The Aha! Moment

The aha! moment may not be defined conclusively, but it can be described as the moment a reader throws down a book and finally "gets it." In other words, it is advanced state of understanding when a reader finally comprehends the meaning of a book. Both "The Wife of His Youth" and "Learning to Read" are written with the intention to shock readers with deliberate moment of clarity. In "Wife of his Youth," Charles Chesnutt places his moment at the last sentence of his piece, in order to leave readers thinking about what they just read. His last sentence, "Permit me to introduce to you the wife of my youth," completely alters everything the readers had previously expected of the story. When reading the story, I would have never expected that the husband that Liza Jane had been looking for all along was the main protagonist, Mr. Ryder. In retrospect, when Liza approached Mr. Ryder's gate telling the story of her long lost husband and explained her dedication for the past 25 years in looking for her husband, she handed him a picture of her husband, which ended up being a picture of Mr. Ryder. Looking back further, we realize at the point when Mr. Ryder "went upstairs to his bedroom, and stood for a long time before the mirror of his dressing-case, gazing thoughtfully at the reflection of his own face." He planned a grand ball and I assumed he would propose to Miss Dixon, when all the sudden the previous foreshadowing comes into play and we realize he is actually professing his deep affections for the wife of his youth, Liza. In "Learning to Read" by Frances E. W. Harper, the first few stanzas are written to influence the readers to believe that the old slave woman never learned to read or had access to education. She tells stories of a man "who greased the pages of his book, and hid it in his hat." She also mentions that "knowledge didn't agree with slavery - 'twould make us all too wise." Based on these first few examples, we know that slaves were not given the opportunity to learn to read and write and that very few slaves took the necessary steps to learn that ability. As a turning point in the story, the last few stanzas suddenly direct readers in a different direction in which she says she "never stopped till I could read, vthe hymns and the testament," from the Bible. From that point on, the reader knows she went to great lengths to learn to read and that her descriptions of slaves at the forefront of the play did not describe her passion for learning.