The Life Argotic

Something that has always fascinated me is how figurative language can capture tiny chunks of culture. For example, in the United States when we want to say something is familiar to us we tend to say one of two expressions. (1) I can say/do that with my eyes closed; or, (2) I know it like the back of my hand. I can’t remember where I read it, but recently I read/heard a different expression used in similar situations that offered a sharp contrast between two cultures. The saying went something like, “I know it like I know my grandfathers face.” I’m fairly certain this came from an episode of The Rest is History Podcast about Crazy Horse, but I don’t have time to go back and find it.

However, the contrast between cultural values is really in your face on this one. The stark difference between using a family member, specifically an elder in this case, to note how familiar you are with something or someone clearly demonstrates social collectivism and deep focus on family. Whereas, the former idiom focuses on our abilities as an individual and knowing our own physical bodies. To me, that is fascinating. Yesterday, I came across another piece of figurative language that really struck me while reading Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

First and foremost, I know why my colleague recommended it to me and everyone else. It’s a story, or stories rather, about the splitting of a family during the slave trade and how each side grew differently and had wildly different experiences over time. I see this in my own school setting where we have a large population of students who are either directly from or second generation African American students who struggle to find identity here in the United States where Black culture was formed and informed by slavery, Jim Crow, red lining, and police brutality. Gyasi does an excellent job of showing the contrast, but she doesn’t skip out on the comparisons either. The side of the family who remained in Africa also faced colonialism, war, poverty, and racism on their side of the world. While I absolutely hated the ending, there was a brief moment of figurative language that caught my eye.

In the book, one of the characters wants to visit a town and her parents keep saying no for various reasons throughout her life. Then comes this part, “She was speaking as one speaks to an old woman whose memories, those things that used to be hard-formed chrysalises, had turned into butterflies and flown away, never to return” (135). There is a lot of figurative language that sticks out in this novel, but this one really caught my eye. It takes something seemingly so horrible in our culture (dementia and memory loss), and makes it beautiful. It helps retain the humanity in the person and in their life that they are still living as the host to something beautiful instead of just a body wasting away.