26 pages • 52 minutes read
Eraser Tattoo
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Literary Devices
Verisimilitude
By including specific details meant to ground the story in the real world, Jason Reynolds employs verisimilitude as a method of gaining the reader’s compassion and empathy for the characters. The story opens with a convincing description of the setting: “A car alarm whining down the block. An old lady sitting at a window, blowing cigarette smoke. The scrape and screech of bus brakes every fifteen minutes” (3-4). These details create a vivid and familiar image of the setting. Readers can relate to this warm and friendly neighborhood scene, which in turn wins over their empathy for the main characters and heightens the emotional impact of learning that Shay’s family is unwillingly moving away from their home.
Another example of verisimilitude in “Eraser Tattoo” is the colloquial dialogue among characters. Shay and Dante speak to each other using African American Vernacular English, including local colloquialisms and slang. This use of colloquial language serves to capture a sense of the local culture that is at risk of disappearing due to gentrification.
Metaphor
“Eraser Tattoo” is full of figurative language, and especially metaphor, which indirectly compares one object or idea to another. The technique is particularly useful in this story because it allows readers to understand the complex ideas behind the surface-level plot, which are not referred to directly. For example, Shay’s description of sea life as “full of living things that most folks don’t understand” (7) is a metaphor for marginalized communities that are invisible to many Americans. The new tenant’s car being double-parked is a metaphor for the obliviousness with which gentrifiers use up space and resources. The stoop is a metaphor for the neighborhood, as Shay and Dante are pushed to the edge of their space and then forced to leave it altogether by the oblivious new tenants. Dante’s tattoo is a metaphor for the permanent mark that his relationship with Shay will leave on his life.
Humor
Reynolds inserts humor into the characters’ dialogue as a way of providing comic relief from heavy topics as well as characterizing Shay and Dante’s relationships and personalities. The most notable instance of humor comes when Shay and Dante reminisce on the first time Dante told Shay he loved her. Not knowing what else to say, Shay responded, “No doubt, homie” (11). Shay reminds Dante of this comical memory as an attempt to take his mind off the pain of the tattoo, and it works similarly, as a reprieve from intensity, for readers. This instance of comic relief also serves to juxtapose intensity with humor, making the emotional effect of Shay’s departure even more impactful later in the story. It also serves to characterize the characters’ relationship by illustrating their closeness and playful rapport.
Flashback
“Eraser Tattoo” contains a few flashbacks, which are brief scenes set in an earlier time. The most impactful is when Dante remembers Shay teaching him to tie his shoelaces when they were five years old. Dante would always trip over his laces and fall, hurting his knees, and Shay would kiss and blow on his wounds to make him feel better. This memory illustrates the emotional intimacy that has existed between Shay and Dante since early childhood, thus emphasizing the pain their separation causes.
Shay’s mother also has a flashback just before she leaves the house. She remembers moments Shay spent in the house as an infant, “[w]here she scribbled her name on the wall in her room under the window, before slinking into her parents’ bed to snuggle” (6).
This memory suggests the house’s importance to Shay not just as a source of shelter, but as a repository of memories that are integral to her sense of self.
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By Jason Reynolds
