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‘My Name’ by someone
Cue
The author does not like her name
she does not think it fits her
She lives in very traditional family
She is kind of pessimistic
Name - Esperanza
She is jealous of her sister - have normaler nickname
The author remains a negative tone throughout the entire story
The story is told through first person
She wants a name “more like the real me”
Note-Taking
Esperanza thinks her name is too long and doesn’t resonate with her
Esperanza lives in a very traditional family, with her parents having very traditional values, as exemplified from “supposed to be bad luck if you're born female” and “don't like their women strong.”
her family also does not view women very highly or as equals, as exemplified from her retelling of how her “great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off.” to force her great grandfather to get married.
Diction:
The author uses negative words and complains throughout the entire text
Bad luck
Chinese lie
Wild horse
A muddy color
Uglier
Nobody sees
Hurt
She comes off as vaguely pessimistic from just reading this passage, that or she just really like to ask saddening questions
The author uses sentences such as “I wonder if” and “I have inherited”, meaning the story was told through first person.
She seems unsatisfied when talking about her sister Magdalena, which i assume is because she has a “normaler” nickname at home, “Nenny”
she ends the story by expressing her wanting to change her name, not to anything easier or more commonplace per se, more just “a name more like the real me”
Summaries
In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.
It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse—which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female—but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong.
My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it.
And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window.
At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name—Magdalena—which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.
My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it.
And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window.
At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name—Magdalena—which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.