No Tears For Frankie

646 Words3 Pages
The narrative “No Tears for Frankie” by Gena Greenlee uses multiple rhetorical strategies to illuminate how bullying and sexual harassment can occur between kids in their tween years. The narrative tells a short story about a when she was a little girl was sexually harassed by a boy named Frankie. When he dies in a sudden accident she recalls the multiple incidents of harassment done by Frankie leading up to his death and why she feels no remorse. Greenlee effectively uses comparison, description, and classification to help get a better understanding of the pain and despair she felt as a little girl in her days of being harassed by Frankie. Greenlee uses comparison to show the differences between her and Frankie and how maybe these differences made her an easy target for Frankie. One big difference she points out is the different living conditions her and Frankie had. Greenlee grew up in an apartment complex close to a rich Jewish community and therefore she was always classified as “that black girl who lives in the rich Jew buildings” (Greenlee). Compared to Frankie who lived in the projects and in tenements that would soon become “the crack house of the 80’s” (Greenlee). This shows that the animosity that Frankie had for her may have been caused by jealousy in how she lived and how he lived and he wanted her to feel just as uncomfortable in school as he felt at home. Greenlee uses description in her narrative to give you an idea of how savage the things that Frankie and his friends were doing to her were and also give the idea of how terrifying she was thru these horrible events. She describes how Frankie and his friends harassed her and often described them as dirty animals when doing so. For example, when she says, “Their hands, quick as filthy street rats, darting across my private parts” (Greenlee). She puts a visual in your head of a dirty street rat
Open Document