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Allusions
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Oi’m a Poor Cotton-weyver:
Mary Barton’s use of dialect comes in full force at the end of Chapter 4, when Margaret breaks out into song. At Alice Wilson’s bidding, Mary’s new friend showcases her singing skills near the end of their afternoon tea with a rendition of “The Oldham Weaver”:
Oi’m a poor cotton-weyver, as mony a one knoowas,
Oi’ve nowt for t’ yeat, an’ oi’ve worn eawt my clooas,
Yo’ad hardly gi’ tuppence for aw as oi’ve on,
My clogs are both brosten, an’ stuckings oi’ve none,
Yo’d think it wur hard,
To be browt into th’ warld,
To be—clemmed, an’ do th’ best as yo con.
The novel experiments with language’s spoken and written forms until it reaches the outer bounds of comprehensibility. The song’s syllables slant and stretch, inflected by a Lancashire tongue that turns “I’m” into “Oi’m” and “brought” into “browt.” In a grand display of erratic contractions, new words, and unfamiliar vowel combinations, Mary Barton forces the reader to sound the words aloud. This use of dialect pairs neatly with the ballad itself, which narrates the struggles of loom weavers who labor without “stuckings” and can only afford to eat “Waterloo porridge.” A song about the lower class gets shared in their own language.
Margaret’s song reveals a work that is deeply attentive to the way speech operates. It is only one instance of dialect in a novel that captures almost every conversation in such a form. John Barton crows that he “had never seed two such pretty women for sisters.” “Thou’rt a bad one; I almost misdoubt thee,” Mrs. Sturgis says to herself while watching over Mary. Characters speak in colloquialisms but also shift registers in different settings—after the London trade union leader leaves, for instance, John Barton and his fellow workers “exchange opinions in more homely and natural language.” Speech marks class and identity.
Related Themes:
