Listen to at least 15-20 minutes of “Trever Noah Says He Grew up ‘In The Shadow of a Giant’ (His Mom)“. What do you notice about Trevor Noah’s ability to share information about his life, including his relationship with his mother. Does he do more showing or more telling? Provide some examples to support your opinion. Your response should be six to nine sentences long.
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In “Trevor Noah Says He Grew up ‘In The Shadow of a Giant’”, Trevor used showing more to share information about his life in South Africa. Showing is to let readers experience the story through description. One example is about snitch. “People were encouraged to snitch. It was a police state, so there were police everywhere. There were undercover police. There were uniformed police. The state was being surveilled the entire time.” Another example is Trevor’s mother making him a bar mitzvah. “When I turned 13, she threw me a bar mitzvah. But nobody came.” “And she’s celebrating, and she’s reading things to me in Hebrew. I don’t know what’s going on. And she’s telling me that now I’m a man.” In these two examples, Trevor did not tell roughly (telling) but rather described (showing) these two things in more detail. This allows the audience to better understand what the speaker is saying.
I think Trevor Noah likes showing more. His ability to share information about his life is special. He did not just tell us directly what information that he wanted to share. He showed us the information by sharing his own stories. In the interview he said, “When I turned 13, she threw me a bar mitzvah, but nobody came because nobody knew what the hell that was. I only had black friends — no one knows what the hell you’re doing. So it was just me and my mom and she’s celebrating and she’s reading things to me in Hebrew.” This is an example that Trevor Noah likes showing more. In this quote, he did not directly tell us the relationship between him and his mom. But the story that he shared showed us there was an intimate relationship between them. His mom influenced him in religion and language.
I notice that Trevor Noah has very good skills on share information about his life. After listening to his interview, I think his language is very strong, it seems like creating an image/ a scene in front of me. This makes me feel I really involved in his story. He does more showing than telling because he uses many descriptive languages and makes the reader feel that the story is very vivid and I can feel what his mother feels at that point. For example, “my mother’s always looking for answers, she’s always searching for new information. I think she has a thirst or hunger that very few possess innately, so my mother never stagnated in a place where she said, ‘I have it all.’” While he remembers back to his mother, he is not only using certain sentences to describe what his mother believes but he actually quotes what his mother said. And it really allows me as an audience to know more about his mother’s idea, not just listen to what he thinks his mother is. Another example is “He tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross, “My grandmother kept me locked in the house when I was staying with the family in Soweto. … If the police did show up … it was a constant game of hide-and-seek.” He uses the game fo hide and seeks to describe his relationship with the police, which makes me know how scared he was at that time. It also creates an image that gives the reader a space to imagine what his life looks like at that time.
There were many instances where Trevor Noah used more showing than telling. Through his interview and also this book, he didn’t merely describe the situations but used vivid examples that help readers connect to the situation or imagine the environment of his life at that time. For example, when Noah was saying how we as people ”[shouldn’t] let those in power trick you out of your freedoms by using your fear.” This was a little hard to understand for me but once he said, “…shopping on an empty stomach. You’re going to buy food that you shouldn’t because at the time you are reacting to your hunger.” This I can picture clearly.
The dialogues that he added in his book to show the instances where, like his mother, he used language to help him get out of the situations when he was targeted. Not only did this make the readers picture the events, it added humor.
I noticed that Trevor Noah has a good speaking skill, and this may be due to his career as a comedian. He is able to articulate his words specifically with details.
Trevor Noah was trying to show and tell his life and relationship with his mother at the same time; he would say some of the background information before explaining it more thoroughly. When it came to elaborate what he said, he would tie back to his book, memory from childhood, and other past experiences. One thing I noticed when he did the showing part of the speech was when he compared how people view the injustice in history with how people are actually dealing with the same circumstances in the present day. This, I believe, would create an image in the people that we would rethink about why the same injustice happened over and over again. He also told us his admiration for his mother. When he talked about it, he also tied back to what he experienced with his mother. There were multiple aspects, which included the language Trevor Noah speaks and how he views the roles of women in society. He always described the situation he was into for the audience to better understand and imagine what he had gone through. From there, I believe that there was more showing than telling, but I can be wrong.
From “Trever Noah Says He Grew up ‘In The Shadow of a Giant’ (His Mom)”, Noah told us the story of life in South Africa. This led us back to the situation during that time. In the beginning, he told us it is illegal to have carnal intercourse between European people and Native people. The police have the registry of every household of everyone who lived in. When he was a child, his grandmother locked him in the house because his name never presents on the registry. He had to hide when the police came to their house. Also, in his book, he tells a story about minibus. When the driver realized he is the son of a black woman and a white man, he called his mother a whore. He is more telling by using his own experiences. I think he is more showing. He uses these stories to bring us back to the scene in South Africa which makes us understand how society looks like during that time.
Trevor Noah ability to share information about his life, it gives the audience a glimpse of his life. He uses imaginary to describes some of the moments in his life. It helps paint a picture in my mind of what he had experience. For example, when he spoke about snitching. “It was a police state, so there were police everywhere. There were undercover police. There were uniformed police. The state was being surveilled the entire time.” I can imagine in my head that everyone in the state are anxious and maybe paranoid. They are looking over their shoulder and they do not know who to trust. This example shows that Trevor Noah does more telling than showing. I feel like the overall interview Trevor Noah does more showing. For example, when he talked about his mother being black and his father being white. He shows us his experience with being mixed. For instance, “it was a constant game of hide and seek.” he was not on the registered list of people living in the house so, he would have to hide under the bed until the police left.
What I noticed about Trevor Noah’s ability to share information about his life, including his relationship with his mother, was that he was able to vividly describe his experiences and transport the reader back to that moment. Trevor Noah did more showing than telling, when it came to sharing about his life and his relationship with his mother. He did this, by describing the specific ways that his mother impacted his life and the lessons that he learned from her. One example of Trevor Noah’s ability of showing his life was with him describing his childhood as a biracial child in South Africa. Trevor Noah recalled that “My grandmother kept me locked in the house when I was staying with the family in Soweto. … If the police did show up … it was a constant game of hide-and-seek.” This example that he showed, visually transported me, to seeing the images of a young Trevor Noah hiding underneath the bed as the police came nearby his home. This example gave the reader an insight about how difficult it was to be a biracial child in South Africa, and having to deal with being seen as a crime. An example of Trevor Noah sharing his relationship with his mother and using the ability of showing, was with him describing his mother’s conversion to Judaism and the life lesson that he learned from that experience. Trevor Noah recalled “she threw me a bar mitzvah, but nobody came because nobody knew….So it was just me and my mom… I think she has a thirst or hunger that very few possess innately, so my mother never stagnated in a place…but I feel like it leads to a way more colorful life.” This detail that Trevor Noah showed us, illustrated his mother as a nonconformist and it was this trait that drove her to learn new things, which eventually led her to a new faith. Overall, Trevor Noah learned a valuable lesson from his mother and it helped shape how he viewed the world.
Trever Noah shares his childhood memories using a lot of description that allows the reader to imagine the moment he is describing. He tells the reader how knowing different languages allowed him to escape difficult situations. He does not tell the reader how they got out of the supermarket marketing situation, rather he describes the moment so that the reader can understand where he is coming from. When he describes the events, he creates ethos by showing the audience that he is not just making up a situation, he actually went through it, which creates reliability and credibility in the audience. Finally, as a reader of the story I can say that I will be more entertained if the author is describing everything because I can imagine the scene and put myself in the situation, so I really appreciate his description of the situations
When Trevor Noah is sharing information about his life and stories of his mother, he is very honest and concise. He has a basic storyline of what happened in his life and when the interviewer asked him questions, he replied with specific examples from his book and his own childhood experience. He justified big themes he understood through his experiences such as the importance of language (when it comes to his experience at the store with his mom and his incident of escaping from being muggled. Trevor Noah shares information in little pieces but after giving his example, he sums it up with his understanding of the event and how it affects him. This allows him to exercise his showing to convey meaningful points to the audience and to better understand his life in the way he experienced it. By recalling dialogues from his grandmother and Hebrew phrases from his mother easily, he demonstrates how these figures represent an important part of his early life and how it shapes who he is today. Trevor Noah shares his life experience as if telling a story which also makes his points more interesting and more connectable to the audience.
Trevor Noah is very good with his words. I feel like generally, Noah is skilled in sharing information effectively and his ability to share about his life is very clear as well. I noticed that his choice of words is descriptive and gives the listeners a visual as to what is happening. The way Noah expresses himself is compelling, he makes it so the listeners get a taste of exactly how he felt at the time. Noah definitely does more showing than telling. In the multiple scenarios that he has mentioned in the recording, he always described the scene accurately for the listeners to picture it in their head. An example would be when Noah talked about the time he almost got robbed. It is the way that he changed his accent when translating Zulu that created an image in my head. As he was explaining it, I imagined him in an alleyway with the robbers behind him speaking in Zulu and the robbers running off when Noah turned around speaking in perfect Zulu. Another example would be when Noah goes on to talk about a point in his life where he was not doing his best. “And I think if anything, the biggest knock that you experience in that world is – in terms of your identity is you feel like you are less than you are. You feel like you don’t have the right to belong. You know, you’re watching the world and the world exists without you.” Those words showed me how he viewed the world when he was really struggling with life. It was like he physically took me on a ride on his life.
I notice that Trevor Noah is very comfortable when sharing information about his life. There’s a saying that “You need to be comfortable for everyone to be comfortable”, Trevor is quite open when it comes to sharing his life – this helps the audience to be comfortable. It feels like Trevor has answered similar questions in the past because, when talking about his mother, he does not hesitate much. I, personally, think that Trevor show more than tell more. Trevor does tell a lot information, but I was able to imagine what he says so I say he show more. For example, when talking about his mother and father’s relationship before he was born, I was able to imagine his mother being caught at his father’s place (by the police). Another example, Trevor is able to describe his times with his grandmother, like hiding like “hide and seek”, this help the audience to imagine the scenery.
Trevor Noah shares the spotlight with mostly with his mother. He conveys all of these heroic acts of his mother being brave and smart. His mother tries to keep both him and her children safe from the police states. Se risk so much to see her husband as she has been arrested multiple times. Trevor does more showing than telling. He shares a long instance of love and communication. He mentions being mugged because of him being white to them. When he spoke back in their language, they changed their mind.
In this interview, Trevor Noah gives information about his life by showing us through the way he chooses to form his sentences. He uses very descriptive language to a point where you can almost imagine everything he’s saying. When he was asked to read out an excerpt from his memoir towards the end he read, “That and so many other smaller incidents in my life made me realize that language even more than color defines who you are to people. I became a chameleon. My color didn’t change, but I could change your perception of my color. ” In this sentence he is showing the reader that he was able to blend in with people from the different communities in South Africa because he knew all their languages. He chose to use descriptive words to help us see how he was able to blend in. By comparing himself to a chameleon, he’s effectively creating an imagine in our minds of a chameleon changing colors. Trevor Noah also describes his mom as an honorable woman, he said, “I came to realize over time that my mom was the hero. And I was, you know – I was just her punk-ass sidekick.” Again he is using words that can create a vivid image in our heads of his story, and by using such descriptive language he was able to keep the reader interested with his story the whole time, it wasn’t something boring that made you want to stop, it was intriguing and left you wanting to know more about his life. With his descriptive language he was keeping the reader interested in his memoir. I also admire how he made his mom the hero of his own story because when he was describing how hard working and smart his mom was he said things like, ” she was hungry to know more” instead of saying “she wanted to know more.” By saying she was hungry emphasized her wanting to need more about something.
What I noticed about Trevor Noah’s ability to share information about his life is that he is very open to talking about his life and he does more showing than telling. He is not hesitant to talk about something personal. He uses a lot of descriptions to help the reader picture what’s going on. For example when he said, “My grandmother kept me locked in the house when I was staying with the family in Soweto. … If the police did show up … it was a constant game of hide-and-seek.” I can picture him hiding many different places in his grandmother’s house in like small areas and the police failing to catch him. When talking about his mother, he seems to respect and admire her. He shows that by telling a descriptive fun story of what his mother did for him. He said, “When I turned 13, she threw me a bar mitzvah. But nobody came.” It allows me to visualize how loved he is by his mother and how much he views her in a positive light. Trevor uses a lot of descriptive language to show and allow the readers to understand his life and what’s going on and the feelings he is feeling.
I think in many cases Trevor Noah (Trevor Noah) used more showing than telling. He is very good at using vivid examples to help readers understand the situation or imagine the living environment at that time. His expressions are very rich, and imagination is one of them. He used imagination to describe certain moments in his life. This helps to portray the story of his experience in my mind. “This is a police country, so there are police everywhere. There are secret police. There are uniformed police. The state has been under surveillance.” Through this description, I can feel the tension at the time very intuitively. He lets readers understand the information he wants to express through imagination, instead of telling readers very directly.
I was impressed by how comfortable it sounds when telling a story that should not give you any related feelings, the way that Trevor Noah speaks, in my point of view Trevor does more showing than telling. His words was very gentle but strong and also very positive which is something that is so precious because of the environment he grew up with. Trevor stated, while he was writing the book, he though he was the hero but turned out his mother was more of a hero, and Trevor himself is more like a side-kick. The statement and the word choice he used to comment the past shows a clear image for the audience. For instance, “My grandmother kept me locked in the house when I was staying with the family in Soweto. … If the police did show up … it was a constant game of hide-and-seek.” It provides a clear image for a child who’s been raising so carefully, hiding away from the light. Moreover, when he talks about his mother, “I was lucky enough to be in the shadow of a giant. My mom’s magic dust sprinkled on me and I hope I have enough of it to be as brave as she was and continues to be.” he provides a picture of him under protect by a strong and independent female. I almost can feel that there is the mother who is so strong and selfless for her boy. Trevor leaves a lot of space for readers to create their own thinking than just telling the story.
Trevor Noah’s ability to share information about his life is very easy to understand. He’s very good with his words. He uses descriptive language to convey his ideas, relationship, and experience. His explanation is very thorough. I can picture the moment as he speaks. He said “People were encouraged to snitch. There were police everywhere. The state has been under surveillance. Anyone can snitch. Your neighbors can snitch.” I can feel how hard is it to live like this when anyone can snitch on you. I can sense the intensity in his everyday life. When he imitates a conversation between the shopper keeper and her mother, he’s able to use different tones and different languages. Knowing 6 languages, he’s able to navigate and understand others better.