The Use Of Connotation In My Titled, Reborn

When she was sold I felt her hopelessness and sorrow at being taken away from Afi. I felt her distrust towards Polly turn into a true friendship built on hardships and shared triumphs. When Amari was beaten I felt terrified and angry at Mr. Derby for being so cruel. Then I felt scared and hopeless when Mrs. Derby had her baby and Amari, Polly, and Tidbit were going to be sold. Then I felt surprised when Dr.Hoskins let them free.

In lines six through nine the speaker says,”She was staring at me with her eyes, her breasts still sturdy, her thigh warming mine.” This sentence shows how the speaker began discovering his love for the first time with her(Harper 6-9). The speaker signifies that the woman is healthy and young when he refers to her still having sturdy breasts. The author uses imagery to represent the connection a person feels when they share a warm sensation of touch. When the speaker realizes she is staring at him he begins to wonder how long she had been staring at him and if she loved him.

Through the narrator's retrospective narration, Johnson provides insight into the depth of the narrator's obsession with the girl. The narrator's admission that he loved her "as only a boy loves" highlights the intensity and purity of his emotions. Moreover, his admission of embarrassment when his teacher discovers his love poetry underscores the private nature of his infatuation and his vulnerability. This introspection allows the reader to understand the narrator's internal struggle as he grapples with his burgeoning feelings and the fear of rejection. Additionally, Johnson employs irony to add depth to the narrator's experience.

“The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all around him. She had become a physical necessity.”

The narrator is in love with the way she looks as the narrator describes “the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side” The way the narrator describes the softness of her hair and the shyness of watching her from afar shows that the narrator thinks of her more than he speaks to her.

And when «she knows it's happening: that thing, that connection» between them, when she dances for him and «making him fall in love with her» she says to him: «We've got all we need. We don't need love. Don't diminish yourself – don't reveal yourself as a sentimental sap. You're dying to do it, but don't. Let's not lose this.» (p. 231). She knows she's driving him nuts, she knows that her rejection of his feelings makes him want to attach to her sentimentaly even more. She dances for him and teaches him what life really is. She – a 34-year-old illiterate janitor, teaches him – colledge proffessor, ex-dean, a member of highest rank of society class, what life is all about.

Although, she made a big mistake she choose to come back and repay the debt she owed Hassan. “Smile for me. Please.” (210) Back then she rejected his smile but now his smile was the very first thing she asked for when she finally reached “home” (210). When she saw his smile it felt like a hole in her heart has been filled.

With these methods she is able to strengthen the powerful emotions that she was feeling during this time of her life by enhancing the her narration and its effectiveness on the reader.

I listened as eagerly and carefully as I had before, again, with the same motives, to keep her in front of me, to draw her forward from the context of her life and place her, as if she were an object, into the context of mine. I did not know how cruel this was. When you have never done a thing before and that thing is not simply and clearly right or wrong, you frequently do not know if it is a cruel thing, you just go ahead and do it, and maybe later you'll be able to determine whether you acted cruelly (5).

The author carefully crafts the story so that every detail contributes to a certain unique or single effect, whether it is as complex as irony or as simple as depiction of feelings. The Husband describes his absolute love for Ann as he reminisces about the years he spent with her and how deeply he "knows"

She might be the first person who caressed his wound while he got pain. Meanwhile love has taken most of her time-concerning. Love has besieged her soul. A matter that even she has not able to identified.

“And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!”

*Means: “I think it’s amazing how a man- who has seen how foolish another man makes himself when he gets obsessed about love- will become the exact thing he once criticized and fall in love himself- and that’s the kind of man Claudio is.”

he tries to convince her to seize the day. And because of this love he felt

“But now I think there is no unreturned love” he feels this way because although she does not love him back, he still has gained the ability to write moving words about his feelings which is blessing