Identify: In her short story Shift, Nalo Hopkinson combines detailed visual imagery and second-person narration. With this combination, she describes Caliban’s actions like the stage directions of a play. One example of the combination is when the golden girl transforms Caliban into different things:
“She takes your face in her hands, turns your eyes away from your mother’s. Finally, she kisses you full on the mouth. In her eyes, you become a sunflower, helplessly turning wherever she goes. You stand rooted waiting for her direction.
She looks at your terrible mother. ‘You get to clean up the messes he makes.’ And now you’re a baby, soiling your diapers and waiting for Mama to come and fix it. Oh, please, end this.
She looks down at you, wriggling and helpless on the ground. ‘And I guess all those other women saw big, black dick.’
So familiar, the change that wreaks on you. You’re an adult again, heavy-muscled and horny with a thick, swelling erection. You reach for her. She backs away” (147).
Contextualize: Throughout Shift, Caliban is trying to stay free from his overly-controlling mother, Sycorax. Sycorax is described as a white female and some type of sea monster all in one. She has “white people magic” (134) and tentacles that can immobilize living beings, meaning that she has the ability to fully control other people. Caliban, the favorite son of this monster, grew up confined by her, completely under her control. However, Caliban finally escapes from her captivity and is saved by his white “golden girl” (142). He falls in love with his savior, spending all of his time on land with her. Hopkinson continues writing Caliban’s actions with a second-person narrative as he walks with his girl through town, stating “you hold her hand tighter, reach to pull her warth closer to you” (141) and “quickly you lean and kiss the shoulder of the woman you’re with” (142). Caliban’s sister, Ariel, invisibly follows him through the town as well, commenting on how it is “going to be easy for [the golden girl] to change [Caliban] now that she melt him” (140). The second-person narrative of Caliban appears throughout the entire story, but the controlling energy it creates over his actions is particularly clear when Sycorax finally finds Caliban again and he is transformed by his golden girl.
Claim: Caliban’s ‘stage directions’ created by visual imagery and second-person narration portray the control white women have over him.
Explicate: When his golden girl turns his face away from Sycorax and kisses him, Caliban turns into a sunflower, “helplessly turning wherever she goes” (147). However, as golden girl’s perception of Caliban changes, he physically changes as well: “you’re a baby, soiling your diapers and waiting for Mama to come and fix it” and then “you’re adult again, heavy-muscled and horny with a thick, swelling erection” (147). The detailed visual imagery of Caliban turning into these completely different people and things emphasizes the utter lack of control he has over himself and the extreme control golden girl has over him. Furthermore, the utilization of second-person narration “you” sounds like Caliban is being told what to do, again emphasizing the full control golden girl has over who he is. Finally, Sycorax mentions how Caliban and his children were always products of whatever each of his white women had seen him as, creating “frog children and dog children, baby mack daddies and crack babies” (146). The control golden girl has over what Caliban becomes is similar to the control his other white women had over him, portraying the control white women have over him in general and the lack of control he has over himself. “‘I’, you say” (148).