Summary: The Notebook

Verbal communication gains a large part of its meaningfulness from non-verbal cues (Knapp, Hall, Horgon,5). These non-verbal cues are prominent throughout the film The Notebook, between Allie and Noah’s stages of love. These concepts include their facial expressions toward each other , eye gestures and the interpersonal distance. Non-Verbal cues are an essential part of everyday life that help us to communicate effectively between one another.

Non-verbal communication refers to communication effected by means other than words(Knapp, Hall, Horgon,8). Non-verbal communication can be put in to two different categories, intersubjective and objective non-verbal concepts. Intersubjective concepts relate to body movement and includes facial expressions,
gestures, eye movement, personal and social space and many others. Objective communication, which consist of paralanguage and proxemics, including, the tone and pitch of something being said along with proxemics, which is how close we are to something else (Burg, Nov 11). The purpose of non-verbal communication is to express emotion, convey interpersonal attitudes including likes and dislikes, dominance/submission, presenting one’s personality to others, accompanying speech for the purpose of turn-takin, feedback, and attention (Burgwin, September 11). In the film, The Notebook the above mentioned non-verbal cues were portrayed throughout the movie. The Notebook is about a love story between a young rich girl named Allie and a Poor man named Noah, the movie takes the audience deeper into their life and expresses how they became to love each other by Noah reading a journal that he had made for Allie when she was diagnosed with Dementia. Everyday Noah goes to the old persons home where Allie lives and reads the love story to Allie in order for her to try to remember for a couple minutes that he is, and that the story he has been reading to Allie is theirs. Humans place more importance on the face then to any other communication channel (Knapp, Hall, Horgon,258).
The human face represents the essence of being human both personally and socially. It is said to be the primary source of communication except for speech (Burgwin, October 2nd). Human interaction and facial expressions are used to, complement and qualify verbal and others non-verbal responses (Knapp, Hall, Horgon,258). For example, if someone was telling a story, a way of complementing them using facial expressions would be to smile and nod. This gives the talker the impression that you are listening and enjoying the story that is being told. Along with completing verbal or non-verbal cues, facial expressions are also used as regulators, meaning they open and close channels of communication (Knapp, Hall, Horgon,259). However facial expressions can often replace speech, this is called facial emblems(Knapp, Hall, Horgon,259). Throughout The Notebook, both Allie and Noah convey these non-verbal cues frequently. At the start of the film, Noah asked Allie to go out with him, she declined his offer verbally but her face said yes, so Noah wouldn’t take no for an answer. Within the topic facial expressions there is a sub category of the styles of facial expression, at this point I believe that Allie was using the “substitute” which means a facial expression shows an emotion other than the one the person thinks is being displayed (Burgwin, October 2nd). Another example of
facial expressions being used throughout the film was portrayed when Allie was with her new boyfriend runs in to Noah after a long time, she uses an unfelt smile also called the Duchene smile, which used the Zygomatic muscles to illustrate happiness. Once Allie realizes that she is unhappy with Lon Hammond Jr., her boyfriend at the time she returns to Noah’s home that he had made for her. At this point in the movie you can see genuine happiness in Allies smile. This is called the Felt smile, in relation to the unfelt smile that also used Zygomatic muscles, around the mouth and the eyes, which gives off a sincere look. The face is rich in communicative potential, it’s a primary site for communication of emotional states(Knapp, Hall, Horgon,258). In addition to facial expression another intersubjective non-verbal cue is gestures.
Gestures are movements of the body used to communicate an idea an intention or a feeling(Burgwin, October 2nd). There are many types of gestures that help us communicate in our everyday life, such as speech independent gestures, interactive gestures, eye gazes, etc. Throughout the movie The Notebook, the gestures that are communicated by Allie and Noah consist of expressing their feelings through their eyes. The eyes can show happiness, sadness, hate, and disgust and love. These emotions are shown by the physical appearance of the eyes and the surrounding area(Burgwin, October 2nd). An example of when Noah and Allie expressed their love for each other using gestures is when they are lying in the new house that Noah had built for them. They were lying on the floor when they looked over at each other and held this stare for a long time; this is called a mutual gaze. When intimate or in love the mutual gaze is held longer than non-intimate situations. It is evident that the gazes produced by both of the characters shows a strong intimacy between
them.

Non- Verbal cues also include Proxemics, which is study of informal space by Edward Paul(Burgwin,November,13th). There are four types of interpersonal distance, intimate, social, personal, public(Burwgin November 6th) . While watching the movie I was able to see the change in proxemics between the two of them. Their relationship started off as public, they saw each other at a carnival with a group of friends. Public is a social distance used for speaking in public or large crowds, four plus meters away from each other(Burwgin November 6th). As the movie goes on the relationship becomes a social distance when they start hanging out with the same people. Social distance is explained as distance for a conversation among acquaintances and carrying out personal business(Burwgin November 6th). As their relationship started to grow the distance between them became personal. This is the distance for good friends and couples in public, its 45cm- 1m away from each other(Burwgin November 6th). Allie and Noah began to go on dates together just the two of them to parks, lakes and carnivals. The final interpersonal distance is intimate distance; intimate distance is what we maintain with people who are close to us 14-45 cm’s away from each other(Burwgin November 6th). Intimate distance is displayed when Noah and Allie sleep together for the first time. They are close to each other and only share that connection with each other. Proxemics is culturally constructed and varies from place to place.

Through studying the non- verbal cues of Allie and Noah from The Notebook, I am able to conclude that it is evident that non-verbal cues don’t just help us to communicate with one another in our everyday life, but also helps us to express emotions that we cant always verbalize on our own.