Analyzing Transforming Moments

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Analyzing Transforming Moments

 By Gcina Mhlope

There were a couple of things that I found interesting in this story, but I would say the one thing that stood out the most was the influence that the praise poet had on the writer.  With this one event her whole life changed.  The ugly duckling became a beautiful swan, and all of a sudden her whole perspective changed from “Life was all right. Everything was going the same ...” to “I felt like jumping and laughing until I could not laugh any more. I wanted tomorrow to come ...” In the beginning of the story she started by saying “I thought I was very ugly” and after her encounter with the praise poet she says “my face didn’t feel so ugly – everything just felt fine. My voice sounded like it was a special voice ...”

She started with a very low self esteem and ended truly liking herself. In the first sentence we are introduced to the author as being a teenager that is lacking in confidence, when she writes “feeling very unsure of myself”.  The remainder of the paragraph is dedicated to the fact that she did “exceptionally well” academically; but this had no influence on the way she felt about herself.   The transformation in this story is on an emotional level.  Initially she experiences herself as being ugly but intelligent; with others only pretending to be her friend for help with their homework when she writes “some of the girls were forced to be my part-time friends”.  She describes her image as “Miss-Ugly-Top-of-the-Class”.  Although she did well academically, she still lacked confidence and “self-love”.  She describes herself by saying “I thought I was very ugly“.  She continued to describe herself as, “I had knock-knees and big feet! I was just so ugly and awkward – I hated myself”.  She saw herself as “an unsuitable girl” for Sizwe, and found it difficult to believe that he did not want anything from her.  He didn’t say that he wanted to be her boyfriend just to sleep with her.  

In the last three paragraphs we can see a major change in the way she thinks and feels about herself. Her voice, her hair, everything about herself is now acceptable, and she loves herself.  One gets the feeling that she is fearless and filled with confidence.  She can do this, even if she’s the first female praise poet.

It could be said that she was a humble individual.  Although she did very well academically, she said “I was probably proud of myself, even though I didn’t really give it any serious thought".  She did not want to receive special treatment. “I liked the fact that I was not treated like some special guest who couldn’t even do the dishes.”

She sees herself as being ugly, in comparison to the rest of the class and her peers. She refers to herself as “Miss-ugly-top-of-the-class”.

She thought of herself as not good enough to sing, that she had an ugly voice, because Bulelwa’s voice was beautiful enough to be recorded, and she was asked to leave the school choir. “I remember Bulelwa’s voice every time I think of our choir.” ”I wished I had a tape recorder so that I could tape her voice and have the pleasure of listening to her for the rest of my life.”

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The clothes that she wears is the same as the rest of the students but she thinks that they are not as nice.  “get dressed in my black skirt and white shirt, which were not as nice as those of the other girls”  

According to her she is an academic that helps her friends, but she refers to a boy, that is good with maths, as a genius that scares her. “But with Maths we all relied on one particular boy who scared me a lot. Sometimes the Maths genius did help us when he felt like ...

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