26 pages • 52 minutes read
Gloria AnzalduaHow to Tame a Wild Tongue
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Synecdoche
Synecdoche is a rhetorical device in which a part stands for a whole or a whole for a part. It is the primary literary device in Anzaldúa’s essay. The tongue is a synecdoche for language. The phrase “wild tongue” refers to the languages that Chicanos speak. The plural use of tongues is important because it represents the languages that Anzaldúa speaks, including different Spanish and English dialects and slang.
In her metaphor saying that the Chicano “walks like a thief in his own house” (44), the home functions as a synecdoche for the homeland. Anzaldúa’s essay provides a blueprint for embracing language as a means of survival. Her conclusion highlights the role Indigenous American heritage plays in Chicano identity. Through acknowledging and celebrating that heritage, including Indigenous people’s resilience and pride that preserved their “tongue” as living languages, mestizas and mestizos will endure.
The logic of synecdoche is also significant for the meaning of the essay overall. Anzaldúa’s autobiography becomes an avenue to explore an entire people. Anzaldúa presents herself as a part of a larger whole; Anzaldúa’s Chicana experience represents the Chicano people’s experience on the borderlands.
Bildungsroman
This literary device or genre refers to a coming-of-age story that follows a person’s development and education from childhood to adulthood. Popular examples in literature include Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield and Rigoberta Menchu’s memoir I, Rigoberta Menchu. Anzaldúa’s essay weaves together a series of significant events from her childhood and young adulthood in a manner that highlights the development of her social and political consciousness as a Chicana woman. She tells stories about her childhood, then young adulthood, then adulthood having reached maturity. The developmental aspect of the story is clear: She begins ashamed of her identity but ultimately embraces her Chicana identity as an adult.
Free Indirect Discourse
Free indirect discourse is a narrative technique wherein the narrator or author incorporates conversational speech without quotation marks. This device is typically used in fiction, yet Anzaldúa incorporates it into her autobiographical essay to engage the audience. She occasionally diverges from her formal writing style to address the reader directly. For instance, she says, “So, if you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language” (39). Anzaldúa uses free indirect discourse to emphasize her argument that Chicana women must resist censorship and the dominant culture’s attempts to silence them.
Epigraphs
An epigraph is a quote used to introduce a literary work or, in the case of Anzaldúa’s “Wild Tongue,” subsections of the work. Anzaldúa uses epigraphs for each subsection of her essay, paying homage to the authors and thinkers with whom she engages. These epigraphs often incorporate quotations from Chicano literature, thus contributing to Anzaldúa’s effort to celebrate notable Chicano cultural works. The epigraphs, along with her descriptions of literature and pop culture, begin to create a Chicano canon—a collection of cultural works that express a particular aesthetic, identity, or set of values. Anzaldúa includes herself in this canon when she uses the epigraph “Linguistic Terrorism,” a phrase she coined. Acknowledging her role as a prominent cultural theorist whose ideas and writing helped create Chicano Studies, Anzaldúa identifies and celebrates her contribution.
