In thinking about Soujourner Truth's text, I started to wonder about the challenges that one faces in trying to translate a verbal oration into text. There are so many different variables to each speaking and writing. The audience is different, the timing is different, the motivation is different and even the speaker/author's voice is different. Among all these changes, what gets lost in translation?
Although Gage was the writer, it was important to keep Soujoruner's voice. She wrote as close to Truth's dialect as possible, using incorrect grammar and incorrect spellings. Showing the reader that Truth was uneducated gives even more power to her words, because it shows that an uneducated woman still had the confidence to get up in front of a crowd and speak up in a thoughtful way.
In a speech, the speaker is able to interact with the crowd. However, a writer is unable to do that with a reader. Still, Gage includes (authentic to the speech) the intereaction that Truth had with her audience. Perhaps that is a tool to bring the reader in and allow them to feel a part of the time when this speech felt more necessary.
Is it important to note that the author of the text isn't actually Soujorner, but Gage? The speech wasn't recorded, but taken from memory. How good can one's memory be? Even though Truth helped Gage to recreate her speech, that doesn't mean that it is word for word exactly what she said at the time of the speech. However, I don't think it was the words that were important in the original speech or the copied speech. It was the emotions and relatability that it evoked in the audience/reader. She found a way to "speak to all" (13).
1 comment:
Alessandra,
I think you bring up a lot of interesting points in this blog post and I wanted to try and "answer" and potentially start a little conversation here about these ideas!
I agree that in oration vs writing the audience/motivation/timing is different. Do you think that oration is a more powerful tool than writing? If, after all, the audience is live and more often than not the speaker is trying to persuade them towards a certain opinion, shouldn't his motivation be stronger than that of a writers? I ask this question primarily because of the timing of the two mediums. Since oration usually deals with an audience, then isn't the timing more pertinent and doesn't the speaker need to be able to influence them right then and there so they are left with a new way of thinking? (So many questions, I know!)
I liked your first question a lot. I think it's very interesting to think of what gets lost in translation--partly because I'm not sure if anything does...I think that both oration and writing have their own ways to keep the original meanings, but in the process of transcribing one to the other, the meanings can get hidden or more clear than before. For example, you mentioned how Gage felt it important to hold onto Truth's voice, yet she technically doesn't. The change from "arent" to "arn't" to finally "ain't" is one example of this (Campbell 9). So while we would lose meaning of who Truth really is in the transcribing of the speech to writing, Gage finds an interesting way to retain this "sense" of who Truth really was, and how powerful these words were in coming from an uneducated black woman.
The next point you raised was whether the speaker is able to interact with the crowd. While I do agree that it is more difficult to interact with a reader, I still think it's possible. You mentioned one great example of how Gage does that, but I think there are more subtle ways in doing so. Even the way mentioned earlier (the change in diction/dialogue) is one way a reader and writer have a sort of interaction. The writer writes in ways that can "fire-up" or cause the reader to take something to heart--so while they directly do not interact, there is an interaction there.
You then list off a couple of questions which I think are absolutely great talking points--and would love to get your idea on them! Because I think that yes, it is important to note that the authors is Gage, and one's memory is not *that* great, so does it change the meaning of the speech? Does Gage's account create something more convincing than the actual speech itself, permeable of any generation/time/sex? Or does Gage, in being the author, create a character out of Truth--one that enables us as readers to find more meaning than may have been there? Is this our conversation with Gage?
Loved your ideas!
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