What point of view has the author adopted in the story Jamaican fragment?
Answers
Answer:
The Jamaican Fragment is a story about a man, who during his regular walk to and from work encounters an irregularity he views as an act of inferiority. We can assume that the Jamaican Fragment is a real life experience, rather than a piece of fiction due to first person writing style. In the first paragraph the author uses visual imagery by describing the colors of the houses as well as the bungalow style house, which presents as the setting. We can start to conclude that the author is ethnic himself or very familiar with differentiating ethnic characteristics. In psychology we learn that the race we are born of, makes us better able to distinguish features and characteristics …show more content…
Hendricks’ style of the essay is very important in terms of what he wants the reader to experience and how he wants them to experience the story. Words that I would use to describe the tone would be casual, curious and ironic. The author uses everyday language to create the casual tone such as
“The other little fellow was smaller, but also sturdy – he was white, with hazel eyes and light-brown hair.” (362)
This casual tone permits everyone to read this essay; there is no prejudice against an educated or uneducated audience. The sentence structure used is also simple and casual. “For a whole day I puzzled over this problem.”(363) This excerpt from Jamaican Fragment is an excellent example of the curious tone that utilizes in this essay. He is taking the reader on a journey of self-discovery. The reader is also curious as to the game the children play, could it really be a game of inferiority? There is also a strong sense of irony throughout the entire essay, it is my belief that the author uses an ironic tone to further his argument around prejudice enable the reader to learn a moral lesson.
“The exercise is good for me and now and then I learn something from a little incident”(362), is an example of Hendricks’ using foreshadowing as a literary technique. We know that he is going to learn something and we know by the end of the essay that “little” is very much an understatement.
Explanation:
♡ ↪In the prose ‘Jamaican fragment’ the author A L Hendricks says how prejudice mislead the person’s opinion. This incident happened in authors life. He depicted it very nicely. Everyday the narrator used to walk half-mile from his home to railway track in the morning and evening. The walk is pleasant to him because of the red and green-roofed bungalows, green lawns and garden on either side and it gives good exercise. One morning the narrator noticed that two little boys were playing in the garden. One is black and another is white. The narrator observed the children. The black boy might be 5 years and white boy is little lesser may be 4 years old. The white boy is shouting and commanding the black boy. Whatever the white boy orders, the black boy did the same. The narrator was also Jamaican black man. He was puzzled within himself. Hundreds of questions came into his. mind. The children were very small, really they were infants. At the very small age how could they discriminate ?Who were they ? Was black boy a servant’s son ? Who was he? They wore same type of dress. Were they neighbors or play mates . Whoever might be ? Were we, as a race really inferior that even in our infancy we realized our deficiencies and accepted a position as the white man’s servant? The author went on asking these questions to himself for a whole day. His faith in his people was shaken. He didn’t find the boys in the afternoon. Again he thought deeply. The next morning he found the boys and observed them. To his surprise, the dark boy was commanding and white boy did everything. Then the narrator understood that was a game and he remembered what he played in his childhood. He smiled within himself. A white man was standing by the gate. The narrator recalled what he thought the previous day and night. The thought came to his mind that the black race is superior to white. How silly the grown-ups are to misinterpret a child’s action. Then he would try to clarify and drive away all the doubts from his mind. The narrator said these to these white man. He was surprised to hear the outburst of the narrator and said that the two boys were brothers and his children and introduced a brown woman as his wife. The narrator smiled and his soul laughed within him. He said to his heart about his country and his people’s greatness and he was left proud of both. The white man smiled at the narrator and went away to catch the train.
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