The Family Dynamics in How to Date a Browngirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie and Girl
Fiction is an intentional fabrication of something. Fictitious articles include literary works that are based on imagination rather than a fact. Some of the most common fictitious articles include movies, novels, and storybook. Authors write their fiction stories depending on the components of their environment or from purely imaginative sources. The first category of these stories reflects on our society while the latter categories are usually the author’s imaginations. An analysis of a literary work, be it fiction or factual, involves an intensive overview of the material to derive its meaning and the context in which the author what writing. This paper consists of an analysis of three different articles.
‘How to Date a Brown Girl’ is a fiction story written by Junot Diaz in the year 1995. This article appeared in the 25th, Dec 1995 edition of the New Yorker on page 95. The article was a fiction story that was aiming at giving university boys steps on how to date different types of campus ladies. In this article, Junot mentions different types of ladies; black, Hispanics and whites, and goes ahead to explain how to impress each of them. Junot identifies how you would expect different ladies from different social classes and skin complexions to respond to such advances. (Diaz 95) This story is written as fiction. However, it depicts whatever happens in real life. It is built on a reflection of daily campus dating. The story has three main characters; the college boys, college girls, and the girl’s parents. Junot explains how different parents would react to hearing such advances to their daughters. For example, she says that a white parent would not be pleased that his or her daughter is dating a black man.
However, a tough headed white daughter will break the barriers and go and meet her black boyfriend. We see this when she says: ‘Her parents don’t want her seeing a boy from the Terrace—people get stabbed in the Terrace—but she’s strong-headed and this time will get her way.’ This story is a true reflection of college life and dating. Different boys from different backgrounds find themselves attracted to girls from the same college. As would be expected, the boys need to present themselves in the best possible way in order to impress the lady, and in cases when the boy has to call or send the lady a letter, it should be well structured with clear handwritings at least to make the girl’s family feel content that their daughter is in the hands of the right man.
The story ‘Shout’ was written by Dagoberto Gilb and edited by Robert et al. in their anthology ‘Sudden Fiction Latino’ and published by W.W Norton and Co. in the year 2010. Alongside this story were other stories also written by Gilb in his collection ‘Woodcuts if Women’. The story is about a drunken man who comes back to his family and his relation with his wife and kids under the influence of alcohol. He shouts to his wife asking her why she locked the door. He threatens her saying he would beat her. He says: “You know sometimes I wish you were a man cuz I wouldn’t let you get away with looks like that. I wouldn’t take half the shit I take from you.” In this story, we see two main characters: the man and his wife. The family also has three kids, with the eldest being seven years and the youngest is two (Dagoberto Gilb n.p).The kids fear their dad, and they cuddle in fear when he gets into the house shouting. The man uses abusive statements such as: “SHUT THAT FUCKING KID UP YOU FUCKING PEOPLE! HEY! SHUT THAT FUCKING KID UP OVER THERE!” The youngest is too scared that he starts crying. The three sons are always in the constant commotion, and the mother is forced to turn on the TV to take the attention of the first two kids while she calms the youngest. The man takes a few more bottles and then he opts to shower. The wife who was previously very bitter calms down and shows love to the husband. The shouting end and the two are pleased with each other. This story is a real reflection of daily life occurrences. It presents a great sense of dynamism in the families. It would be expected that the wife is mad at the husband for long, but it turns out otherwise. We see the main reason for the woman’s anger is the drunken shouting husband.
Jamaica Kincaid wrote the story ‘Girl’ in the year 1978, and it appeared in The New Yorker on 26th June 1978. The story is about a protagonist mother trying to teach her daughter how culture requires her to behave. In the story, Jamaica is showing us how the Antiguan girl is expected to present herself to different audiences, how she is expected to dress up and the significance of respect to other people (Kincaid n.p). The story shows a great element of family dynamics. It states the roles of girls and women (also emphasizes the difference between girls and boys, indicating some things girls are not expected to do. The main characters of this story are a woman and her daughter. We see the woman is doing what culture requires of her, teaching her daughter how to be responsible. She tells her daughter how to behave in church and how to present herself in the presence of different classes of guests. She says: ‘this is how you set the table for dinner with an important guest.’ Aside from behavior and respect, the woman tells her daughter how she would present herself in the cleanest ways possible. For example, in the opening text, she says: ‘Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry.’ By this, she emphasizes the need to wash clothes of color separate from white clothes, so as not to stain the white garments. She goes ahead telling her daughter how she should prepare some basic meals. The woman is particularly strict on her daughter’s dressing. She insists that the daughter must always put on presentable clothes or else people will look at her as a slut. This shows how much culture and moral ethics are engrossed into the minds of the woman and how strict she is on protecting her image and that of her family.
These stories depict relations between different people. All three stories show some aspect of family dynamics. These stories depict a reflection of daily life, occurrences with the difference between them being the setting only. The three stories depict fiction and how much it can be used to depict a reflection of the real societal occurrences. In the story ‘How to Date a Brown Girl,’ the work of fiction is used to give a picture of college socialization. The second story ‘Shout’ is a family affair, and the final story ‘Girl’ is a cultural reflection. The first story is about campus boys being told how to date college girls of different colors and classes. This story is different from the rest because it has a very little aspect of culture in it. In this story, we see that parents do not want boys from some backgrounds to date their daughters. The poor boys are forced to ‘forge’ conditions that match what the girl’s parents would like to see, at least to have the privilege of dating them. Some ladies are however headstrong, and they will break the barriers put by their parents and date boys their parents don’t approve of. The second story, named ‘Girl,’ bears an Antiguan setting and culture. In this story, a woman is taking her time to show her daughter what culture requires of her. Her teachings are based on culture and are geared towards building responsibility as well as boosting morality and ethics. It shows how much the community expects of a girl child and it is her mother who is tasked with instilling these values. It also shows what a girl should not do as per the community values. She gives an example when she says that she should not squat to play pebbles as that is viewed as a game for boys. The third story, ‘Shout,’ also shows family relations. In this story, a man comes home drunk and shouts bangs the door, shouts and scares children. The wife has to bear because that is what is required of her. The story depicts a man as the overall head and who everyone in the house should listen. The man does not value courtesy, but he expects to be respected back. However, he still has to be updated on how the family is fairing since he has to ensure their well-being. Children fear their father, perhaps because of his shouting, but they are very relaxed in the presence of their mother.
