Gloria Analdua’s question “how do you tame a wild tongue, train it to be quiet, how do you bridle and saddle it? How do you make it lie down?” can be answered in two ways: literally and metaphorically. In the literal sense, the more a tongue feels threatened that something will choke it, the more it will try to resist and be “wild.” In order for the tongue to be relaxed or tamed, the tongue must feel safe and that there is no threat. I think this literal picture of taming a wild tongue can be related to the metaphorical meaning as well. Taming a wild tongue can also look like quieting a person who is talking very wildly. Many times people speak up in wildness, anger, or rage, because they feel threatened. When people feel like they are not being seen or heard, they will speak up and use their voice. However, if the individual feels heard, seen, safe, and understood they will calm down and be tamed. Therefore, my answer to the question “how do you tame a wild tongue?” is to listen, understand, and make it feel safe in order for the tongue to quiet down on its own.
Kristine Chin
I like the literal meaning you have found to this question as when I first read it I mainly thought of the metaphorical meaning Gloria Anzaldua is trying to get across her essay. Going back to how Anzaldua opens this paragraph, she writes how she is at the dentist which coincides with what you have mentioned that when a tongue feels threated of something choking it, the dentist, it will fall more on the “wild” side as it tries to resist. I agree with you that this literal meaning can go hand in hand with the metaphorical meaning of a tongue being considered “wild” because it is not afraid to stand up for itself and fight for what it believes in despite going against other’s wishes. I believe the writer was able to get her point across and show how she wasn’t looking for something or someway to take her “wildness” out on but wanted to be heard and understood for who she was.
This is a wonderful answer to the question. I never even thought about looking at the question in a literal sense. I like how instead of using force and intimidation to tame a tongue, you open the conversation and say that the listners need to understand where the speaker is coming from. Although this is a really good answer, I think it probably wouldn’t have worked when this essay was written. Having an open and rational conversation require that the listner be rational and indiscriminate while the ‘wild tongue’ speaks, which would be quite difficult because racism, including lingual racism, can quite often be irrational and hold no morals. Anyways, still loved the response!
I like that you decided to look for answers to this question in two different ways; literally and metaphorically. This is a great way to answer the question, especially since this is how the author introduced her topic, first being the literal question with her dentist anecdote, then second with her discussions of language oppression. However, you did not seem to answer the metaphorical question but instead wrote how she, the author, resisted the taming of her tongue.