Summary Of Dorothy Allison's Context

In her personal narrative, “Context” (1994), Dorothy Allison explores the ways in which the context of her life impacted her childhood and adult life. She also shows that when context is not fully understood, it can often create a gap between people who have different backgrounds. Dorothy Allison uses comparisons, flashbacks, and gives examples from personal experience to support her claims. She describes scenes from her life in order for readers to recognize how context gives people the facility to understand others and have distinct perspectives of others. She targets the general public as her audience for this piece of writing. I am impressed by this personal narrative. I found myself having a flashback to a day, 5 years ago, where many

She describes personal experiences from her life as an adult as well as from flashbacks to memories from childhood to reinforce her claim. Allison wants her audience to know that a person can be impacted when he or she is misread or judged without knowledge of his or her context. For example, the shame she experiences as a child in a souvenir shop left an indelible imprint on her current feelings and fears in adult relationships. She brings to light her initiation to the importance of context when she describes how she became the object of contempt for the cashier who not only had “no context for people like her” (134) but who also assumes she is just like her father: “Then I saw his eyes flicker over to me and my sisters, registering contempt with which he had looked at my stepfather” (134). She underlines the significance of this moment of feeling misjudged through inner dialogue which commands herself to “Remember this” (134). She ends her essay by reminding her readers that this past incident still affects her present and feeds her fears of being misjudged by her lover: “I burned with old shame and then stubbornly shook it off” (134). Here, it becomes obvious to the audience that being judged due to the inadequate understanding of the context of her social class (poverty) brought Allison a profound