Dewey Dell~26-28

Dewey Dell~26-28

And so it was because I could not help it. It was then, and then I saw Darl and he knew. He said he knew without the words like he told me that ma is going to die without words, and I knew he knew because if he had said he knew with the words I would not have believed that he had been there and saw us. But he said he did know and I said “Are you going to tell pa are you going to kill him?” without the words I said it and he said “Why?” without the words. And that’s why I can talk to him with knowing with hating because he knows (Faulkner 27).

In this passage, Faulkner utilizes an incoherent and excessively informal syntactical structure to characterize the speaker, Dewey Dell. By throwing in unnecessary words and phrases in awkward spots, Faulkner effectively mimics an addled and poorly educated child who fails at speaking intelligibly. Comprehension requires the context of the entire passage because each sentence makes very little sense on its own. The upside to this is that the reader gains something special from this very child-like attempt at speaking. For example, the repeated idea of “knowing without words” is such an awed way of looking at Darl’s faked ignorance. The amateur language draws the reader into Dewey Dell’s world and allows the reader to appreciate the things that are awesome in her world.

Video-Blood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9WmKre5O2I&feature=related
I chose this clip because my reaction to the video reminded me of my reaction to this passage. Just like the child in the video repeats the word “blood” over and over, Dewey Dell repeats the word “knew.” Both children are very incoherent. I think they focus so much on their respective words that other words come only grudgingly. This is why, at first, I could understand neither of the children, but after replaying or rereading the words enough times, I started to get the point despite their inabilities to speak properly. Also just like the child in the video takes the “blood” on his brother seriously, Dewey Dell takes her brother’s “knowing without words” seriously. I feel frustrated with the child in the video because he’s worried about his brother and no one is taking him seriously just like I understood the significance of knowing without words because Dewey Dell took it so seriously.