Something that I noticed while reading The Stranger is how diction and syntax can influence how an individual percieves and forms opinions of a work or person. We so often think that anyone or anything with flowery, fanciful, and scholarly vocabulary and complex, correct grammar must be someone or something of power, intelligence, importance, and wisdom. On the other hand, if one speaks with slang and broken or short sentences and a generally straightforward, blunt nature, they must be brutish, uneducated, uncaring, or in general not worth listening to.
We often see this, but do not want to admit it, in our every day lives. Different groups (cultures, ethnicities, minorities, locations, age groups, etc.) all have different ways of speaking and expressing themselves. I do not think that we like to admit these differences, because in doing so we worry that we will raise offense because of these apparantly unpleasant differences between dialects. We look at books like the Color Purple and we say yes, that is a good book, but when we see people speak like that now, even if it's just in the short sentances and blunt nature of the writing and this natural speech of anecdotes and thoughts running together, the opinion is otherwise.
I noticed this to a small extent in the Stranger as well. While the Stranger is a nice book, it is very plainly written, in a sort of child or novice writers "first I did this. Then I did that. I like this. I don't like that. He said I said she said." It is not riddled with figurative language and commas and long senstances and elaborate thoughts, it is this, that, this, and the other. It's plain. There's nothing to it.
What's notable about this, and how it links back to how we percieve other dictions and literature, is that what I first thought was the fault of translators, which is a funny thought in and of itself, that we reflect plain language with the fault between translations, I now believe was entirely intentional. Taken outside of the Stranger, no doubt would it's plain speech and simple statements be seen as unimaginative, lacking in talent, boring, or even annoying. But looking at Mersault's person and the reason of the book, with its emphasis on absurdity and lack of reason, his seemingly uncaring and animalistic needs are further supported by the novel's intentionally coarse form and diction.
So saying, I think it's a good thing, when authors use HOW they say their story to their advantage, and after reading the Stranger it made me realize a little more how important it is to not judge people and books by their dialect and structure...I noticed this even more when we read that little passage of The Color Purple during one of the AP practice packets. The little passage about Shug and Celie. I felt horrible after reading it, because my first thought was how difficult it was to read, and how poorly written. I regreted that right after, because the more I thought about the straightforwardness of the Stranger and the roughness of the Color Purple and real life....the more I realized how important dialect is, and how wrong we are to jump to such quick conclusions based upon it. Sure, this used to be more of a problem, I think, when segregation and rifts like that were more prevelant, but honestly it's not just about minorities or anything like that, it's age (teenagers for example), location (one city or place vs another), culture, the whole lot, and it's still an issue, and one we don't realize as readily. I'm not sure how much sense all this makes, but that's my conclusion, and I think more people could
do with understanding it.
Just because someone talks differently, even if they speak the same language, that doesn't mean they are one thing or another, and somehow reading the Stranger made me realize that.
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