–2– 2221 – 2014

Write a guided analysis of one of the following texts.

1.

The following article is taken from the BuzzFeed News website, an international news organization for
readers looking for something original. It is featured in the “Reader” section, which focuses on culture
and criticism.

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To Love Your Sister Is To Grieve Your Twin

It’s impossible to explain what having a twin is like to someone who asks, but I am going to try.

Tomi Obaro Tweet Share Copy

-important
My father prayed for twins. This is a fact my mother usually recites
erenk
during birthdays, the impending new year, Thanksgiving, and other
increasingly rare moments when mother, father, brother, sister, and I
are all in the same room in the same time zone. He prayed for twins
-

5 and we came. ~ authorin twin

identifie First Dami, shortyonger ame r identit

for Oluwadamilola (which means “God has made

I
me rich” in Yoruba), and then 25 minutes later, me, Tomi, Oluwatomilola
(“God is my sufficiency”). My father prayed for twins, but the odds were
in his favor. The Yoruba have the highest twinning rate in the world.
morsector10 Science cannot account for this strange phenomenon. Apparently it has

pene e e
something to do with the skin of the yamsO we eat or the high amount
of a certain chemical found in the beans the women traditionally soak and cook in palm oil.
Whatever the reason, we’re supposed to bring good luck and prosperity to our families. reflechn en
My first conscious memory involves my sister. We’re sitting on potties in our little bathroom
15
L
in Surrey, England, babbling to each other, trying to capture the tonal resonances of Yoruba and Jabouh
S sin
failing. Laughing. domestic
en
-

really close to lo
We are not identical, but for the first maybe 18 years of our lives, we just say yes when

acticerie
I
people ask, because we might as well be. We have dark brown eyes that turn to slants when
we smile. Milk-white baby teeth that graduallyAiresnadaug
grow apart, widening and widening until we (I)
20 demand braces and then I lose my retainer. My face is longer than hers. I am an inch taller. But
our voices are the same timbre. When we talk on the phone, our mother can’t tell us apart. We
say things at the same time in the same tone and then we laugh when that happens. We move
around a lot, England, Gambia, Ohio, two to three years in each place, and so we are natural
companions, drama kids who ham it up for the cameras, play elaborate games of make-believe,
25 sing in school musicals, ask obnoxious questions, enamored of our own cuteness.
It’s an overused trope, sure, twin as metaphor. Twins as represented in the popular culture
separation
[
are usually one-dimensional carbon copies of each other, devoid of all individual autonomy, or,
makenit
-

if not that, cartoonish opposites, the contradictions emphasized to the extreme. But there’s a
a
reflective subtlety about being a twin, about the myriad similarities and common interests encapsulated in
30 someone who is not you.
that trans similar not idetical
saying are ,
 –3– 2221 – 2014

S“Are you guys going to the same college?” Yes.0 ↓

But not on purpose…
C It will be the place
& -
where the untwinning starts to happen and we won’t even realize it.
increasing First to go, Dami’s hair. After sitting through years of cornrows, extensions, relaxers, and
interait

I
quarterly sessions at the one black hairdresser that is sort of near us, Dami just gives up one
35 day and says, “I’m cutting it permanently.” She describes the shocked face of the barber as she
tells him, “Shorter, shorter.” physical
I don’t cut my hair. I keep it relaxed, and then when laziness takes over, I declare myself a
member of the third-wave natural hair movement.
The second thing to go, her faith. It had been on the fritz before, in high school. Struggles
40 with the usual questions — women, gay people, pain and suffering. There were shouting
matches when she refused to go to church. My mother was worried we’d become atheists in

ste
e
college. But once we get there, I go to a Bible study and I like it. People are kind and thoughtful.
Smart. Open. I join a campus ministry and convince Dami to join too, and then one day she
flames out in spectacular, extravagant fashion… Suddenly, I’m going to church alone, campus
45 meetings alone, singing on the worship team alone. values
Third to go, Dami herself, to France for 10 weeks. I am adamantly against it. I don’t tell her
this. I feign lack of interest. Oh really? You’re afraid you won’t get your visa? Oh, Mum and Dad
are worried about you going? Oh, they’ve relented. Oh you’re going? OK. Bye. agence
re She comes back and things are different. So different that we can’t quite understand it. We
senten direct
horts 50 argue often and virulently. I don’t remember what the arguments were about (surely something
trivial), but I remember the tone vividly, the jabs, vicious jabs. It was misdirected anger, of
-norstonepositions
course. We were changing and we didn’t know how to cope with the change. ent

usine ike
After graduation, I moved to D.C. for an internship and she stayed in Chicago, until she the facl

stream decided to do an AmeriCorps program that took her across the country to California and I came
55 back to Chicago for a full-time job.

J
One consequence of moving so much is that you develop a numbing acceptance of
egé
de
change, and thus a tendency to avoid attachment. Growing apart, or becoming — as we now

forebes say to people who ask — sisters and not twins, was mostly horrifying, but sometimes it’s a relief.
mit It means that my worst fear can’t possibly devastate me as much as it once could.
60 -
/
Over this past Thanksgiving break, we watched the 2015 documentary Twinsters, about a
contie
per -

Los Angeles actress who discovers that she has an identical twin sister living in Paris. I was on
the verge of crying during the whole movie, but I could not bring myself to actually cry, because
Dami was dry-eyed and to admit that I was affected by this documentary would be to admit
feeling, emotion, attachment, sentiment. As passionate as both Dami and I are individually and
65 with others, amongst ourselves, we are understated. I think it’s because the intensity of our love
for each other is overwhelming. Loving someone that much is embarrassing.
We live in the same city now. It is a fortunate accident. Or maybe God ordained it. That’s
what my mother would say.
G It’s strange but exciting. If someone asks us if we are twins, we say
We are a ‘we’ again.
70 yes at the same time in the same tone and then we laugh. It’s nice. My father prayed for twins.
And we came.
3
Tomi Obaro is a 1 Comment Sort by Top ^
^
senior culture editor
for BuzzFeed and is Add a comment …
^^
based in New York.

istases? identifies?
what What
- - nistes Mine,
,

Comba
– How is the narrative structure used to explore ideas about identity? religion
,

thines
different
Cyalical -
10 siste
,
it's
dynani restatic
,

Turn over / Tournez la page / Véase al dorso

 Biographical/
Chronological structure

beginning
-
section

introduction

st identities
particularly that
of "thin
↑ having
-

it at start
helps to set
up cyalical idea of identity
cements "Hin ist
as
identity
-middle section

identit change/development
going from
·
che to sisters

change becomes cheaper/more obvious

·

evennually arrive at complete change

a
from "turs" no sistes

-
end section

the conclusion
of the
cycle
minsters" blend
of 60th min" and "Sister identifie
·
-

almost the same as the start

identity influence of
,

identity journay
obvisus

acceptance of changed identity

Thesis the
: author uses
an
chronological structure to illustrate the
cyalical B
dynamic
nature
of identifies particularly that of min" and
,
sister?