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Literary Devices
Dialect
Explanation and Analysis—Rural Maryland Dialect:
One of the ways that Collier makes “Marigolds” convincingly realistic is by having her characters speak in dialect. She uses nontraditional spelling and grammar in order to capture the way that her Black working-class characters living in rural Maryland in the 1930s would speak. The following passage—which comes as Lizabeth eavesdrops on her mother and father in the middle of the night—demonstrates Collier’s use of dialect:
“Twenty-two years, Maybelle, twenty-two years,” [her father] was saying, “and I ain’t got nothing for you, nothing.”
“It’s all right, honey, you’ll git something. Everybody outta work now, you know that.”
“It ain’t right. Ain’t no man oughtta eat his woman’s food day in and day out, and see his children running wild. Ain’t nothing right about that.”
In this dialogue, Collier uses informal grammar by writing “I ain’t got nothing” instead of “I don’t have anything” and “Ain’t nothing right with that” instead of “There is nothing right with that.” She also subtly changes the spelling to capture the sounds of the way her characters talk, such as changing “get” to “git” and “ought to” to “oughtta.”
By having her characters use this sort of informal dialect, Collier communicates their working-class status, by showing that they have not had access to formal education. It is notable that the subject of the conversation is also tied to the family's class position given that Lizabeth’s father is complaining about being unable to find work during the Great Depression.
Related Themes:
