Trustworthiness is an important element in a relationship. It is the groundwork for dependability between two people, and from it, relationships grow and mature. When that trust is shattered, it creates a barrier between the two people. What defines a legal agreement with a business partner from a silly promise made to a child? In a child’s eyes, there is no distinction. A promise is a promise. In Toni Cade Bambara’s “Gorilla, My Love,” the evolving perspective of the distinction between an act of betrayal and the breaking of a juvenile pact is scrutinized through an incident between a child, Hazel, and her uncle, Hunca Bubba.
Hazel is a fiery little girl. She is strong-willed and openly opinionated, and believes that “when you got something on your mind, speak up and let the chips fall where they may” (Bambara 297). Although she is still very young, she has principles of what she believes to be wrong and right. She believes that her Hunca Bubba is not who he used to be since he has fallen in love and become engaged. Hazel feels betrayed by Hunca Bubba because when she was a little girl, he promised he would marry her. He is no longer Hazel’s Hunca Bubba; now, he is Jefferson Winston Vale. Hazel is befuddled with the entire situation. She is heartbroken that he seems to undermine the importance of his promise, by saying, “I was just teasin’” (298). He seems to be completely unaware that by breaking this promise, he has distorted Hazel’s entire outlook on trustworthiness. Hazel expresses her concrete belief that people should follow through with what they say, when she is commenting on the incident at the movie theater, “ I mean even gangsters in the movies say My word is my bond. So don’t nobody get away with nothing far as...
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...ts set for them. Children are constantly aware of adults’ choices, and they begin to formulate their own understanding of general values at a young age. When adults are hypocritical of their pre-set standards, it sends children into a state of discombobulation. Staying true to one’s values as an example for children will be beneficial to them as they travel along the highway of childhood and come upon the exit necessary to reach the interstate of adulthood.
Works Cited
Bambara, Toni Cade. “Gorilla, My Love.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 294-298. Print.
Muther, Elizabeth. "Bambara's Feisty Girls: Resistance Narratives in "Gorilla, My Love"." African American Review 36.3 (2002):447-459. Web.
Robbins, Dorothy Dodge. "Gorilla, My Love." Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition (2006):1. Web.
Brown, Rosellen. “Honey Child.” Women’s Review of Books. Vol. 19. No. 7. Philadelphia: Old City Publishing. 2002. 11. Print.
The gorilla, named Ishmael, can communicate telepathically. Communicating with him in this fashion, the narrator learns Ishmael’s background - in which the gorilla was stolen from the wild and displayed in a menagerie, then rescued by a Holocaust survivor who taught him his name and how to learn. Impressed, the narrator decides to accept his teachings, returning to Ishmael's office throughout the story.
Kherdian, David, and Cheng'en Wu. Monkey: A Journey to the West : a Retelling of the Chinese Folk Novel. Boston: Shambhala, 2005. Print.
DeFalco, Amelia. "Jungle creatures and dancing apes: modern primitivism and Nella Larsen's Quicksand." Mosaic [Winnipeg] 38.2 (2005): 19+. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
Perkins, George B., and Barbara Perkins. "The Beast in the Jungle." The American Tradition in Literature (concise). 12th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009. 1148-1177. Print.
Toni Cade Bambera's short story “Gorilla, My Love” displays Hazel’s first experience with unrequited love. The author narrates a story about the way children overanalyze misrepresentations of the truth. Throughout the story, Hazel talks about different instances of when she thought she was being lied to. When Jefferson shows Hazel and Jason some pictures of his girlfriend, it triggers a flashback for her. Hazel felt betrayal throughout the story although there was no real betrayal, it was only her naive mentality that made her feel that way.
American Literature. 6th Edition. Vol. A. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2003. 783-791
The most successful way to instill righteous and moral behavior and thoughts is by demonstrating our respectable interactions and honest problem solving approaches during difficult times of our lives. “As adults we should dare to be adults that we want our children to be”. They learn by watching and are quick to mimic our behavior with their peers outside of home. The author writes that “we should strive to raise children who: engage with the world from a place of worthiness, embrace their vulnerabilities and imperfections, feel a deep sense of love and compassion for themselves and others, value hard work, perseverance, and respect, and also move through our rapidly changing world with courage and a resilient spirit” (214, 218-219). All of these elements will help to transform the way we live, love, and
“The Lesson” and “Gorilla, My Love” were written in the 1970’s by Toni Cade Bambara, a female African American writer. In both “The Lesson” and “Gorilla, My Love” the stories are told in first person narration by young black girls who tell the story of their struggles. Sylvia in The Lesson is about twelve or thirteen years old. She comes from an urban neighborhood in Harlem and is being raised in a single parent home, as her mother finds more interest in hanging out with her friends leaving Sylvia to raise herself with guidance from the streets. One summer day Miss Moore, an educated black woman in the community who believes in the value of education takes the children on an educational outing to F.A.O Schwartz in hopes of teaching them the importance of education, economic inequality, socioeconomic class and the value of working hard to achieve their goals in life. On the other hand, Hazel in “Gorilla, My Love” is about a eight or nine years old. She comes from a middle class neighborhood and is being raided in a two parent home. Hazel hits a hardship when she is betrayed, once by her uncle as he decides to no longer be referred to as Hunca Bubba, but instead by his given name Jefferson Windsong Vale, and secondly when she anticipated seeing a movie called Gorilla My Love which had nothing to do with gorillas, instead what was playing was King of Kings a movie about Jesus.
James, Johson Weldon. Comp. Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 832. Print.
James, Henry. "The Beast in the Jungle." The Norton Anthology: American Literature. Seventh Edition. Vol. C. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007. 335-376.
... the gorillas are taken away from their family and are living in captivity. It is still important to study primates in-depth, and a solution to the ethical issues may be to breed primates within the conservatory.
Mountain gorillas are one of the largest primates in the world. African rainforests are the only habitat for mountain gorillas and the place where these great apes face a lot of daily threats, which placed them in the critically endangered rank because their numbers are decreasing rapidly in the wild.
We teach the children only the highest of our ideals, the most virtuous of our values. An integral part of our “code of chivalry” is Immanuel Kant’s Golden Rule: Do as you would be done by. It is taught as a rule to be followed not only in school, but one to live by. Children never fail to imitate the behavior of their elders. This is a beckoning to us, the people of the village who will raise the child, to illustrate our words, to show that the Golden Rule isn’t just an empty cliché.
When children grow up they start straying from their roots and begin to mature, and as children mature they grow out of their parents ideas of who they should be and