Mini-Document Essay

Students enrolled in English 1102 classes taught by VSU Instructor Diane W. Howard during spring 2004 semester, read “Going Through the Change,” Janice Daugharty’s first collection of short stories. After reading the collection, the students explored topics in the stories, relating them to their hometowns or communities. Simply put, the students related the ideas in a literary piece to their own lives, finding points or areas of similarity as well as areas of disagreement. Once they identified points—in agreement or in contrast—the students researched and wrote a mini-documented essay on the subject “Regional Identity.”

Speaking in Tongues of Men

by Courtney Sprinkle

There has always been a significant difference between Southern and Northern dialect. I have personally been accustomed to such differences because for as long as I can remember, my parents always tried their best to raise me in a diverse environment. While growing up in Ithaca, New York, I was always around the Northern speech. However, my mother was the typical Southern Belle from Savannah, Georgia, even though Savannah is not the best representative of Southern life. She knew how to hide the thick accent when around my father’s parents to fit in more, and allowed her true vernacular to fill my home so that my siblings and I would be well-balanced. Even though I did have my mother’s language around at most times, the Yankee dialect was the way I learned to speak. After moving from New York to Savannah, I realized that my mother’s voice had more influence on who I turned out to be and allowed me to adjust better to her Southern lifestyle.

Janice Daugharty, a born and raised Southern woman, writes every one of her short stories and novels in this thick Southern accent. She is proud of where she is from and has gained much acclaim for the product of her work. Daugharty uses Southern dialect in her novels and short stories to help the reader relate to the lifestyle and culture of Southern living. My mother also used her speech to help relay the true sense of Southern ways of life.

In an interview with my English class that Daugharty held, there was no denying she was from South Georgia. Daugharty introduced me to “Grit Lit” as “a cute way makin’ fun of words, and exaggerating dialect” (Daugharty, Interview). In the North, the words “grit” and “makin’” are never uttered.

In the essay, “Write Where You Know,” Janice Daugharty writes of Statenville and Echols County. These are her places. “I was born and reared and will doubtless die here” (Daugharty, “Write”). She has her own terms for the area she is from and refers to her region as “flatwoods.” “In flatwoods terminology, ‘grown’ means a boy has started growing a beard” (Daugharty, “Write”). To my family, grown means that a child has reached maturity and is able to make wise decisions. Voting and going to college are two examples of decisions a grown teenager can make.

There are also many other Southern writers who use their background and heritage to play a major role is their works. Flannery O’Connor’s spiritual heritage of the Southern Bible belt profoundly shaped her writing (Friedman). O’Connor was raised in the South, no doubt, however attended college and received her master’s in the North. She taught seminars on how to use heritage when writing to show intelligence (Friedman). Her father, a wealthy alcoholic, never understood why she chose her background to write about because he never felt it had any importance. O’Connor, on the other hand, knew that nothing else could ever have as much influence on her writing (Friedman).

Another Southern writer was William Faulkner. He worked on most of his novels and short stories in Oxford, Mississippi, which was also the setting of many of his fictional works. The most used theme of Faulkner’s works was the decay of the old South and the emergence of ruthless and brash newcomers (Nobel Lectures). As with Janice Daugharty’s short story, “Making Beliefs,” Faulkner writes about racial prejudice and how prejudice is shown to be most destructive when it is internalized (Nobel Lectures). Daugharty writes in, “Making Beliefs,” “Willie is sure now that Miss Anna and Berk Simmons, maybe even the State, expect him to carry the message back that white and black mixing won’t work. And he sits tall, rallying to his first lesson in the white school: there is power in silence.” (“Making Beliefs” 176).

Daugharty’s short stories are the best indication of her Southern heritage. In, “Dogs in a Pack,” Daugharty writes, “‘Now, girls,’ Mamie says, ‘while I guard these rascals, y’all go call the sheriff and tell him we got ‘em.’” (“Dogs” 14). Most everyone in the North, if they heard these words, would ask where a person is from. Indicating words that a person is from the South, are “y’all,” “’em,” and “fixin’.” My mother would always tell my father that she was “fixin’” to go to the store or run errands. My father, in his Northern ways, always corrected her in saying, “No, Andrea, you are about to go to the store or run errands. ‘Fixin’ means you are repairing an item.” Now that I currently reside in the South, these words have slipped into my everyday speech. Whenever I return to New York, if I ever say these words, my family always comments on how they can tell that I have been away from the North for a long period of time. “Janice Daugharty knows the South intimately, especially its rich chorus of voices-black and white, good folks and scoundrels” (Johnson, Review).

Daugharty depicts her Southern heritage and the true meaning of Southern literature only because she writes what she knows. Being raised in the North, and having a Southern mother, I had a very mixed and well balanced colloquial speech. Since my mother showed her Southern dialect while I was growing up, when I moved down to the South I was able to adjust more eloquently. My father’s Northern heritage still remains within me. When I hear words such as “y’all” and “Grit Lit” I wonder where I am. If it was not for the way I was raised I would feel completely out of place in the South. Janice Daugharty’s personal interview and collection of short stories tremendously helped me in better understanding Southern literature and dialect.

Works Cited

Daugharty, Janice. Personal Interview. 9 March 2004.

---. “Dogs in a Pack.” Going Through the Change. New York; Ontario Review Press, 1994.

---. “Making Beliefs.” Going Through the Change. New York; Ontario Review Press, 1994.

---. “Write Where You Know.” Writer’s Digest; May 1997; 77, 5: Research Library GALILEO Edition.

“Flannery O’Connor.” Netscape Communicator (17 April 1999): Online. Internet. 23 March 2004.

<http://www.english.uiuc.edu/KofKeencallist/>.

Friedman, D.J. “William Faulkner.” Nobel Literature (1967): Online Internet. 22 March 2004.

<http://www.obel.se/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-bio.htm>.