Salman Rushdie brilliantly
uses dialogue in East, West to draw
readers into the stories he tells. His characters all have different styles of
speech which betray their personalities, and the manner in which dialogue is
used creates different atmospheres in each of the stories. For instance, “The
Prophet’s Hair” contains very little dialogue, most of which is urgent (“’Because
we can afford no last-minute backings-out… I am determined to tell you
everything, keeping back no secrets whatsoever’”) or severe (“’A dope! I have
been cursed with a dope!’”) (40-41, 46). This significantly increases the
tension in the story. Moreover, this story is dominated by brief monologues or
isolated statements rather than drawn out conversations, which creates a choppy
and disjointed mood that a reader finds unsettling.
“At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers,” however, contains
little dialogue, and that which does exists resides in flashbacks. The reader
and the narrator both become disembodied observers to the story, rather than
participants – the absence of speech distances the reader from the events of
the story, and so allows him or her to plunge directly into the meaning of the
story. “Chekov and Zulu” uses the opposite technique – it is dominated by uninterrupted
conversations between characters. The extensive use of dialogue, as well as the
casual, joking quality of the characters’ speech, obscures the themes of the story
while bringing attention to the characters’ interactions. The way Chekov and
Zulu communicate is familiar to the reader, because the inside jokes and
implicit understanding between friends is thoroughly realistic. They seem to
share a unique, personal language which nobody else can comprehend (certainly
not Zulu’s wife, who can barely repeat the message Zulu sends Chekov), and the
intimacy of the connection this language creates deepens the tragedy of the
friends’ parting.
Dialogue plays a profound role in the plot of “The
Courter.” Rushdie immediately establishes the flaws in Certainly-Mary’s and
Mixed-Up’s communication – Mary speaks broken English and mispronounces words
(particularly those containing the letter P), and Mecir suffered a stroke which
greatly reduced his brain function. The children mock them for these faults, as
they mock their father for misusing the word “nipple,” but the narrator
confesses that he, too, struggled with the language and is ashamed of his
difficulties (185). However, these two, who can communicate only brokenly
through spoken conversations, learn to communicate instead through chess. Even
though they can barely talk to each other, their relationship grows strong,
which shows the diversity of languages that can connect people.
Communication is an essential part of human life. We
form connections with others through language, whether this is the private
language of two old friends or the silent language of a game that two lovers
understand more easily than the spoken word. We communicate differently with
different people, depending on how we relate to them. With our superiors and
elders we know to speak politely and formally, but with our friends we speak
openly and share whatever is on our minds. The knowledge that one can speak
freely is in itself a sense of home – it indicates a degree of comfort with one’s
surroundings. A home is filled with those who speak the same language, whether
Indian or English or a web of personal jests that only close friends or family
can understand.
I’ve recently been
exposed to such a codified “inside language” in an unexpected way. At my
service site, Tunbridge Public Charter School, the teachers and students have a
system of rules and terms that threw me for a loop during my first few days
there. The school promotes what they call “pax,” which is essentially good
behavior. The teachers turn rules into games that the young children can
understand – when they want the students to quiet down, they will say “show me
your bubbles!” and the students know to puff up their cheeks and listen. The
teachers have established these methods to communicate with the younger kids
who cannot understand the language that adults would use to communicate with
one another. It was somewhat strange to find myself in a position where pre-K
students understand what was going on better than I did, but every time I
return to Tunbridge I become more familiar with the language of the school, and
I learn to speak to the students in terms we all understand.
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