Fires In The Mirror

The interview is completed over the phone in the afternoon, with Shange taking off one earing to speak into the phone.Shange speaks of identity as being “a psychic sense of place” (3) where the person compares themselves to what they are not. She separates herself from her surroundings and includes her experiences as a part of her identity. However, she admits that she is at once a part of the desert and separate from it. Upon going home, she takes a part of the desert with her, even though she is not the desert. She says that this differentiation is important to understand what belongs to whom, in terms of what you are taking.

The interview is conducted over the phone, and Smith believes that the woman was folding clothes while her male children were watching television and her female child was sweeping. The woman says that at the end of Shabbas one night, her baby was playing with the stereo system and accidentally turned it on. Because it is the holy day of rest, the family cannot turn the blaring music off. They try to get the child to do it, but he makes it worse.