Miguel Street Essay

Discuss the representation of man and manhood in the 2 short stories of Miguel Street. On Miguel Street, the representation of man and manhood can be seen negatively in these two short stories” “Bogart” and “A thing without a name”.

Where as a man’s manhood is considered strong if certain characteristics such as aggression, evading the law and their present living circumstances. The story about Bogart illustrates where his manhood being threaten where as Bogart is unable to father a child by his Tunapuna wife so he finds a means to escape this difficulty.

He goes elsewhere, run a “high-class” brothel, meets another woman and successfully impregnates. Once he has achieved his goal of proving his virility, he may return to Miguel Street although he returns as a bigamist as Hat would say “To be a man, among we man”.

He would now be seen as a high standing man of the community, playing with the surrounding children and giving them parties, which is a vastly different from the life he once had by pretending to be a tailor but now is seen The main character in “A thing without a name “ Popo is a carpenter by profession but he is not considered a man among his peers as his wife was the main breadwinner of the family which did not bothered him as he would continue to make “a thing without a name”. This however changed when Popo wife left him for another man, it is then that he was accepted as “one of the gang “within Miguel Street, as they could related to his pain and heart ache. His man hood was however bruised by the separation of his wife , so he would then retaliate by fighting the other man and going to prison, which eventually made him an hero on Miguel street.

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