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Alliteration
Dialect
Explanation and Analysis—Southern Accent:
In Wise Blood, O'Connor uses dialect to emphasize her characters' Southern origins and environment. However, while most of the characters speak with a Southern accent, she gives all of them their own distinct ways of speaking. Although Hazel speaks with a "sharp high nasal Tennessee voice" and uses several formulations that are typical of a Southern accent, his accent is less thick than Enoch's because he's been away from the South for several years.
Some of the formulations that give an impression of the characters' Southern vernacular include "ain't," "reckon," "lookerhere," "sho'," "fixing to," "sommers," "thisaway," "whyn't," and "ast." Enoch especially uses words like this, and O'Connor makes his thick accent an important part of his characterization. In the first pages after he appears in the novel, he tells Hazel things like "I didn't ketch your name good," "You look like you might be follerin' them hicks," and "Good Jesus, it won't no relief." He says "familer" instead of familiar and "allus" instead of allus. And on multiple occasions, he says "thisyer," "thatyer," and "theseyer" instead of this, that, and these.
Onnie Jay Holy also speaks with a distinct vernacular accent, which O'Connor develops by spelling his words as he pronounces them. He says "heah" instead of here, "gittarr" instead of guitar, "innerduce" instead of introduce, "interpitation" instead of interpretation, and "innerleckhuls" instead of intellectuals. Since Onnie Jay was a radio preacher, he has a particularly compelling manner of speaking, which goes hand in hand with his characteristic dialect.
O'Connor also develops the dialect through a particular use of grammar, such as when Hazel tells Mrs. Hitchcock that he "don't know nobody" in Taulkinham or when he tells the porter that he "can't go back there neither." The taxi driver Hazel meets upon arriving in Taulkinham also has a distinct grammar. This is especially evident when he tells Hazel "It ain't anybody perfect on this green earth of God's, preachers nor nobody else." Several of the characters, including Hazel, omit "has" and "have" from formulations consisting of "has been" and "have been. The porter does this at the end of the first chapter, in his final line, when he tells Hazel "Jesus been a long time gone." And when Enoch tells Hazel how long he's been in Taulkinham for, he says "I been here two months."
Related Themes:
