Summary Of Firoozeh Dumas's Essay The F Word

In American society the “F” word has been deemed a cuss word, a dirty word. It’s a simple, four letter word that shouldn’t be used. In Firoozeh Dumas’s essay, “The ‘F Word’”, she give it a new light to a different “F” word with the same meaning in our culture. Firoozeh Dumas uses her Iranian background to help her criticise the American ability to adapt to different and unfamiliar cultures through humor, empathy, and metaphors.

She begins by drawing people to read her essay merely with her title, “The ‘F Word’”, and its implied meaning that comes to most people’s minds at first glance. It brings humor that draws in people who wouldn’t originally be open to learning an opposing side to something they believe in. Then she starts by using “F” names such as “Farbod… kids called him ‘farthead,’” and “Farshid… became ‘Fartshit’” (Para 1). The simple beginning gets readers laughing and eases them into the subject without outright stating her argument and turning people away. It hooks people onto the subject as well, making them want to read more and become more susceptible to understanding and

accepting her side of the argument.

Names like Farbod, Farshid, and Neggar, “She whose name almost incites riots” (Para 1), she sets a humorous tone to lighten the heavy mood that she creates by evoking emotions in her readers through the telling of her family’s names and how their meanings changed once they came to America. She uses her friends name, Neggar, to invoke feelings of sympathy by relating her issue to a derogatory name from African Americans that had their own problems in gaining acceptance in American culture. The relation helps readers better understand her plea through her light hearted humor with heavy emotions to ease her audience into reading her essay without turning them away. She uses the emotional story of her family and how her names changed once coming to America to better help the readers understand and sympathize with her point of view, rather than turning them away with a harsher tone.

Then she gains her readers trust by sharing her personal story with them.

How “Firoozeh… means ‘Turquoise,’” but “In America, it means ‘Unpronounceable,’ or ‘I’m not going to talk to you because I cannot possibly learn your name and I just don’t want to have to ask you again and again because you’ll think I’m dumb or you might get upset or something” (Para 4). Then once she changed her name to Julie, a simple American name, she still felt like she was living a double life. With her past still looming around her, it made her life seem fake in spite the fact that she was finally getting what she wanted, to fit in. She shares her troubled childhood due to her name which increased her knowledge about her argument for American acceptance to uncommon and unfamiliar names from foreign countries and to evoke empathy from from her audience, giving them a better

understanding.

She creates a metaphor for adding new names to the American vocabulary by comparing it to adding a new spice to the spice cabinet, it’s a pain. In land of Marys and Joes, “move over, cinnamon and nutmeg, make way for cardamom and sumac” (Para 4). She relates spices to names in saying that we cook with spices that are more commonly known in our cultures rather than reaching out to try somethings new. Like how in our culture, we prefer not to learn different names because they aren’t what we’re used to, we’re afraid of offending them so we don’t try something new just because it’s difficult.

Firoozeh Dumas creates an emotionally charged essay with plenty of humor to help readers better understand her argument without turning them away from the idea. She uses the emotions and humor to denounce the American practice of not being accepting to other cultures that are difficult and unfamiliar. Just like the spice cabinet, we need to be open to trying new things before dismissing them because it’s new and unknown.