Stylistic analysis of parenthetical constructions

Richard Rodriguez

Richard Rodriguez’s autobiographical Hunger of Memory outlines his mental development coming from early the child years to adult life. As it suggests, Rodriguez recounts and reflects upon the various recollections of importance to this development. He simultaneously addresses political subject areas — arguing against bilingual education and affirmative actions — when establishing the storyline of his own identification as a sophisticated architecture attaching his Mexican-American background to his course to his religion to his body to his profession as being a writer. He does this every while transitioning between both side of numerous fenestrations distancing his community and private lives. Though this individual discusses these pillars noticeably, he complicates his id and paradoxically constructs an anomalous architecture of a mutable self through intentionally sporadic argumentation and observable within his personal language. Eventually, his personality as a hyper-Americanized Mexican-American varieties the most important foundation in his confounded self, his uses of parenthetical phrases throughout conversations of other aspects of his identity act as windows between his public and private lives and as solipsistic expressions from the part of himself he can simply convey through his producing.

Rodriguez’s descriptions of his early on childhood consist of parenthetical phrases reflective with the nascence in the clash among his general public and private lives, stemming by his original conceptualizations of language. Explaining his personal home life, he keeps them mostly short, using many single words in parentheses, amplifying their preceding modified element. He remembers that he would “hear [his] mother call away… in The spanish language (words)” (16), ironically phoning attention to— rather than de-emphasizing— the idea of “words”, thus starting to show all their importance to his advancement. Already he begins to intermix his early education with notions of his private racial id, their relationship contributing as well to his affinity for language. However, at the same time, this individual employs the nature of parenthetical punctuation to separate the two, distinctly referring to his first language, “Spanish”, and to “words”, or terminology in general, separate entities. In the same way he levels the public and private aspects of his identity when he writes that “inside the house [he] would job application (assume) [his] place in the family” (16). In this case his parenthetical “assume” redefines “resume”, creating an uncertainty regarding the nature of his house life, the parenthesis are a window into the interior private existence of his home, however he must “assume” this exclusive identity. As a result he specifies his exclusive life regarding his community audience, which he is inextricably aware of.

Evolving from brief movement of his private existence among his public struggles, Rodriguez’s parenthetical phrases turn into solipsistic movement of his own fight to discover his identity yet maintain a great emphasis on the role that his own writing and understanding of terminology played because struggle. Talking about his utilization of the The english language language since a child, he “couldn’t believe that the English dialect was [his] to use, inches expanding in parentheses that “[he] did not want to believe it” (18). This distinction between this kind of disbelief and absence of wish to believe displays the solipsistic struggle to convey his impression of identification as a changing structure. Adding layers to his composing and to his identity, frequently redefining his own claims to mistake public and, his syntax parallels his constantly changing identity. But alternating with these seemingly decisive redefinitions, Rodriguez uses parentheses to pose equally broad inquiries about his own personal. To these questions he typically grants a better degree of syntactic autonomy, because they exist independent of any non-parenthetical word. It is with these questions that he digs actually deeper the foundation on which the structure of his id stands, they will create a layer beyond public and private when he asks himself— “Did I somehow think… ” (19)— speaking to a few hyper-personalized do it yourself which they can only share by creating such an extra, language-based layer. The opposite uses of parentheses he employs— both since means to establish and to broaden — even more complicate the architectural subtleties of his identity, and support his underlying political argument resistant to the idea of a generic, static identity based solely-upon competition or qualifications, but still inextricable from them.

While this individual establishes these kinds of patterns in the use of parentheticals— typically using them to access deeper personal, and, aspects of himself— his uses them in a substantially different approach when he covers his spiritual identity. In this sense they initially possess a natural and alternatively technical function in his dialect, he uses them to provide information about probably esoteric understanding of Catholicism. This individual clarifies the nature of “the unpardonable sin (against the ay ghost)” (88), distinguishes “the dangers of blended marriage (between a Catholic and a non-Catholic)” (83). These keyword phrases, however , progress into a pattern of general public expression, at times literally presuming the tone of voice of a person from Rodriguez’s public existence. In moving over to applying parentheticals to stand for the intensely public— as opposed to the extremely private —aspects of his identity, as he switches from discussing the “Aria” of his advancement to his religious background and awakening, Rodriguez further shows the difficulty of his identity as a collection of related but changing pieces. However , even as this individual does this, he allows his identity as being a writer to influence equally public and, referring even now to “the sounds” of the words spoken by the nuns at church. Yet at the same time as he connections the difference between among his open public lives, his use of parentheticals continues to split them— instead of including the details without parentheses, he dampens them with punctuation in order to claim for the importance of their separation without losing the dynamic marriage they have with one another.

Rodriguez’s self-construction of his identity is unquestionably purposely convoluted. This individual establishes habits in dialect to echo ideas of his public and private lives only to change said habits entirely in ways that can only be intended to draw attention to the points of variance. His parenthetical phrases become much more than ways to stress or individual certain pieces of information, but instead as ports through which he reveals the nature of his hyper-personal inner personal or his hyper-public observations. As a common device throughout his talks the various aspects of his personality, the keyword phrases he decides to put in parentheses act as key elements cornering these people, connection these people like bedrooms in a home. Through his repeated flips in meaning he successfully constructs a detailed architectural identity, struggling to be understood only by a single room — contest, religion, course, language— although perfectly complex under deeper examination of every elements with each other.

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