Essay two -Final Revision

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.”