Narrative Theory and Stories that Speak to Us - by Cynthia L. Selfe and the DALN Consortium
Identifying the turning point of his narrative from a vantage point many years later and from the perspective of an adult activist, Keith admits, “But then the other thing is, I kinda was feelin’ pretty liberated. I’d been worried. This was 1975. There wasn’t any Will and Grace, you know.” He adds, “I didn’t know anybody who was gay. And I was worried that I was the only one.” At the end of this segment of the narrative, Keith articulates one of the key points of his story in a powerful resolution and coda,
The minute that they called me those names, I started to think, “Oh my God! I’m not the only one. There are people out here. There are people like me.” And that was totally cool. That was, in fact, liberating.
In closing his narrative, Keith refers to his own realization that this incident represented his first conscious act as a rhetor, “I actually thought of what the language means and how it operated and what the implications were.” Keith also makes a connection to the Biblical creation story and Adam’s naming task, listing some of the definitions of being human—“the man who laughs,” “the man who plays,” “homo Sapiens, the wise ones”—and concludes,
For me it’s, “Those who name,” That’s really what we do, and that’s what we do as artists; that’s what we do in our lives with metaphor. So, I think we’re the ones who name.
