Calling All Lit-Heads

May 25, 2006 5:24 PM

Bookworm MeFites: I'm looking for novels, short stories, and plays by white authors where their non-white characters speak in a dialect. For instance, the slave Jim in Twain's Huckleberry Finn.

This is for a paper that I'm working on. I'll explain more later, but I'd like to leave it open-ended for a little while. Thanks!

posted by rossination to writing & language (45 comments total)

American only?
posted by occhiblu at 5:28 PM on May 25, 2006

No, anything English language is fine.
posted by rossination at 5:30 PM on May 25, 2006

The islanders in Cat's Cradle.
posted by leapingsheep at 5:33 PM on May 25, 2006

Just a guess but you might want to look at Kipling, or Alan Paton.
posted by aisforal at 5:35 PM on May 25, 2006

A bit obvious, but Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.
posted by EarBucket at 5:35 PM on May 25, 2006

Faulkner's "The Unvanquished" and others. Here's a list of children's books with a Gullah (SC/GA coast) dialect.
posted by Frank Grimes at 5:40 PM on May 25, 2006

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
posted by mcwetboy at 5:49 PM on May 25, 2006

I know Firbank only because a character in another novel I like is reading him, but it appears that Firbank's Valmouth and possibly Sorrow in Sunlight contain a great deal of West Indian pidgin. (The quote I have is "Vot it has been dis thousand and thousand ob year?")
posted by occhiblu at 5:55 PM on May 25, 2006

The cook Lee in Steinbeck's East of Eden. (I remember Lee speaking the same dialect as the white characters too, maybe just once when he explains why he affects the pidgin-type dialect he otherwise speaks.)
posted by PY at 6:02 PM on May 25, 2006

In East of Eden by John Steinbeck there is a Chinese character who speaks in pidgin-English. It's actually a rather integral part of his character in an interesting way. I'll let you read it and say no more here. I don't want to be a spoiler, after all.
posted by yogurtisgenocide at 6:02 PM on May 25, 2006

Huh, what are the chances...
posted by yogurtisgenocide at 6:03 PM on May 25, 2006

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King.

Odetta Holmes an African American woman.
posted by meta87 at 6:04 PM on May 25, 2006

Penrod, Booth Tarkington.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:05 PM on May 25, 2006

Jim from Huckleberry Finn, for reference. And Not exactly what you would call fine literature, but the Bobbsey Twins books are loaded with this kind of thing:

"Deed an' dat's whut she am!" exclaimed a fat, good-natured looking colored woman, smiling at the little girl. Dinah was the Bobbsey family cook. She had been with them so long that she used to say, and almost do, just what she pleased. "Dis am de forty-sixteen time I'se done bin down to de end ob de car gittin' Miss Flossie a drink ob watah. An' de train rocks so, laik a cradle, dat I done most upsot ebery time. But I'll git you annuder cup ob watah, Flossie lamb!" Link
posted by iconomy at 6:18 PM on May 25, 2006

Gone With The Wind
posted by gt2 at 6:30 PM on May 25, 2006

The Twelfth Card, the latest novel by Jeffery Deaver (of Bone Collector fame).
posted by zanni at 6:43 PM on May 25, 2006

Reasonably sure this is not what you're looking for, but I'll throw it in as a data point: Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is entirely written in dialect and is told from the point of view of a black character, though Heinlein envisaged race no longer being an issue (on the moon, anyway) and the character is essentially identical to Heinlein's other male narrators, who are generally white.
posted by joannemerriam at 6:51 PM on May 25, 2006

Eugene O'Neill's The Emporer Jones.
posted by ewagoner at 6:53 PM on May 25, 2006

Actually, O'Neill heavily used dialect in many of his plays. His "Plays of the Sea" one-acts are nothing but dialect, including white accents (Cockney, Irich, Scot, etc.). See especially The Moon of the Caribbees and The Long Voyage Home.
posted by ewagoner at 6:57 PM on May 25, 2006

Russell Banks' novels and stories with Jamaican characters.
posted by jeffmshaw at 7:09 PM on May 25, 2006

Dinah from the Bobbsey Twins was my first thought, too.
posted by acoutu at 7:21 PM on May 25, 2006

E.L. Doctorow employed dialect in the speech of freed slaves in "The March"
posted by msali at 7:35 PM on May 25, 2006

Mary Grant Bruce's "Billabong" series. The Aboriginal character talks in a kind of pidgin English, and the Chinese character also talks in a weird accent. These were written in the first part of the 20th century, and set in Australia.
posted by jonathanstrange at 7:41 PM on May 25, 2006

Then there's always my play.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:44 PM on May 25, 2006

Another Mark Twain: Roxy in Pudd'nhead Wilson.

Calpurnia and Tom in To Kill a Mockingbird? It's been a while since I've read it but I recall the dialect was expressed more in vocabulary than spelling/pronounciation differences.
posted by Opposite George at 7:50 PM on May 25, 2006

I'm pretty sure Deerslayer does some of that. I imagine Fitzgerald and his contemporaries have examples.
posted by frecklefaerie at 9:06 PM on May 25, 2006

All these books pertaining to african american people speaking in dialect. Several also involve the "black mammy" figure who speaks in dialect.

Porgy, Imitation of Life, Showboat, The Klansman, Gone With the Wind, The Color Purple.
posted by alex3005 at 9:10 PM on May 25, 2006

In Neuromancer, William Gibson had an entire culture of spacefaring Rasatafarians that spoke in dialect.
posted by cosmicbandito at 10:13 PM on May 25, 2006

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
posted by mammary16 at 10:46 PM on May 25, 2006

Any and all William Faulkner.
Any and all Zora Neale Hurston.
Any and all Flannery O'Connor.
Salman Rushdie (especially Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh).

I don't have To Kill A Mockingbird handy, but I'm assuming that would count.
posted by chicobangs at 11:41 PM on May 25, 2006

Oh, see also the plays of Tennessee Williams and Athol Fugard.
posted by chicobangs at 11:42 PM on May 25, 2006

I just read an incredibly delightful longish short story by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Gold Bug" that has a negro gentleman by the name of Jupiter who speaks in quite possibly the best written style of his dialect I have ever seen. It's so good that you have to practically read it aloud and it comes right off the lips without even trying. Sample quotes:

"Dey aint no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin' on you," here interrupted Jupiter; "de bug is a goole-bug, solid, ebery bit of him, inside and all, sep him wing -- meber feel half so hebby a bug in my life."

"Why, massa, 'taint worf while for to git mad about de matter -- Massa Will say noffin at all aint de matter wid him -- but den what make him go about looking dis here way, wid he head down and he soldiers up, and as white as a gose? And den he keep a syphon all de time -- "
"Keeps what, Jupiter?"
"Keeps a syphon wid de figgurs on de slate -- de queerest figgurs I ebber did see. Ise gittin' to be skeered, I tell you. Hab for to keep mighty tight eye 'pon him 'noovers. Todder day he gib me slip 'fore de sun up and was gone de whole ob de blessed day. I had a big stick ready cut for to gib him deuced good beating when he did come -- but Ise sich a fool dat I hadn't de heart arter all -- he looked so berry poorly."

"De bug -- I'm berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit somewhere 'bout de head by dat goole-bug."
"And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposition?"
"Claws enuff, massa, and mouff too. I nebber did see sich a deuced bug -- he kick and he bite ebery ting what cum near him. Massa Will cotch him fuss, but had for to let him go 'gin mighty quick, I tell you -- den was de time he must ha' got de bite. I didn't like de look ob de bug mouff, myself, nohow, so I wouldn't take hold ob him wid my finger, but I cotch him wid a piece ob paper dat I found. I rap him up in de paper and stuff a piece of it in he mouff -- dat was de way."

Good stuff. The story itself is exceedingly complex, far more complex than I was aware Poe ever wrote, venturing into some variety of formulaic cryptography, probably some algebra and good old-fashioned treasure hunting.
posted by vanoakenfold at 12:20 AM on May 26, 2006

Only the Dead Know Brooklyn - Thomas Wolfe
posted by miniape at 12:26 AM on May 26, 2006

I too thought of characters from Salman Rushdie's books (and also characters in Zadie Smith's White Teeth) but the author doesn't seem to fit the profile ("white author") rossination requested.
posted by PY at 1:56 AM on May 26, 2006

Okay, fair enough. Excise Zora Neale Hurston from my list too, then.
posted by chicobangs at 3:22 AM on May 26, 2006

I don't have To Kill A Mockingbird handy, but I'm assuming that would count.

I just re-read this a month or so ago, and the only bit I remember is the scene at the church where the narrator notices that her nanny speaks to other black people differently than she speaks to whites.
posted by joannemerriam at 3:35 AM on May 26, 2006

Louisa May Alcott wrote a story called "Little Gulliver" about an escaped slave girl and a seagull that was included in the My Book House anthology.

When I was little, I asked the the housekeeper who worked for my parents if black people used to talk like that, but she didn't understand what I meant--I don't think I was too clear in the way I asked.
posted by brujita at 6:43 AM on May 26, 2006

It's not the classic English-class lit that many of the above are, but some of the characters in Gaiman's recent Anansi Boys were written in dialect.
posted by whatzit at 7:32 AM on May 26, 2006

I've heard that it's much more a 19th century phenomenon, although arguably it's gone through periods of ebb and flow (relating to racial stresses?) A sort of 'standard' example would be Queequeg in 'Moby Dick,' and then there's, for example, Dr Lao in 'The Circus of Dr Lao,' who is written in/uses his stereotypical 'me no talkee' dialect at certain points - when he thinks people expect it of him, it seems.
posted by cobaltnine at 7:50 AM on May 26, 2006

Pic by Jack Kerouac.

Some in The Subterraneans (oddly, Mardou Fox's lines are not written in dialect but many of her friends lines are).

I don't know if you're looking for Spanglish dialect written by a white person but Tristessa would fit that bill.
posted by m@ at 7:53 AM on May 26, 2006

I remember reading this in grade school. If you search inside the book and hit suprise me youll see some sample dialogue.
posted by skrike at 8:22 AM on May 26, 2006

Iain (M) Banks sometimes has his characters speak in scottish dialects. The Bridge is a good example.

In Feersum Endjinn, the chapters where the main character features are written pseudo-phonetically (Feersum Endjinn = Fearsome Engine). Not sure if that counts, though.
posted by Zero Gravitas at 9:28 AM on May 26, 2006

Susan Straight. She wrote, I think, two books with characters speaking Gullah.
posted by stavrogin at 10:04 AM on May 26, 2006

Three Lives by Gertrude Stein contains the story "Melanctha."
posted by expialidocious at 11:15 AM on May 26, 2006

See Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus), George Ade (Fables in Slang) and Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby.
posted by KRS at 12:51 PM on May 26, 2006