"A shame of silence" by Maxine Hong Kingston is primary an expressive paper. In this essay, the writer, a Chinese girl, faces her frustration and discomfort before a situation suffered since she was a child. The fact that she could not speak English fluently made of her a shy girl isolating her from the rest of the classmates in kindergarten. Expressive is not the only purpose of this paper. It also tells a story, her own story, about her experience at kindergarten, home and Chinese school, and makes this paper a literary writing as well. There is no intention of the author to convince or persuade others, neither to explain a topic. As for a pattern of organization, Maxine Hong Kingston uses description to illustrate the story. She also uses pattern of narration to write the story which events are related in time. The essay is full of figurative images grabbing the reader's attention. "A shame of silence" talks about the cultural differences that make an individual not to reflect what he or she really is, and how these differences can affect his or her personality, communication and relationship with others. Kingston's primary purpose is expressive. Since the beginning, the authors define self as a silent person. This is clearly expressed when she recalls the day when she went to kindergarten, where she had to speak English for the first time and she became silent. Emotions are revealed as well when she writes, "I stand frozen" which means that she felt extremely nervous about asking an easy question in English. The secondary purpose of this writing is literary. It is writing in prose with an ordinary language. There is a conflict involved, which is the author to speak fluently, loudly and comfortably in English. An illustration of the mentioned conflict is written in the very first paragraph. "I hold up the line with the complete, grammatical sentence that comes squeaking out at impossibl...