Jackie Kay: "why Don't You Stop Talking?"

Jackie Kay: "Why don't you Stop talking?"

-Or: Nobody is simply perfect? -

"Why don't you stop talking" can easily be characterized as a short story. The beginning is very strict without any introduction. We just fall into the plot. It is the same in the end. The plot reaches its climax and doesn't even drop down. There is no further information or explanation.

The story is set in London, probably in today's society. It is circling around one main character: a few hours in a black woman's life, especially around her thoughts within this time. Her name is Thelma, as we get to know when she refers about her childhood (l. 115). Obviously Thelma is a woman with quite some overweight. During the whole text she calls herself and is called by others fat. She describes herself with "carrying a fat arse" (l. 164). Also she has trouble to walk up stairs to her flat. They "kill me every time" (l. 289).

Thelma turns out quite self confident on the first sight as she claims: "nine times out of ten I am right" (l. 33), for the reason that she doesn't excuse herself very often. But I suppose she isn't at all. Thelma's overweight is subjected by herself throughout the whole story. Also her tongue "that gets me into a lot of trouble" (l. 56f) in combination with her talk activity. She complains about "the misfortune of having a tongue like mine" (l. 310f) over and over again.

The author presents Thelma as the first person narrator as whom she talks in a quite familiar but aggressive and colloquial tone about happenings in the past to the reader.

Jacky Kay uses lots of stylistic devises to underline certain facts and to shape the short story in a more interesting and handsome way. For example many colloquial expressions as mentioned already, a certain dialect used by Thelma, similes and symbols.

Thelma is different. She is black. But not enough she is fat. Still reason enough to cause attention in our today's society. But I think it's not a problem of the society when Thelma goes to the supermarket where she piles sweets and biscuits into her trolley and gets into some sort of trouble with an almost uninvolved woman. Rather it is the problem she has with herself and with her weight.

My first thesis is that Thelma simply searches for attention. Otherwise it doesn't make any sense for me to become furious if somebody else looks into my trolley. Her articulation is quite vulgar and crude: "I wanted to ram my trolley into the backs of her rayon nylon tights" (l. 80f). For no obvious reason she becomes very personal.

My second thesis: I think Thelma just searches for weak- points of somebody, no matter who it is. In this case a shy woman. So she follows her and queues behind her at the checkout point. After calling the woman "a stuck- up cow" (l. 46) Thelma is surprisingly speechless by herself, as she gets the response: "Why don't you stop talking", by her annoyed opposite. (l. 54). This moment is kind of a changing point as Thelma has to admit "she [the woman] had a point there" (l. 55) because this sentence she had heard before. The women hurries away when Thelma already feels attacked again. This time by the checkout girl. But "all the way home the sentence of hers was right in my had" (l. 103f) so she leaves the store without starting a new argument yet.

The occurring question now is why Thelma is acting in the way she does. The following passage might give an answer. She remembers some moments in her childhood, when her nan used to say "Thelma, stop yabbering and blabbering, you're tiring me out you are" (l. 115f) This seems to be her problem. She starts to excuse her talk activity. "All my family used to talk a lot except my nan and my silent brother." But even her brother didn't speak just "because he had nothing in his had" (l. 147f)

Thelma is wrong, I think. I don't see the problem in the fact that she talks but in the way how she does so. Probably she is a very helpless person what she seemingly hides behind a wall of false coolness and aggressive behaviour. I am sure she searches for attention because she wants a change in her lonely and unsatisfied life where still she can be blamed for.

Thelma is one of those people who rather talk than think. More detailed: who talk before they think. But in my opinion that can't count as an excuse because Thelma is an adult and should be able to control herself.

But already the next incident doesn't wait for long as she stops on a cash point on her way home when "this big geezer pushed in, jumping the queue" (l. 170f) She is overreacting again and starts swearing. In my mind she is convinced that the man did so just because of her external appearance. As always she thinks that she is in the right even after calling him an arsehole.

The suggestion I made that Thelma is unhappy can be proved now. The sun is shining "but it wasn't making me happy" (l. 198f) To excuse and hide her mood she is generalizing: "People can't really cope with the heat in this country" (l. 199f). But obvious it is just her problem as she feels uncomfortable in the heat because of her weight she starts sweating quite strongly in warm temperatures.

While reading the short story I got the impression that Thelma is not prepared in any way to take responsibility for her behaviour. She is very busy to put herself in an innocent position of a poor victim. She doesn't accept at all that her dissatisfaction is reasoned in herself and not in her surrounding. I think this is because it is easier to abuse other people than working on ourselves. Thelma is black and she is fat. But she puts herself quite deeply into a drawer that won't exists in the strong way she thinks. Thelma has to change her life especially her attitude towards life. Like jumping over her shadow.

I don't think that she is a mean person by nature. Mean people don't like children and she even "can't stand nobody being unkind to kids" (l. 207f) what gets her into trouble again. This time with a mother who is unkind to her two year old child.

As I found at this point Thelma is giving a very interesting statement. The mother is not amused by Thelma meddling into her busyness and makes this clear by being quite impolite ending with slapping her face. Thelma complains in her thoughts about the rude tone of the woman and wonders "how many mothers swear these days, really bad swearing" what she' "d been noticing more and more on the London streets" (l. 225f).