“How to date a brown girl”
Our personalities or rather the qualities that make us who we are derive from different aspects in our quotidian lives. In other words, we are a product of our time, surroundings, and in some cases factors such as race and social class play their own role. However, what if the so-called essence of our being was merely determined by our race and social class? An assumption in which individuality plays no role. This could also be seen in Junot Diaz’s “How to date a brown girl” from 1995 where this question is set under a social context. The narrator of the short story offers the readers advice on how to date a girl according to her race and class. The author of the short story shows us thus the narrator’s vulnerability …show more content…
The narrator is displaying how in an attempt to fit in and gain the societies affirmation he must negate any trace of his former culture and heritage. This leads to the understanding of how the reader must present an image of himself that is unfaithful to his actual self. He must simply lose his identity in the process of impressing the girl.
Furthermore, the narrator also believes that the girl’s behaviour or what the reader should expect from her is determined by her race and social status:
“If the girl’s an outsider she will hiss now and say, What a f*** asshole. A homegirl would have been yelling back at him the whole time, unless she was shy.”
By juxtaposing the outsider girl’s reaction and the homegirl’s reaction to Howie the narrator points out the gap between both their social statuses. This quotation draws attention to how a person’s race and social class can determine their behaviour. In that sense, it emphasizes the ways in which social class and race adumbrates individuality.
The fact that the narrator unveils the reader’s feelings towards the girl essentially tells us more about his own self-perception:
“Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your
Our personalities or rather the qualities that make us who we are derive from different aspects in our quotidian lives. In other words, we are a product of our time, surroundings, and in some cases factors such as race and social class play their own role. However, what if the so-called essence of our being was merely determined by our race and social class? An assumption in which individuality plays no role. This could also be seen in Junot Diaz’s “How to date a brown girl” from 1995 where this question is set under a social context. The narrator of the short story offers the readers advice on how to date a girl according to her race and class. The author of the short story shows us thus the narrator’s vulnerability …show more content…
The narrator is displaying how in an attempt to fit in and gain the societies affirmation he must negate any trace of his former culture and heritage. This leads to the understanding of how the reader must present an image of himself that is unfaithful to his actual self. He must simply lose his identity in the process of impressing the girl.
Furthermore, the narrator also believes that the girl’s behaviour or what the reader should expect from her is determined by her race and social status:
“If the girl’s an outsider she will hiss now and say, What a f*** asshole. A homegirl would have been yelling back at him the whole time, unless she was shy.”
By juxtaposing the outsider girl’s reaction and the homegirl’s reaction to Howie the narrator points out the gap between both their social statuses. This quotation draws attention to how a person’s race and social class can determine their behaviour. In that sense, it emphasizes the ways in which social class and race adumbrates individuality.
The fact that the narrator unveils the reader’s feelings towards the girl essentially tells us more about his own self-perception:
“Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your