Shapiro role as a “talebearer” goes beyond the want to tell stories, and one of the sides of the boarder she is negotiating in evil tongue. By telling stories she is breathing “life back into the people in her life she has lost.” She seeks to understand those she has lost and thus “digs for their stories” and attempts to “assemble the pieces.” Unable to “leave the stories alone,” and feeling that writing “is “the closest” she “can get” to them she tells and seeks stories. “The pieces of” Shapiro’s “history are jagged and sharp,” and if “left alone” would “shred” her to bits. This metaphors also shows that Shapiro writes in order to attempt to reconcile her family history. To her by telling stories she is building “a path through her own wilderness.”…show more content… Stories are presented to being close to Shapiro’s heart and something she feels the need to do, in contrast lashon hara is presented as something to be weary of. From the first passage lashon hara is “equal to, if not worse than” the three major sins in Jewish law. In passage 8, The Rabbi argues that the harm that can be done by lashon hara is not limited to just the person who is slandered but also the person doing the slandering. That by having “an irresponsible, wagging tongue can drag a person down to lowest depth.” Through a Chasidic fable in passage 22 , the consequence of lashon hara are emphasized as words once said “can never” be “retrieved again.” By emphasizing the painful consequences of lashon hara, the power of the tongue and thereby of storytelling is also emphasized. Shapiro need to seek and tell stories is in conflict with not committing lashon hara. Through out Evil Tongue, Shapiro negotiates and explores the border between the two conflicts areas by telling stories in sections, including outside information and…show more content… Shapiro’s memoir become for many people in her mother's life became “a Cliff’s Notes” to understanding her mother. Even Shipro “couldn’t have imagined” that people in her mother's life would “read” her “book in an attempt to figure” her mother out. In passage 22 “a famous Chasidic fable illustrates the gravity of lashon hara,” which directly reflects back on Shapiro’s personal experiences in passage 21. The moral of the fable, “once they [words] leave your mouth, you know not where they will go, and you can never retrieve them again,” connects to Shapiro’s realization of how other people saw her mother. The words used about Shapiro’s mother not only affected her mother but also the way other people say her mother. Once she told the story she had no control over how the story would be seen and where the story went. The passages about Shapiro’s mothers and the ones that directly follow, serves as reflection on the harm storytelling has already had in Shapiro’s life. Through the consequence of the story she told in her memoir, lashon hara is shown in action. Although Shapiro was speaking her truth someone was still faced with “defamation of
