters, but they are also twins. Their differing interests and personalities caused extreme contention, which led to battles, brawls, and mean words being slung back and forth. This friction, mixed with the stereotypes that come with being a twin, produced a rivalry that would become so intense that it led them to move away from each other when their parents split up.

Chaos must resolve itself in the end and that is exactly what happens with these four sibling rivals. Instead of the fights, harsh words, insults, and violence, there is an understanding of each other’s individuality. Mat and Sean have an all new respect for each other, and they have realized that without each other, they would never have turned out to be the people they are today. Molly and her fraternal twin sister have come to realize the deep love they have for one another which they will both need to get through the times when there is no one there for them but each other. In the end these two sets of siblings have shown that fighting rivalries between siblings are only a natural aspect of growing up.

The Twins

My sister and I share a birthday: August 25, 1985. We are fraternal twins; I possess dark hair and brown eyes while Sarah has dirty-blonde tresses paired with blue eyes. Though our date of birth is one of the few things that we have in common, we have settled into a comfortable sisterly relationship characterized by deep love. But this strong bond that now exists between us took almost two decades to forge and the path that led here was wrought with vicious sibling rivalry and the dreaded “twin” labels that most of our kind has to suffer through.
Growing up she and I shared a mutual love of Barbie, My Little Pony, and bike riding. We also shared a room until we were thirteen which was the probable culprit of much of the arguing that went on. As we matured our interests shifted. In elementary school our differences became a lot more obvious. Though we were both active athletes, Sarah was a much more talented sportsman and therefore became known as the “sporty” twin. I was much more active at school and had always been a top student so I was dubbed the “smart” twin. There was a lot of competition between the two of us in those areas and much of the rivalry that existed at this time in our lives was a direct result of this. Sarah and I were always trying to out-shine the other in our chosen fields and would not hesitate to rub in any victory we may have achieved. Even our contrasting appearances wore at odds with one another. Sarah began to dye her hair a paler shade of blonde, while I tinted my strands a darker hue.
Another key difference at this stage in our lives was our individual choice of friends. Sarah preferred the company of the more popular, if not less kind, girls at school, while I stuck with a closer-knit, less socially savvy bunch. My friends and I hated her crowd and we definitely bad-mouthed them behind their backs. And I am certain Sarah and her cronies did not have many pleasant words to say about us.
Sarah and I were getting more and more distant as middle school approached. Our differences at school caused extreme amounts of fighting on the home front. But before we could kill each other with our hair pulling, teeth gnashing brawls something happened that completely altered the sister-hating path we were barreling down at full speed: our parents got divorced and Sarah chose to reside with our father, while I stayed with our mother. And we attended separate high schools. This separation alleviated all of the contention between us because we were able to begin the lifelong process of discovering who we were as individuals. The “twin” labels no longer applied as we were free to become whatever we desired without having to out-do one another or fit into our predetermined twin molds. The bitter arguing stopped and we struck up a friendship.
Today my sister is the most important person in my life. I love her more than I ever thought possible and when I think back to the rocky road that led us here, I can only laugh at how silly and petty we both were then. We still have our moments, but it is a friendly sort of rivalry.

Siblings

*My twin, Sarah
*Older brother, Jack
*Growing up- separate identities
*Opposing through middle school, parts of high school
*Labeled
*Love her most of all
*Joy, family experiences
*Love
*Different. the same
*Fighting
*Shape who you are
*Dress alike as children
*Wish I could see Jack more
*Fraternal
*Bond
*Separate friends/scenes/interests
*Similiar friends/scenes/interests
*Childhood/adulthood

Tool Box Review of "Demolition"

I read a short story from The New Yorker entitled Demolition, about a young man and his affair with the much older town doctor, C. The tale spans the course of more than a decade and revolves around how this tryst shapes his life. As far a structure is concerned Demolition is relayed in first-person narrative by the nameless main character and told in chronological order. And there is a recurring theme throughout: death. The most obvious representation of the theme is the fact that He works at a cemetery for almost the entire duration of the story, his father passes away (of old age), and C's general contractor husband Ted is killed by bees. The more subtle representations are the eventual destruction of the home He and his father lived in and finally the end of his affair with C. Even the title of the work is indicative of death.
The voice of the piece is ironic, at times humorous, reflective. It is a kind of introspective flashback about the "unbearable weight of human sexual love."
The tone of the piece was intimate and real.
I don't have much to say about diction. The vocabulary was poetic; both simple and complex. The syntax was pretty standard.
I thoroughly enjoyed Demolition and I whole-heartedly recommend that anyone else read it.