Summary Of Catherine Pigott's Essay Chicken-Hips

The essay Chicken-Hips by Catherine Pigott is about the experience of the author’s visit to the region of Gambia. In Gambia, the author is exposed to the norms of the local society which are contradictory to the norms of the society of where Pigott is from. The norm talked about in this essay is that of which sets the standard of a women’s image. In Gambia, the ideal image for women is to have large hips whereas the ideal image of a women in Pigott’s society is to be slim. Chicken-Hips is an informal/personal essay classified as a narrative and a comparative/contrast. The essay illustrates an implicit thesis that states that society’s norms influence how one thinks about themselves. To start, diction is used quite effectively throughout the

One example of a rhetorical device is the use of onomatopoeia. Pigott encompasses, “The women of the household clucked disapprovingly when they saw me (79),” to emphasize how different she is from the ideal view of a Gambian women. The utilization of the word “clucked” expresses to the reader exactly how the Gambian women feel toward Pigott. This is much easier to understand for the reader rather than using another word to describe clucked. Another example of a rhetorical device is the use of an analogy. Pigott incorporates, “A body is not something to be tamed or moulded (80),” to exhibit her meaning, which is that one’s body can only be controlled to a certain extent, but one should embrace their body; whatever one may look like is unique to themselves. Pigott includes this after her opinion of how Africa’s image of a perfect body is accurate because she is telling the reader that the African society, particularly women, eats freely and they embrace their fat which has turned into the ideal image of a women. This emphasizes how distant the views are in Africa relative to the Pigott’s home to the reader. The third example of a rhetorical device is the use of a hyperbole. “They had no hips (80),” is stated to show the reader how rapidly her views of an ideal woman are changing to adapt to those of a Gambian woman. This emphasizes the thesis by showing the reader how she has been influenced in how she thinks towards slim people now. The fact that she is describing European tourists enforces this further as at one point, she was as slim as they are. To conclude, these examples of rhetorical devices illustrate the thesis of the