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Diction And Social Strata In Charles Chesnutt's "The Wife Of Youth", Mark Benedict
Diction And Social Strata In Charles Chesnutt's "The Wife Of Youth", Mark Benedict
Graduate English Association New Voices Conference 2008
Since Charles Chesnutt was on both the color and caste lines, his linguistic precision reflects a variety of cultural aspects. In “The wife of his Youth,” one can explore the caste differences between Mr. Ryder and Liza Jane through Chesnutt‟s choice of diction. The opening of the story postpones the plot to introduce and characterize Mr. Ryder in the context of the Blue Veins Society. Once established as a Blue Vein, Mr. Ryder necessarily exhibits a more varied and more studied diction than Liza Jane. This disparity becomes a condemnation of the seeking after upward mobility at the cost of …
Unmasking The Mask: Analyzing Caste Variations In The Lexicon Of Charles W. Chesnutt, Jeanne Bohannon
Unmasking The Mask: Analyzing Caste Variations In The Lexicon Of Charles W. Chesnutt, Jeanne Bohannon
Graduate English Association New Voices Conference 2008
Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1997) once wrote: “Speaking of dialect, it is almost a despairing task to write it.” His supposed frustration with the treatment of dialect, specifically the black plantation dialect of the 19th century, presents a view of Chesnutt‟s own treatment of written dialect in regards to lexical choices he made in his fiction. Within the constructs of 19th century America, Chesnutt‟s ability to employ black dialect as a metaphor for social change contrasts with his ambivalence in using traditional diction as a weapon to affect this transition. Many critics have postulated that the historical context of Chesnutt‟s time …