English 1121, OL41

Kelly Pinedo Essay #2 (Revised)

Marcus Robinson

English 1121

Essay Two

 

I can personally describe “The Money” by Diaz” as a double crossing story between a boy and a thief. The story is about a poor, but hard working family who’s just making it. During the story the family’s house was robbed due to a so-called “friend”, because of that, the narrator went to go take back the money . During the first paragraph we are introduced to a family of seven with five kids. They are depicted as having little to no income. Diaz states “ All the Dominicans I knew in those days sent money home. My mother didn’t have a regular job besides caring for us five kids, so she scrimped the loot together from whatever came her way. My father was always losing his forklift jobs, so it wasn’t like she ever had a steady flow.”  By using that language, we begin to see that this family works hard for everything they have in their life. Diaz cleverly uses words like “broke” and “scrimped” and “lost” to illustrate how little this family has. The mother of the family has a hidden part in the house which saved up money for her family. Even the kids knew not to touch the money. Burglary is a big thing that occurs in this neighborhood, the son in the text states “ Everybody got hit; no matter who you were, eventually it would be your turn. And this summer was ours.” At this point Diaz already set in motion the family getting robbed. “Still, we took the burglary pretty hard. When you’re a recent immigrant, it’s easy to feel targeted” said the son right after he has just been robbed. When he said “ easy to feel targeted” I can relate on the level where you feel like everyone picks on you because of your race.  It is also proven and shows people of lower class tend to stick and live together. So in a way the same habits of robbery influence the neighborhood because they are surrounded by the same type of people. This is also another reason why Diaz thought about keeping the money from his mom.  The way Diaz used similes to give life to a situation is genius, when the son was comparing the robbery to a “CSI-Style investigation.” That gave the text a detailed and yet fun description on the robbery. As soon as he figured out who took the money which were his friends,he wasted no time taking back what belonged to the family. What is most interesting is when the term “burglarizing” to describe what the cops would think of him if he was caught stealing. Because of all the crime and burglary occurring around him, he used that to say he is simply stealing. What is really unique about this text is towards the end when he thought about keeping his mother’s money for himself. It’s kind of ironic in the sense that he would want to keep it considering he just got robbed and now is about to rob his mother. Especially towards the fact his mother scrapes up whatever money she can and his dad is always losing his job.  

 

‘The Money’ can be similarly  compared to ‘The Purloined letter’  by Edgar Allen Poe. Both stories follow the idea of a double crime story.  ‘The purloined letter’ is about a letter that was stolen from the royal capital. Both stories share the same idea where an item was stolen and then later received. The story takes a more in depth robbery between political officials. Perfect of the police have a mission to find this stolen letter and take it from a thief in the minister’s apartment. Perfect proceeds to inform Duplin that someone has stolen this letter and it holds power. Duplin,  is this Gatsby like figure who is a mastermind behind a robbery.  Perfect and his police performed  a long and thorough search on his apartment, after finding nothing, and checked every corner no letter was to be found. Perfect was disappointed again after a second search a month later. At this point Perfect is lost in the case with no direction. Until one of his officers informed Perfect that Duplin had a plan of his own, he would provide the letter to the police for a reward. Perfect then goes to confront Duplin about his plan and offers him $50,000 as a reward, Duplin then all of a sudden has the letter for the reward. Perfect is bamboozled by this statement and Duplin explains how he made it possible. 

Two things that interest me most are the Story of Duplin and Perfect. They are both in the same story but take on two completely different roles. Perfect seems to never find his answers and he is being manipulated by Duplin. Duplin states “”Yes,” said Dupin. “The measures adopted were not only the best of their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would, beyond a question, have found it.” The only reason this story took place is because of Duplin’s plot for the letter and money. Just like in ‘The Money’ by Diaz, even though the son stole back the money from his ‘friend’, he considered keeping the money for himself instead of giving it back to his mom. How Duplin also uses ‘Mathematicians’ to describe how people don’t really know the truth. Just like Plato stated in “The Republic’ “art is imattive’. In the text Duplin states “As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all.” Meaning Perfect doesn’t really know the truth or what’s going on. In ‘The Republic’ art was compared to couches and the different type of people who make them. Duplin describes the truth with math and science in this text. When Duplin heard about the letter he made one true goal in mind, get the letter for his cash reward. What is ironic about this text is also how Perfect always failed despite his name being Perfect. Whats also interesting is when Diaz used the term ‘ burglarizing’, Duplin said ‘the thief must become the thief’.  Both text have terms in them that describe thievery as well.

In conclusion Both texts fall in the same idea of a double crime story .  In “The Money” by Junot Diaz, the language the author uses contributed to the main plot to happen. First the family was described as poor and barely making ends meet. Because of that it led the son not only to take his money back but think about keeping the money. This style of writing is very investigative in a way. For example when the money got stolen in ‘The money’ the son thought of many people who could have done it. The same thing applies to  ‘The Purloined letter’ , When Perfect and the cops tried so hard to find the letter, he just couldn’t and just kept looking. The two short stories also have very descriptive language that help develop a double crime story. Just like when Duplin had a secret plan, when perfect went to go confront him he offered a reward for the letter. Duplin then goes to give a very investigative description on how he obtained the letter.

 

Revision Notes

For my revision from the first essay to the final draft I focused mainly on grammar issues. I had some quotes that needed to be fixed as well as some spelling mistakes. Another major difference is I added more explanation after my quotes. This helped me give a better description and analysis on both of my two stories. I also have alluded Dupin to “The Great Gatsby.”

 

Essay 2, Draft 1

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JmSsYuUnbiOwzuigswxisN8zVDGplXtNjHa-uIFrz-k/edit?usp=sharing

Essay 2 final draft completed

Thanks to Prof. Street and Stephanie for their advices and recommendations.

http://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Op1DgfHSpO–WqwwTEN_0p59R_MlRyAz

Jamal Taylor

English 1121

Professor Monroe Street

6/21/20
Essay 2 Draft

 

In every story, there seems to be qualities and characteristics that make a story unique. There may be similarities and differences  that enable readers to compare and contrast between two different stories. Language, form, literary elements & techniques, structure, etc. , can be factors in discovering the uniqueness of a specific text. Something that is unique is considered different and stands out from the ordinary. Two pieces of text such as, “The Money” by Junot Diaz and “The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allen Poe will be analyzed and  compared to find what makes these texts unique and discover their similarities and differences. 

The text, “The Money”, by Junot Diaz is about a Dominican family that immigrated to the United States. Though they are in a wealthier country, Diaz and his  family are burdened by poverty. With the small amount of money they get, they still have to send some money back to support their grandparents in Dominican Republic. While away on vacation. One of Diaz’s friends breaks into their house and steals Diaz’s Mom’s secret stash of money. Diaz’s friends found out about the stash of money from a conversation he had with Diaz when hanging out together. His so called “friends” secretly despise Diaz without his knowing and talk about him behind his back. When Diaz and his family return from vacation, they find the stash of money missing, and their door was unlocked. During another conversation between Diaz and his friend, he gets a feeling that his friend stole the money because of his behavior. Diaz then breaks into his friend’s house and takes back his mom’s stolen money.

Diaz writes, “I, who could take the change out of my mother’s purse without thinking, couldn’t have brought myself even to look at that forbidden stash”. Diaz also writes, “And if mine had been a normal neighborhood this is when the cops would have been called and my ass would be caught burglarizing”. Finally he states, “I popped up the dolt’s mattress and underneath I found my D. & D. books and most of my mother’s money…And that was how I solved the Case of the Stupid Morons”. When analyzing the first quote, we could see that the thought of stealing came through Diaz’s head regarding his mother’s money from the phrase, “I, who could take the change out of my mother’s purse…”, and the phrase “…my ass would have been caught burglarizing “. These phrases show how thievery is universal in everyone when the opportunity presents itself. Diaz uses the word “burglarizing” to emphasize that no matter if the money was his to begin with, stealing is stealing. Diaz had a thought of stealing his mother’s money but hesitated when realizing the consequences of those actions. Thievery seems to be the primary repetition in this passage. 

This passage is uniquely written because  it displays both the good and bad sides of burglary. It also showed the perspective of what people are willing to do when an opportunity is given to them. Being poor and in poverty makes people desperate and negative. The fact that the story is written in Junot Diaz’s perspective shows us how he was thinking, and also displays to the reader the significance of his mother’s money. Since we know that his family sends money back to Dominican Republic even though they are poor, that helps readers to see how valuable the stolen stash of money was to his mother because they were already struggling to pay bills.

 

One event that strictly stands out from the other parts of this text is the mother’s emotionless reaction after Diaz, her son, retrieve her stolen cash. This part of the story was very unique due to the fact that Diaz’s mother placed a high value of importance on her stash of money. I would’ve expected her to have a more joyous and grateful reaction after having the money back in her possession since they were tight on money. In the last passage of “The Money”, Diaz states, “It took me two days to return the money to my mother. The truth was I was seriously considering keeping it. But in the end the guilt got me”. This is the second time Diaz accuses himself of thievery without committing to the action of stealing. Diaz states, “Except that a couple of days later I was moaning about the robbery to these guys I was hanging with at that time and they were cursing sympathetically…”. The repeating theme expressed by this passage is the accusation of thievery. Being that Diaz trusted these “two dopes”, people he considered friends, their odd behavior led him to believe that they were the ones that stole the money. The irony is that he uses the words “cursing sympathetically” to describe their attempt to avoid suspicion. It’s unique how the outer appearance of Diaz’s friends displays innocence, but we know internally that they are guilty. Also, it’s unique how Diaz was able to write a passage that portrays how his friends’ body language compromised their innocence. 

Majority of communication between people is nonverbal, and even the words themselves have little meaning until they are said with a specific tone or emphasis. It’s the way someone portrays themself not just their appearance alone. The play on who’s innocent or guilty makes this passage much more unique than the rest of the story. It shows how a person’s dialogue is not always a full representation of their actions. Why would a so-called “friend”steal from his “friend” that shows nothing but trust and kindness? How can a person look another individual in the face and be able to pretend to be in their best interest at heart, but secretly despise that person of whom they see everyday? Diaz was very successful in showing thievery in the good and bad characters. These creations acknowledge that on both sides of poverty, people, good or bad, are all capable of thievery if given the opportunity to benefit from it.

 

In Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Purloined Letter”, a valuable letter is stolen from Paris’ royal apartments. The Prefect Monsieur G and the Parisian Police search the entire premises and fail to find the stolen letter in Minister D’s hotel. Monsieur G increases the reward to 50,000 francs a month later to whoever can find the letter. Detective  Minister D. Dupin requests Monsieur G to sign him the check and then hands him the valuable letter. 

One repeated theme from “The Purloined Letter” is that a valuable item is missing and then retrieved back into the owner’s possession. There is a passage in the story where Minister D finds the letter even after the expert detective and police failed to recover it. This is a unique part of the text because Minister D proceeds to explain his way of thinking that led him to the letter. He strategizes in his mind using a specific type of logic, and shows how the letter was hidden in plain sight. The Prefect was so busy trying to look in places where things are hidden rather than obvious locations. For example, “”

.

  

 

In both of these passages, something of value and importance is taken from someone’s property, but then gets retrieved back to its rightful owner. This repetition can also be conjoined by the action of thievery. Meaning that both passages contain a level of burglary in order to steal and retrieve the stolen items.

 

–Need Feedback on how to organize my information 

–I have a lot more to add.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11F4bxJQLOBrJr8-ayQtaVqV5UT9cWvC2V9mZPAOx10k/edit?usp=sharing

Jamal Taylor

Professor Monroe Street

English 1121

Essay 1

6/8/2020

 

Intro

 

Interpretation is portrayed through different perspectives or viewpoints regarding a specific event or situation. I chose the story “Exercises in Style” by Raymond Queneau. This short story talks about a man entering a crowded bus where he then has a confrontation with another man while on that bus. Then has his friend fix the button on his pocket. I will be using this story as an example or reference  point because of the style and adapt this style into a personal experience of mine. I will be interpreting the two perspectives of my mother and a Middle Eastern Store worker at a beauty supply store. In summary, My mom and I entered our neighborhood beauty supply store because my mom needed to buy more relaxers for her hair. She’s been coming into this specific store for years. We live in a primarily black and Hispanic neighborhood in the Bronx, New York. Shortly after my mom enters the store, one of the female store clerks asks my mom if she needed help with finding any items she needed. After my mother says “no”, the female store clerk continues to follow us through each aisle of the store. My mom notices and quickly gets infuriated and we both leave the store. These two perspectives will portray how non-black store owners view black and brown people in the neighborhoods they sell to.

 

The Store Clerk

It was a slow Saturday afternoon, and I just finished stocking the shelves for my boss. There was only one other pale-Spanish lady near the front counter. She was looking at wigs and asked my boss, who was sitting by the register, to retrieve a stylish shoulder-length wig with nice bangs. I was sitting on a stool in front of the counter, waiting for shoppers to come in. We’re used to the slow afternoon crowd since there’s not much foot traffic during this time of day. I then noticed a middle-age black lady and her black child walk into the store. I noticed her purse was open as she slowly walked up and down the aisles. I asked myself, “Why wouldn’t she have her purse open?”.  I calmly walked up to the lady and asked her if she needed help with anything. She said “No”. Judging by her body language, I knew she was lying. She obviously needed something, or else she wouldn’t be in the store. Why would she let me help her? If I had helped, she would’ve been able to buy the item and leave. Why waste time looking for something she obviously has no idea where to get it from. 

As I reflected upon this situation, I came to the conclusion that this woman was stalling for something. In my mind I said “Maybe she’s trying to steal. That’s why her purse is open. She wants us to believe she’s a normal shopper, so when we’re not looking she can slip some products into her bag”. It was clear to me now. I’ve seen plenty of her kind ,day-in day-out, try to steal from stores in this neighborhood. It’s not right, so I’m going to put a stop to it. I need to get her out of the store, so I came up with the perfect idea of keeping a close eye on her. She thinks no one is watching, but I am, from afar. Whichever aisle she went down I stayed at the end of that aisle. I knew she was trying to steal because as soon as she noticed me down an aisle at the back of the store behind her, she became agitated and aggressive as she stormed out of the store. I was glad to have once again stopped another black thief from stealing . I can’t stand working in these neighborhoods. Why can’t they just work for a change and earn a decent living instead of taking from people’s hard earned money. Business would be so much better if we were in a better neighborhood.

My Mother (The Black Lady)

“Damn! I forgot to get my hair relaxer from the beauty supply store.” 

She exclaimed in the car. 

“Okay, let me drive up and park in front so I can get upstairs and cook dinner.” She said to me. “Come on son, give me your hand.” 

“Mommy just needs one more thing and we can go home.” She said comfortingly. “Mommy just needs her relaxer.” She said, taking me by the hand. 

“Oh come on!” She said angrily. 

“They moved it again?!” She said, feeling confused. 

“This is the third time they moved it. It’s usually in the middle aisle of the store.” “Hmm, lets see. Is it here in the front aisle?” 

“Nope, gotta keep looking.” she said with a determined look in her eyes. 

Is it here in the middle? No again.” *Sighs*. 

All of a sudden a lady asked me, “Miss do you need help”. 

I said “No, I’m okay”. “I just got here.” 

“Haven’t even been in the store two minutes, and she’s already asking me if I need help.” “No, I don’t need help.” she said speaking through her thoughts with an impatient tone. “They always do that.” 

“Thanks for the offer but if I needed help I would’ve asked.” she said replying in her mind without uttering a word.  

“Okay, where was I?.” she said to herself. “Oh yeah, Relaxer.” 

“Maybe it’s back here somewhere.” 

“Sure enough, it’s right here.” she said with certainty. 

“Wait, isn’t that the same lady that just asked me if I needed help?” she asked as she reflected. “Yep, her again.” speaking with disappointment. 

“She thinks I didn’t see her following me the other two times.” she said feeling increasingly annoyed. 

“Let me just see if they have the relaxer with the olive oil in it, but I don’t know if they have it. Let me just ask the store owner.” she said after attempting to ignore the clerk. 

“I looked behind me to make sure I put the other box back and I saw the same store clerk down the aisle I just passed.” 

“She was looking directly at me.” 

I Decided to ignore it, but when I saw her again at the end of the aisle I couldn’t take it anymore. In all of my frustration I put the box of relaxers back where I got it, and proceeded to walk out of the store with my son. The moment before I stepped my foot out the door, I told the clerk and the owner: 

“If you’re going to follow me around  the store, then you don’t need my money.” she said, talking sternly to both the owner and employee. 

“I’m not gonna give my money to any establishment that suspects me of a thief.” she said getting increasingly agitated. 

“You think I didn’t notice you following me and my son, step-for-step, Nah?!” she said harshly. Giving all of her focus towards the suspecting store clerk. 

“You’re so busy watching me because I’m black rather than paying attention to the Spanish chick that probably steals from you more than me.”  

“But because you think all of us are gonna steal, you don’t need my money!” she said with an unforgiving tone. Angrily, I left the store. 

As she collected herself and focused more of her attention on me she said, 

“Son, remember, if any business racially profiles you or assumes you’re stealing, they don’t deserve your money.” she said to me sternly.  

“Take your business elsewhere.” 

“I go there all the time and they treat me like that?!” 

“Unbelievable!”

Conclusion

Honestly, writing from the perspective of the store clerk is quite difficult because I had to assume, based on her actions, that she was racially profiled but mom and I. Another difficulty was writing through the interpretation of my mom. Back then I was just a kid and it was ironic how vivid this memory was to me. From writing these two interpretations, I learned how each individual’s interpretation is different and unique even if both people witnessed the same event. Different styles of language portray different messages to readers because it affects how we interpret who’s being affected by the situation. Language also allows us fluidity and flexibility on how easy or difficult is to interpret. Similar to the human brain, Interpretation is affected negatively and positively by nature versus nurture.  

Essay 2

Essay 2 final draft

Marcus Robinson

English 1121

Essay Two

 

I can personally describe “The Money” by Diaz” as a double crossing story between a boy and a thief. The story is about a poor, but hard working family who’s just making it. During the story the family’s house was robbed due to a so-called “friend”, that leadinding into one of the sons of the family taking the money back. During the first paragraph we are introduced to a family of seven with five kids. They are depicted as having little to no income. Diaz states “ All the Dominicans I knew in those days sent money home. My mother didn’t have a regular job besides caring for us five kids, so she scrimped the loot together from whatever came her way. My father was always losing his forklift jobs, so it wasn’t like she ever had a steady flow.”  By using that language, we begin to see that this family works hard for everything they have in their life. Diaz cleverly uses words like “broke” and “scrimped” and “lost” to illustrate how little this family has. The mother of the family has a hidden part in the house which saved up money for her family. Even the kids knew not to touch the money. Burglary is a big thing that occurs in this neighborhood, the son in the text states “see that bike again. Everybody got hit; no matter who you were, eventually it would be your turn. And this summer was ours.” At this point Diaz already set in motion the family getting robbed. “Still, we took the burglary pretty hard. When you’re a recent immigrant, it’s easy to feel targeted” said the son right after he has just been robbed. When he said “ easy to feel targeted” I can relate on the level where you feel like everyone picks on you because of your race. The way Diaz uses similes is genius when the son was comparing the robbery to a “CSI-Style investigation.” That gave the text a detailed and yet fun description on the robbery. As soon as The s figured out who took the money which were his friends,he wasted no time taking back what belongs to the family. What is most interesting is when the term “burglarizing” to describe what the cops would think of him if he was caught stealing. Because of all the crime and burglary occurring around him, he used that to say he is simply stealing. What is really unique about this text is towards the end when he thought about keeping his mother’s money for himself. It’s kind of ironic in the sense that he would want to keep it considering he just got robbed and now is about to rob his mother. Especially towards the fact his mother scrapes up whatever money she can and his dad is always losing his job. 

 

‘The Money’ can be similarly  compared to ‘The Purloined letter’  by Edgar Allen Poe. Both stories follow the idea of a double crime story.  ‘The purloined letter’ is about a letter that was stolen from the royal capital. Both stories share the same idea where an item was stolen and then later received. The story takes a more in depth robbery between political officials. Perfect of the police have a mission to find this stolen letter and take it from a thief in the minister’s apartment. Perfect proceeds to inform Duplin that someone has stolen this letter and it holds power.  Perfect then does a long and thorough search on his apartment, after finding nothing, and checks every corner no letter was to be found. Perfect was disappointed again after a second search a month later. At this point Perfect is lost in the case with no direction. Until one of his officers informed Perfect that Duplin had a plan of his own, he would provide the letter to the police for a reward. Perfect then goes to confront Duplin about his plan and offers him $50,000 as a reward, Duplin then all of a sudden has the letter for the reward. Perfect is bamboozled and Duplin explains how he made it possible. 

Two things that interest me most are the Story of Duplin and Perfect. They are both in the same story but take on two completely different roles. Perfect seems to never find his answers and he is being manipulated by Duplin. Duplin states “”Yes,” said Dupin. “The measures adopted were not only the best of their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would, beyond a question, have found it.” The only reason this story took place is because of Duplin’s plot for the letter and money. Just like in ‘The Money’ by Diaz, even though the son stole back the money from his ‘friend’, he considered keeping the money for himself instead of giving it back to his mom. How Duplin also uses ‘Mathematicians’ to describe how people don’t really know the truth. Just like Plato stated in “The Republic’ “art is imattive’. In the text Duplin states “As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all.” Meaning Perfect doesn’t really know the truth or what’s going on.

In conclusion Both texts fall in the same idea of a double crime story .  In “The Money” by Junot Diaz, the language the author uses contributed to the main plot to happen. First the family was described as poor and barely making ends meet. Because of that it led the son not only to take his money back but think about keeping the money. This style of writing is very investigative in a way. For example when the money got stolen in ‘The money’ the son thought of many people who could have done it. The same thing applies to  ‘The Purloined letter’ , When Perfect and the cops tried so hard to find the letter, he just couldn’t and just kept looking. The two short stories also have very descriptive language that help develop a double crime story. Just like when Duplin had a secret plan, when perfect went to go confront him he offered a reward for the letter. Duplin then goes to give a very investigative description on how he obtained the letter.

 

or google link. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JETokD3FiDWNrw47m2B0Y70GBcNbphfcII5p49qn-Yg/edit

 

 

 

Essay 1 Final Revision

Here is revised version of my Essay 1.

Chelsea Davis Essay 2

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Oa6v9_ZByG9t9YUdWAsF3vcp_swGmOSS1I1G0xIjhjY/edit?usp=sharing