English Annotation Shushers

The Narrative “Confessions of a Shusher” by Phillip Lopate creates a vivid image of the atmosphere of a movie theater that contains an annoying or irritating person or couple. The purpose of this writing piece is to express the frustration of the people surrounding those who do not partake in correct movie etiquette and also how society has possibly lost its sense of respect for other persons. He is trying to convey the struggle between those who consider themselves to be “shushers” and those who do not like to be solitude in public.
The author tries to convey this message mainly through writing this piece in first person while using the literary style of stream of consciousness. Periodically throughout the piece, the author shows his thoughts as it places him as the main character in the footsteps of a “shusher”. He talks about many past experiences that he’s encountered, explaining the many different interruptions or irritations that people in a movie theater can cause. He describes the others in his own technical terms of the “conversationalists”, the “foot kickers”, the “latecomers”, and the “candy-unwrappers”. While he describes his thoughts and feelings of frustration while using stream of consciousness, he also puts one hundred percent of his opinion into the piece and what he finds most annoying personally. He says this by describing the type of people who tend to be the noisiest, “But the noisiest, from my observation, are elderly couples”. He uses objective description when describing those around him while including the dialogue of things that he may say to the irritator or what they might respond back to his comment. With his objective description comes his interesting choice of words, “Those who nervously cross and uncross their legs behind me, each time pressing into the back of my seat”. This shows how he tends to be very specific and descriptive to help paint a scenario and atmosphere for the readers. He uses specificity with his situations that