Brown Girl

In the pull out from Brown Girl, Brownstones, by Paule Marshall we bring in that memories are a major aspect of the reading. In the excerpt we are introduced to two of the main characters Selina Boyce and her pay off Deighton who take the reader on a journey use their memories. It is through these memories that we get a closer look into the Boyce family. From the real beginning of the excerpt the narrator takes us back in time; we learn active the history of the brownstone marks in Selinas neighborhood. Marshall lets us know the first people to sleep together in the neighborhood and who built the houses were Dutch- English and Scotch-Irish. There had been afternoon tea in the afternoon then and skirts rustling across the parquet floor floors and mild voices(p4). The language used here is as if somebody is reminiscing about their own past. It gives the reader a vivid characterisation of how things use to be in the neighborhood. When we are introduced to Selina we learn about how the neighborhood has changed. Now the families in neighborhood are preponderantly from the West Indians, most of them from Barbados. Many of the families that live on the cram lease their homes and work hard towards their American dream of owning a home; and providing a better life for their children.

We discover that the Boyce family is in any case chasing the same dream. We see that ten- year- old Selina longs to be like the face cloth family that lived in the house before her family. She rose, her arms lifted in welcome, and quickly the white family who had lived here before, whom the old woman on a higher floor always spoke of, glided with pale footfalls up the stairs(p5). We til now learn a little history about the Boyce house before they moved in from the woman who lives upstairs. Selina takes the womans memories and creates her own fantasy world with them. Selina wishes her family could more like the family who lived in the house before them. She harbors ill feelings toward her family especially... If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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