The “Dialect” of Black Literature
For this second blog post, I decided that I would take up the topic of Zora Neale Hurston’s Essay “Characteristics of the Negro Expression”, and how a few of the literary works that we’ve studied from the Harlem Renaissance connect to her study. In her essay Zora Neale Hurston talks about the several different aspects that are apparent in Black art and writing during her time and before. Examples of such are Drama, the “Will to Adorn”, the creation of the Metaphor and Simile, and so on. However, in order to make sure this blog post doesn’t get too long, I’ve decided to focus on the characteristic of Dialect.
For dialect, Hurston first talks about the stereotype of this characteristic, saying that it usually described as one “full of ‘ams’ and ‘Ises’” by some writers. She then goes on to talk about in proper detail the phonetics of African American speech, describing things such as the actual way African Americans at the time pronounced “I”. She said it sounded more like a soft “Ah”, which, she believed, was likely due to the “thin lip form” of pronunciation, likening it to the tightening of violin strings. Hurston also notes that in her essay she is only talking about the general “rules” of the African American dialect, since with such a large number of people using it there are bound to be location-specific quirks, all of which she didn’t cover.
The several stories and poems that we’ve read throughout this year's semester seem to both support and contradict the points that Zora Neale Hurston made in her essay. For instances of support one could look to the play we read not too long ago: A Raisin in the Sun. A Raisin in the Sun takes on a very realistic storyline of a family who had up until recently been struggling with financial problems, which put tensions on the relationships within their house. Although in class we didn’t get to hear any of the play, and thus experienced it only through reading, throughout the story the characters don’t speak in the more stereotypical dialect Hurston described. There is however one exception to this consistency: when after the money has been stolen from them, Walter decides to take the offer Linder gave the family to accept the money the neighborhood organization would give the family to not move in. In that scene, as Walter descends into hysterics, he begins to make a mockery of himself. Acting like a caricature of a black person, he “acts out” how he will address Linder, saying the “Mistuh”-s and “Yassuh”s of the more stereotypical dialect that Hurston talks about.
Another source we read in class is the short story “Down by the Riverside”, however, this one seems to lean more towards contradicting Hurston’s statements. The plot of this story is about a man named Mann attempting to get his sick wife to a hospital through a flooding city, and as the story is from Mann’s perspective, the narration as well as Mann’s internal thoughts seem to weave together in the text. It’s because of the small shifts between Mann’s internal monologue and the story narration that I believe this short story is one that Hurston wouldn’t exactly agree fits her analysis of the African American dialect. While it may be a way of simply attempting to express the sound of the words through text, Mann’s way of speech seems to lean towards the more stereotypical end of the dialect in my opinion.
It’s through A Raisin in the Sun and “Down by the Riverside” that we can see the juxtaposition of both authors’ intentions while writing their stories. At the beginning of her section about dialect, Hurston says that the more stereotypical dialect had come from a majority of writers, and it’s not exactly that hard for “Down by the Riverside” being one of them, even if said dialect was simply for storytelling effect. I believe the author for A Raisin in the Sun, Lorrain Hansberry, decided to ground her use of the African American dialect more in reality because of how realistic her play’s topic was, only breaking off from that realism when a character was intentionally acting the stereotype. In this way I believe that Hansberry ended up allying with Hurston’s beliefs about African American speech with the way her work was written.
Interesting post! It seems that the dialect is something frozen in time. At the height of its usage, it was supposed to be something familiar to a specific reader, and it became popularized and eventually a bit overused. Time has progressed since then and the voices of the writers has changed since then, which is why it is considered a stereotype.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think that since "Down by the Riverside" was placed in the South a few decades before "A Raisin in the Sun" which is placed in Chicago in the sixties, this played a role in the use of dialect. But it is very interesting how dialect was only used in "A Raisin in the Sun" during a scene where he was making a caricature of himself, and is indicative of the views towards dialect at that time, like Xenia said it had become overused and seen as a stereotype after so much time.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you point to that scene in A Raisin in the Sun where Walter is playing what he sees as stereotypical, black southern submissiveness. I think part of the reason the black characters in the play talk differently is because they're in the North (post Great Migration). I also think this passage is very telling though of how this text sits in dialogue with earlier texts where we saw the black vernacular utilized by the author. Walter aligns the black vernacular with deference to white people, to a more "backwards" time when that deference was expected. It contrasts with some of the more positive or neutral uses of the vernacular in other texts. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI enjoy how you focused on the specific characteristic of dialect and not only explained why the "I" sound was created, but also how. Although it is not featured in every single Black poem or piece of text, that does not mean it is not an important part of African-American culture, and you do a good job of explaining this and why it might not be prominent. I wonder how much dialect will continue to change and adapt in the future, why it will/will not, and how.
ReplyDeleteYou're definitely right that Walter is using Black dialect (which would've faded away in the North to some degree) as a way to mock certain stereotypes of himself. I think to understand its use in Down by the Riverside, we have to understand the story as a political text addressed in part to the Northern Black community. The use of vernacular reminds them of the existence of Black life in the South and how that community ultimately still needs to be liberated.
ReplyDeleteI haven't thought much about dialect myself through our readings, but I like how you've connected Hurston's analysis of dialect to them. Your examination of A Raisin in the Sun and Down by the Riverside provides insightful examples of how different authors portray African American speech.
ReplyDeleteI think its interesting to see the contrast between the intentional use of dialect for storytelling effect and the grounding of dialect in realism within these works.