Prof. Jonathan Gill
English W4604y – American Lit 1880-1940
February 23, 2000
Realistic Dialogue in Twain and Crane
Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson and Stephen Crane’s Maggie both create a realistic and compelling atmosphere through their rich use of dialect. Both novels rely at least partially on dialogue to advance their plots. One of the reasons the dialogue is both convincing and enjoyable is that the characters speak in a consistent, vernacular lingo. By inserting slang words of the period and by spelling the spoken words phonetically, both authors vividly capture the flavor of their characters. Crane evokes the lilting brogue of the Irish immigrants of New York City’s turn-of-the-century Bowery district. Twain, writing at the same time, contrasts two very different dialects in mid-19th century Missouri, that of the black slaves and their white masters. In both cases, the dialogue is so realistic it almost demands to be spoken aloud and read in accent, at which point one sometimes feels he is eavesdropping on actual conversations rather than reading fiction.
Finding a character’s speech rhythms and vocabulary is essential to giving them flavor and personality, which is a goal of any good novelist. However, it is especially important for the realist novelist, who seeks to capture and recreate the dialogue that is characteristic of the people he is writing about. In the case of Stephen Crane’s Maggie, the people are the alcoholic, pugilistic Irish immigrants scraping out a living in the overly crowded tenements. Without radio, television, or books, they spend much of their time arguing, talking, yelling, and drinking. Their dialogue often seems to serve no particular purpose except to fill the time, which is evidenced by how often the characters brag and repeat stories to each other.
Two ways Crane captures and recreates the way his characters actually speak is through phonetic spelling and repetition. As just one of many examples, Pete the bartender recounts a story to his friend Jimmie: “Dere was a mug come in d’ place d’ odder day wid an idear he was goin’ t’ own d’ place. Hully gee! he was goin’ t’ own d’ place. I see he had a still on, an’ I didn’ wanna giv ’im no stuff, so I says, ‘Git outa here an’ don’ make no trouble,’ I says like dat. See? ‘Git outa here an’ don’ make no trouble’; like dat. ‘Git outa here,’ I says. See?” (p. 22). The non-standard spelling of most of the words, indicated by the predominance of apostrophes, along with the grammatical errors and slang expressions such as “hully gee,” paint a clear picture of Pete’s character.
Dialogue in novels or books is normally smoother and less repetitive than actual, spoken dialogue because the reader has more time to process the information than a real listener would. However, the dialogue in Maggie is more natural sounding than in many other novels because Crane leaves in the repetitions in his characters’ speech. This is especially appropriate since one stereotype of Bowery boys is that their conversations are particularly repetitive and somewhat devoid of substance. Furthermore, because readers do not expect even a normal amount of repetition to be present in written dialogue, writing it further adds to the impression that the characters are uneducated and rather inarticulate.
When Stephen Crane’s characters are not repeating themselves, they make their most profound statements. While most of what they say over and over is rather pointless, when they say something only once it rings with significance. When Maggie is ultimately rejected by Pete, her final poignant question before she commits suicide is: “But where kin I go?” (p. 70). Another ironic aspect about the dialogue in Maggie is that the only character who speaks in correct, complete sentences is the prostitute Nell who takes Pete away from Maggie in the whorehouse. Maggie’s clipped and uneducated brogue contrasts starkly with Nell’s comparatively eloquent conversation. It’s is Nell’s cold and straightforward dialogue to Pete which summarizes Maggie for us: “A little pale thing with no spirit” (p. 68).
While nearly all of Crane’s characters speak in the same manner, Mark Twain goes a step further and uses colorful dialects not only to illustrate his characters but also to distinguish them from each other. To evoke the period lingo, Twain, like Crane, uses a phonetic and abbreviated spelling of words, complete with an abundance of apostrophes. The white characters in Pudd’nhead Wilson speak in the easy, plodding manner of the 19th century Midwesterner. They come across as relaxed and straightforward, sometimes to the point of appearing simple-minded. The black slaves, because they are not educated and are raised within their own subculture, have such a different manner of speaking that it is instantly recognizable. The white characters say things such as “’pears to be a fool,” “I reckon,” and “in my opinion he haint got any mind” (p. 60). The black slaves, on the other hand, speak in an even more distinct dialogue, as when Roxy tells fellow slave Jasper: “’Clah to goodness if dat conceit o’ yo’n strikes in, Jasper, it gwine to kill you sho’. If you b’longed to me I’d sell you down de river ‘fo’ you git too fur gone. Fust time I runs acrost yo’ marster, I’s gwine to tell him so” (p. 63).
This clear distinction in speech pattern is important to the realist goal of recreating authentic local flavor. However, it is particularly relevant to this story’s issues of identity. Characters are immediately recognized and categorized by their speech more than by their appearance. For example, not only do the slaves speak differently from the white Missourians, but outsiders such as Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Italian twins also have their own manner of speaking which is subtly different from the other whites. This difference is crucial to the central plot: one character is born a slave but grows up as an aristocrat because of a baby-switch, while the actual son of the aristocrat grows up in his place as a slave. Although they both look equally white, their very different speech patterns and vocabulary significantly separate them. Both groups have no difficulty understanding and conversing with each other, yet they maintain their distinct vocabulary and grammar.
Pudd’nhead Wilson is memorable for its anachronistic use of fingerprints as the one true identifier or autograph of a person, capable even of distinguishing identical twins. While fingerprints deliver the ultimate legal proof at the end of the book, throughout the story it is the characters’ dialogue which actually identifies them. Since the two main slaves in the story, Roxy and her son Valet, are only 1/16th and 1/32nd black, their appearance is not distinguishable from the free whites. Indeed, this is what makes it possible for Roxy to switch Valet with the free baby Tom. Even after Roxy is freed, however, she still talks like a slave and it is thus possible for her son to sell her back into slavery to repay his debts. She succinctly explains the importance of dialect: “I’s a nigger, en nobody ain’t gwyne to doubt it dat hears me talk” (p. 174). This is again an issue when Tom and Valet are switched back at the end of the book, because neither speaks appropriately for their social status. Valet, who speaks with his Yale-educated white dialect, will presumably be resented by the other slaves after he is sold down river. Likewise, when Tom was restored to his birthright, he “suddenly found himself rich and free, but in a most embarrassing situation. He could neither read nor write, and his speech was the basest dialect of the negro quarter... money and fine clothes could not mend these defects or cover them up, they only made them the more glaring and the more pathetic” (p. 225). This disparity of dialect thus functions as a realistic blow which prevents Tom from receiving what would otherwise be a romantic restitution.
Although Stephen Crane grew up in a well-to-do family on the New Jersey Shore and had no personal experience with tenement life or alcoholism, he managed to vividly capture life in the slums from his short visits and imagination. Just as he later did with The Red Badge of Courage, he appears to have written a more authentic depiction of his subject than anyone who actually experienced it first hand. Mark Twain, on the other hand, used his vast personal experience and memories to infuse his story with tremendous authenticity. The majority of his novels, including Puddn’head Wilson, take place in the setting of his youth, the idyllic Missouri towns along the Mississippi River in the decades preceding the Civil War. Although these realist authors probably had little or no influence on each other, they both spent substantial energy writing authentic-sounding conversations to make their characters come to life. Their particular detail to the lower-class dialects of slaves and immigrants gives their novels a stylistic similarity that is easily recognizable, but also has an important effect on the realistic tone of their novels.
Works Cited
Crane, Stephen. Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. New York: Signet Classic, 1991 (1893).
Twain, Mark. Pudd’nhead Wilson. London: Penguin Classics, 1986 (1894).