1.04 Coloquial Language

1. Colloquial Language: pg. 73 paragraph 5 “Shuddup, shuddup,” Sherman shouted. It is spelled the way a southern man would say it.
Pg. 72 paragraph 3 “No, I never tasted caviar, nor champagne either.” The grammar is not correct, which is the way most people talk in casual conversation.
2. Comic Relief: pg. 240-241 Paragraph 6 “I said, quit poking me,” the Judge shouted again. … “Please don’t cut me off.” In the midst of Malone dying the Judge is making a fool of himself on the radio.
Pg. 224 paragraph 7 “Gentlemen.” Looking around the drugstore, Malone realized there were few gentlemen there. It’s funny because Malone addressed them as gentlemen when they are nothing of the sort.
3. Imagery:
Pg. 121 First Paragraph: But although
his fisted knuckles were white with rage, he only said, “I feel no better nor no worse than I deserve.” It is describing how Jester’s knuckles looked.
Pg.
11 Second Paragraph: The boy was medium sized with a muscular body and a face that was sullen in repose. … But his eyes were bluish-gray, and set in the dark face they had a bleak, violent look. It is describing how Sherman looks.
4. Irony:
Pg. 166 paragraph 1-2: To Sherman the Judge talked no crazier than many another Southern politician. Crazy, crazy, crazy. All of them! Sherman did not forget that the Judge had once been a congressman, thus holding one of the highest offices in the United States. The crazy men are the leaders of all the others.
Pg. 224 paragraph 6 “I guess it is supposed to be me,” he said in a deadened voice… “I don’t want to endangered my soul.” … “Ill do it. Be glad to. It’s right next to my house.” It is ironic that Malone is at a meeting full of men who would be proud to murder Sherman, but Malone is worried about his
soul.
5. Metaphor:
Pg. 128 Paragraph 3 “Sherman is cozy, thank God. Although he’s an adolescent like my grandson, we have a quite different relationship. “A veritable jewel. … A treasure.” The Judge is saying Sherman is a treasure.
Pg. 121 Paragraph 2: “You work too hard, Hon. Altogether too hard. You’re a regular workhorse.” Mrs. Malone is saying that Malone is a workhorse because they both are hardworkers.
6. Personification: pg. 113 paragraph 1: So morning after morning, while the electric light fought with the dawn… Electric lights cannot fight.
Pg. 86 paragraph 1: Meanwhile the coffee was perking merrily. Coffee was given the human ability of being able to perk.
7. Simile:
Pg.
68 Third Paragraph: Jester held out a package of cigarettes, which he proffered courteously. “I smoke like a chimney,” he said Sherman is comparing the amount that he smokes to a chimney, which smokes constantly.
Pg 119 paragraph 4: “If you continue to eat like firehorses…” Mrs. Malone
8. Symbol:
Pg. 30-31 paragraph 2: “A pink mule?” … “it’s a cloud.” … “this picture is sort of – symbol- I guess you might say. All my life I’ve seen things like you and the family wanted me to see them. And now this summer I don’t see things as I used to- and I have different feelings different thoughts.” Jester says that the painting is a symbol for his different opinion from his grandfather because his grandfather sees a cloud and he sees a pink mule.
Pg.82-83: “I’m just telling you I hear every teeniest vibration in the whole diatonic scale from here,” … “About my race and how I register every single vibration that happens to those of my race. I call it my black book.” Sherman uses the piano as a symbol for his race and how he knows everything about both.
9. Mood:
Pg. 4 paragraph 7: From an adjacent office a child was crying and the voice, half strangled with terror and protest, seemed not to come from a distance, but to be part of his own agony when he asked: “Am I going to die with this – leukemia?” You are supposed to have sympathy for Malone and realize his terror of hearing this
news.
Pg. 13 paragraph 1: “The Judge crowded the room until he lowered himself carefully into the rocking chair. The smell of sweat from his huge body mingled with the smell…” You are supposed to feel disgusted by the Judge, which represents his disgusting soul as well.
10. Tone:
Pg. 1 paragraph 1: Although he tired easily, he kept to his usual routine” McCullers thinks that Malone is a very boring person.
Pg. 23 paragraph 1: It was Jester who was arrogant but at the same time over polite. There was something hidden about the boy… McCullers feels that Jester is trouble
11. Allusion:
Pg. 32 paragraph 3: “Far sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.” We are expected to know that this is a Shakespeare quote.
Pg. 95 paragraph 5: The Judge was thinking of Gone With the Wind which he could have written easily. He wouldn’t have let Bonnie die and he would have changed Rhett Butler; he would have written a better book. We are supposed to know who Bonnie was and who Rhett Butler played in Gone With the Wind.
12. Idiom: pg. 75 Second Paragraph: “When I said sweeten it, did your dim mind suppose I was going to put sugar in this Calvert’s whiskey? I wonder more and more if you come from Mars.” Sherman is saying that Jester is strange, not that he is literally from Mars.
Pg. 139 Fourth Paragraph “Innocent, dopey, the very living image of a baby’s behind” Sherman is not saying that Jester legitimately looks like a baby’s butt, but he is saying he looks young and baby-like.