When I first began reading the man's words, it was a bit hard for me to understand. Like I usually do while reading a novel, I re-read his dialogue a few times before I grasped what he was saying. Here is a portion of what he says to Pip:
"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, 'what fat cheeks you ha' got"..."Darn me if I couldn't eat 'em," said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, "and if I han't a mind to't!"..."You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler...and your heart and liver shall be tore out..."
As I stated before, the words are not as difficult to read as the dialect in Their Eyes Were Watching God, but it did create a slight obstacle in my understanding of what was happening during this section. Once I re-read the man's words, I was able to understand better. And the dialogue also helped me to picture in my head the small child, Pip and this deranged man. Dicken's use of dialogue, once understood, creates the image of these two characters. He doesn't have to write much about their appearance; only give these characters the appropriate speech, and the reader will figure out where Pip and the man exist in society.
Tonianne, I am so sorry that is late but my words press has not been working and everything seems to be on a delay I can't seem to figure it out. I am not sure if it my computer or maybe a glitch in the system. I have finally been able to work this out thank god. I posted two new posts today. Again, I am so sorry.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned something in your post, "... giving him a different dialect that I think speaks to his character and status" That’s a great way of putting it!! Adds to the character and through our previous knowledge and judgments we form an opinion and view of a single person just by the way they speak. That’s pretty cool! You made me notice this. It brings me back to even my own book I formulate this opinion of them to similar things like in my previous post I wrote how it reminded me of the Help. The reason why I linked these two together is because that’s how they spoke in the movie! AMAZING!
I feel the same way about getting used to the slang and "new language" it took me a couple of times to read through it and finally grab a hold of it. Once I was able to grasp it I found that I didn't have much trouble with it after. It was as if my mind new automatically to change the words. Did you feel that way also?
No worries about the posting! I remembered you saying last week you were having problems with it but I'm glad you got it working!
ReplyDeleteYes, I definitely noticed that once I read through more of the book, the dialog between the characters and even the narration itself from the young Pip grew more familiar and easier to read.