Textual analysis - Essay Example

In this essay, description is an important technique to introduce and characterize main characters and settings. It helps readers imagine how these people look and where these incidences happened. The young lady was scared of Staples, not only because Staples is a “youngish black man”, but also because his clothes and his behavior made him look like “a mugger” or “a rapist”. Brent Staples described himself as “the youngish black man—a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pocket of a bulky military jacket “(40) in his early twenties.

He uses “broad”, “billowing” and “bulky” to make people see him as big and imposing. Staples also uses the word “shove” over the word “put”, which suggests violence and makes Staples appear more powerful. In this way, Staples successfully describes how he seems scary to other people. After Staples “felt [sadness] at so often being taken for a criminal” (42), he was forced to pay attention to his clothes and his behavior. Brent Staples says, “I give a wide berth to nervous people on subway platforms during the wee hours, particularly when I have exchange business clothes for jeans.

If I happen to be entering a building behind some people who appear skittish, I may walk by, letting them clear the lobby before I return, so as not to seem to be following them” (42). Staples describes several sceneries that commonly happen in people’s daily lives. He puts readers into the platforms and buildings as if they are watching as things happen. In the last paragraph of the essay, Staples says, “I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers.

Even steely New Yorkers hunching toward nighttime destinations seem to relax, and occasionally they even join in the tune” (42). In this description, Staples puts readers onto the street where strangers whistle melodies to greet each other.