Malcolm X Dictionaries Analysis

Words: 521
Pages: 3

Dictionaries, Malcolm X and I
Malcolm X describes his experience with dictionaries as a liberating escapade. He recounts the ability to finally understand greater concepts with his expanded vocabulary. I could relate to the moment that it dawns on Malcolm how few words he knows. “I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary’s pages. I’d never realized so many words existed!” (1). I’ve felt this exact feeling Malcolm X describes of overwhelming wonder time and time again. One of my most relevant relations I can make is when my parents set to teach me the basics of different languages with picture-dictionaries. Another, more positive, example of the sudden awareness I’ve felt when discovering the seemingly oceanic plethora of all there is know is when I was introduced to Einstein’s theory of relativity.
As a girl, I was given several children pictionaries-books illustrating words with memorable drawings or photographs- in German and Hungarian. One would-or should- stare at a drawing of, say, berry colored lips next to the letters “AJKAK” and understand
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Smith was one of my biggest role models growing up. She was articulate, kind to everyone, and seemed to know about everything. Just as Malcolm X felt about his educated prison friend Bimbi, I strongly wanted to emulate Mrs. Smith. I remember sitting in my 6th grade’s AC-lacking classroom on a hot June day, just days before summer break, when Mrs. Smith laid carefully stabled packets of paper in front of my classmates and me. On it detailed a beginner’s guide to understand Einstein’s theory of general relativity. It was truly awe-inspiring. I had never realized how little I knew about how anything worked. Although I was made abruptly aware about how uneducated and naïve I was, and still am, I was inherently grateful. I had a reason to like learning. Just as Malcolm X was changed by his prison years reading, I was changed by Mrs. Smith’s introduction to the knowledge the universe