Antiprosopopoeia (an-ti-pro-so-po-pe’-i-a): The representation of persons [or other animate beings] as inanimate objects. This inversion of prosopopoeia or personification can simply be the use of a metaphor to depict or describe a person [or other animate being].
He is jello bright and shiny on the outside, but jiggly when you pick him up. No, this isn’t a riddle, it’s my brother. He was born with no bones. He is like a giant talking dessert. My mother takes the blame for his condition. When she was pregnant she ate jello day and night. She would average 25 servings of jello per day. My father would put it on a plate and give her a straw to suck it up with. Her favorite was lime, and that’s why my brother Reggie is a sort of greenish color. He does not need diapers. Mom just lets him drip on the floor. She’s a wreck. The night Reggie was born, she’s started drinking cheap wine and throwing the empty bottles against the wall—she’s like an alcoholic tennis ball canon, only she shoots glass bottles. There are broken bottles on the floor abutting her target wall. The broken glass is dangerous, but my father won’t clean it up. He says, “She’s not my wife. I don’t clean up after strangers!” My mother would get up to get a broom from the kitchen, but she would pass out and lay there for hours. I sided with my dad and wouldn’t touch the mess—there was a swarm of fruit flies over it and as time went by, it smelled a little like vinegar.
Then one day my brother started flopping vigorously in his crib. He started making noises like he was going to speak. After grunting a few times, and squealing, he said “Side Show.” I thought I understood him: “Freak show?” I asked. He flopped up and down and smiled through the little slash below his nose. Freak shows are pretty rare these days, but we found one that wintered in North Caroline and travelled around the US in spring, summer, and fall. It was called “Freaky.”His stage name would be “Jellyfish Boy.” He would lay on a slab making gurgling sounds and charge punters $5.00 to touch him with one finger. For $10.00 they could pet him with one slow stroke.
As time went on, even though he looked like a jellyfish with eyes, a nose and a mouth, he could think and speak. So much went on in his head. Then, one day he started to sing. His voice was a mix of Elvis and Roy Orbison, but favored Roy Orbison. He would lay on his slab and sing “Crying.” Crowds would gather. The pathos was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Young women would sob. Older men would wipe their eyes and try to hide their emotions. When he was done singing, I would scoop Reggie up with his pizza paddle and walk him off the stage. He would shimmer in the stage lights—a beautiful multi-colored display of life.
As he became more and more popular, Reggie fell in with a bad crowd. I carried him on his pizza paddle to some of worst dives in New York. It was heartbreaking to watch Reggie killing himself.
Then he died. He was only 26.
We had a pink granite pizza paddle made for his headstone. His epitaph was from Roy Orbison’s “Crying”: “I was all right for awhile.”
Reggie was my brother and I loved him.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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