The text of CODA is focused on the main character Ruby, the only hearing person in a deaf family. CODA stands for “Child of deaf adults,” and Ruby being the only hearing child in the family, dedicates her life to serving her family as a translator until she discovers her music career. Having come from a fisher’s family, Ruby, her father, and her brother go fishing in the morning before she goes to school. This study will evaluate how the plot, characterization, setting, and figurative language coordinate to reveal the human tendency to seek out others and form relationships.
The author has significantly used the story’s plot to show the human tendency to seek out others and form relationships. In the story’s exposition, Ruby is shown as a young girl who loves her deaf family and is ready to support them by acting as their translator and even fishing with her father and brother. However, Ruby is attracted to Miles, and she wants to have a relationship with him. When she sees Miles singing in the school choir, she too joins so that they can have something in common. In this case, the author has used exposition of the plot to show how Ruby seeks out Miles to form a relationship with him, although the relationship does not start at this part; however, this is her first move towards developing a relationship with Miles.
In addition, the author uses the plot to show how Ruby seeks out Mr. V’s teacher and forms a relationship with him. Ruby is allowed to sing on the first day in choir, but instead, she runs away. Later she seeks Mr. V during his meditation sessions and explains to him that she was nervous about singing in front of other children because they bullied her when she first entered the school. “Other kids make me nervous. I used to get made fun of. I talked funny when I first started school” (Heder 15). Bernado asked her, “You’re the girl with the deaf family?” (Heder 15). Therefore the author uses the plot’s inciting incident to show how the teacher is interested in a young girl whose family is deaf, but she can sing. Therefore, through the plot, Mr. V and Ruby interact directly and form a teacher-student relationship, which is beneficial to Ruby and her music career.
In the plot’s rising action, the author uses the duet between Ruby and Miles to demonstrate how humans depend on each other. When Mr. V establishes that Miles and Ruby can make a perfect duet, he asks them to work together. However, in their first rehearsal, they performed poorly because they had been practicing independently. Mr. V advises them to train together to improve their performance, and Ruby invites Miles to her home to train. This time they practice together, perform well in their rehearsals and become close friends. They go to swimming events together and spend time together, which shows that the combined rehearsals help to strengthen their relationship.
The other literature element that the author has used to demonstrate how humans seek out others and form relationships is characterization. Ruby’s deaf family needs a translator to help them communicate with others in society. Ruby offers herself as a translator to the family. This forms a relationship between her and the family whereby the family is dependent on Ruby to translate for them. In one instance, Ruby goes swimming with Miles and leaves her deaf father and brother to go fishing alone. While fishing, they are intercepted by a coast guard through radio calls and ship horns, and because they cannot hear, they fail to stop. They are later charged with negligence, and their fishing licenses are revoked. “You didn’t come to work. We’re done fishing. They suspended my License” (Heder 60), said Frank confronting Ruby for not coming with them to fishing. Later, they appeal the decision and have their licenses reinstated for being deaf under the condition that they must have a hearing person on board whenever they go fishing. This shows that their character forces them to be dependent on someone who hears and forms a relationship with them to go for fishing activities.
Another example where characterization has been used to show the tendency of humans to seek others is Ruby’s invitation for Miles to visit her in Boston. Although Ruby comes from a deaf family which is highly dependent on her for various activities, she has a love of music in her. Ruby’s love for music makes her defy her promise to the family to stay with them by accepting to join a music school far away from home, which brings diverse opinions from the family. The father is opposed to her going to the school because they need her to check after them. After a few disagreements, the parents accepted Ruby to join the music school to which she had managed to get a scholarship. After being accepted into the music school, Ruby invites miles to visit her in Boston. “Visit me in Boston?” (Heder 78). Ruby’s loving character and her feelings for Miles make her want to form and extend their relationship even when she goes to the new school.
The text setting shows that there is a tendency for humans to seek others and form relationships. The text is set in a fishing community. Fishing is an activity that mostly requires collaborative action to achieve. When fishers felt that they were being mistreated, Leo opted to form a new group in which they could sell their fish without restrictions. He required the support of other fishers. Therefore, this shows that the story’s setting in a fisher’s society supports the human tendency to seek out others to form a relationship. In addition, the setting of the family required Ruby as their interpreter. Besides that, when the father and son went fishing, they dependent on Ruby to be on their watch and interpret signals from other fishers and coast guards. This shows that the film’s setting of a fisher’s society was done to show the importance of forming relationships to succeed.
The author used an ambivalent tone in the text to show the human tendency to seek out others and form relationships. The author gives the readers mixed feelings of uncertainty, dilemma, and decidedness in this text. At the beginning of the text, the author shows how Ruby is committed to helping her family before she attends school and learns that she can sing. After a while, Ruby starts finding herself, and she decides to go after her musical career. This creates a dilemma for the reader because Ruby’s family depends on her for interpretation and fishing activities, while on the other hand, the girl can sing so nicely and wants to pursue her career. Therefore, through Mr. V, Ruby seeks out musical opportunities in other places and gets accepted in Boston. Ruby decides to go and pursue her dream despite leaving back her deaf family. Therefore, noticing that her family was deaf and nobody could help her in her music career, Ruby decided to seek out other people such as Miles and Mr. V, and formed a relationship with them to boost her music career.
Symbolism has been used to demonstrate the human tendency to seek out others and form relationships. Deafness symbolizes people in society who do not have a voice. This includes racial minority groups, socially disadvantaged groups, and other marginalized groups in society. Therefore, these groups need to form relationships with one another to be heard in society. Just as Ruby’s family formed a relationship with her to act as their interpreter, they should form good relationships with other people in society to help voice out their issues.
The text CODA has used various literacy styles to demonstrate the human tendency to seek out others. The author used the story’s plot by showing the readers how Ruby creates relationships with Mr. V and Mile, who end up helping her in her music career. In addition, the author used characterization to show how the characters of different people in the text are required to form relationships for survival such as Ruby’s family. The author used other literary devices, such as setting, tone, and symbolism, to show how humans seek others out to form relationships.
Work Cited
Heder, Siân. CODA Written by Siân Heder Based on La Famille Bélier. 2021.