Silence In Maxine Hong Kingston's Autobiographical Piece example essay topic

Silence (Maxine Hong Kingston) In Maxine Hong Kingston's autobiographical piece "Silence", she describes her inability to speak English when she was in grade school. Kindergarten was the birthplace of her silence because she was a Chinese girl attending an American school. She was very embarrassed of her inability, and when moments came up where she had to speak, "self-disgust" filled her day because of that squeaky voice she possessed (422). Kingston notes that she never talked to anyone at school for her first year of silence, except for one or two other Chinese kids in her class. Maxine's sister, who was even worse than she was, stayed almost completely silent for three years. Both went to the same school and were in the same second grade class because Maxine had flunked kindergarten.

The first time Kingston had to speak English in kindergarten was the moment silence infiltrated her world. Simple dialogue such as "hello" or asking for directions was hell for her because people usually couldn't hear her the first time she asked, and her voice became weaker every time she tried to repeat the question (422). No matter what, speaking English just shattered her self-esteem. Maxine covered her school artwork with black paint. In a sense, she was creating something beautiful that symbolized her futuristic ability to speak English well, then covering it with black paint that symbolized a curtain that would, in time, rise and reveal her artwork of exceptional English dialogue. Her teachers notified her parents of the paintings, but they could not understand English.

So, Kingston's parents thought of it as something bad, according to the seriousness of the teachers' expressions about them. As her father said, "the parents and teachers of criminals were executed" (423). Though Maxine was quiet in American school, it didn't mean that she was quiet in Chinese school which started after American school at 5: 00 pm and ended at 7: 30 pm. This was her escape from English where most of the kids, including a couple of Negro kids that enrolled, could talk, shout, sing, chant, and joke around without the fear of embarrassment. Children were allowed to do whatever they wished during recess.

Chinese school was where the well-behaved boys in American school played tricks on girls, and where the girls had fistfights during recess because there were no rules. They played dangerous games in dangerous areas of the school and even wandered off into the city while the teachers sat in the classrooms and "drank tea and warmed their hands at a stove" (425). Eventually, Maxine and her sister's voices would straighten out with the help of speech therapy that the teachers referred them to once a year. Most of us probably could not relate to the misery she went through. But with pieces like "Silence", it helps us recognize the value of language and help those in need of better speech. Kingston gave us a wonderful essay that makes ourselves see what it's like to learn a foreign language and all the downsides that follow.

To those that made fun of a foreign student that didn't know any English, she leaves a list of the misery and heartache that she experienced, hoping that people would stop to help a little child from experiencing the same thing. This essay made me reflect on my days in grade school and how I was one of those kids who empathized the children with challenged speech. I never knew how those kids really felt back then, but through Kingston's elaboration of her experiences, I'm glad that I didn't cause anymore misery on them.

Bibliography

Page Kingston, Maxine Hong. "Silence". One Hundred Great Essays. Ed. Robert Di yanni. New York: Longman, 2002.422-426.