Rolling The R's Analysis

Rolling the R’s is set in Honolulu, HI, during the 70’s. It’s a glance backwards to the author’s childhood. It’s mostly written in Hawaiian pidgin, nonstandard English. Its characters are mostly kids around the age of 12, but they look so much older judging by the way they talk, but it is related to the setting. There are many narrators and genres. It’s a series of vignettes. Children are the symbol of naiveté, they represent the in-between of subjugation and complete freedom. A recurrent theme is the love for mainstream American pop culture, like Happy Days, disco music and Charlie’s Angels. Some themes are sexuality, childhood, relationship with America and pop culture, and friendship. HI is usually shown as a tropical paradise, but in the
Happy Days is of course about the typical American family, filled with stereotypes, a lot like Dick & Jane, but in a grownup version. One of the kids, Edgar, idolizes Scott Baio, Chachi from Happy Days, in one scene he’s forbidden by his father to watch the show, because of what his classmates might think of
Just because someone doesn’t conform to standard, it doesn’t mean that he’s bad, in this case this guy is the abject, there’s nothing worse than him, but he’s the smartest kid in school. Homosexuality (or bad behavior in general) is seen as contagious, as a sin that must be stopped from spreading. Kids identify with the Charlie’s angels because they are a group of female who defeats men, and the kids would love to be powerful like them. One of the chapters is Lips and a keyword for it is knowledge, it talks about Edgar asking to Exotica, a trans, about many things, like acceptance, and sexuality. There’s a similar relationship in the Bluest Eye when Morrison talks about Pecola and the prostitutes and it can also be linked The House of Mango Street when Cisneros talks about Rapunzel. The prostitutes and Exotica have in common the fact that they are someone the kid can ask to about stuff they don’t know. In the chapter You Lovely Faggot You a keyword can be fungus, just like fungi, homosexuality is thought to be bad and to spread. In the chapter F for Book Report the genre is a book report, written by a kid. It not the usual book report, the kid has no