The Blood Red Road

By -
While I think the Blood Red Road tells a story of overcoming obstacles through trust, friendship and perseverance that rings true to how such trials and tribulations would be experienced by adolescents, Young's message to the reader can become muffled due to the stylistic choice of writing with no punctuation. Young commits to the choice of using dialect to narrate the book from start to finish which I think works towards the goal of the novel to displace the reader from the language of here and now to that of Saba and the other characters who live in a post apocalyptic world. An argument could be made for Young's decision to write without punctuation throughout the novel because in the world of that time, there seems to be no formal education or rules governing items such as language, but a focus on survival; a lack of punctuation mirrors the lack of prescriptive rules in the world of which the novel is set. While this mirror of text and reality in the novel speaks to the reader's experience of this world, this lack of punctuation and single dialect does murky the waters of clear understanding of the reader. During exchanges of dialogue, the lack of punctuation in many cases requires the reader to second guess who is speaking to whom, and as a result, character development, full comprehension of the meaning of what is being said between/among characters and what the text is trying to say as a whole suffers because of a lack of clarity. Young fails to clearly delineate the separation of dialogue throughout the novel, and I believe that this not only causes confusion, but really hinders the reader's ability to gain further insight into the different characters, their relationships to each other and Young's overall message of the book to the reader. I think this confusion could be addressed through particular care taken to break up dialogue in a way that assures understanding of who is speaking to whom as well as creating separate dialects for various characters from different parts of the world within the novel. Jack, the Free Hawks, Saba, etc. are all form different areas of the world, so why not have them speak in different dialects to delineate the dialogues? Not only would this allow for clarity in the novel, but would allow us to better trace character development within the novel. The novel contains wonderful elements to pull in adolescent readers such as suspense, murder, love, loyalty, control etc. through its ability to speak to the experiences of adolescent development, but due to stylistic choices, fails to provide readers with text that is easily read and understood from beginning to end.

Comments

  1. TashaTOnlineApril 7, 2017 at 10:26 AM

    You make a very strong point regarding the use of dialect. I agree that it can be distracting. I also like your idea that the author could have used different dialect ranges for different groups in the novel. My main issue is that the book leaves so many holes. How far in the future is it set? What caused the apocalypse? Who are the "wreckers?" While the reader can make suppositions, these holes still leave open ends--which I am guessing are tied up in subsequent books. I look forward to reading the others and really appreciate you suggesting this trilogy!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Speak and the Symbolism of Nature

By Anonymous -
   Laurie Halse Anderson's,  Speak , dives into the murky, muddy waters of adolescent rape culture. When the book was published in 1999, rape was not a comfortable topic to discuss with adults, let alone teenagers. Anderson writes about Melinda Sordino and her freshman high school experience which is turning out to be rather negative. Soriano stands as a thriving young role model for struggling teenage girls all over the world. Although she isn't an outstanding student or have plenty of friends to juggle, through Melinda, other young women can see that it's completely normal and okay to struggle in high school not only academically, but socially and emotionally. One of my favorite parts of the novel isn't a super obvious quality. Throughout the novel, Melinda's attitude changes and grows with the coming of spring and through nature and art, she learns to move past her troubling end of summer experience and once again find the importance of her voice.    Melinda st
Read more