Essay Response: When I Look at Strawberry, I Think of a Tongue

The author of When I look at Strawberry, I think of a Tongue uses monologue to show the readers his experiences and thoughts. As the reader, I could identify the monologue in the essay which immediately indicates the voice of the author. Therefore, the persona created by the author is of a person that is trying to find meaning and purpose in life. Such a persona creates pleasure within me as the reader because most of the issues the author is going through are things that I can relate to as a young person. Like most people, the author had big dreams, but over the years, life wearied him out as he struggled to find purpose. Eventually, he settled for living life just for the sake of it. I feel like the author's persona managed to engage me as a reader because I could relate to most of the experiences in the essay.

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One way the writer has given his ideas voice is by using quotation marks. Notice how he says, "A is better than B" but "I prefer A to B." Those quotation marks give the reader a different interpretation of the ideas that are inside the quotes. The voice within the quotation is different because it represents direct words from the author while the rest of the words are interpreted, the sound and words within the quotes represent the exact words that usually cross the author's mind. There is also the voice within the voice. For example, when the author describes the suicide of his friend, the reader not only hears the author's voice, there is also the voice of the friend as he tells the wife that he left something in the house.

I feel like the author uses an indifferent tone all through the essay. I cannot tell whether he is happy or sad. He seems unremorseful at times, especially when speaking about unfortunate events. For example, the reader gets no indication of the author's feelings when he describes the death of his friend who committed suicide. On some occasions, he describes exciting events such as when he chronicles his escapades around the world. But he remains indifferent because I could not tell whether he relishes those memories or not. I think that is because he associates all his memories with death. Death is a representation of something that has passed, and it is not coming back. As a result, I would understand why the author would fail to get excited about old memories. However, I fail to understand why the talk of death does not evoke the feeling of sadness as it is supposed to.

Conclusion

The essay is made up of jumbled thoughts. There is no particular format or structure to the piece. The reader is tossed back and forth between childhood and adulthood memories of the author. However, when it comes to Leve's purpose of writing the essay, I think he wanted people to listen to him and maybe start addressing the struggles that ordinary people go through. The battles that the author is going through are familiar to most people, but not many people are willing to talk about it. By writing the essay, he was expressing his struggles in life and seeking to inspire readers to open up about their struggles. In the end, he committed suicide which shows how bad the situation was.