In Drown, Diaz launches us into a bilingual world right away. As I said before, this helps solidify the setting, and cultural background in the story. One way he achieves this is by not italicizing the Spanish words, which keeps them from popping out of the texture. In addition, he adds enough context around the word to allow the reader to infer the meaning in many cases. Lastly, he uses many of the Spanish words repeatedly, and refrains from using their English counterparts. This creates a mix between the two languages, and flows very well. It is a bit like Diaz invites us to his characters' world, to make us better understand their stories. I think Diaz uses the mix of languages for these reasons--to solidify the setting, and to help us indentify us with the characters.
In "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period," Salinger writes the story through the point of view of a young artist, John Smith. He is definitely narcissistic, as evidenced by his painting of seventeen self portraits. He also considers himself to be high-class and sophisticated. He continually makes up stories, and some people in class called him a pathological liar, a diagnosis of which I do not disapprove. He grew up in the United States and Paris, where he started his career, and learned French. He applies to work at a correspondent school for art in Montreal, and concocts a story about knowing Picasso and being related to Honore Daumier. He accepts the position, and moves there for the summer. However, whenever he wants to distance himself from a "lower-class" person he uses French. This is well-summed up in the following scene, an altercation with a man on the bus:
"All right, buddy," he said, "let's move that ass." It was the "buddy," I think, that did it. Without even bothering to bend over a little--that is, to keep the conversation at least as private, as de bon gout, as he'd kept it--I informed him, in French, that he was a rude, stupid, overbearing imbecile, and that he'd never know how much I detested him. Then, rather elated, I stepped to the rear of the vehicle.
In this excerpt, Salinger's character speaks in French, and also denounces the people who are not in his social rank by using the French language.
In these ways, these two authors use a combination with English in very different ways. In Diaz, we are welcomed into the story, and in Salinger, the languages are meant to divide between classes.
I agree. The narrators in Drown simply just speak what comes, whether that be English or Spanish. The Spanish isn't treated any differently. But Smith uses language as a divide, like you said. It's supposed to signify difference.
ReplyDeleteI did like how Diaz inserted Spanish naturally in his stories because it did, like you said immerse the reader more into the setting and help us identify with the characters, but I do wish that maybe in the back of the book he gave us a list of definitions.
ReplyDeleteThe use of Spanish in Drown was extremely effective, in my opinion, because 99% of the time I could tell exactly what Diaz was talking about, either based on context or the sound of the word, even though I know virtually no Spanish outside of "hola." I imagine in many of these scenes, especially those in the Dominican Republic, the characters were talking much more Spanish than Diaz uses in his story, but the small amount we get still helps with the realism.
ReplyDeleteI always forget that "Jean de Daumier-Smith"'s real name is the utterly Anglo-prosaic "John Smith" (he's just added a fictional relation to the artist Daumier and "translated" his name into French, but its aural resonance is utterly transformed). This is a really interesting comparison: Diaz's Spanglish is a way of crossing cultural boundaries, of inviting the Anglophone reader to speak his language, while reading the story (it's nice to look up some of the Spanish if you don't know it, especially the specific Dominican slang, but you usually can figure the meaning from context). DD-S's intentions are virtually the opposite: he uses French in an effort to lord it over others, to flaunt his supposed cultural sophistication (while ironically cementing his image as a pretentious buffoon to the New Yorkers around him!).
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good post! I didn't even remember that part of "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period" was written in French. I really like the effect of bilingualism in both stories, though. In Junot Diaz particularly, I think it makes the stories seem more natural, smooth, and genuine. It makes me feel like I'm part of Yunior's world, which is a very impressive technique.
ReplyDeleteNice post, Matt! I agree, I thought that Diaz's use of Spanish helped the setting come alive and it flowed nicely. The Spanish words didn't seem forced, and most of the time it wasn't difficult to guess their meaning from context. In "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period" I agree that the French words were used as a way to divide the French speakers from the non-French speakers.
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