The first time I read through the story what struck me was the 'Misto C' character asking Aunt Rachel how she had never had any trouble in her life. I mean, really? I loved that Twain used that statement as a starting point for her story, because to me, the reader, I was astonished by Misto C's ignorance in asking her this question, as though a black woman living through the Civil War era could have lived her life without any trouble. I know this does not answer the question of the assignment, I just thought that it greatly complimented the juxtaposition between the two characters that the language Twain uses so strongly solidifies.
The story begins with poetic, wordy sentences from the narrator. Long and slow and serenely calm. The narrator reflects on the weather and the end of the day, and observes Aunt Rachel's demeanor and physique in an honest and affectionate manner. As soon as he asks her about the lack of trouble in her life, we first hear from Aunt Rachel and she is just as surprised with his question as I was.
What I initially noticed with Aunt Rachel's language was of course the misspellings of the words to convey the way she spoke. Most notably the letter 'd' where it shouldn't be ('de', 'den', 'dey') and missing in places where it should be ('an', 'husban', 'chil'en'). There is a general lacking of consonants in the language and a switching of vowel sounds in many words ('jist', 'sah' 'turrible'). A general lack of 'r's in words ('chil'en', 'yo', 'mash') creates an effect of blended speaking that can make the words seem difficult to discern from one another, creating a less concise and more flowing effect.
I found myself reading through the story once out loud to get a grip on how all the words should sound, then I read it again so I could take in the story she was telling more coherently. The initial newness to the look of the words initially held me up but after I got over this they created a vivid and dramatic vehicle to hear Aunt Rachel's story which is how I would imagine it would have felt to Misto C.
I love your observation here about how stupid that comment about her life was. Of course Twain knew it sounded stupid, but I am also sure that there would have been a fairly strong notion in popular culture (er, popular white culture!) at the time suggesting that slaves had a sort of cushy life on the plantations. He was making fun of that, and in part, I think, himself.
ReplyDelete