Art and Protest in Writing - Essay Example

 Introduction As human beings, we are unique because of our ability to communicate through speaking, listening and writing. As such, it becomes possible to learn from other people’s experiences through the message they communicate. Of particular concern is writing which, against people’s view of the skill as a mystery, is a skill that could be improved with time and practice. Proper writing has the potential of influencing readers to change in line with the writer’s purpose of writing. It is a tool that communicates the thoughts, ideas and proposition of writers effectively if proper skills are adopted. Writing as an art would basically involve the writer using writing as a medium for expressing the intended long lasting communication, an avenue for personal interactions or as a means to convey feelings and ideas to the reader, at the present or future times. Taken as an art, there would be need for motivation to actually cause the potential writer to go into the trouble of writing, creativity and attribution to make the writing interesting and to give an indication that the writer reads from the works of other authors. To a new writer, attitude would be a critical component especially when sharing what has been written with other writers. Wiggins (41) argues that every successful writer needs to posses some degree of arrogance. For example, Alvarez is a renowned novelist. In her novel Something to Declare, the author includes a reader’s comment claiming that after finishing one book by the author, the reader would automatically be led to buy another of the author’s books. This has been used as an intentional strategy by most writers to gain trust from the readers and thus make it easy to manipulate their minds in line with their purpose of the writing. Cambridge Educational Services introduces an important aspect in writing referred to as “wordsmithing” (20). This involves categorizing alphabetic symbols so as to convey a particular meaning. Writing involves use of symbols that could be easily predicted and symbolism plays an important role of communication in writing as writing in itself could have desirable or undesirable consequences. Probably, Alvarez avoiding to attack America directly for racism could be an example of symbolism in use. The author chose to use the America beauty pageant instead thus reduces chances of undesirable consequences. Most people would write about others but their works would not last. But for writers like Alvarez, their works become constantly new in the reader’s mind. There is much difference between disclosing one’s life in writing without any purpose and using one’s emotions and concerns in constructing a bond between the reader and the author or writer. Therefore, knowing the purpose for writing would be critical before engaging in any writing works. This would also be an important phase in the determination of the target audience so as to choose an appropriate delivery technique depending on whether the writing is aimed at informing, entertaining, demonstrating or persuading. With the development of skills for identification of purpose, together with organization, the tone and texture of the writing automatically gets to the required standards. It just resembles talking to the target audience only that in this case, it would be done in writing. The author should be careful on the language used depending on the knowledge and exposure of the targeted audience. Although Alvarez has her poems and essays done from an American-Hispanic perspective, she thoroughly analyses human behaviors. The art of writing surpasses language and cultural barriers to achieve the intended objective as long as the purpose has been outlined. In her I want to be Miss America works, Alvarez portrays the image being sent out of the American culture. Through narrative writing in her novel, the author protests at the society’s Americanization of beauty. Through the story of Julia Alvarez and her sisters watching the Miss America pageant and admiring to have blue eyes and blonde hair so as to be appreciated as model-like beautiful is a protest against society’s mistreatment of people from other races (Alvarez 44). After all, from their country of origin, Dominican Republic, beauty has always been an aspect that all women need to embrace and cultivate. The author communicates the categorization of people in America based on the language they speak causing them to long for looks like those of models aired on TV. More so, language in writing plays an important role in communication. Despite her roots from the Spanish Dominican Republic, Alvarez writes a novel that passes across her intended message without language barrier being a problem. Indeed, language could become a deterrent to success in writing, but Alvarez uses this misgiving to protest at the discrimination that exists because of differences in languages and ethnic backgrounds. After years of watching the Miss America beauty pageant, Alvarez and her sisters realize that language is what bars them from being models in the US. The sisters still possess the Spanish look and need to “translate their looks into English… mold them into the Made-in-the-USA” (Alvarez 39). Ethnicity plays an important role and the English look becomes an insecurity mark on the Alvarez sisters. From this excerpt, Alvarez vividly conveys that language gives one identity and defines the way one looks. As such, the sisters try all they could to change their identity; changing their dressing, tweezing their eyebrows and straightening their hair but to no success. Wiggins (42) points out at content, style and organization as important aspects in successful writing. Content involves distinguishing between non-fiction and fiction. Despite the argument that most non-fiction in reality turn to be fiction should not be an excuse to writing factual material and instead allowing for minds wandering into new places. Interestingly, the more factual aspect fiction would be given, the more factual it would be. Therefore, a writer should aim at consistency in characterization or narration of historical events. Alvarez’s work gives a good example for this. The author has been consistent with her narrations and examples from one novel to another. In I Want to be Miss America, the story of the sisters could be fictional but the consistency portrayed a factual story that captures the reader’s attention. Even with factual information, Wiggins (41) argues on the importance of orderly presentation of facts in a chronological approach emphasizing on timing and sequence of events; transactional approach focusing on the happening of event; and biographical approach where individual would be described alongside facts about them. Indeed, Alvarez portrays this in her novel as she narrates their migration into America followed by the experiences in America in a chronological manner. As such, the reader follows the writer with ease from a section to another, thus making the writing an effective communication tool. The fundamental task in content and presenting facts in writing revolves around the writer being able to do homework on the topic to be written on successfully. Students could make use of this capability by reading widely from a range of sources while at the same time being discriminative on what to accept as credible. In fact, prewriting strategies should be adopted at this stage including brainstorming. It is for this reason that Cambridge Educational Services (26) differentiates between event and interpretation: while an event represents a fact, a true description of what happened, an interpretation would be considered as a coloring of the event. In Alvarez’s novel, racism in America would be considered as the event. Truly, racism is known to be a thriving form of discrimination in America. But what Alvarez chooses to undertake following this event describes her interpretation. The writer chooses to portray racism in America through the eyes of her sisters and the perception of Miss America beauty pageant. The author narrates their immigration from Dominican Republic, where women and beauty go hand in hand, into America where beauty is a reserve of the American girls with blonde hair and blue eyes. The description or coloring of the event aims at convincing the reader that racism exists in America. Despite the author giving an account of her experience, there should have been some background study on racism in America so as to bring the narration into perspective. Further, the way the reader understands the description becomes an interpretation too. Therefore, being able to convince the reader what the writer’s opinion and sentiments are becomes another attribute that writing should seek to fulfill. Use of supporting material in developing the topic therefore becomes an important aspect and would be achieved through research, literature review or personal experience. In non-fictional writing, referencing the material and attributing quotes is proof of credibility of the writing. But even with this, it would be important to cite credible sources to solidify the material in the writing. Plagiarism is an unacceptable offence in writing, particularly in informative writing where research based reports would be extracted. Alvarez chooses to use personal experience in the I Want to be Miss America narrative just as she does with her novels. The writer narrates her personal experience through writing with the aim of unearthing ethnic discrimination in America. The writer narrates in first person to earn the trust of the reader who would be convinced that the narration comes from firsthand experience of the treatment in the society. Even though there could be some fact to the writer’s narration, she has the freedom of influencing the reader’s thoughts in line with her sentiments and opinion through suggestion of solutions and negatively painting the aspects she does not approve. In fact, the acknowledgements that Alvarez has received for this novel could have been inspired more by her opinion expressed in the novel as an anti-racism activist as opposed to her excellent writing. Characterization is an important aspect in writing and has been argued that even with a poor novel, characters could make the whole work interesting (Cambridge Educational Services 19). Character development does not involve how to make things happen so as to develop character. The idea encompasses making the readers feel the characters in the writing and cause a change in one’s life. In any form of writing, the ability to read the written work aloud would be proof of excellent work. Punctuation is tightly linked to breathing with a comma representing a short breath; a full stop representing a longer one and a question mark and exclamation mark dictating that the ending words have a rising tone. As a writer, using these punctuation marks appropriately could prove critical in delivering message in the intended way. To crown all successful writing works, writers must proofread their works to ensure the intended flow has been achieved and that all grammatical errors have been appropriately corrected. Wiggins (44) advocates for writers to “revise, revise again and revise” so as to come up with good writing. Together with grammar, punctuation constitutes the mechanics in the trade whose proper application would not come from mastering the rules of usage but through careful proofing and revising the written works. Having written work with grammatical errors discourages readers from going through the whole document. It also gives an indication of unprofessionalism and therefore fails to communicate the intended message to the targeted audience. Writings of professional writers like Alvarez present utmost professionalism because of the flow that is achieved through proofing to remove any grammatical and punctuation errors. Conclusion People would barely have time to read written works that do not pass the intended message across or one that has so much error thus hindering the flow in writing. But well written works have greater impact to the audience. Writing is a powerful tool used by authors to impart their thinking onto the readers and causing a change in line with what they so desire. Written works communicate to various audiences the intended message and should therefore be properly developed as an art. With this capability therefore, written works could be used to change behaviors or protest against any happenings that the writer does not agree with. Just like any other artistic work, writing is a skill that could be acquired by any interested parties and perfection achieved through practice. Works Cited Alvarez, J. I Want to be Miss America, Something to Declare. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2008. 37 – 49. Cambridge Educational Services. Writing Skills. Cambridge, 2002. Wiggins, W. P. “The Art of Preparing a Successful Written Protest.” Journal of Tax Practice and Procedure Vol. 1 (2008): 41 – 45. Read More