Reading Response; The Kid

    I'm about three-quarters through with the book The Kid, by Sapphire (sequel to Push). i have noticed an interesting trait about the writing in this book, it relates to how the main character, Abdul, speaks. Abdul is a young teenager who lives in Harlem in the 1980s and 1990s. (SPOILER ALERT) His mother died of AIDs and he has no idea who his father is. for a brief period of time he was in a catholic orphanage, but he was kicked out. He now lives with his cruel, uneducated grandmother. I've noticed that in the beginning, when he lived a sheltered lifestyle, he was articulate. As the book progresses and there is more and more negative influence on poor Abdul, his speech changes from that of an articulate boy, to a broken, often grammatically incorrect speech pockmarked with swears and slang.

     You see Abdul's speech as a boy, living with his loving mother, Precious, on page 28. This is right after his mother's funeral. He says "she's standing by the bed holding my good shoes. my suit is on the bed, folded up and wrapped in plastic."As you can see, this is a grammatically correct sentence, and it is rather articulate for a nine year old boy. this is before the negative influence that changes everything about. this is when he is still an innocent little boy.

    When Abdul is in foster care, where he is negatively influenced by the other boys, his speech has taken a drastic change. This is apparent on page 70, where he says, "Usually if ain't no guys playing basketball, but when we get up the stairs, i stop short. All kinda people in here today dressed in bright colored tights..." As you can see his speech is not grammatically correct, he uses words like 'ain't'. he also uses and double negative among other things. these are probably things picked up from the boys around him.

    When Abdul is living with his grandmother, the change is complete. the once articulate boy is saying things like, " what kinda s**** is that? i try think of something, anything but what im hearing." as you can see, he is swearing and his once-normal speech is broken. this is probably due to the way his illiterate grandmother speaks.

    i think that the changing of Abduls speech shows a change in character. he was once a normal, bright, happy boy, he spoke normally. then as he was influenced by the drug-addicts and uneducated people, more than his speech changed. He didn't act as intelligent, he did impulsive, even violent things, and fell to the level of those around him. Uneducated, finacially unstable, impulsive, and angry. the bright young boy had turned into a typical teenager of his neighborhood in that period of time. His speech change helped express that change.