{"id":1407,"date":"2022-05-09T19:45:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T19:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/?p=1407"},"modified":"2022-05-09T19:45:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T19:45:00","slug":"icce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/2022\/05\/09\/icce\/","title":{"rendered":"ICCE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Identify: In her short story Shift<\/em>, Nalo Hopkinson combines detailed visual imagery and second-person narration. With this combination, she describes Caliban\u2019s actions like the stage directions of a play. One example of the combination is when the golden girl transforms Caliban into different things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe takes your face in her hands, turns your eyes away from your mother\u2019s. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She looks at your terrible mother. \u2018You get to clean up the messes he makes.\u2019 And now you\u2019re a baby, soiling your diapers and waiting for Mama to come and fix it. Oh, please, end this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She looks down at you, wriggling and helpless on the ground. \u2018And I guess all those other women saw big, black dick.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So familiar, the change that wreaks on you. You\u2019re an adult again, heavy-muscled and horny with a thick, swelling erection. You reach for her. She backs away\u201d (147).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contextualize: Throughout Shift<\/em>, 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.\u00a0 She has \u201cwhite people magic\u201d (134) and tentacles that can immobilize living beings, meaning that she has the ability to fully control other people.\u00a0 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 \u201cgolden girl\u201d (142).\u00a0 He falls in love with his savior, spending all of his time on land with her.\u00a0 Hopkinson continues writing Caliban\u2019s actions with a second-person narrative as he walks with his girl through town, stating \u201cyou hold her hand tighter, reach to pull her warth closer to you\u201d (141) and \u201cquickly you lean and kiss the shoulder of the woman you\u2019re with\u201d (142). Caliban\u2019s sister, Ariel, invisibly follows him through the town as well, commenting on how it is \u201cgoing to be easy for [the golden girl] to change [Caliban] now that she melt him\u201d (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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claim: Caliban\u2019s \u2018stage directions\u2019 created by visual imagery and second-person narration portray the control white women have over him.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explicate: When his golden girl turns his face away from Sycorax and kisses him, Caliban turns into a sunflower, \u201chelplessly turning wherever she goes\u201d (147).\u00a0 However, as golden girl\u2019s perception of Caliban changes, he physically changes as well: \u201cyou\u2019re a baby, soiling your diapers and waiting for Mama to come and fix it\u201d and then \u201cyou\u2019re adult again, heavy-muscled and horny with a thick, swelling erection\u201d (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 \u201cyou\u201d 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 \u201cfrog children and dog children, baby mack daddies and crack babies\u201d (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. \u201c\u2018I\u2019, you say\u201d (148).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Identify: In her short story Shift, Nalo Hopkinson combines detailed visual imagery and second-person narration. With this combination, she describes Caliban\u2019s actions like the stage directions of a play. One example of the combination is when the golden girl transforms Caliban into different things: \u201cShe takes your face in her hands, turns your eyes away…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-icce-post","category-post-group-g"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bc.edu\/uncommonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}