Stuart by Zadie Smith
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In the short story “Stuart” by Zadie Smith, the author uses striking and strong language which has a powerful affect on the passage as well as the story as a whole. The narrator uses critical opinions while describing how the day and how people change. Need to put in a thesis. What are you trying to say in the story. What specifically do you want to focus on? Physical, behavioral etc changes?
Metamorphosis is a strong theme that is portrayed throughout the whole story. The story starts off as just a normal day in the city where two Greek hotdog venders work but then transforms into a day of absolute chaos by the presence of “three white boys”(60). Smith describes three uncoordinated boys and how “they have man-sized hands sprouting from elongated, spindly limbs like the extremities of flamingos and their feet are so huge that they might be prehensile”(60) and then latter transforms one of the boys into a not into a russian gymnast, like a russian”Russian Gymnast”(66). One of the Greeks starts off as a normal vendor but then becomes an out of control monster all because of one of the young boys. In the passage Smith portrays the boys as young and harmless, where “none of them can call puberty an old friend”(60). She then goes to show how the boys start off as just any other young customers, that “there is a good feeling”(62) between the boys and the Greeks and then the situation morphs into an intense fight where the small Greek looses complete control. Passage number one is important to the story as it shows how the boys are in the view of any third person before the story morphs and changes the boys into the enemy of the Greek. The narrator describes boys in general as an “evolutionary development”(62) as these boys are not the same type of boys from “a hundred years ago, or even thirty years ago”(62). These changes are not just changes for a day but changes of a lifetime and also show how people, especially young boys, have developed through different generations. Zadie Smith also uses a lot of descriptive language in her story “Stuart”, which creates strong and realistic images of the boys before the chaos. Smith uses a simile to compare flamingos and the boys limbs which creates the image of three gawky boys who have limbs far to long for their bodies. The boys are described with all the same characteristics, almost as if they