Twisters And Shouters By Maxine Hong Kingston

In her story Twisters and Shouters, Maxine Hong Kingston tracks the thoughts of the character she has created as she follows him on a walk through the streets of San Francisco. The main character of the novel, a man named Wittman Ah Sing, has recently found himself without a job. With nowhere left to go, he decides to wander down San Francisco’s famous Market Street. As he strolls through the street, he comments on what he sees happening around him. No longer deluded by the city’s false impression, he begins to think about San Francisco in a completely new way. Using Ah Sing’s thoughts and opinions on what he sees, Kingston is able to disclose her feelings about the city. In this writing, she uses specific images and writing structure in order to disillusion the perfect view of the city of San Francisco. Kingston believes San Francisco is a giant production. It is simply there for show. In fact at any moment, “a storm will blow from the ocean or down from the mountains, and knock the set of the City down” (Kingston, 160). This is meant to express the falseness of the city. There is something superficial about it. It is putting up a façade. None of what people are seeing is real, and “if you dart quick enough behind
Unfortunately for Market Street, it is “not an avenue or a boulevard that sweeps through arches of triumph” (Kingston, 161). It is not as remarkable a sight as is believed. It is an ordinary street, there is nothing about it that makes it outstanding. While Ah Sing travels down the street, he notes that all along it there are “tangles of cables on the ground and in the air, open manholes, construction for years” (Kingston, 161). This is not what someone expects to see of in a city so highly regarded as San Francisco is. If San Francisco were as lovely a city as it desires to be, it would not have these objects to tarnish the sight of it. The image is destroyed with all of these