The Right Word Characters

This Study Guide consists of approximately 10 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Right Word.

The Right Word Characters

This Study Guide consists of approximately 10 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Right Word.
This section contains 276 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy The Right Word Study Guide

The Speaker

Throughout the poem, the speaker struggles to find "the right word" to sufficiently describe the situation at hand. She questions her own process as well as the overall effectiveness of language itself, and her confusion is reflected in the irregular meter and uneven stanza lengths. At the end of the poem, the speaker sheds all descriptors based on prejudice and lands on a simple truth: before her stands a child who could be anybody's son. Once the speaker frees herself of the baggage that inflammatory words carry, she decides to invite the boy inside for dinner.

The Boy

Outside the speaker's door stands a stranger who evokes different reactions in the speaker based on the language she uses to describe him. Words like "terrorist," "hostile militant," and "guerrilla warrior" generate fear, while descriptions such as "freedom fighter" and "martyr" inspire patriotic sympathy (3, 10, 15, 7, and 18). When the speaker sheds...

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This section contains 276 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy The Right Word Study Guide
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