Why I Like Country Music, By James Mcpherson And Jamaica Kincaid

Founding Father Alexander Hamilton overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles in his path to becoming the first Secretary of the Treasury. Born into poverty on a small Caribbean island, Hamilton endured his father’s abandonment of him and his mother’s death to illness. After a hurricane devastated his homeland, the seventeen-year- old Hamilton wrote a letter so powerful that people donated enough money for him to sail to New York, where his aptitude for writing propelled him to the highest ranks of the rebelling Continental Army. Similarly, authors James McPherson and Jamaica Kincaid rose from the depths of poverty through the potency of their words. Their success as writers stems from an aptitude for relaying impactful messages through their

Both Kincaid’s short story “Girl” and McPherson’s short story “Why I Like Country Music” employ instances of brusque dialogue to underscore their respective protagonists’ struggles against institutionalized prejudices. “Girl” and “Why I Like Country Music” frequently utilize instances of pithy dialogue to build a power structure . For instance, “Girl” delineates a mother’s list of life advice to her daughter, ranging from how to set a table to how to love a man. McPherson similarly incorporates straightforward dialogue as the narrator recounts how a childhood crush shaped his current life. In both stories, figures of authority exert their power through curt dialogue. In “Girl” the mother lists specific instructions, demanding that her daughter learns to “wash the white clothes on Monday” and “wash the color clothes on Tuesday” (Kincaid 437). Likewise, the teacher in “Why I Like Country Music” orders Clarence Buford to “put some strut” in his dancing (McPherson 507). The authors deliberately use explicit commands (wash and put) to establish a social power hierarchy between the characters. Whereas the formatting of “Girl,” a predominately one-sided discussion between the mother and daughter, reveals the power the mother holds over the daughter, McPherson achieves a similar effect through his descriptions of the Mrs.