Caricature: The hip-hop poser wants to get the naïve girls’ number (hint: "Everyone's a little bit racist")

“Sup, baby girl!”

“Hey, I love your bling-bling jewelry.” 

“You are really sweet, what’s your name?”

“Everyone in the streets calls me Busta, but you can call me Busta.”

“Oo, I feel special, why do they call you Busta?”

“Because I bust-a-lot of rhymes! Ha-ha, get it?”

“Oh my God, you are so funny!”

“What is your name?”

“I’m Chelsea, so who is your favorite hip hop artist?”

“Lil Wayne.”

“That is so cool! Yea he is such a good singer!”

“He got some mean grillz up on his face!”

“What’s that?”

“Gold teeth! Come on baby you’ve got to know the 411.”

“Oops, so what’s your favorite Lil Wayne Album?”

“Umm… I can’t remember right now.”

“Oh, I understand, I forget things all the time.”


“On the real, me too; my brainizzle is like not working, ya dig?”

“I do, you are so cool I like how you speak and dress. It definitely shows people that you 

are a hip-hop artist.”

“Thanks bay-bay, you cute!”

“Ha-ha thanks, you are too.” 

“Can I get yo digits?”

“Digits? Like my Social Security number?”

“Na boo, I mean your phone number. You gotta learn the way we hip-hop peeps talk.” 

“Oh, will you teach me?”

“For shizzle.”

Literary Presentation: Laughter

            In reading Mario Vargas Llosa’s, In Praise of the Stepmother, two instances of laughter are used to evoke sexual connotations. The first context of laughter is a malicious and perverted confrontation between a stepmother, and her stepson. The second is used to enhance the sexual activity performed by a husband and his step wife.

            In the first instance, the stepmother, Lucrecia is in a nightdress in her stepson, Fonchito’s room, thanking him for the birthday present he had left her. Fonchito returns the thanks, and embraces her. Lucrecia becomes awkward by the actions that her stepson gives to her. Freeing herself from his grasp, she tells him that he must go to bed, so that he would wake up early for school. He lets her go, stares at her and laughs, with an ecstatic look on his face. One can sense perversion provoked by the stepson’s embrace, and laughter, because even Lucrecia is hit by the sexual tension of Fonchito. Through the child’s laughter one can also sense the corruptive power of innocence in a sexual childish portrayal, which is relevant to the story because the genre is erotic-based.  

            In the second instance, Don Rigoberto and his step wife, Lucrecia are conversing about the fact that she went into her stepson’s room while only in her nightdress. He then jokes that his son, Fonchito, would have his first erotic dream because he had laid his eyes on her in her nightdress. Don Rigoberto and Lucrecia laugh. After, she pretends to slap him, beginning their foreplay activities. Through their laughter, one can sense the erotic arousal of their behaviors beginning to buildup. This text fits into the larger narrative in that it has an erotic tone and atmosphere to it, when the novel itself is based on physical love.

            There are two occurrences of laughter used to evoke sexual meanings in Llosa’s, In Praise of the Stepmother. The first provokes the corrupting power of innocence between a stepmother and her stepson. And the second is a starting point for a buildup leading to sexual activities between a husband, and his step wife. Llosa does an excellent job in using laughter in his text because it is both evoking and vivid in that the laughter allows a clear understanding of the tone of the literature.

                                               

Headline sketch- “U.S. ship repels attack by pirates”

“Shiver me timbers!” said captain pebbles as he spoke victoriously to his fellow pirate mates. “Look at this… we are on the landlubber’s newspaper… wait, I forgot you bunch of barnacle crusted slabs can’t read, anyway it says “U.S. ship repels attack by pirates.” Arg! What a bunch of fruitcakes, Ha-ha.” The captain rambles on about the fear of his enemy. He then changes his tone, and is no longer prideful; anger begins to fill his voice. “We could’ve taken em’ down, if it hadn’t have been for you sea legged pirates, we could have bull eyed them a broadside.” The captain continues to vent, scaring away his pet parrot. “Arg! Ye mates, next time we face these soft-bellied Americans, you guys better be on task because, if we paralyze their defenses, the treasure will be mine… I mean ours, for the taking! Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.” 

Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Imitation)

“In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, “tarried,” in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut; a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.” (Irving)

My imitation, My odd neighbor Katherine

           

            My neighbor Katherine is short, but slightly fat, with plump thighs and legs, hair that reaches all the way to Berlin, ears that could be mistaken for wings, and her whole body compressed together like that of a storage garage. Her head is large and eyes are microscopic, with long lashes, small bushy brown eye brows, and a small pudgy nose, which resembles that of a pig. On a chair in her porch she naps, her hair flutters whenever the wind blows. To see her riding a tiny tricycle, with her hair flying around her, one may confuse her for a mythical creature from a folk tale, or a vehicle gone haywire. Although she is chubby, and has features that seem almost abnormal, she has an angelic voice that can shame even a singing canary on a morning of a spring day.

Ice Cream Commandeering

“Hey can I get a hot fudge sundae? And could you make it like the poster out front.”

            “Umm… sure”

*Ring, Ring*

            “Hold on I have a phone call I will be with you in a second… Hello, yes this is John…Oh hey mother, how are you? That’s good to know… me I’m just here buying a hot fudge sundae. Ok mom I will save some for you when I get home… alright love you… What in God’s name! Mom ok yeah I really have to go bye. What the…What is that?” 

            “Sir it’s your hot fudge sundae”

            “I asked for it to look exactly like the poster out front”

            “What picture outside? Sir”

            “Don’t sir me, are you joking? Let me go get the poster… Here look at this, it’s a masterpiece, now compare it to yours… yeah I see no resemblance, in fact yours looks like the crap I took this morning… what did you do go to my house and steal my shit?”

            “Do you want me to give you a refund?”

            “I don’t want a fucking refund… here let me show you how it is done, excuse me let me go through”

            “Sir you are not allowed here”

            “I said excuse me”

            “Fine… do what ever you want”

            “Look what I’m doing… I am putting the poster right in front of me as a model for the artwork I will make, by creating an exact replica of the photo… let’s see… looks simple… 2 scoops of vanilla ice-cream placed exactly in the center of the cone… none of that lopsided turd you did… okay next you put the melted hot fudge all around the ice-cream exactly like the photo, see! The poster’s coming to life already! Then we add the whip cream on top… now before we do it we need to analyze the how whip scream swirls around the ice-cream, perfect it’s spiral, here we go… done! Wonderful! It’s perfect! And finally the last piece of the puzzle, the cherry on top! Ta-da, we are now finished! You see this is how you make a perfect hot fudge sundae… and look it’s like the poster came alive… isn’t it?”

“Are you serious…?  Ha-ha

I am definitely going to college and moving out of my parent’s house… I am not turning into an obsessive loser like you… you can have my apron, I quit” 

Sleep Presentation

            In Ambrose Bierce’s short story “A Horseman in the sky” he tells the story of a man named Carter Druse who wants to fight in the American civil war. Soon after, He kills a horseman who turns out to be his father. He introduces the story with a passage describing Carter as a soldier, who is asleep at his post of duty, not aware of the tragedy that awaits him in the end.

One sunny afternoon in the autumn of the year 1861 a soldier lay in a clump of

laurel by the side of a road in western Virginia. He lay at full length upon his

stomach, his feet resting upon the toes, his head upon the left forearm. His

extended right hand loosely grasped his rifle. But for the somewhat methodical

disposition of his limbs and a slight rhythmic movement of the cartridge-box at

the back of his belt he might have been thought to be dead. He was asleep at his

post of duty. But if detected he would be dead shortly afterward, death being the

just and legal penalty of his crime.

The clump of laurel in which the criminal lay was in the angle of a road which

after ascending southward a steep acclivity to that point turned sharply to the

west, running along the summit for perhaps one hundred yards. (Bierce 1).

            Bierce describes a scenario of a soldier laying in a clump of laurel, asleep at his post. He compares the sleeping soldier to a dead person. Bierce states how if the soldier were to be detected, he would receive the penalty of death, for no one is allowed to sleep while at their post of duty. After asserting the wrong of the soldier, the author refers to him as a criminal. Bierce exemplifies how self-indulgence can lead to a disruption of one’s duties, just as the soldier did with sleeping rather than serving his obligation. The act of sleep is also referred to as a crime because the man is a soldier who failed to do what his job required. This instance depicts a portrayal of vulnerability, for the soldier is unaware of the harm he is open to while sleeping, and thus failing to comply with his job’s standards.

Metaphor in lyrics “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel

“But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed

In the wells of silence”

In “The Sound of Silence,” Paul Simon compares his words to silent raindrops. In these couple of lines he uses a simile “But my words, like silent raindrops fell” and a metaphor “And echoed in the wells of silence.”

The first type of metaphor in these two lines is a simile.  Not only are raindrops refreshing, reviving, life giving, and fatal, but they make noise when they splash to the ground, something that does not happen when raindrops are silent.  The quote contains the words “fell” and “echoed” but clearly states they are silent.  This quote is a paradox because raindrops are not silent, especially when relating them to a loud echoing sound.  Silence connotes death, stillness, and isolation, something that is clearly presented in the quote above. The quote shows that the attempted spoken words are ignored and become silent and quiet.  However, to the speaker, the words are thundering and loud. This quote is a paradox but explains a difference in the way the speaker feels his words are interpreted by others.  Not only does this evoke the loneliness and longing for attention but the means of desperation for someone to hear him, even though his cries are silent. His words can also be life-giving or deadly because raindrops are drops of water and water gives life, but too much of it can be fatal.  


            The next metaphor, “the wells of silence,” directly compares “silence” to “wells.” Wells are water holes, abysses, sources of life, death and hope. In comparing “silence” to “wells,” Simon is saying that the silence is in an abyss vast with life and death.  Life begins and death ends it. The “silence” can be considered as the angel of death from the book of Exodus or the grim reaper, taking away the souls of people, causing death. When life keeps flourishing the angel of death will always be there to trim earth’s over abundance. The “well” is the planet earth, where life begins, sometimes wells are the main source of water to people which keeps them living here in earth, providing to the life cycle. Wells are portrayed many times as a source of hope of obtaining a dream, by being silent it crushes the dreams of all the people who depend on it.  When dreams are crushed, people lose their personality and hope of life. The well in this quote can mean the death not of life but of hope, being silent lets the well decide that no longer will people hope and no longer will voices be heard.