An ever evolving picture

A brief analysis of the essays titled Westbury Court, Silent Dancing and They All Just Went Away

Jose a Vargas
12/4/2013

An Ever Evolving Picture

Since the invention of the picture cameras, the entire concept has not change very much. You aim with a device then press a button and an image will be capture to last for ages. Maybe twenty some years later as you search thru a box of old items you come across those old pictures and mysteriously those old pictures bring back memories, most of them come with joy and happiness just the way the picture was taken. Other pictures are printed in our minds and hearts and the quality and picture itself could have by now transformed into something not quite the same picture we memorized a very long time ago. As it happened to E. Danticat, J. Carol Oates and J. Ortiz Cofer. Their pictures and memories from the places they grew up are not quite the same as they took those pictures many years ago. Some reflections come with happiness others come with sadness and others come in a very nave way. Let us analyze the childhood memories from Edwidge Danticat, Joyce Carol Oates and Judith Ortiz as they took their memoirs and portrayed them into a living dream from the past. Westbury Court was written by Danticat and in her recollection of frames and pictures she could swear she lived in one of the most precarious places on earth. After all she was living in Brooklyn, New York amongst piled up trash, graffitis all over the place was the most spectacular way to express and admire art, burned up and abandoned vehicles were giving a true contrast to the city and crime was a very common and ever-present issue in her neighborhood. Apart from not always having hot running water specially during the cold and harsh days of winter and always having to be on the lookout for an elevator that in mysterious ways could vanish right before you would step in it and her apartment being broken into it once by a thief who did not got away with much besides her fathers camera, everything was well and that place was the best place in New York to live on. If you ask her the only downside of that place was the fact that a subway station ran

directly underneath her apartment complex and every fifteen minutes a speeding bullet or an iron horse will pass by and for unknown reasons the building would rattle. She truly believed Westbury Court was the place to live and she never thought of leaving that magical castle which was surrounded by heavily fortified watch towers and structures so magnificently emplaced that one thing for sure, she was the envy of The Sleepy beauty and any other fantasy character that live in splendid castles happily ever after. One day everything changed and a fire consumed the apartment across from hers along with two young boys and from that moment on she never felt safe again. From that day on she started to look at her castle in a slightly different way and as time passed by, her memories had morphed into something she would rather erase than to keep living with them in a future from the past. Silent Dancing by Ortiz, in contrast to Edwidge depicts the life of a family who migrated from a very different culture to what many Americans are used to live. Coming from a warm weather into the middle of winter season in the United States and to a place so far from Puerto Rico and yet so close and full of resemblances due to the unique characteristics of a strong Latino community in Patterson ,NJ. Even by living in El Barrio which was nonetheless than a ghetto filled by mostly Hispanics during an era where discrimination was openly enforced, her standards of living were above the rest of the community. As many of the residents were factory workers and her father was a service member of the armed forces, it allowed them to have a better social status amongst the residents of el barrio. They could afford luxuries that many of their compatriots could only dream of, but the reality was that was as far as they were ever going to go or at least for the time being. Ohhh the rich and unique smell of pasteles, arroz con gandules and the exquisite aroma that sofrito can bring into a home is an aroma that can never be forgotten nor erased from a puertorican memory. The old and everlasting picture of men

playing dominoes while the woman gather around the table to observe the game in a silent way that even when the music blast thru the house as everyone is having a good time, the vicinity around the dominoes table is cocooned in such way that a mute person can be heard as he thinks what the next move could possibly be. The memories of a young woman full of innocence and humble can be the last essence remaining from the day she decides to become a grown woman away from home without remorse of what she may become. Destined and decided to blend in with the rest of society as to not to suffer prejudice or to be rejected from any place with a finger pointing to her face. And as always, the never ending comparison between who is a better womanthe one who just came from the island (quiet and humble), the one who has become more americanized or the one who becomes pregnant and ends up back where she came from, this time almost isolated from the rest of the family. Somehow I can feel the pressure she had to blend in with the rest and to appear more normal than the rest of her peers. As her father tried his best to up bring his family with the intention to have a better than anticipated life in a totally estranged place. His motto to avoid rejection, anything must be done. The struggled of being totally accepted for who they are or for who they appear to be is a constant reminder of what a different culture can impose on us. Those old memories from the old place haunting their dreams and taunting their existence to the point to break down a human free will clearly can convince a saint to do a pact with the devil. Her memories not quite the same as when she was growing up in Paterson, NJ now becoming something from the past, pictures that it will be better to erase them than to forget in order to avoid to be torn between the language, the aromatic fragrances from every kitchen, the music and traditions versus to be accepted, to face adversity and to free itself from shackles brought up by discrimination, poverty, social class division and the fear of what could I become or what I

became regardless if I have rejected my own culture and race. Clearly this is the endless struggle of a first generation family coming abroad to United States and their experiences not unique to them but familiar to many other families as they make their transition to realize sooner or later who is the fool this time. Distinctively They All Just Went Away by Joyce Carol tells the indirect effect a broken family had on her. Even as it is depicted, Joyce Carol had a normal childhood and she came from a family with resources. They were well established and it was nothing more than a typical American family. In a very traditional way as she puts it Dad worked all day, Mom took care of the daily chores around the house while the children were outside playing. She will go for long walks along the fields, while visiting old and abandoned houses. There was something intriguing and inviting to Joyce about those old houses where once stood firmly and proud as homes. The recollection of those old houses and barns still vivid in her memories, like pictures that were recently taken as if they were to be portrayed in the front cover of a glamorous magazine. The distinctive smell of rotten wood, mildew, smoke and the vegetation that slowly was engulfing those ancient structures are a profound reminiscent that those houses were at one point in life just thatlife for a home, life for a family. The event that clinched into her mind was the way their next door neighbors (the Weidel family) were treated by the father of the family. The way the man would drink to the point to abuse his children, pet and the rumors that he even molested his own daughters. The constant spouse abuse he had against his wife, the constant beatings and black eyes she suffered, yet when she was given the opportunity to press charges against him she denied all wrong doing from his part. Why? The constant question in Joyce mind, How can she be with him? Why she doesnt move away?

Joyce thought the night of the fire was the event that drove them away. I would like to think the family needed an excuse to go away and the fire was just that, the excuse to go away. Clearly we can see the family was long gone, it was a very dysfunctional family. It was filled with alcoholism, physical abuse and maybe with sexual abuse as it was speculated. The fire is the event that made them all to go away. In conclusion: After all, the memories we think that are to remain unchanged in our lives for eternity, as we mature and grow we discover that at one point in our lives the entire picture and sense has evolved into a memory that sometimes we rather the picture was never taken others we wish were taken another time either past or future. Many are remembered with joy others with sadness and other with such indifference because we know they were framed by accident and others were framed as we were victims of our own destiny.

Reference Danticat, E. (n.d.). Westbury Court. Retrieved November 7, 2013 from, http://plaza.ufl.edu/lacy.hodges/WestburyCourt.pdf Ortiz Cofer, J. (n.d.). Silent dancing. Retrieved October 19, 2013, from http://www2.hawaii.edu/~facoba/readings/cofer.htm Oates, J. (1995, October). They all just went away. Retrieved, November 7, 2013 from, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1995/10/16/1995_10 16 178 TNY CARDS