The Men We Carry In Our Minds
In the texts, “No Name Woman” and “The Men We Carry in Our Minds”, both authors explore the harsh protracted struggles an individual goes through when an individual's identity clashes with the narrative society has preset for a person of their nature. Despite a different message, purpose, and tone that defines each memoir, Sanders and Kingston display striking similarities in rhetorical structure and setting as they deconstruct the situations they describe as they tell their stories.
Each author tells places subject of the text in a setting where they find themselves distanced from the society they live in because they do not fit into the predefined societal role set for them. To break this mold, both authors juxtapose the detailed account …show more content…
On his college campus he find himself demonized by certain female peers because of his sex. Women accuse him of being part of group collectively “guilty of keeping all the joys and privileges to [themselves]” He finds himself condemned to share the guilt of the few, the few who actually took advantage. The jarring contrast, between the individual and the standard they are held to, recurs throughout the text. The saddening theme of the tragedy of assigned identity, the struggle with inescapable assigned guilt, rears its head throughout both texts. To amplify this feeling of injustice, both authors use vivid imagery to juxtapose the reality of their subjects against the supposed evil they both have cherished. Kingston’s Aunt vilified and despised by villagers for her supposed immorality is described as a gentle happy woman, the apple of her father's eye, a loving woman, a mother who didn’t abandon her child. The men Sanders knew, who stole all the pleasures in the world, live with the privilege of hernias, finicky backs , missing fingers, bent backs, “hands tattooed with scars”. The poignancy of these characters comes from their reality as the antithesis of what society has labeled them as. It strikes the reader, makes them understand what the writers have being trying convey, an understanding of the vast inequity of these
Each author tells places subject of the text in a setting where they find themselves distanced from the society they live in because they do not fit into the predefined societal role set for them. To break this mold, both authors juxtapose the detailed account …show more content…
On his college campus he find himself demonized by certain female peers because of his sex. Women accuse him of being part of group collectively “guilty of keeping all the joys and privileges to [themselves]” He finds himself condemned to share the guilt of the few, the few who actually took advantage. The jarring contrast, between the individual and the standard they are held to, recurs throughout the text. The saddening theme of the tragedy of assigned identity, the struggle with inescapable assigned guilt, rears its head throughout both texts. To amplify this feeling of injustice, both authors use vivid imagery to juxtapose the reality of their subjects against the supposed evil they both have cherished. Kingston’s Aunt vilified and despised by villagers for her supposed immorality is described as a gentle happy woman, the apple of her father's eye, a loving woman, a mother who didn’t abandon her child. The men Sanders knew, who stole all the pleasures in the world, live with the privilege of hernias, finicky backs , missing fingers, bent backs, “hands tattooed with scars”. The poignancy of these characters comes from their reality as the antithesis of what society has labeled them as. It strikes the reader, makes them understand what the writers have being trying convey, an understanding of the vast inequity of these