The map at the Brooklyn Historical Society puzzled my eyes with so much intersections and crossroads. I tried to find the place called ‘Bensonhoist’ mentioned in the essay “Only the Dead know Brooklyn”. If there was no map at all, it was some kind of impossible task to do. The guy was smart enough to use the map and the question about swimming that relates to the survival. It is obvious that even though a person born in Brooklyn would be lost without a map. For instance, if a person does not know how to swim would surely be drown. In 1935, maybe the map was not popular in use.
Introduction to Fiction
Principles of Narrative
The author records the name “Bensonhoist” as the characters would pronounce it with their accents. It’s actually spelled Bensonhurst. What do you think about the accents? Does it give you more of a sense of the area, or does it just make it too hard to understand?
If you are black and born in America, you will surely have distinct accent, that is their culture. So i think the accent comes from the culture they are mingling with.