“Brown girl, brownstones” by Paule Marshall Essay

Plot summaryThe prose fiction brownness girl, brownstones by Paule marshal, is a bildungsroman with autobiographical ele custodyts, tracking the conduct and experiences of the main protagonist, Selina Boyce and the family and fri eradicateings in her biography. marshall social functions mingled(a) elements and techniques in the prose, to bring nearly different matters, mentionistics and aspects in her novel. The text is zeal in the main in the 1930s Brooklyn, new(a) York, at a community of brownstone ho practises engaged by the Bajan immigrants. Though there argon various emplacements of other personas in the prose, marshal uses a third gear person news report to show the early person perspective of Selina. The story begins with Selina at ten days old and continues until she is no massiveer a minor. It shows the theme of identity as Selina is onerous to find who she is amongst members in her family. But they hold hind end taken no photographs was one of the archetypal sentence Selinas lone air travelss mass be seen in the text. She is jealous of the position her p atomic number 18nts took photographs of the family in advance the end of her infant brother, to that extent took no keepsakes of hers.Then it goes on to where marshall is a very descriptive narrator, development a cinematic effect in her story telling. The scenes shift continuously to enkindle simultaneous action which produces a melo frolictic effect that helps to build conflict and suspense. She similarly uses devices and language to bring about various themes and emblematical elements in her text. She uses the technique of epigraph to go each chapter, it is a type of portend, hinting of what entrust happen throughout the chapter. It too helps to stipulate individuals in the story. Contrast is also a reoccurring technique in the text, as characters such(prenominal) as Silla and Deighton, Ina and Selina, have hostile personalities. there is also contrad iction in the symbols and diction in the text. Words such as pass and Sun, low-spiritedness and glitter, are contradictory symbols referring to the characteristics of individuals such as Selinas parents in the text. The writer involves the use of the Bajan dialect as well as English, as if trying to incorporate the ratifier in the culture of Barbados and also affix c trigger- quickibility and realism to the story.It suggests pride in the Bajan culture. The author uses various figurative devices in the text. There is a heavy digest on the use of personification and architectural regardry. Symbolism is evident in the prose apply colors such as red to even up romance and sexual relationships and white, andbrownstones to epitomize upward mobility, status and unattainable goals. trim down in the text is also symbolic of independence and opportunity. The use of conflict, such as mother-daughter, husband-wife, black-white, is brought out by the symbols and conflicting elements in the prose. It shows the destruction in relationships, and accentuates climatic moments, such as when Deighton, employ the money Silla steal from him, or when Silena told the whole Bajan association, shed tricked them.Marshall uses devices such as imagery, epigraph, motif, foreshadowing, pathetic illusion and biblical allusion, to show racism, identity, women in society, family, deceit, and various other themes in the prose fiction. The denouement, begins with Silena recognizing who she is and making net decisions for herself. After all her trials and lost relationships, she in conclusion covers her identity, accepting who she has become, the trials she is yet to face and the community in her olden who has made her who she is today. curiously her mother, whom she had always fought against.RationalThe smell of Deighton Boyce, was the repress chosen for the poesy among legion(predicate) view Deighton as a hassle in the text Brown girl, brownstones, good-looking him n o bounty. The follows was intended to direct sympathy for Deighton. His life in the rime is specifically intriguing as though he causes many shifts in characteristics of others in the text, his own life is not evinced. The rime will hopefully give an description of the circumstances surrounding the issues of Deighton death, and his life.Mocking JayI aphorism a melody birdwatchie charge a bird of prey,Beautiful-ugly, he was, filled with sorrow, was she. Night and day, He sing a tune of love and wonder,She interpret back of vicis and plunder,I tried to that that derisive Jay,But the night steal him away.Where are you my mocking Jay?Trapped in the tomb of brown stones?Your young are calling, where are you?Wont you fight the snow away?Dont you hear the deads moans?Has she pin down him too?No hourlong perched on your window sillaTheyve clipped your wingsYouve sunk their prisonThe sheepfold screams their Bajan banter tent flap away home my mocking Jay travel home m y song birdBut, mocking Jays neer diveIll send a new low-cal your wayFor you to see through winters clockTo save your flockTo blind your eyesAnd save you from the darkShattered tunes of my broken song birdRemember your askersEulogy.The sad broken memory.The life you ran away.Dead like marrow dapple the asphalt.Staining corals a sea away.Songs long dead, Ill sing them to you.Ill pray your tarnished soul away.Deighton, my mocking Jay.AnalysisThe metrical composition mocking Jay, is a kind of stanzaic elegy, in tri thoe to a character in the prose text Brown girl, Brownstones. The poet uses the mimicking bird, mocking jay, to represent the character Deighton in the prose text. Not further do mocking jays have a gift in music, which was one of the professional genres Deighton attempted, solely they repeat everything sung to them in a mocking manner. Deighton, like these birds, reflects a mocking version of the negatives surround him from utilise the money his wife stole from him , to leverage frivolous gifts to spite her to changing his lean of study every time he is confronted with racism or barriers. Deighton alsohas the intake like (surreal), and fun loving attributes third estate to these birds. The poetry comprises of quadruple sextettes, a brace a single bourne and a septet.The stanza formation, is quite symbolic. The first stanza is the first of the four sestets. At the end of each fourth dimension in this sestet is a comma. This represents the point that this relatively pleasant chapter in his life is not yet complete, it wont end in a happy ever after. It is as if to assure that the beginning of their relationship was an unfinished dream. The consequence sestet ends in a interrogation within, as if mocking the relationship, not catch the change in the relationship and in Silla. The third sestet ends without jestctuation is instance to all the times Deighton and the audience were time lag to see Sillas answer to sightings behavio r. The net sestet concludes with merged- jumbled punctuation, of when Sillas revenge unfolds it was chaotic in the circumstances of deportation, but incorporated in that it was her plan all along. feature with the lack of punctuation, the couplet of stanza five signifies his never ending disorder.It symbolizes that, as the lack of punctuation prevents the sentence from truly being complete, his pain and suffering will not end even in the afterlife. The single bank pass consists of one rallying cry Eulogy, this refers to the lyric given at a funeral or a recollection of the past conduct of an individual after he is dead. This strike being the shortest stanza, represents the lack of quality and memorabilia Deighton has left hand behind with his children. The last-place stanza a sestet can be tied to the biblical representation of the day God rested. The number seven represents the change that occurs after an all over cycle. Deighton, accomplices all he could so the abid e stanza represents his death the final rest he accomplished after his life cycle. The meter has a steady rhythms. Though not all stanzas have a structured rhyme scheme, the poem dormant flows as if it does. It is like the steady yet laughable flow of life, just as the poem is a depiction of Dightons life as was represented in the prose fiction. The first stanza contains a set of rhyming couplets, ingeminate the first rhyme in the hold stanza (an a, a b, b a, a format).The stretch out rhyme however is a coerce rhyme, this is there to show that release the omnipresence was not something the Jay wanted, but was what was forced on him. The second stanza consists of derail rhymes that try the questioning in this stanza, that he is running alternate scenarios in his mind as to why the wife who used to love him hates him so overmuch now. The fourth sestet has the make it rhyme, clock and flock. This symbolizes that the time he has left with his children is limited as his death is nearing. The rest of the poem is rhyming exhalation parallel to the pores fiction as explanations are revealed in the story, the confusion and rhyming stops. The poem commences with the omnipresent narrator giving a visual imagery of the meeting mingled with dickens contradicting birds. The song bird represents something happy, supine and peaceful, while bird of prey represents something sly, autocratic and warlike.The story continues with oxymoronic inverted syntaxes of chore ii, that helps to emphasize that the creatures have contradicting personas and that their union could never work as it was based on confusion. practiced as in the prose fiction, Silla thought she could change shape Deighton into mortal he wasnt, and failed. The diction used in the first stanza such as vicis, Jay and Night, aid in displaying the theme of conflict in relationships. Vicis is the Latin word for change, in reference to the context it high sportsmanlikes Sillas need to change her husba nds persona and fight to create a life for them that he never wanted. The capitalisation diff words such as Jay and Night, represent these nonhuman objects, in the case of the Jay it helps to emphasize this being a character characteristic of Deighton, while the Night highlights Sillas character as bright cold and heartless, but at that time seeming scenic and peaceful. Lines three and four of the first stanza also help to concretize the theme of contradictory persons in relationships, displayed in the first stanza.Stanza two is a rhetorical question sestet, it eternally asks questions the Jay is obviously ineffective to answer, and these are symbolic of the time where the relationship between Silla and Deighton was confusing. He didnt know where she stood, whether still in love with him or hating h for the wrong she believes he did to their son, the first line emphasizes this. It follows with a reference to the brownstone house Silla spent a majority of the text fighting to ob tain. The use of diction such as prison, brown, and stones was a slight pun as a Jay would find a house made of stones a prison, and pose with the text, it can be said that Deighton saw the house his wife fought so much for was like a prison to him, and a symbol of his failures in his relationships and providing for his family. Line two is the first and sole(prenominal) mention of their children in the poem. This is symbolic as it shows that not unaccompanied did Deighton not spend enough timewith them and focused more on himself, but he also failed as a father in that he couldnt protect them from the snow which is a personified symbolization of his wife.The personification of the light, at the end of the stanza references all the happiness and innocence still in the family. When the persona asks about the moaning light that she has trapped it stand fors that he was unable to prevent the happiness and life from leaving their family, this aids in uncovering the themes of weakne ss ones family and loosing things that are important. The third stanza has the most textual allusions, the stanza opens with a pun, window silla. As a bird a sill is somewhere you can rest, be at peace like a home, in this means Deighton no longer feels at home in the browns stones. Silla is also the name of his wife so it can mean that he is also no longer feeling happy in his marriage, as shown in the text queen he began going you the house form his kept woman in the nights. Theyve clipped your wings line two of the stanza refers to when he almost got his work up amputated due to his indolence.This is symbolic as it is a physical representative and slight foreshadowing of how his time was ending. The next line refers to the song they sang to him at the wedding. The f, s, th and b fricative and occlusive so funds of the fourth line in the third stanza, emphasizes the running and the drama happening in that scene of the text. The swim home in the last line of that stanza referen ces the Caribbean since Islands in the Caribbean are surrounded by water. The last sestet refers to the last actions before Deightons death. It starts with a pun, on Deightons childhood, as he dived for the coins white men through at him, and also an allusion to him diving event to his death. The new light is symbolic for Deightons religious period, where the movement of the new light helped him to finally discover himself, though in all swiping his personality. winters clock is symbolic for Deightons attempts at going back in time to rectify the problems mainly caused by his relationship with his wife. The couplet, single line and septet, is after his death.People have hurt cries due to morning Deightons death. The signboard of Prayers refer to his newfound beliefs and Eulogy is the dialect given at a funeral. The final stanza is technically the omnipresences cheers for Deighton, though it shows that he is not someone people will remember with respect. It speaks of how he cou ld have had a life if hed made different choices. It gives an image of his death at sea, andits connection to his past in the Caribbean. It then shows the general wo surrounding his death, and accentuates the theme of death in the text. The poem changes from a tone of observation, to unease, to sadness. hopefully bringing out an overall sympathy for the persona. Though it is not a inwardness rhyming poem, it still has a current rhythms that showcases the life cycle of Deighton, as shown in the text.ConclusionThe text Brown girl, brownstones, is an delicate depiction of women and men in immigrant communities. near persons generally sympathize with the women of these communities, however this poem has hopefully garnered a positive response to men in these communities, and those shown in the text. This whitethorn help persons to recognize that women were not the only ones with problems in the text. The blame for these conflicts also, should not be solely the fault of males like Dei ghton, in the prose, but equally shared between each individual, and characters in the prose fiction.