Monday, February 3, 2014
Karlenzig Blog One
The character's dialogue and the narrator's use of descriptive simile have a particularly southern feel in All the King's Men. The Louisiana State Governor, Willie Talos and his crew have just returned to his home town where he is hailed as a hero. They head into a local drug store for a soda pop, where the personable governor spies an old friend. Even though the whole town has gathered due to the excitement of Willie's return, the Governor is humble enough to ignore the crowd and catch up with an elder. "He's a good boy," Old Leather-face allowed. "hit wuz a fahr fight, but he had a leetle bad luck." "Huh?" "Hit wuz a fahr and squahr, but he had a leetle bad luck. He stobbed the feller and he died." Tough tiddy" (Pg 10). The author takes the liberty of ignoring dictionary spellings, and writes the dialogue as it would actually sound in person. Instead of telling the reader that "Old Leather-face", is an old timey southerner with an accent, he shows us. As the main character, Jack Burden explores his bosses property he discovers some pigs in the distance. "I could see a couple of hogs lounging down there on their sides, like big gray blisters popping up out of the ground" (Pg 43). While the image of hogs lounging in the countryside at sunset is already extremely southern, Warren's simile adds an intelligent touch. The comparison to blisters is appropriate because of the farm setting.
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Don't you love "big gray blisters"?! Wow! What could be a bucolic scene is shown to be a bit raw and nasty even. Like Perrando's "slick'm" for butter.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that Robert Penn Warren has incorporated lots of Southern description and similes into All the Kings Men. In both of your examples of "southernness", there is some sort of reference or relation to rural life, which seems to be a big part of what makes these descriptions seem so southern. For example, in the scene with "Old-Leather face", the author described the man as, "a tall, gaunt-shanked, malarial, leather-faced side of jerked venison..." (9). When describing Tiny Duffy, the author writes, "the face...was creamed and curded like a cow-pattie in a spring pasture" (18). This description is another example of a simile that the author uses to further incorporate southern details into the story, and here, just as with the hogs in the countryside, the description is connected to elements of rural life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea that Robert Penn Warren uses southern slang but incorporates intelligent ideas and concepts into his similes and metaphors, as well as his writing as a whole. This combination makes for an interesting read and makes his more intuitive paragraphs pop out and stick with the reader. When Willie and Jack are talking to the judge, we read that "'Callahan's been playing round for a long time, and he who touches pitch shall be defiled, and little boys just will walk barefoot in the cow pasture'"(p.68). The imagery involving the cow pasture is distinctly Southern and seems moderately uneducated, contrasting with the following paragraph, "The grandfather's clock in the corner of the room, I suddenly realized, wasn't getting any younger. It would drop out a tick, and the tick would land inside my head like a rock dropped in a well, and the ripples would circle out and stop, and the tick would sink down the dark..." (p.68). This contrast is what gives Warren's writing life and candid tone. We are left with a different message after each paragraph, all thanks to his combination of styles and diction.
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