[to be polished after class]
I decided to begin my readings with Bakhtin so that I could be on the look-out for heteroglossia in the narratives. My time was well spent in revisiting Bakhtin and establishing a firmer foundation in the dialogic structure of language. In fact, I was surprised to see my old notes in the margins because, had they not been there, I would have sworn I’d never read the 2nd half of Chapter 1 of Sue Vice's Introducing Bakhtin (notes are evidence of my dialogic conversation with the text, as Bakhtin would say). My own “voice” added to Vice’s testified against my logic. In had indeed read this, yet I remembered nothing about it. That’s sad. Never-the-less, in my re-reading, I enjoyed seeing how heteroglossia, in context with Call it Sleep, could help me with understanding how social/class issues are depicted within literature.
As I understand it, Heteroglossia (different languages) is language as it appears in literature; it includes sociolect language (language determined by different social groups based on age, gender, money, region, etc.) and register (preacher, doctor, lawyer, etc). Comparing diverse languages always sets one in comparison to another (usually those of the “acceptable” class of society). Heteroglossia is double-voiced discourse that serves two speakers at the same time—speaker and author (must note Bakhtin’s definition of author, which is the same as narrator until the narrator asserts his own voice distinguished from that of the author). When thinking of heteroglossia, I think of Charles Chesnutt’s short story “Goophered Grapevine,” in which he has a narrator (former slave living free on a ruined plantation) within a narrator (northerner visiting the South to buy the plantation cheap). The two languages oppose one another—the northerner’s voice is the established hierarchy—the former slave’s voice is comical, submissive, and contrite, yet it is without irony (double-voice) as he is playing a role for the northerner. Furthermore, I would add that this example is polyphonic in that the northerner, who is telling the whole story to the reader, allows the African American storyteller reign in his story even at the northerner’s expense (the northerner knows he is being played, but not in the same way we, the readers, know it). Another fine example of heteroglossia can be found in Huckleberry Finn.
From Williamson’s book Pillars of Salt, we also read the narratives of Owen Syllavan (1756), Issac Frasier (1768), John Jubeart (1769), Herman Rosencrantz (1770) (sans Guildenstern), and Levi Ames (1773). I enjoyed reading these, but I must confess that my favorite was Herman Rosencrantz’s. His double-voiced intention spoke loudly and the purpose of his confession was all too obvious. He continually used Biblical passages in order to gain respect and to create doubt with the readers that he should be hanged. Like many other criminal confessions, he blames poor conditions and personal loss as the motive for his crime (assuming that there is an acceptable reason to steal, it would be to provide for the family). But it is the structure of his language that “cracks me up.” On page 168, he describes how he nobly resisted throwing in with the gang of counterfeiters, “by discovering these pests of civil government” and "But the love of money, the root of all evil, blinded my eyes, so that I received at their hands two counterfeit bills.” His word choice, “pests,” is double-voiced; the word choice signals to noble readers that he is with us—he agrees they are bad men, insects, pests. His word choice subversively puts him in the law-biding citizen’s court. Further double-voice occurs when he explains that he entreated him to steal that he “might live a gentleman’s life—yet I did not then accept of their offer.” Would a “gentleman” steal? The counterfeiter’s idea of “gentlemanly living” is living with ease. As Allon White notes (on page 19 of Vice’s Introducing Bakhtin), heteroglottic languages socially oppose one another---from the lower stratum of society, a “gentleman’s” life is one of ease by which only money can provide. In opposition, other parts of society (the religious, the noble, the polite), a gentleman lives by a code of honor.
My favorite double-voice quote appears on page 171, “During eight days that I staid with them, I saw them make, and assisted in making, a number of Three Pound bills, Pennsylvania currency. After this was completed, we all quit our cabin; first destroying the press we made use of in counterfeiting.” He saw them do this and that, yet “we” destroyed the cabin that “we” used to counterfeit money. Finally, and I’ll cease with Rosencrantz (sans Guildenstern are dead), he sympathetically explains that "The command in my heart was, THOU SHALT NOT STEAL; which I always kept”; I assume everyone sees that double-voicedness of that ironic statement, but you have to give him credit; he tried.
Of the other narratives we read, several issues stand out. First, counterfeiting in Early America appears to be a simple feat to accomplish. I think that what makes it so simple is the ease with which these guys could make plates and pass them off to unsuspecting citizens (Syllavan states, “I thought it was an easy Way of getting money” (146). We have to remember the education level of the average citizen. Most would not ascertain the complexity of paper weight, signatures, clarity of print, ink color, etc. It also appears that these men built the printing press they used to accomplish the deeds; I imagine they were of crude construction. Furthermore, it appears that the goals were incapable to sustaining prisoners for any period of time before said prisoners could find a way to escape (yes, even by fire). Moreover, I wonder at each convicts ability to remember in detail and in order every little thing (peice of linen, silver spoon, hat, etc.) they stole, from who, and what town. These guys are on a massive stealing spree—how do they remember every minute detail? And what did they do with the loot? How did they fence it—what did they buy? Did they eat, drink, and be merry? In this area I was left unsatisfied.
Conversely, I am highly satisfied by James Frasier’s account, which I saved for last. Frazier I liked; probably because he was born poor and couldn’t write (signed statement with his “mark”). His father died when he was five, yet his mother was “poor yet always had the character of an honest person among her Neighbours, and she took pains to inculcate a principle of honesty into me, in my tender years” (note: I do question if “inculcate” was his word; in fact, Syllavan’s lack of recorded Irish accent and Frasier’s eloquent language (he was uneducated) leads one to doubt that these are the “exact” words of these convicts). Frasier’s confession along with Ames's reveals a social class resistance to indenture. Both men appear to blame the social construction of indenture as the impetus of their forays into crime. Frasier’s voice also takes on a tone of authority—higher than that of the reader, which makes this confession unique—when he begins to exert warnings to the youth. He argues that education (early education reform rhetoric [smiley face]), which was denied him based on his economic and low-class status, would have prevented him turning to a life of crime. This narrative is subversively rhetorical, rebellious, and resistant. Love it!
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