Share your literary essay with the rest of the students that chose this short story. Take some time to read 2 or 3 other essays. Comment on them. Your comment should be about something you noticed them doing well from our lessons. For example, "You did a really good job explaining your evidence."
“One Voice” is a story written by Melissa de la Cruz. The story all starts with this one person that is spraying graffiti on things to target people.
ReplyDeleteIt all starts with the white spray painted message on the sandstone bricks of Jordan Hall. There is someone that is trying to make you feel like an imposter, and targeting you for some odd reason. First class is starting soon, and these two friends are going to be lab partners in the class they have together. Their first class that they have with each other is Microbiology. In the lab that they are doing, they need to evaluate different water samples for bacteria. On Monday night after lab, the two friends watched a comedy that’s about three high school guys that are trying to get girls to go out with them.
In the story “Eraser Tattoo” by Jason Reynolds, There are two main characters Dante and Shay who are dating and have been for awhile now. Shay is moving away to North Carolina. She doesn't want her boyfriend Dante to forget her. Then Shay came up with an idea to give him an eraser tattoo. So the say she was moving Dante came to her soon to be old house to get the eraser tattoo.
ReplyDeleteThis is where the story starts, throughout the story I noticed something about the was Shay acted it might have been because she was moving, but we don't know if she had always been like that we don't know if that is how the relationship have always been but from what i read the way she acted which was kinda rude and bossy led to what I believe is the theme. I believe the theme is just because you love someone doesn't mean they love you.
One of the things that happened in the story to help show the theme was character actions. The first character action i noticed was when Dante asked Shay why he couldn't give her an eraser tattoo her response was simple two reasons I can't risk getting some kind of nasty eraser infection and my dad would kill you marking me, that was just a summary of what she said. To put it differently if you really care about someone and love them, wouldn't you be scared if they would have some nasty eraser infection?
Next action that helps prove the theme is how demanding Shay was toward Dante we don't know if that's just how Shay is or not like I said earlier, but it seemed a little rude to me. She told Dante to not try and get out of it, she had to know it would hurt. When she was about to give him the eraser tattoo all she said was “gimme your arm”.
Another thing that helps show the theme is dialogue like I said earlier the way the acted and talked showed the theme. I showed some evidence from the text which helped show her actions. The first dialogue from the text that helped showed the theme of the short story was when Dante said to Shay “I love you” Shays reply was “ no doubt homie”. He just went through so much pain to get the eraser tattoo for her. I feel that Shay could at least say I love you back to Dante. Earlier before that happened Shay told Dante “what if we break up” my question is why would her mine even go there? If you really love and care about someone why would that even cross her mind?
The last thing I noticed was figurative language that helps to show the theme that I found was when Dante said Shays dad loved him and Shay said “ “ um… love is a strong word he likes you. Sometimes but he loves me” Shay pushed her finger into her own sternum like pushing a button to turn her heart on and off”. This shows how self centered and cocky she is by talking about how much her dad loves her. Words right from the story when Shay was saying how her dad loves her Dante said “ “not like I do” Dante let those words slip from his lips effortlessly, like breathing” that was another example of figurative language that shows the theme. The reason i believe what Dante said how's the theme is because Shay went off on him about her dad loving her and being very cocky and he still loves her how he said that he loved her more than her dad so confidently and effortlessly shows how he might care about Shay more than she loves him.
In the book “ One Voice '' by Melissa de la Cruz. It takes place at Stanford University. It is a short story. The main character is Jasmine. She is from the Philippines jasmine comes to the U.S. illegally. Jasmine came to Stanford one day and after a couple of days, she was walking to the hall and saw the graffiti on the wall. This graffiti really affects her. The author uses this main problem to teach us that racism and hate is everywhere even when you least expect it. The whole story is about racism and how this affects Jasmine. She feels like she is getting targeted because she's not from where everybody is from. Jasmine later gets a ton of hate because `when jasmine first comes to Stanford she always said that she didn’t fit in.
ReplyDeleteJasmine ends up meeting a girl named yen-yen and Nate. Jasmine had her boyfriend named Royce by her side for most of it. When jasmine sees the graffiti she was mad to see it but wanted the truth to be told. She quotes “I had seen the hate scrawled on the wall.'' The author uses this quote to explain that she couldn’t get the picture out of her head and Royce didn’t really seem to care a lot. Jasmine knew that she had been targeted for thi and so did yen-yen. Jasmine quotes “ Stanford was a kind of home. But graffiti had disturbed me in a way I hadn't expected.” To point out that Jasmine was targeted but she didn’t expect it to impact her as much as it did. Jasmine said that every time she passed through the hall she felt like she was being watched and she couldn’t get that out of her head. Jasmine felt like it wasn’t just her being watched.
“Words matter just as much as action”. Jasmine was meaning that your actions can really affect and hurt people. Words can hurt just as bad as actions with the graffiti really affected her and they were words but they hurt her just as bad as actions would. Everybody was just acting like nothing happened. “ everyone pretends to be scandalized but people say racist stuff all the time. It’s just out in the open now. You think anyone is going to do anything about it, heck no!”Jasmine knows that people recognize it but nobody's going to do anything about it. Jasmine has noticed that graffiti has hurt a lot of people but the people it didn’t hurt they don’t care. “ They might only be letters on a wall but I feel like the graffiti claimed my mental space.” Such as the words on the walls hoed the truth and it helped show the world the truth. It made people understand it but also the people that it targeted to help them understand. The author uses a lot of imagery in the story. Jasmine says “ I saw them power washing the paint off on the wall on my way here give it a day or two and everybody will forget.” Jasmine is very worried that everyone will forget about it. She later says that she is happy that they are taking it down but wants people to see the truth.
In the ending jasmine realized that she had to have her own voice. Jasmine lashed out on Royce to later realize that the graffiti was just someone trying to express themselves. Jasmine let the graffiti go into her heart and change her to realize that the people are trying to be one voice. Jasmine had the one voice to speak. She couldn’t speak for other people she had to speak for herself. -sienna
"One Voice" is a short story about students that get treated differently because of their race. I believe the theme of this short story is that racism is everywhere. I will support this claim using the setting, the dialogue between the characters,and figurative language. I will also have a counter argument that contradicts the theme.
ReplyDeleteFirst off we have the setting. The short story takes place at Stanford University, where there is supposed to be no racism. Basically a safe haven for people of different races. But that rule clearly isn’t enforced enough because there is racism around the entire campus. One of the more talked about ones is the one done on Julia Higgins, an African American track star that placed third in the eight-hundred meter race at the NCAA Championships. Her car got completely covered in graffiti with racial slurs. To add on to the damage insurance doesn’t pay to get rid of the graffiti and fix the damage done to her car. There were also many other cases of graffiti like the one at Jordan Hall which had a big middle finger with a racial slur below it. To conclude the claim that racism is everywhere fits very well in a supposedly racism-free campus.
Second, I’m going to talk about the dialogue. The dialogue between Jasmine and Royce tells us they are very close and really do care about each other, but when they start talking about racism things tend to get a little heated because Jasmine is Asian. Jasmine said that Royce was lucky (Royce is half Mexican), because he looks like a white-boy even though he’s not. Now some people think that the theme for this short story is that one lone voice can make a difference just because of the dialogue between the characters, but I support both sides. I think both of these themes fit very well. I kind of see it as a tie. All in all I hope my description of the dialogue helps you take your side.
Third, I'm going to talk about figurative language used in the story. At first Stanford seems like a hopeful place, one of the few racism-free areas in the US at the time, but then the story reveals it’s completely different by using a lot of imagery and a few similes. The imagery is used to help us imagine how people like Julia Higgins saw her car, and the imagery used help us imagine the offensive picture on Jordan Hall is just perfect. “The white spray-painted message glowed on the sandstone bricks of Jordan Hall. You couldn’t even miss it if you wanted to.” This strong imagery helps create the theme I believe it is because the story literally says that you couldn’t miss the graffiti if you wanted to. Altogether I believe the imagery used helps you see that racism is inescapable.
To conclude, the theme shines out through the use of the setting, the use of dialogue, and the figurative language.
ReplyDelete“One Voice'' is a short story by Melissa de la Cruz that takes place in Stanford, California. The short story is mainly about this girl named Jasmine, the main character and she gets really upset and offended when she notices this shocking message on the bricks of the college that she attends, Jordan Hall. The people that spray-painted this absurd racist message on Jordan Hall didn’t seem to think about how they would feel if this happened to them. The author is trying to show that people need to consider other people's feelings.
When Jasmine first notices his message she is very shocked. She tried very hard to attend this college and this is just not something she was expecting. Melissa de la Cruz states “The white spray-painted message glowed on the sandstone bricks of Jordan Hall. Couldn’t miss it even if I wanted to. A big middle finger and a particularly shocking phrase smack in the middle of my Monday morning,” The author uses this imagery to try and explain to the reader what the character is seeing.
The author also uses a simile to try and get the point across about considering others' feelings. Melissa de la Cruz gives an example of how Jasmine was feeling when she saw the spray-painted brick wall “even at what you thought was your prestigious cosmopolitan university, the one you had worked so hard to attend- someone will try to make you feel like you’re an imposter.” This shows that before the main character noticed this she felt very proud that she attends this “amazing” college until she sees this horrible message. This could be interpreted as racism is everywhere or acceptance but it clearly means consider other people's feelings because it says make you feel like an imposter, notice the word feel. Although the people who have done this to the brick wall are hurting people's feelings without considering how it would make them feel if it happened to them. We don’t know why they are doing this, it could be just to hurt someone or maybe they just want attention.
However, you shouldn't be giving them that attention because then they realize that they got attention from doing that and then they will continue. Speaking of attention, the author includes a very strong piece of characterization where she includes Jasmine's thoughts “I felt sick to my stomach. Everyone was so concerned with who committed these crimes, but no one seemed to care much about the targets.” This author includes this piece to show how the targets were feeling.
Another piece of this short story specifically shows not only how the targets are feeling but how this graffiti affected Jasmine. “But the graffiti had disturbed me in a way I hadn’t expected.” IN addition to using character thoughts to show the theme Melissa de la Cruz also used dialog.
The author used this dialog to show how the graffiti affected Jasmine in a deeper aspect. She included this “They might only be letters on a wall, but I feel like the graffiti claimed my mental space.” She feels as if this graffiti is taking the good out of her day and that those words are putting her down. She believes that those “letters on a wall” claimed her mental space. On the other hand, her boyfriend has a different view of words or letters.
Royce, Jasmine's boyfriend believes that words aren’t a big deal. In the short story, he says “They're words. That’s all. No one is going to hurt anyone.” However Jasmine feels very differently about words, she views them as very strong. So she echoed Royce back, “They’re words?” “Where do you think violence starts?”
ReplyDeleteAs you can see Royce is just trying to make her feel better, yet Jasmine wants him to understand other people's feelings she says, “I don't want you to make me feel better. I want you to understand how students of color are feeling.” She just wants him to consider how she feels.
In the end “One Voice” is trying to teach people to consider people's feelings. The strongest area that "One Voice" shows this is where Jasmine said, “They might only be letters on a wall, but I feel like the graffiti claimed my mental space.” As human beings, we should all treat others kindly and not just do stuff and say stuff because we think it’s fine, because maybe to others it’s not fine.
“One Voice” is a short story by Melissa de la Cruz that takes place at Stanford University. Throughout the story, two incidents with racist hate graffiti occur, but the main focus is on the reaction of Jasmine, an Asian transfer student, to these incidents. The author uses this to emphasize the impact the words in the graffiti had on Jasmine, and demonstrate the idea that actions speak just as loudly as words.
ReplyDeleteWhen the first incident with the graffiti occurs, it only adds to the worries about being at Stanford that Jasmine has, her insecurities. She described the graffiti at the beginning of the story as a reminder that “...even at what you thought was your prestigious cosmopolitan university, the one you had worked so hard to attend - someone will try to make you feel like you’re an imposter.” It could be argued that this could support a theme of racism, but the plot revolves more around the effect of words themselves, and less on racism. Throughout the story, it caused her to think and dwell on things. For example, the morality of going to a protest at the university to finally speak her mind. This shows the theme by showing that the words not only in the graffiti, but also generally circulating the university affected Jasmine just as much as any actions could.
During an argument between Jasmine and her boyfriend, Royce, Jasmine tries to explain the effect she felt the graffiti had on her. However, Royce, not truly understanding her pain, states “They’re words. That’s all. No one is going to hurt anyone.” Angered that Royce doesn’t understand what she’s going through, Jasmine echoes him, trying to make him understand why he’s wrong. “They’re words? … Where do you think violence starts?” This reflects the theme because Jasmine implies that words can be used just as violently as any weapon.
During Royce and Jasmine’s argument, the words that were said affected both of them just as much as actions could. Throughout the argument, the author puts an emphasis on how the words made Jasmine feel, supporting the statement made by her earlier in the story that “Words matter as much as actions.”
One voice
ReplyDelete¨One voice” By melissa de la cruz is a short story about a girl named Jasmine who Gets deeply affected by racism and no one around her seems to care around her. At Stanford ,the school where Jasmine goes to, one of the main walls was vandalized. I think The vandalizm could show that no one is paying attention but I think it is mostly how racism is affecting people. I think the theme is how racism is affecting people. Julia higgins is also very targeted in this story but she is not the only one being personally affected.
Julia is a track star for stanford and has already placed 3rd place in the 800 meter dash at the NCAA championships. She was just a normal person whose car got spray painted because of her race. What makes it worse is that some people were even posting it on social media before she even knew about it. On top of that she is thinking about dropping out of college because she feels targeted.
Jasmine was really concerned about all vandalism because nobody knows who and why someone is doing this to their school. Stanford even had a hate speech about everything that was happening. But I don’t think the hate speech worked because some people were making fun of the speech. Jasmine didn't understand why people were making fun of the speech when she feels so unsafe.
Jasmine was so upset that the school washed the spray paint /vandalism off almost right away. She was upset because she wanted more people to see it almost as a reminder that racism is affecting
The Dialogue in this story is a really good example of how racism is affecting people. For instance the conversation with Jasmine and her boyfriend (Royce). He kept saying things like “Why are you making such a big deal about this.” Her boyfriend was really unsupportive to her.
Royce was acting so badly to her that she questioned that they were even talking about the same graffiti. At the end of their fight I think he made it way worse, because he leaned into give her a hug, when she was clearly upset. Like yeah a hug is gonna make what he said just go away.
The setting made everything set in place. The entire story starts off because someone spray painted something cruel. Jasmine said something very concerning to royce in their fight. She asked him if he would feel safe walking alone at night. Because she wouldn't, she said that she would feel so nervous and anxious to get to where she was going. She said she would even make a plan incase anything ever did happen to her. Because she feels targeted.
On page 144 jasmine is shown in a very angry way. But I feel like she has a right to be angry about it. Jasmine has even been lashing out on Royce but I think if that happened to you, you would lash out on someone so unsupportive too. And just failing to understand her feelings right now. Just think of all she has been through, she made a huge move, she worked very hard to go to stanford and now someone is targeting innocent people. Royce even apologized but Jasmine stormed away. She felt so powerless like so many other people in the story, they all felt like one small voice in one big world. However she realized that “ We’re only one voice when we want to be.” She realized that she could make a change if she worked to end racism.
“One Voice,” a short story by Melissa de la Cruz is about a filipino college girl named Jasmine that is going to Stanford. She feels unsettled and angry when she wakes up to a big middle finger and a racial slur graffitied on one of the main halls at her campus, especially because Stanford is known to be very tolerant and prestigious. The author uses literary elements in the text to teach readers that racism is not just i small towns, but is universal and hurts many people even in places as renowned as Stanford.
ReplyDeleteOne of the first ways Melissa de la Crus expresses this theme in her story is through dialogue.In one section of the story Jasmine says “Words matter as much as actions. They may only be letters on a wall, but I feel like they claimed my mental space.” This piece of dialogue shows that Jasmine is very consumed by the hateful message on the wall. She feels terrified by the potential threat it may be to herself, friends, and family.
Another piece of dialogue from the text was “It’s not something I was expecting around her. Its wild how one thing like that can make you feel so unsafe.” Once again, this chunk of dialogue means that she is very hurt by the note. Jasmine is also extremely concerned for the wellbeing of her relatives.
Another way that the story reveals the theme is through the setting. “I wanted to see the truth - that even Stanford wasn’t free from this kind of hate.” That excerpt from the text is saying that even one the most prestigious universities in the nation even experiences racial descrimination. It really shows that racism can be found anywhere in the world.
The last way the author created theme in her story is through figurative language. One snippet from the story was “They’re words. Thats all no one is going to hurt anyone. They’re words. Where do you think violence starts?” This piece of evidence really drills the theme into the readers head. By repeating “They’re Words” It shows that Jasmine isn’t going to let this incident go away. She is stating that it really bothers her and she wants something done to stop the hate. She wants to use her voice to scare away the creator of the intimidating remark on the wall. Although many argue that this quote is finding your voice, but it really means that she is fed up with the racist comment and wants it to come to an end.
Another figurative language from the short story is “Stanford was a kind of home.” This last piece of evidence from the text firmly states that she thought of Stand as home-like. She even thought nothing like this could ever happen at such a wonderful place. It goes to show that racism is becoming inevitable.
All in all, Mellisa de la Cruz included many key parts in her story to develope the theme. Due to these factors the reader was able to understand that the theme is racism can happen anywhere and can affect hundreds of people. Without the use of dialogue, setting, and figurative language, many readers could potentially be clueless and confused when trying to discover the theme.
“One voice” is a short story by Melissa De La Cruz that tells a story about a Stanford student on campus. The short story revolves mentally and physically around a girl named Jasmine. Jasmine's ethnicity is philpeano an this story takes us through how she struggles when racial stunts are put on throughout the school. The author uses her feeling and daily life occurrences going through this as a way to teach us about how much words can really mean; words can speak just as much as actions.
ReplyDeleteThis story starts off when Jasmine is telling us about a racial stunt. The racial stunt was graffiti that was put in a place where most of Jasmine’s classes are. While days passed she can’t get those words out of her head and this is where we start seeing her mindset changing. Later on in the story these two girls are conversing about a track star Julia Higgins and how her car got spray painted with racial slurs on it. Jasmine happens to over hear this and it brings back all of that change that we saw after the graffitti back again.
After those two girls had their conversation she also starts questioning how and why people try to protect her. For example, Royce her boyfriend and her went to the gym. They pass these guys that say “Look at that hot asian chick” and They’re too stuck-up to go out with me.” After there done royce tries to comfort her and then she says “do you even know what it's like to be a minority…” “so you don’t even know how sometimes you just want to hide and blend in, be one of the crowd.
Although it could be argued that the text supports the theme racism that occurs around the world, the text is actually showing how she is deeply affected by those words and how much the words really mean to her .
Another thing that Melissa de la cruz uses to show the theme is characters dialogue to each other. For example, Jasmine is in her microbiology class and Jasmine and her friends are talking about the wall graffiti. While there talking Jasmine says “Words mater just as much as actions” “They might just be letters on a wall, but I feel like the graffiti claimed my mental space” Another example of this is when Jasmine and Royce are in one of their dorms watching a movie and Jasmine says “ I can’t get the miage out of my head. I feel like someone is watching me everytime I walk through the quad.” This makes it feel like she does not feel safe in her environment because of how these words make her feel.
What also plays a key point in this story is the figurative language that Melissa De La Cruz uses. When it comes to Jasmine’s thoughts and dialogue imagery is used often. For example at the end of the story Melissa put down “ It occurred to me, as if a letter slowly slipped through the sky, down past the stars, through the dark, and fell into my hands, the words glistening there like their own kind graffiti scrawled across my heart.” Melissa also uses repetition to bring out the key ideas throughout the story. One time she does this is when Jasmine and Royce are in their dorm and they get into an argument, and Royce yells “They’re words. That's all. No one is going to hurt anyone. Then she replied by saying “They’re words?” “Where do you think violence starts” This supports the theme of words mean just as much as actions
At the end Jasmine finally understands her feelings and comes to a resolution with herself. She finally feels like she has a voice when people come together and she could find it because she had the confidence to find it. She is no longer mentally attached to the graffiti and she feels as if she got a fresh new start and Stanford.
“One Voice” is a short story by Melissa de la Cruz. “One Voice” is about an immigrant girl named Jasmine who goes to school at Stanford. Jasmine has dealt with racism her whole life. She thought once she got to Stanford it would, but it didn’t. Jasmine is dating a white guy who has everything. She wants him to help her more, but he hasn’t gone through anything like this. He doesn’t know how to help her. The author uses Jasmine’s story to teach us that racism is everywhere.
ReplyDeleteWhen Jasmine goes to Stanford she thinks that she will get away from all the hate and racism, but she doesn’t. Stanford is such a prestigious school that, that kind of thing doesn’t happen a lot there. It doesn’t help that Jasmine’s parents aren’t documented so she can’t bring a lot of attention to her parents.
Another girl, Julia Higgins, from her college was attacked in a racist as well. Jasmine was from the Phillipines and Julia Higgins was African American. Julia’s car got spray painted all over with racial slurs.
Julie Higgins is a really well known track star. She placed third in an 800 meter race at the NCAA Championships as a Sophomore. Everybody thought that it was just an ex-boyfriend thing because some of them hate her. Julia is so famous that it could’ve been anybody that has a grudge against her.
This could be interpreted as racism hurts a lot of people but it clearly shows racism is everywhere because Julie Higgins didn’t think she would get attacked, especially at Stanford, but she still does though.
Character thoughts play a big part in this story since we see it from Jasmine’s perspective and get her thoughts. Throughout the story, Jasmine never feels safe and is always questioning why the school didn’t do more than they did.
“It took nearly an entire day for the university administration to respond to the two campus incidents.” This quote from the story shows that Jasmin doesn’t think the school took action soon enough and that they didn’t do enough.
ReplyDelete“My mind wasn’t on the movie.” This is something Jasmin thought about while on a date night with her boyfriend. This quote shows that Jasmine can’t take her mind off the graffiti no matter where she is and who she is with.
“We’re at Stanford.” This is something that Jasmine’s boyfriend said. This shows that no one thought that anything bad would happen because of where they were. Royce is Jasmine’s boyfriend.
Melissa de la Crus doesn’t use to much figurative language but there is a few in some important parts. “I nearly dropped a chunk of Pineapple into the giant serving bowl of strawberry yogurt.” She wrote this right by the part where Jasmine first finds out about someone attacking Julia. She used a lot of descriptive words. This is a form of imagery. This is a very important part of the story because Jasmine is first finding out about Julia.
“Stanford was a kind of home.” This is a metaphor. She used this to let the reader know that everybody felt safe and comfortable at Stanford until the racist attacks happened.
“One Voice” is a really inspirational story. It teaches you not to be racist and teaches you that racism affects everybody. She also portrays that racism happens everywhere.
“One Voice” is a story written by Melissa de la Cruz. The story focuses on a college student named Jasmin, she is a person of color so things always aren’t the easiest for her. One day somebody decided to vandalize Jordan Hall(psychology building). The author wrote this story to show us that racial discrimination is happening everywhere. The theme is shown by using the setting, symbolism, and figurative language.
ReplyDeleteThe setting is at Stanford in California. Stanford is the 6th best college in the nation. The author purposely makes the setting at Stanford because everyone thinks its a safe place. Some say Stanford is like a second home for them but not for Jasmin. The graffiti has made her feel threatened for her safety.
Jasmin and others know it was just graffiti but they think it could turn into something bigger. While Jasmin and her boyfriend were watching a movie she brought up the graffiti. Royce her boyfriend said, “ They’re words. That’s all. No one is going to hurt anyone.” Jasmin echoed in disbelief, “They’re words? Where do you think violence starts?”
“One Voice” is a short story by Mellisa de la Cruz. It takes place at Stanford University in California. The story stars a character named Jasmine. Jasmine is an immigrant who came from the Philippines with her family. While in school at Stanford, which she worked very hard to get to, many racist acts and commets have been made about her and other non-white students. I feel like the author wrote a story like this to show us how; Racism is everywhere, even where you would least expect it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the ways the author shows us this is through the plot of the story. At the beginning of the story, it opened up with a spray painted message on a wall in the main hallway called Jordan Hall. The spray paint was described as, “ a big middle finger with a particularly shocking phrase smack in the middle of my monday morning.”At first you would think that this is a normal hat mural, but the next paragraphs explain how the other immigrated students felt hurt by the message also.
Later in the story, it talks about how the school officials were just power washing the message off, instead of addressing it as an issue. Which hurt Jasmine’s friend Yen-Yen bad. Making jasmine think that the school is just trying to erase the message like nothing happened.
Another way the author tried showing us the theme is through the dialogue between the characters. Towards the beginning of the story, jasmine and nate were talking, and nate was saying how, “Everyone pretends to be scandalized all the time, but people say racist shit all the time. You think anyone will do anything about it? Hell no.” Nate saying this makes it seem as if it’s normal there at stanford for this racist stuff to happen. Later in the story, while Jasmine isi talking to Royce, she was ranting about how,”words matter as much as actions, they might just be letters on a wall, but that graffiti has claimed my mental space.”
I feel like the author included these specific conversations because they are trying to show us how, this theme really fits into the dialogue of the story too. And how it also tells you what it can do to people, not just a person.
One last way the author tried to show us the theme in the short story was through figurative language. There are many spots of imagery, metaphors, similes in the short story, but I have two examples of imagery that really help exaggerate that theme. In the story, when we are introduced to Yen-Yen, we learned that Yen-Yen gets hurt very easily by describing in the text how she was crying because that, “she had seen the photo of hate scrawled on the wall.” I know this isn’t the best evidence but if you look at other imagery points in the book you’ll realise the scrawled photo can be more vivid in your imagination than the other points. Later in the story when jasmine and royce are conversing with each other, Jasmine states how she can’t feel safe walking alone even on campus, “I would have been tracking each one of those blue emergency phones across the quad.” I believe the author put that statement in the story to really try to get us to understand how, with all the events happening, she has to remember and track every emergency phone across a campus which should be safe.
At the end of the short story, the author tells us jasmines thoughts while she lay, under the night stars, “It occurred to me as if a letter slowly slipped through the sky, down past the stars, through the dark, and fell right into my hands, the words glistling there like their own kind of graffiti scrawled across my heart: were one voice when we want to be.”
I feel like the author put that at the end to tell us how we can overcome things like racism, Because like Jasmine thought, “Were one voice when we want to be.”
In my short story “One Voice” by Melissa de la Cruz, it shows how racism is everywhere, even where it’s totally unexpected, which also happens to be the theme of the story.
ReplyDeleteThis took place at Stanford University, a private university in Stanford, California. Racism is highly unexpected here, according to students and professors. In about every section of the university, school area and dorm rooms, there is either a racial slur or a discriminating slur, and in this case is directly appointed to Jasmine. What happened to Jasmine is a perfect example of how racism happens everywhere.
The dialogue in the story isn’t really intense unless you think about it really hard. Here is some of the dialogue used: “It’s so awful.” “Everyone pretends to be scandalized but people say racist stuff all the time.” “It wasn’t something I was expecting to see around here.” “Words matter as much as actions.” Clearly this is referring to Jasmine’s incident, and how people are supposedly affected.
The figurative language in this story literally makes no sense at all, but it does relate to the story. There were a few metaphors and one time where there was repetition. Some of the metaphors were “Stanford was a kind of home.” “Stanford wasn’t free from this kind of hate.” They’re really just saying they did feel safe, but no really anymore. The repetition that was used was “They’re words. They’re words.” Jasmine is trying to think that the racial graffiti is just words, nothing more, which is definitely hard to believe sometimes.
After all, Jasmine realizes that racism is everywhere, even where it’s totally unexpected. How can you make a change in our world referring to racial discrimination? How would you feel if racial slurs were targeted at you?
In my short story “One Voice” by Melissa de la Cruz, it shows how racism is everywhere, even where it’s totally unexpected, which also happens to be the theme of the story.
ReplyDeleteThis took place at Stanford University, a private university in Stanford, California. Racism is highly unexpected here, according to students and professors. In about every section of the university, school area and dorm rooms, there is either a racial slur or a discriminating slur, and in this case is directly appointed to Jasmine. What happened to Jasmine is a perfect example of how racism happens everywhere.
The dialogue in the story isn’t really intense unless you think about it really hard. Here is some of the dialogue used: “It’s so awful.” “Everyone pretends to be scandalized but people say racist stuff all the time.” “It wasn’t something I was expecting to see around here.” “Words matter as much as actions.” Clearly this is referring to Jasmine’s incident, and how people are supposedly affected.
The figurative language in this story literally makes no sense at all, but it does relate to the story. There were a few metaphors and one time where there was repetition. Some of the metaphors were “Stanford was a kind of home.” “Stanford wasn’t free from this kind of hate.” They’re really just saying they did feel safe, but no really anymore. The repetition that was used was “They’re words. They’re words.” Jasmine is trying to think that the racial graffiti is just words, nothing more, which is definitely hard to believe sometimes.
After all, Jasmine realizes that racism is everywhere, even where it’s totally unexpected. How can you make a change in our world referring to racial discrimination? How would you feel if racial slurs were targeted at you?