Literature Core (1080-01 S2022)
The first thing that is noticed when reading Gorilla, My Love is the use of nicknames for almost every character in the story. Peaches/Precious, Baby Jason, Big Brood, and Hunca Bubba to name some, are nicknames for the main character, Hazel, and her close family. All these characters are on the younger side, save for…
“Heads of Colored People”, by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, features use of imagery to further the central theme. This is specifically used on page 13 in describing the image the Associated Press used for Riley after his death. Riley had been wearing “an oversize blue shirt and a bedazzled bandana over cornrows” in a social media post,…
Cultural traditions appear evidently in Nalo Hopkinson’s “Shift.” Although Hopkinson does not follow the traditions exactly, she is still able to stay loyal and represent her culture effectively. She raises themes and questions focusing on racial and cultural contrasts. Specifically, the protagonist Caliban is derived from William Shakespeare’s English work and reclaiming it in the…
In the text Heads of the colored people by Nafissa Thompson Spires, a formal textual element visible was when the journal was showing a picture of Riley with cornrows at a throwback party, as well as a mugshot of Brother Man explaining a crime he committed five years ago after their death. Riley’s mother and…
In Nalo Hopkinson’s short story “Shift”, the author utilizes the juxtaposition of Ariel’s and Caliban’s diction to emphasize the contrast between their perspectives on their shared heritage. The narrative continuously switches accounts from Caliban’s second person view to Ariel’s first person view until the two characters come into conflict and share direct dialogue. In protest…
In Nalo Hopkinson’s short story “Shift”, She uses pronouns as a way to express the idea that Caliban does not truly know who he is. When referring to Caliban, she always refers to him as “you” regardless of who is speaking. This only changes in the last sentence of the story when she says, “You…
In Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, the formal textual element visible that is the most impactful is the use of references. At the very beginning of the story, the author mentions Drake and Fetty Wap as a way to show that the main character, Riley, was not “self-hating” or against black people…
Please submit ONE and ONLY ONE check-in per group. You may email me your responses directly as a Word document, but I encourage you to post your project check-ins to the class site.* Doing so facilitates the feedback loop and also allows you to get a sense of how other groups are tackling similar or…