The author, Brent Staples, of narrative, "Just Walk On By," shows how the main character battles everyday living with racial incriminations of his just his existence being a weapon to society. In this day and age, humans are often judged through the stereotypical conceptions plastered into the minds of perpetuating generations. Staples presents just one incident where misconception and invalid judgment affect the relationships, many infrequent or nonexistent, of our peers who walk the same streets as us. The author's suspenseful yet mordant diction illustrates his purpose for composing the essay, to apprise his audience of the circumstances often faced due to one self’s appearance.
At the commencement of the essay, Brent’s word cull was intentionally misleading. He commenced out by saying, “My first victim was a woman…” This led me to believe that the author was a malefactor. As I continued to read on, I became aware that I had made the same exact mistake many other people had. As an adolescent African American male in Chicago, Brent Staples had been misconstrued for a burglar, murderer, or simply a vicious man. He did an excellent job describing the fear he optically perceived …show more content…
Onomatopoeia is the utilization of words whose pronunciation imitates the sound the word describes. Staples utilizes this to recreate the atmosphere he often endured on page 237 when he verbally expresses, “I could cross in front of a car ceased at a traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver- ebony, white, male, or female- hammering down the door locks.” Expounding how inculpable he really is, Staples verbally expresses, “As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken let alone hold one to a person’s throat – I was surprised, abashed, and dismayed all at once” ( Staples 237). This is an example of an analogy, which compares two
At the commencement of the essay, Brent’s word cull was intentionally misleading. He commenced out by saying, “My first victim was a woman…” This led me to believe that the author was a malefactor. As I continued to read on, I became aware that I had made the same exact mistake many other people had. As an adolescent African American male in Chicago, Brent Staples had been misconstrued for a burglar, murderer, or simply a vicious man. He did an excellent job describing the fear he optically perceived …show more content…
Onomatopoeia is the utilization of words whose pronunciation imitates the sound the word describes. Staples utilizes this to recreate the atmosphere he often endured on page 237 when he verbally expresses, “I could cross in front of a car ceased at a traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver- ebony, white, male, or female- hammering down the door locks.” Expounding how inculpable he really is, Staples verbally expresses, “As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken let alone hold one to a person’s throat – I was surprised, abashed, and dismayed all at once” ( Staples 237). This is an example of an analogy, which compares two