Figurative Voice Najmah Analysis

“Speak” is book about a young girl who loses her voice after being raped and slowly gains it back over time. Laurie Halse Anderson uses an internal voice throughout the book to show the havoc that is attacking Melinda’s mind. This adds to the theme of being outcast and isolated because the she has no one to really talk to.

Danticat uses her Uncles loss of voice, to show us how different and hard it can be to not have a voice at all. When Danticat was 9 years old, her uncle was diagnosed with throat cancer and the doctors told him that he would need a radical laryngectomy to save his life. Danticat recalls her uncle, a bishop, having a grand voice, a voice that would invoke people to listen when she states, “he would model Fignolé’s forceful and direct Creole diction and speak in a clear, powerful bass, allowing only a few well-chosen pauses” (Danticat p.31) However, as a bishop, her father recalls a time when he’d watched his brother give a

However, she also applies that first she had accepet herself as she is and this will allow her to move forward ‘I will no longer be made ashamed of existing, I will have my voice; Indian, Spanish, white. I will have serpents tongue my women voice, my sexual voice, my poet’s voice; I will overcome the tradition of silence.’ This also applies why the name of the title is How to tame a Wild Tongue. As she knows so many languages, she has to learn how to control the way she talks.

something wrong, but do not know what. I imagine she was going through this pleading with

Our actions are what define us as humans. Words are part of our actions. Therefore, our voice defines who we are, so when we change our voice we change the fabric of who we are. Zadie Smith, the author of “Speaking in Tongues”, knows this first hand when she moved from a working class district of London to Cambridge. She felt that she was able to have both, the Cambridge voice and the Willesden voice, and use them to expand her base of knowledge; like learning a new language. However, as she became more engrossed in her studies the core of her personality that kept her at her roots disappeared and she was consumed by the Cambridge life style. She lost herself in Cambridge because she was imitating the Cambridge life style and according to Susan Blackmore’s essay “Strange Creatures” humans imitate naturally to learn. As humans imitate they change and because they change, their voices change as well; building an idea within us that our voices need to be unified, or singular. When we change voices we change mindsets making it incredibly difficult to switch between two mindsets on a whim. Our voices must be singular in order for us to correctly display our identity to the world.

Rahab’s dialogue also shows her intelligence. Her talk with the spies reads like a man speaking. Rahab

So many people in modern society have lost their voices. Laryngitis is not the cause of this sad situation-- they silence themselves, and have been doing so for decades. For many, not having a voice is acceptable socially and internally, because it frees them from the responsibility of having to maintain opinions. For Janie Crawford, it was not: she finds her voice among those lost within the pages of Zora Neale Hurston’s famed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This dynamic character’s natural intelligence, talent for speaking, and uncommon insights made her the perfect candidate to develop into the outspoken, individual woman she has wanted to be all along.

Unlike Anzaldua who held onto her identity as a Chicana, Smith’s voice changed from Willesden to a voice from Cambridge. Though the change in her voice was not one that was expected, she has realized it has also become her identity. And while she admits she has lost the voice she was born with and regrets not keeping that voice alive, it is difficult to say that she has completely lost that part of her identity. Being able to once speak in that voice, is what allowed her to travel to that crowded New York bar even in her fancy outfit. Having a voice or being part of that cultural voice, is part of one’s identity.

In the novel Before We Were Free written by Julia Alvarez, she made one of her main themes the loss of voice to really express the freedom taken away from even the voice of children and family. This was happening in the Dominican Republic under the control of a cruel dictator named Rafael Trujillo who will be referenced as “El Jefe” and “Mr. Smith” throughout the book. Loss of voice is shown straight from the beginning of the book. The family is intruded by the secret police also know as the SIMS. “Policia secreta,” she explains. “They go around investigating everyone and then disappearing them.” (14)This quote kinda shows the little information people know about the SIMS. Anita was trying to figure out why they are digging through their house with no respect

This is when Najmah did not speak because of her loss,she does not speak throughout her journey in the mountains.(STEWE-2) Najmah thinks that she will no longer be able to speak,“It's been more than two weeks since I've last spoken,and I’m not certain I will ever be able to speak again”(110).Najmah does not speak because she does not feel safe,even when she wants to she can’t,she thinks her silence has been protecting her throughout the trip in the mountains.(SIP-B)When mother and Habib died she also became somebody else,she lost the little girl Najmah and became Shaheed.(STEWE-1) Akhtar changed Najmah into a boy and gave her the name Shaheed so she can stay safe,he knows that she is no longer Najmah because her loss changed her into somebody else, “This is not the girl Najmah”(149). Akhtar knows that Najmah has been lost and Shaheed was born,the loss of mother and Habib have strongly impacted her,shaped her into another person.(STEWE-2)When Najmah got her haircut that is when her transformation started and she became Shaheed,“They sprinkle it into a large hole that Akhtar has dug and fills it with

I don’t think I had really found my voice yet, but I think I’m in the progress of finding it. I feel as if the film had touch me in a personal way because I have a friend who is a has a really bad stuttering issue and a lot of people make fun of the way he talks. It made me realize that just because my friends has this stuttering problem shouldn’t have to hide it. In the movie, the people who was close to the kind didn’t react to his stuttering. It made me realize that you should appreciate that people who are stuttering doesn’t affect the people who is stuttering. I have a really high Emotional Intelligence, so when he broke down with his wife in private I was able to share that feeling of failure. I feel as if the more I network and talk

Honestly speaking, 10 year old Zoe was a girl without a voice. Some would call it cute or contend that I was just shy, however, in my eyes it was an embarrassment. It was something I struggled with daily and even the simplest tasks like answering a question left my heart pounding and my face rushed red. It's not that I was incapable of speech, but the sheer anxiety of being put on the spot during light conversation left me impaired generally speaking. I stumbled on my words, I stuttered, hesitated, mumbled, everything symptomatic of a person whose destiny lies in a life of isolation and mute.

Celine was one of the original six and was convinced to touch the Abbraxian cube triggering a world changing shock wave. Six years after the shock wave Celine began hearing a voice. She barely noticed it at first but it felt like she had two completely separate wills.

She was dismissed and returned home. She understood that the government now fell under strict sacred rule and that questions of any sort would not be tolerated, in fact questions could be interrupted as doubting the will of Allah. She went back to work and continued

The last option is surgical voice restoration which was introduced by Singer & Blom in 1980(Blom,1995) Not all patients are suitable for this however, It involves a tracheoesophageal speaking valve, a small fistula is surgically created through the tracheal wall into the oesophagus. A small, one way valve is inserted into the fistula and it allows air to be shunted from the trachea to the oesophagus and up through the pharyngo-oesophageal segment creating an acoustic wave form and voice. A longer flow of voice can be achieved as pulmonary air is used as the initiator for voice.