Gloria Naylor

Gloria Naylor, "The Meanings of a Word"

Gloria Naylor (1950- ) was born in New York City and earned a B.A. from Brooklyn College, CUNY in 1981 and an M.A. from Yale University in 1983. She's been a missionary for the Jehovah's Witnesses, worked as a hotel switchboard operator, and has taught at various colleges and universities including Princeton, Brandeis, and Cornell. Her novels are often interconnected, and display strong spirituality as they examine urban African American experience. They include The Women of Brewster Place (1982), Mama Day (1988), and The Men of Brewster Place (1998). Naylor's work has also appeared in periodicals such as Southern Review, Callaloo, and the New York Times. Among her honors and awards, Naylor has won National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim fellowships and two American Book Awards. "The Meanings of a Word" turns a painful memory into a meditation on how a positive, like-minded group can overcome narrowness and hate. It was first published in the New York Times in 1986.

CONTENT

1. Naylor says that writing has given her at least two very valuable things. Name and discuss them.
2. What is "the inevitable question that every black parent must face"?
3. Where, according to Naylor, does dialogue get its power?
4. Describe the author's maternal grandparents in as much detail as you can.
5. What meanings does the author say the word girl has? How does this word's meaning change as the context changes?
6. What was the "unforgivable sin" among the black adults around whom Naylor grew up? What things were forgivable to them? Why?
7. Describe the author's view of the relationship between language and reality.

STRATEGY AND STYLE

1. Take your answer from question c.) above and apply Naylor's method to her own dialogue throughout this essay. Where does it get its power?
2. Naylor starts her essay on a personal level, relating a personal incident. She goes on to generalize her experience to show that she is not the only one affected. How effective are some of the ways she does this?
3. What two figures make up the last image in this essay? Where else are similar figures mentioned? How does the repetition of such imagery function within the essay's structure?
4. Why does Naylor put the word bad in quotation marks in paragraph three? How does this relate to her ideas about the consensual nature of language? How might this usage differentiate her teacher from her mother?
5. In terms of rhetorical mode, is this essay better classified as "cause and effect" or "definition"? Does it have to be one or the other? Explain, with specific references to the text.

1. Describe a time that you and someone older (teacher, parent, neighbor) had a nontrivial disagreement over the meaning of a word. Did that incident cross your mind during your reading? Does anything about the reading seem different now?
2. If you had to read this essay aloud in class, would you feel comfortable? Why or why not? If you wouldn't be comfortable, what kind of discussion could help you and your classmates and your teacher reach a consensus?

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING

1. Describe the rules concerning conversation that were observed in the Harlem apartment of the author's grandparents. What was considered harmful to children's ears? How does Naylor contrast hearing the word nigger there to hearing it in her third-grade class? What do you make of this distinction?
2. Does it surprise you that Naylor, a renowned writer, says she considers "the written word inferior to the spoken"? What does she mean by that phrase? What is your position in this matter? Explain.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Naylor suggests that under certain circumstances derogatory words can be "rendered... impotent" by being spoken. Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, both brilliant standup comics, have suggested a very similar thing in both their life and their work. Pick one of these comedians and research his use of language in this regard. How are their contexts different from the one Naylor describes? Any similarities?

WEB CONNECTION

This page has information about a video series called In Black and White: Six Profiles of African American Authors. One of them is Gloria Naylor. Can you tell if your library owns the series from the computer you're using now?

LINKS

Biographical

Here's a very good general start page at the Voices From the Gaps site. There, you'll find a Naylor biography, quotes, book covers, photos, bibliographies, links, and a feedback area.

Naylor talks about herself and her work on this page. You'll also find a link to a brief video of her at this site.

This is an "unofficial" page about Naylor. What makes it "unofficial"? Does this mean that the information you find here is untrustworthy? How can you determine the validity of information on the web?

Bibliographical

Eager for some more writing by Naylor? Take a look at these excerpts from her novel The Women of Brewster Place. Did you happen to see the television adaptation that starred Oprah?

Read this teacher's guide for Mama Day. What did you learn about the book from the guide? What kinds of things would you have to consult the book itself to find out? Are you interested in reading the novel? Why or why not?

Here is the table of contents for an issue of the journal Hayden's Ferry Review. Notice that the interview it mentions with Naylor is not online. What's the best method of locating this interview?

Cultural

To put Naylor's work into a social and cultural context, it's helpful to have some background information about North American Black English. This Google.com directory will lead you to lots of different sites dealing with this subject.

Like every great writer, Naylor loves words and pays particular attention to their origins and meanings. How about you? What's your relationship with words? See if you have some fun at this site devoted to word and phrases.

Would you like to brush up your knowledge about American women's contributions to Civil Rights Movement? Read this essay on the subject. What mention is made there of Naylor? Could you use any of this in a research paper?