- What does the writer gain by making the language of the narrator closer to thelanguage of the characters?
- How does this affect the view the reader takes of the narrator?
- Is the narrator less credible because he/she no longer uses standard English?
Writers have been interested in questions of this sort for quite some time. Early 20th-century writers in both Britain and the USA produced narrative as well as dialogue in 'non-standard' language for a number of reasons. One reason is realism - this is the language of the people of this world and it is appropriate their world be represented by it.
It can also be argued that the use of Scots is political. English is a language of the establishment, and it is from outside Scotland. Therefore some critics think that writers such as Anne Donovan and James Kelman are making a political statement by using Scots as a language of narrative. It gives a voice to the least powerful in Scottish society and tells their stories from their point of view in their language.
Donovan herself emphasises the need to get a sense of the rhythm of the language -Read your work aloud - listen to the rhythm of the words.
It can also be argued that writing in this way asserts the worth of Scots as a language in its own right, not as a version of English with missing letters.
Language as story feature
Often the language itself is a significant feature of the story.
In A Chitterin Bite, the main character alternates between using Scots and English as she shuttles between her childhood and adult identities. As a child she grows away from the friend she goes swimming with. As an adult we see her fall out of the affair she is having with a married man. The use of the two languages makes us wonder which is more true to her.
The title, A Chitterin Bite, announces the theme of how to overcome a chilling experience - for the young girls, it is a piece after swimming, while for the attractive young woman, it is spaghetti vongole after being dumped.
In Virtual Pals the alternate use of Scots and English defines the two characters. The character who uses Scots is struggling with being a teenager and fancying a boy in her class. The other pal is in command of her emotions, for she seems to have none. Her use of English suggests a command of language goes along with command of emotion, relationships and self. The language is the basis of the contrast between the two characters but the contrast between the characters also suggests something about the language - is Siobhan only able to express her emotions fully in Scots?
A Chitterin Bite
The title of this story refers to the piece (sandwich) that you eat when you have been for a swim and need to get warmed up, to stop you chittering.
On the second page there is a noticeable change in language, from Scots to English. While this indicates a shift in point of view, it is actually still the same character but at a different stage of her life.
The two points of view and differing language are used to provide a contrast for the reader. In this story, much of the interest is in the connections and differences between the two. How has the awkward young girl grown into a self-possessed woman?
The joy of childhood friendships and simple pastimes, such as going swimming at the baths, has been replaced by the glossy leisure club and the pleasures of an affair with a married man.
In each story, the stable state of the relationship gives way to a new state of affairs and there is then a resolution. Both times, when presented with the new state of affairs, Mary says no and ends the relationship.
When it is clear to Mary the relationship can only continue on the terms dictated by the other person, whether by Agnes when she is a child or by Matthew when she is an adult, Mary refuses to accept this and ends it.
The resolution in each case involves food, but as a girl Mary finds the chitterin bite uneatable, while as an adult she savours the look and smell of her spaghetti vongole.
The title, A Chitterin Bite, announces a key image which is played on in the text. The 'bite' is a piece to warm you up, but it is also what she takes from her lover as an adult, which is the trigger for him to say ‘Enough’.
All that Glisters
The title of this story is a reference to the Shakespeare play, The Merchant of Venice, the full line being, "All that glisters is not gold". 'Glisters' is also an unusual word, meaning 'glitters'. This makes the title something of a puzzle for the reader.
This puzzle is not resolved in the first few lines, - ‘thon wee wifie brung them in ...’ as the reader is not told what 'them' refers to.
It is only after Clare has made a Christmas card for her daddy and the 'wifie' praises it does she bring 'them out' - the glitter pens.‘Ah’d never seen them afore...these pens were different because the glue was mixed in wi the glitter...’
colour, life or interest: “I gazed out of the window. It was dull and the bush looked grey.”
She cannot be bothered to watch a film her niece thinks she might enjoy but the exercise class seems to revive her enjoyment of colour: “The track suit was emerald green in a soft and fleecy material…‘It really suits you’ said another woman, whose navy blue one definitely didn't suit her."
At the end she can watch the video with a sense of enjoyment and achievement.
In All that Glisters, the whole story revolves around the pleasure the girl gets from visual effects. This enjoyment in looking at colour and pattern is something she has in common with her daddy and which brings them together. Her way of paying tribute to him after his death springs from this.
In A Chitterin Bite the images of looking and seeing are more carefully situated. The narrator paints a very clear picture of how she sees the inhabitants of her world as a child and as an adult but she uses her silent observation for her own purposes. She leaves the bite mark on the man's shoulder blade, in a place where he will not see it but she - and his wife - will. She waits patiently in the rain and watches for her friend and the boy to come out of Bellini's café, seeing them but unseen by them.
Representation of female characters
Donovan writes about people living in a society which is post-industrial but still dominated by industrial macho values. Her characters, mostly female, are predominantly shaped by the need to care and nurture, while at the same time seeking to express themselves in voices and actions of their own.
The aspect of feminism is not strident in her work but Donovan is able to illustrate this conflict of concern for women in a number of the stories in this collection. The characters want to express their own feelings and aspirations and to care for those they love - the two usually go together within the stories. These concerns are evident in the characters we meet in Dear Santa and All that Glisters, while they are less obvious in Zimmerobics and A Chitterin Bite.
Scots and English
Often in narrative fiction, Scots was used only in dialogue - it was seen as a spoken language of certain types of character - but writers such as Anne Donovan use Scots differently by allowing the narrator to use it.
Many questions can be asked about the use of Scots:
These themes are prominent in both Away in a Manger and A Chitterin Bite. In the former story, the mother tries to maintain the innocence of the child and focus her on the sweet part of the Christmas message, to do with gifts and bright lights, while diverting her away from the more serious part of it, which is to do with sharing what you have with strangers. In the latter story the young woman, as a girl, loses her innocent sense of friendship when her friend pairs her up with her date's pal. Friendship, which had been so strong and so close, has become just another handy device.
Innocence, and the threats to it, is a key theme in Donovan's work as her narrators/main characters are often girls or young women who have some awareness but have not left childhood and innocence behind. The narrator in Dear Santa, for example, admits she knows Santa does not exist but she wants to believe in him for her own purposes.
The threat to sense of self is common to several characters and is a driver of the story A Chitterin Bite, where the main character rejects relationships that do not value her appropriately.
Realisation of truth
Another theme that runs across much of the collection is the realisation or revelation of a truth, where the character has an increased awareness or understanding by the end of the story. By the end of Away in a Manger both mother and child have altered their ideas about Christmas. By the end of A Chitterin Bite the main character has a different view of love and friendship.
Vision
A strand of imagery common to several stories involves looking and seeing. In some this is an explicit part of the surface of the story. It is a vital part of so many largely because of the way point of view is used - we are told the story as seen through the eyes of a mother, a child, an old lady and a girl who has become a woman.
In Away in a Manger, for example, the central event is the mother taking the child to see the lights in George Square. The excitement of looking is conveyed by the ‘crowd noise' reported in the story. The child wants to make more of the event by sitting down to look at the lights, but the mother sees and is aware of the other presences in the square, the homeless and unfortunate, who appear to reside there.
In Zimmerobics the emphasis on visual appearance is different. The narrator gives the impression of being tired of looking - so much of what she sees is without
At this point, three paragraphs into the story, the reader has been introduced to the key elements of the story. This is the relationship between Clare and her daddy and her fascination with the glitter pens. These elements develop through the story, with the reader finding out how she shares her love of colour and visual effects with her daddy.
The middle section of All that Glisters has a classic story shape. It shows the main character seeking to reach a goal and having to make several attempts in the process.
It also has another classic short story feature of a twist or unpleasant surprise. Clare has gone to the effort of saving her dinner money to buy the pens, having turned down the option of stealing them, but when she goes home to show the pens to her daddy she finds he has died in hospital.
The reader is left wondering what she will do next as the whole objective of the main character in the story has been taken away. The story reaches its resolution by showing the character finding a way to use the pens to celebrate her daddy's memory, as she cannot wear the clothes he liked to see her in.
As well as the relationships portrayed and the use of characteristic short story patterns, the story is distinctive in the way it focuses on images of colour and the theme of clothing and death. The daddy has been made ill by working with asbestos and refers to it as thefuneral dress of kings. The girl wants to dress for her father's death in a way he would have liked and finds it difficult to see she has to observe the conventions of wearing dark clothes for mourning.
Both she and her father know colour and imagination can change life. But when she tries to use colour by wearing red at his funeral, she is told off and ordered to change into school clothes. As a last attempt to celebrate his memory with colour, she runs her glittery fingers through her hair.
Away in a Manger
This story is told through the thoughts of the main character, Sandra, in her own language. This technique of relating the thoughts of the main character, as if she were speaking in her own words inside her head, is called an interior monologue.
Her mission is to take her child, Amy, to see the Christmas lights in George Square. Her efforts to overcome a series of challenges are shown by reference to the attempt by the supervisor to get her to work late.
The middle of the story, involving the view of the lights in the square, shows Sandra as preoccupied and unable to relax fully with her child, who is entranced:Amy gazed at them, eyes shinin. Amy also enjoys the music: 'Guess what ma favourite is.' '……Sandra couldnae be bothered guessin."
Amy’s favourite carol is a cue to visit the nativity and manger before Sandra insists on going home.
Away in the manger they see the form of a young man, who has ventured further than the other homeless people in the square, and is sleeping in the nativity scene.
The resolution in this story involves Sandra taking two decisions. She refuses her child’s request that they should take the man home with them as he is without shelter and it is Christmas. To do this, she has to threaten Amy with the withdrawal of the other main attraction of Christmas, the visit from Santa. To soothe her own conscience, she gives money to a paper seller.
The story is connected from beginning to end by title, theme and subject. The appearance of the man in the nativity is an unexpected twist and it presents Sandra with an awkward choice. The ending is left quite open, allowing the reader to ponder Sandra’s feelings and how far they would agree or sympathise with what she does.
In Away in a Manger, the central image is of the manger from the nativity. While the title is the same as that of the Christmas carol, it is revealed to us that a homeless man is sleeping in the nativity scene. This has the effect of giving the word ‘Away’ an additional meaning.
Dear Santa
The Christmas theme is announced in the title, Dear Santa. The form of a letter is used with the narrator revealing her thoughts and wishes. The main idea of the story is announced in the first sentence:‘Ma mammy disnae love me.’
The main character explains she cannot compete with her cuter and more adorable blonde younger sister and feels her mother does not notice her or want to show her affection.
The middle of the story concerns her efforts to change this. As it is Christmas, she aims to ask the Santa in Debenhams to make her mammy love her. But her nerve fails and she cannot ask him to, partly because she does not believe he is the real Santa. Her last resort is to write it in her letter to Santa but again she cannot do it and instead asks for conventional gifts.
The ending of the story shows her mother giving her a kiss though not receiving one in return.
Significantly, the mother barely kisses her daughter goodnight and the story concludes with the image of awee crack of light fallin across the bedclothes...The reader concludes there could be a 'wee crack of light' in her mother’s heart for her, even though she began the story:‘Ma mammy disnae love me.’
But it is left to the reader to decide how much significance to give this.
Relationships
How the characters experience and handle relationships is a key aspect of the stories.
In Dear Santa and Away in a Manger, the relationships involved are between daughter and mother. But each takes a different point of view of this relationship - Dear Santa takes the point of view of the daughter while Away in a Manger takes that of the mother.
In Zimmerobics Miss Knight has a sense of duty to her caring niece Catherine, which influences but does not drive her decision. In All that Glisters, the sense of duty leaves the girl, Clare, in a dilemma as she wants to do the right thing by her daddy and her memory of him. Her sense of love and loyalty to him is greater than her sense of obedience to her mother and auntie.