Literature Core (1080-01 S2022)
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…
In the short story “Brownies,” by ZZ Packer there is a strong sense of disconnect between the troop of black girls and the white girls in Troop 909. Based on this quote from page 5, “When you live in the south suburbs of Atlanta, it is easy to forget about whites. Whites were like those…
Irony is used in the text as a way to demonstrate how immature and superficial the Brownie troop of fourth graders are. Many of the girls present lack of intelligence by attempting to overcompensate for this trait. Arnetta and Octavia take pride in saying three syllabled words such as chihuahua and Caucasian, despite not being…
Ice Post / Shift / Jordan Rose In Nalo Hopkinson’s short story “Shift”, the author uses how Caliban’s perception of interracial relationships to help readers understand the concept of Identity explored by the line said by Golden Girl, “Who do you think you are?” (147). Throughout the story Caliban, a black male, is seen with a…
Nalo Hopkinson uses the characters of Caliban, Ariel, and Sycorax from Shakespeare’s The Tempest to portray the central themes of heritage and cultural identity in her short story, Shift. However, while in the original play Caliban is enslaved by Prospero, a man who was exiled to Caliban’s island and forced him into servitude, Hopkinson chooses…
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 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…