Inspired Eccentricity

“Inspired Eccentricity” is a story of Bell Hooks about her grandparents, Daddy and Baba Gus. The two main characters are described with many contrasts. They are opposite in many ways: physical looks, characters, and even their effects on Hooks. Their marriage seems to be a strange combination, but very few people understand that Daddy and Baba Gus are not only different but also complementary each other.

In the beginning of the essay, Daddy and Baba Gus are described oppositely in physical looks. Daddy Gus is a “short and dark”(421), while Baba Gus is tall and white, which is enough to help her “easily “passed” denying all traces of blackness”(421). Their walking styles are also different. Daddy walks “slow, as though carrying a great weight” (421), but Baba moves “swiftly, as though there was never time to waste” (421). Daddy Gus is a man of silence, he always “sit calmly in his chair by the stove, as calm and still as the Buddha sits” (421). Opposing to Daddy Gus, Baba is described as “talked endlessly” (421), and she usually preaches, yells, and fusses. They contrast each other in almost every thing, also in not sleeping on the same bed because Baba can not stand her husband’s nasty smell. Two people that seem to be made not to each other have been together more than seventy years, most of human life. Somebody wonders that their marriage began from love or not, but they overcame all the contrasts, create a big family, and also have many grandchildren.

In addition to Hooks, Daddy and Baba Gus are not only different in physical looks, but they also contrast in their characters. Daddy Gus is a calm and religious man. He has strong belief in God and serves as “right-hand men of God” (422). He is the person whom people feel sorry for because he is controlled by his wife. And although he is thought not to be a “real man” (422) by his son, but he always refuses to fight back. People respect and “admired his calmness” (422), and Hooks is strongly effected by her grandfather who is “not gonna let anybody tell him what to do with his life” (422). In the other hand, Baba Gus is a blasphemer, and she usually curses. She never goes to church, she also does not believe in God, and people think that she will be a bad example for children.