The Right Way To Speak Analysis

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“Queer Theory: According to My Grandmother” by Richard Blanco and “The Right Way to Speak” by Jacqueline Woodson both discuss the lives of children who are being forced to hide a part of who they are. “Queer Theory” is written from a grandmother’s point of view. The grandmother is telling her grandson all of the stereotypical things he can not do because she does not want him to look like he is gay even if he is. “The Right Way to Speak” is written from a daughter’s point of view while she is watching her mother hit her brother with a tree limb. The brother is getting punished for saying a common Southern word, “ain’t”. The mother was born and raised in the South where she was raised to always obey her elders. However, she does not want her children to have anything to do …show more content…

Blanco and Woodson share perspectives about the adversities children have to face when hiding who they are. Chandra’s article discusses how punishment affects children, while Matsick and Conley’s research paper discusses how religion has a direct effect on the stereotypes that people believe in.
Imagery is a common literary element many authors use to get their message across to us in a vivid way. In Richard Blanco’s poem “Queer Theory”, the grandmother is listing the things that the young boy can and can not do, such as “never fly a kite or roller skate, but light/ all the firecrackers you want,/ kill all the lizards you can, cut up worms-/feed them to that cat of yours,” (Blanco 27-30). The grandmother is describing the types of things that she believes only gay people do. She considers flying a kite and roller skating to be a feminine action and warns him to stay away from them. However, she wants him to take part in all of the masculine activities he possibly can. The author uses imagery to describe in detail what exactly the grandmother classifies as

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