hooks Angle of Secrets
bell hooks writes her unusual autobiography with a clear purpose. She wanted to get rid of the girl of her childhood and release the hold her past had on her. bell speaks of a troubled upbringing that has an attachment to her. Writing an autobiography was to become a libratory act that would free her and allow her to live fully in the present. This relatively simple task presented its challenges. bell began wondering whether she was ready to let go of her daunting past and, be able to break free from the scars of childhood. bell hooks had grown up sworn to secrecy, a secrecy that if broken was betrayal to her family. bell saw the secrecy as barriers stopping her from growing up to be the person she wanted to be. Writing could free her of this secret, but writing it so blatantly on paper scared her. It left her so vulnerable. bell then met a man that had such an impact on her she was able to open up and drop her walls. She realized writing was a way for her to reunite with the past but also to release the hold it had on her. After writing her essay then rereading it, her piece helped her to analyze what she wrote about but more importantly what she left out, and why. Writing the autobiography helped her to see that she had not exactly gotten rid of the girl of her past, instead helped her. She was able to accept her past, learn from it, and become a better person because of it.
In, writing autobiography, bell hooks states clearly how writing an “autobiography is very personal storytelling-a unique recounting of events not so much as they have happened but as we remember and invent them”(hooks 32). She is talking about how her autobiography is written from her angle of vision. The way a story gets told and who tells it determine the angle of vision from which the story unfolds. bell as the author, can choose exactly what she wants to tell you. She has the ability to leave information out, portray facts in a specific light, or even use persuasive bias to sway a reader’s opinion. bell writes about asking her sisters if they recalled certain events. She sums it up by saying, “Often we remembered together a general outline of an incident but the details were different for us”(32). This statement shows how the angle of vision of a writer is what makes every piece of writing unique. It makes an essay personal and gives you a look into the author’s life. Anyone trying to write Bell Hooks story would tell of it completely differently. An outside view might show Bell as a happy young girl with a loving family. Bell Hooks story, however, is very dramatic. She talks of her childhood and exposes it as challenging, dark, and unpleasant. At times she felt trapped, unable to grow. This is something a bystander writing about bell’s life, from his personal angle of vision, would never be able to capture.
bell hooks was trapped in a secret. She had the challenge of keeping it quiet all through childhood. bell states, “And yet I could not grow inside the atmosphere of secrecy that had pervaded our lives and the lives of other families about us”(31). Her secret hindered her ability to grow, while mine made me grow up so much faster. I spent four years of high school not telling a soul the biggest details of my life. As a freshman I went through something that defined who I was from that point on. The trivial issues of high school no longer compared to what I was dealing with. I was mature beyond my classmates. I felt like my best friends could not possible know who I really was. I could never tell anyone what was on my mind. Holding a secret like that can be absolutely draining. Sometimes I would want to just scream it out. Tell everyone just so I could get it off my chest. But fact is, it was my secret, but it was not my life that would be devastated in the telling. My “black man” was a girl who lived down the hall from me. She was someone I had known for days, not years, and was someone I could count on not to judge me. I knew she would only listen and that was what I needed. She enabled me to drop barriers because she had been through things I can only fear. She was strong and she could help me. Speaking to her was an intense relief and I sometimes wish I could have talked to someone sooner. The catty halls of high school, however, would have made that impossible. Again I differ from bell hooks in that my memory and my secret needs never to be written down. She talks of her memories becoming less clear the longer it took her to write. She worried about losing the vividness. I hope to lose the vividness. Lose the secret. Lose the burden. Lose it completely and entirely. She also feels writing about it makes her able to reunite with the past and then in turn release it. I never want to write it. Writing it makes it true, makes it real, and makes it unforgettable. As much as it may help me release it I am not ready yet. It took me four years to speak; maybe it will take another four to write. I also do not have a past that I am trying to get rid of or release it is just a secret I would rather not carry alone.
By Nina Bianchi
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