Aspects of speech in Black swan green

Speech is one of the first marks by which we assess individual’s personal qualities. It is full of obvious signs of person’s origin, his or her level of education, erudition, intelligence... Speech is not about composition of the words, it also always consists of mood, tunes, intensions and expectations. A well speaking interlocutor certainly gives us a better feeling than a mumbling one. Most people would definitely describe a person with great speech skills as a leader and a winner whereas a murmuring man would be stigmatized.

However, what a real impact of outside flaws can make? Or how should we consider their part in our lives?

Many people these days suffer from speech disorders. It is a dislocation of normal human speech abilities due to inborn or adultonset reasons. Usually people who work on their problem can significantly reduce the impact of it in their everyday speech but not everyone has an access to speech therapists or even enough courage to admit their problem and start a fight. In addition, in the moments of stress most of them are used to losing control and being judged again. Despite all those facts, in their brains could appear thousands of unspoken words. This means, a character is something more than his ability to express himself.

On the contrast, modern scientists are confused by the existence of so called Williams syndrome (WMS). People with WMS suffer from the general cognitive impairment along with remarkable speaking skills. They tend to be talkative and show significant capability of creative work, despite of that they usually have reading, writing, and math skills comparable to those of a first-grader.

Speech disorders were first mentioned in ‘Exodus’ from The Holy Bible. Moses struggled with such a problem and even questioned his ability to complete the mission God entrusted him. Now we know Moses as the greatest “public speaker” who gave our culture Ten Commandments. Another perfect example is Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw where the writer shows how easily people can be fooled by their own conceptualization of manners of speech. From my point of view, there is one more book, in which the author gives readers full perspective of the inner world of a stammering boy. This is Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. The protagonist Jason Taylor is an average English teenager with common teenage problems except one - he has a stammer that he tries to hide from everyone. With the flow of the story, this secret literally eats him up inside; even the name that Jason gave to his stutter is associated with death -Hangman. That mysterious creature living in boy’s head “steals” certain letters from him, or at least this is how Jason feels it.

On the contrast, the boy has an elder sister Julia. She is a couple of years older than Jason is and she is much more “successful”: her speech is sharp and flawless, she has an opportunity to choose among the best colleges of England and she has a perfect boyfriend who is smart, rich and famous. Jason is constantly forced to compare himself to his sister what causes deeper problems with his self-esteem.

It is important to point out that despite his inability to pronounce certain groups of words the boy writes beautiful poetry pieces (under a pen-name) which were regularly published at the local newspaper. His outstanding mental world is rich; his heart is full of deep emotions.

What is more, Jason’s biggest struggle is not the stutter itself but the acceptance of it by his schoolmates. Children are naturally cruel and stereotypes about external issues being signs of the inside issues can only feed their cruelty. In the book Jason starts his way as a mediocre member of school’s hierarchy. Elder boys would rarely make fun of him and he wouldn’t hurt any less popular boy.

With the flow of narration, we can see the rapid change of Jason’s ability to communicate with adults and his fellow friends. Most importantly, his speech skill. And the reason of that change is not the lessons with a speech therapist but his inner growth and various experience, which was sometimes quite challenging and harmful for a young soul.

Jason was given an opportunity to join so called “Spooks”, a gang of cool boys. He successfully passes their challenges and the gang members are ready to let him in. Suddenly he finds out that his school mate, who was trying to beat the same challenge, has fallen through a glass roof of a dangerous man’s house. Despite his new friends’ threats he runs to that place to see if the boy is alright. From that moment Jason brought all the school’s hate upon himself. Many other kids have bullied him in every possible form. School lessons turned violent and even common walks became dangerous. At that moment of the story most of Jason’s lines were expressed through his thoughts. He was keeping silent around others as is it was the way to become invisible to the eye of his bullies. For me, reading this part of the story was very stressful. Because I, as a reader could appreciate all the fear, and bitter, and disappointment swarming in his head, unlike Jason’s classmates. It made me think, how many times in my life I mistreated people whose thoughts I was unable to understand? How many times I was mistreated?

During one of his walks Jason was forced to hide from the pursuers in the woods. There he meets some gypsies who are forced to hide too. The author makes an interesting comparing of Jason’s and gypsies’ speech habits. Those people, as Jason said, used many made up words or changed the original words their own way. So, we can say, that their speech is different from the “normal”, just like Jason’s. And they are “bullied” by the citizens too, as they are trying to make them leave. Village people and gypsies were born in the same country, lived in the same climate and probably listened to the same music during their youth but their culture origins along with speech are the root of all the misunderstanding. Having inability of attending school gypsies have created their own ways of expressing themselves, their own grammar and word combinations, their unique style of pronunciation. But from the conversations Taylor realizes that gypsies are just like his neighbors in their way of thinking. People all around the world share the same values such us caring of one’s family and beloved ones and this occasion is not an exception. Once again, discrepancy in verbal communication caused general misunderstanding between two groups of characters.

Finally, Jason confronted his bullies and showed them that he is a tough one too. In that part the author shows us the culmination of his speech development. He is no more ashamed of strong language and not afraid to use it. The Hangman is still inside, but Jason has never been closer to getting on top of it. We see a brave young man who’s in control of his stammer. Or, at least, he is really good at pretending to be one.

At the end of the book, Jason met his sister after a break in several months. There we have a chance to make a real comparison of the siblings. It turns out that his blameless sister finally has her flaws. She broke up with her boyfriend, school and home problems were not easy for her to deal with. Therefore, we can say that the external signs of character’s nature often has nothing to do with reality.

I would like to conclude with Jason’s words addressed to an old lady:

I hadn’t stammered once, the whole time I’d been talking to Mrs Gretton. S’pose it isn’t Hangman who causes it? S’pose it’s the other person? The other person’s expectations. S’pose that’s why I can read aloud in an empty room, perfectly, or to a horse, or a dog, or myself? (Or Mrs Gretton, who might’ve been listening to a voice but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t mine.) S’pose there’s a time fuse lit when it’s a human listening, like a stick of Tom and Jerry dynamite? S’pose if you don’t get the word out before this fuse is burnt away, a couple of seconds, say, the dynamite goes off? S’pose what triggers the stammer’s the stress of hearing that fuse going ssssssss? S’pose you could make that fuse infinitely long, so that the dynamite’d never go off? How? By honestly not caring how long the other person’ll have to wait for me. Two seconds? Two minutes? No, two years. Sitting in Mrs Gretton’s yellow room it seemed so obvious. If I can reach this state of not caring, Hangman’ll remove his finger from my lips.

This is a monologue, which shows us that at the end of the book Jason is a real adult. His way of thinking is far more mature than it used to be at the beginning of the novel. Now, when we know the outcome of all Jason’s misfortunes we can confidently claim that it is irrational to deny one’s problems because finally they are the bricks of our experience and background. So sometimes, we should just accept it because at the end this is what makes us ourselves. And whaf s more important we should always remember that speech is just an imperfect outcome of one’s deep and complicated inner self. And different ways of expressing the same ideas should not stand on the way of understanding each other.

Darina Garmaeva, 3d year student

Buryat State University,

Ulan Ude

“It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. ”

Ian McEwan, Atonement

Briony’s Choice in Atonement

First thing that came to my mind after reading ‘Atonement’ was fury. Overwhelming, almost too personal. While reading the story of three people, who lost everything due to one girl’s imagination, I couldn’t help asking: ‘Why so?’, with fury and the feeling close to detest. I always tend to feel too much empathy to fictional characters as I reflect every moment of theirs on myself. This case is not an exception as well. But after calming down my ugly angry cries I