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.
16 thoughts on “Blog Post #5: Trevor Noah’s Storytelling Ability”
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Trever Noah does a lot of showing rather than telling. For instance, at the start of his book, he quotes the crime his mother committed word for word as it was written on the official document. I believe it is a great way to introduce his book because it explains the title “Born a Crime”. Adding on, when he and his mother were In a store a worker encountered them and began to say they were maybe stealing thinking they didn’t speak the same language. Trever states word for word in that language what the worker said and what his mother responded with. Also, when Trever was walking and a group of kids was planning on mugging him he cleverly responded and he stated exactly what the conversation was like.
Some things that I notice regarding Trevor Noah is that he is very open and is not afraid to talk about certain discomforts within his life. He does a lot more of showing than telling regarding his ability to convey images in how he speaks upon topics brought up within the interview. As shown throughout when he spoke upon his struggles in high school, he overcame that tough part of his life and conveyed his feelings about his awareness about his appearance and how he felt rejected from everyone as the world passed him. His relationship with his mother was quite an interesting journey of certain actions she committed to doing with Noah by her side. Noah also speaks upon his life being a revolving satire and how it impacted him when President Trump was firstly elected into office. Lastly he understood and saw the different languages that were spoken not just literally (ex; English and Hebrew) but how people literally talked to each other was another world of language.
Trevor Noah does more showing then telling. He talks about how he would hide when his grandmother told him too when he was younger because the police had a list of the people that lived in the house and his name was never on the list because he is mixed. He talks about how it was like hide and seek and he was never scared about it. This shows that he just knew he had to and that he didn’t really think much about it thats why he wasn’t scared. He also talks about how he uses different languages and their accents so that they get less suspicious of him. He showed that him knowing these languages made people think that he was part of them.
I had noticed Trevor Noah can express his ideas and catch attention quickly. He did more showing than talking, like how the police check the residence in the house and how the locals call those snitches, how both black and white community are both against them, and the part about the minibus where he and his mother had jumped out of the bus. His thought is also convincing, like where his mother said “shopping with an empty stomach” and the government convinces people the problem is generated by those who were oppressed. His relationship with his mother is like a teacher and student, his mother goes out and learns then teaches what she learned, and she read bar mitzvah to Noah in Hebrew.
From listening to the podcast, I could say that Trevor has a great ability to engage listeners by showing his story rather than just telling it. For example, when he mentioned the part of his life when officers came to his house to check the registry. Instead of just telling us how he wasn’t on the paper and just hid when they arrived, he goes into great detail on his grandmother telling him to go hid under the bed because he wasn’t on any of the papers. It helped me as a listener to imagine specifically what was going on in my head and definitely kept me a lot more engaged. Another example of this would be when Trevor talks about his experience of racism from other black people. Instead of telling us about how racism within races existed, he gave us an example about him, his infant brother, and mother in a minibus and when the bus driver, who was a black man, realized that Trevor was his mom son and she had a kid with a white man he starts to yell at her. From there, he goes into great detail of showing how his mother threw him out the bus and jumped out after him with a baby in her hands, and they continued to run away. This scene shows Trevor’s ability to immerse a listener like me into his experience as a mixed kid in Africa where things like this weren’t common. It gives someone like me a different perspective on life as I was able to envision life from someone else’s shoes just from how they spoke about their experiences.
I noticed that Noah has the ability to share a lot of things in his life and he does a lot of showing with some great details rather just telling it. For example when he talks about the police coming to his house and it was like a constant game of hide and seek, he showed it with details and not just saying he would go hide. Also, he talks how having an accent affect him in school, being one of those kids that would just sit in the corner Even when Noah says he grows up in the shadow on his mom, he was able to explain it very well. He talks about how his mom converting to Judaism, and showing her mom reading things in bible to him,he then explain how this change and affect him. He also explain how he learn to speak 6 different languages and that was also part of his mom shadow since she also speak several languages
While, listening to Trevor Noah he is not afraid to say what he wants. When it comes to about the experiences he had gone through he does not hesitate or stutter to talk about it, and get every detail out. When he talks about his mother he explains how he did not realize she was gone because he was always stuck in the house hidden. His mother was always gone because she would get caught meeting up with his dad because his dad was white. Her getting caught led to jail time, such as one day or weeks. He does not shy about the situation. In this interview Trevor Noah does more showing than telling. He explains how every time the police came to his house he remembers being told to go hide. And how as a kid you do not think about why you are doing what you are doing, you just obey with what you are told to do. His name was not on the list of people who live in the house when police were checking it. In addition, he talks about how people of his own color were snitching working with the police. Trevor’s life as a mixed child in Africa was really different from others.
Trevor Noah speaks in a very realistic way. He is not afraid to talk about politics and justify his reasoning for what he believes. He is not also afraid to correct the host if she is misinterpreting something. Noah shows the audience details about his upbringing rather than just telling about it. He shows how his grandmother used to hide him from the police by hiding him under the bed and how he also abides his grandmother’s order without questioning. He also described how people snitched on each other and the horrific nature of it. Noah also provides detail about how his mother would get caught for several reasons and end in jail for a few weeks.
While listening to Trevor Noah talking about his life experiences. I noticed that whenever Terry Gross asks questions about the darker sides of his past, he was never hesitant to share which I think is very courageous of him because I know for certain I wouldn’t be as willing as he is if I had to share uncomfortable parts of my past. Trevor Noah does more showing than talking, throughout the interview he uses a lot of imagery and details like when his grandmother would tell him to hide under the bed whenever police show up and the time when his mother threw him out of the minibus while carrying his baby brother, he provides a ton of specific details that keeps the audience interested rather than just plainly telling about it.
Trevor Noahs ability of story telling is rather intriguing. He provides us with details of what he tells. He tells and then shows us. For example when he talks about hatred within the same culture in the black community, people get oppressed because there are people in their community “who just can’t behave.” Trevor Noah explains that his mother converted to judaism because she wanted to have a deeper connection with religion. He provides us with information that his mother is a humble person that is always seeking knowledge about her religion. Something Trevor greatly appreciates is the irony that instead of the male in the household being the head of the house, his mother was basically taking care if everyone. Lastly a great way shows and tells is how his mother used language to cross borders and navigate the world. An example he used was when they were at a store and his mother overheard a security guard saying “follow those blacks, they might steal something” and she responds “how about follow those blacks and help them. Trevors relationship with his mother has been something great that he very much appreciates.
Trevor Noah’s life is so interesting that I accidentally listened to the whole podcast. What it was nice that he wouldn’t just leave his statements bear bone. Like, when he talked about how influential and important language was he talked about the time’s language helped him and his mom gets out of tough times, When he and his mom went to a store and the store owner thought they were gonna steal because of the color of their skin his mother was able to defuse the situation by saying ” rather than following these black people why don’t you help them find their items.” In the language that the store owner spoke. He would tie every statement with either a metaphor, a saying, and examples of his experience bringing the emotions into life and actually feel the severity of the things he is talking about. My favorite part was when he talked about abusive relationships that his mother went through, how he never blamed her of being dumb for not leaving the situation of being abused instead he said that she just loved the abuser to the point that she forgave and the reason why he would not understand is that he did not love the abuser as much as his mother did.
While watching and listening to Trevor Noah speak about his life, and tell his story he was very engaging and had me hooked from the start. He did this very well because he did a lot more showing rather than telling, something I myself would like to incorporate in my writing because when you can make the reader visualize instead of having it be a detail that is skimmed over it makes the piece more relatable and the reader can feel apart of it. The part that really stood out to me was when he spoke about him tagging along with his mother to go grocery shopping. But while shopping the clerk continuously followed them until his mother confronted the clerk and said “rather than following these black people, why don’t you help the find their items. This moment in particular stood out because it is nothing new, but too common so I could easily imagine this situation and really see the story.
Trevor Noah is able to successfully share information about his life because he shows us when using different experinces he has had to explain his main point. Every event in his life helped him to be the person he is today. He relates most things he has learned from him mother. When he was talking about the different languages he learned, he says he took this up because his mom spoke many different languages to him. Since he is a biracial man he often experinced racism when he lived in South Africa. People would threaten him but when he would respond in the same language they immediately knew he was from their and most often they would apologize. Trevor states that “launguage even more than color defines who you are to people.” In today’s society its the opposite, color defines who you are more than language.
Mr.Noah writes in a very formal way, but it comes out to seem more as a reading of definitions during the beginning. Once he got more into the book he began to bring more life situations. He tells a lot of what happened but doesn’t exactly show what happened. Despite telling more than showing, he tells a lot with examples so that we understand the situation. He had said “My grandmother kept me locked in the house when I was staying, you know, with the family” and “My grandmother would hide me somewhere if the police did show up. And it was a constant game of hide and seek.” He told us about what would happen he was younger, but he doesn’t show an exact moment of when it happened. On the other hand, he does show moments through description and dialogue. An instance of this is when he said ” I was walking down the streets and a group of Zulu guys…. Have a good day, man.” It was a very powerful moment in his life that strongly ties into the purpose of the book, this allows the readers to see it in his point of view.
Trevor Noah is very expressive when sharing information about his life. He does more showing than telling. He does a good job of this by blending dialogue into description of scenarios he was in as a child. For example, when speaking about the time when boys were going to mug him in South Africa, he shares the exact quotes of what he said to make them few him as one of them instead of White. He also gave their exact verbal reaction to show that it was him being White to them that made him a target originally. He was able to covey the significance of language in his life without explicitly telling us the significance of language in his life.
I noticed that Trevor Noah is very comfortable expressing his ideas and what he has gone through. He explains his thoughts well, giving the context of situations he explains. Trevor explains how law enforcement “would crossreference the owner of the dwelling” and how he felt going through a house search. Noah noted that he did not feel nervous or endangered because he simply listened to what he was told to do. However, he does do more telling than showing. Trevor describes a lot of his experiences, but it is hard to receive the full view. Perhaps, Trevor could have described the relationships he had with friends or others in his situation to better understand the magnitude of the issue.