1. Elements of Voice VOICE LESSONS – PAGE 37
Brain Flexor
Elements of Voice
VOICE LESSONS – PAGE 37

2. Brain Flexor – Detail (page 37)
Read & Consider
Discuss & Apply
“Until I returned to Cuba, I never realized how many blues exist. The aquamarines near the shoreline, the azures of deeper waters, the eggshell blues beneath my grandmother’s eyes, the fragile indigos tracking her hands. There’s a blue, too, in the curves of the palms, and the edges of the words we speak, a blue tinge to the sand and the seashells and the plump gulls on the beach. The mole by Abuela’s mouth is also blue, a vanishing blue.”
– Christina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban
DISCUSS:
Identify the Rhetorical devices employed in this excerpt.
The narrator details the blues of the landscape and the blues of her grandmother, Abuela. What connection is revealed by this juxtaposition of images?
Why is the last blue in the passage a vanishing blue?
Identify the tone, use evidence from the text to justify your answer.
APPLY:
Choose a color and describe a scene using at least three varieties of that color.
Try to mix details of landscape and people. +

3. Suggested Answers: Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban
1. Tetracolon Climax; asyndeton; polysyndeton; figurative lang.; FC Ending. 2. The narrator connects her grandmother (Abuela) with Cuba. The connection reveals that Abuela is as much a part of Cuba as the water, the shores, the palms, the sand, the seashells, and the gulls. To the narrator, the experience of Cuba is inseparable from the experience of her grandmother.
3. The last blue in the passage, the vanishing blue, is the blue of the mole by Abuela’s mouth. As part of her grandmother, who is old, the mole’s distinctive character is vanishing, fading. That the mole is blue connects Abuela to other aspects of Cuba,
all described as tinged with blue. However, Abuela is aging, and her way of life is passing. So although Abuela is connected to Cuba, her life and the Cuba she represents are declining.
4. Tone – nostalgic
Details & Imagery: blues
Syntax: asyndeton & polysyndeton