Analysis Of My Family's Slave

“Slave”, a word that takes away one’s freedom, a word that turns one into a property, a word that force one to obey... We have all seen or at least heard of this word or stories about this word. When we talk about slaves, we tend to think that they are belongings to the owners. They should not have emotion or seek their own life like normal people. All they should or can do is anything that is asked by their owners and endure all tortures unconditionally. In the passage, “My Family’s Slave” written by Alex Tizon, Lola was a slave in Tizon’s family for 56 years. She has also endured tortures from Tizon’s parents just as the slaves in our knowledge. However, Lola obtained Tizon’s care. She was not simply a belonging to Tizon. In the first two …show more content…
Noticeably, instead of directly stating “Lola’s ashes”, Tizon started off with “the ashes”. The use of “the” creates a vague statement about the owner of the ashes. The readers would know that some kind of life died, but they would not be able to identify if it was a human or animal. Therefore, this vague statement here draws the readers’ interest to learn more about the story. “Black” symbolize death, evil, and mystery. The description of “a black plastic box” further enhanced the truth of death. Also, with the additional description of “the size of a toaster” and “weighed three and a half pounds”, the box that contains Lola’s ashes appears in front of the readers’ eyes vividly. Before Tizon packaged the box into his suitcase, he put the box “in a canvas tote bag”. Instead of putting the box directly into the suitcase, the additional step of putting the box into a bag implies the importance of the owner of the ashes to Tizon. He cared about how the ashes are treated even though the ashes cannot feel anything, just as we treat our mother’s remains as treasure. These descriptions and word choice effectively grabs the reader’s attention and motivates them to learn more about the …show more content…
Tizon described that he had seen Lola “sleeping in a corner, slumped against a mound of laundry” many times. By including the detail that Lola was “sleeping in a corner” creates a sense of helpless and loneliness, showing Lola’s situation at that time. Lola, as a slave in Tizon’s house, had no one to seek help from, so she had to endure everything by herself. The use of the word “mound” instead of words like “pile” shows the enormous amount of work Lola had to do. She was even “clutching a garment she was in the middle of folding” when she fell in sleep. Even though we know that Lola was a slave and what she was doing should have been her duties, the use of these descriptions vividly show a picture of a weak woman curled up on a giant mound of laundry. Tizon used these descriptions to show his care to Lola and cause the readers to sympathize Lola, seeing Lola as the women in Tizon’s eyes instead of a