Findings and Discussion

Nalo Hopkinson's Narrative Voice

Writers fluent in both Standard English and one or more creole languages, when writing for an international audience that may be unfamiliar with the creole language(s), must strike a balance between reader comprehension and realistic representation of the creole. One strategy for achieving this is a Standard English narrative with occasional creole vocabulary—sometimes glossed in the narrative, sometimes left to the reader to infer from context—with dialogue in the creole language(s).^{17, 18} This is precisely what Hopkinson does in Brown Girl in the Ring. As she stated in an interview with Gregory E. Rutledge of African American Review:

"It's important to me to try to reflect the place that language has in Caribbean identity. In Brown Girl in the Ring I made the Caribbean characters mostly Trinidadian and some Jamaican, and I wrote their dialogue in the way they would speak it. Narrative I wrote in standard English... I do use conventional spellings where possible—you instead of yuh, for instance. I'm trying to represent the vocabulary and sentence structure, not the accent."¹⁹

Pursued by the duppy, they were stumbling toward the southernmost end of the city as fast as they could. The streets were pretty empty, in that lull before the nightlife of the city awoke. Once or twice Ti-Jeanne had caught Tony eyeing dark alleyways as they went by. She knew he was trying to gauge the odds of running off and losing himself somewhere in the city before the duppy could catch up with him. Let him try then, nuh? (pp. 173-174)¹ 

The narrative here is in SE, except for the use of the JC term duppy, meaning a ghost or spirit,¹³ and the TEC tag word "nuh"¹⁴ that represents part of Ti-Jeanne's internal monologue.

The dialogue will be examined below in each character's section.

Rudy

In the first scene of the novel, Rudy is visited by Douglas Baines, an official from a nearby hospital. Baines is looking for a donor heart for Catherine Uttley, the Ontario premier, and while pig-to-human heart transplants exist in this setting, Uttley has campaigned against this technology, and so, for political reasons, Baines needs to find a human heart. He knows Rudy and his posse see (or cause) many deaths in the course of their activities, so he has come to ask Rudy to be on the lookout for a body that might be compatible. Bolding is mine.

As soon as he entered the room, Baines blurted out, "We want you to find us a viable human heart, fast."

"Bloodfire!" Rudy cursed, surprised. "Is what you a-say?" He stared at the scared-looking man from the Angel of Mercy transplant hospital up by the Burn. Douglas Baines had obviously never ventured into Rudy's neighborhood before. The pudgy man had shown up in a cheap, off-the-rack bulletproof that dragged along the floor, his barrel chest straining at its buttons. He looked foolish, and he looked like he knew it.

Rudy watched Baines give Melba the bulletproof. Underneath it he was wearing a poorly made jacket and a cheap white shirt. Rudy picked at a nonexistent bit of fluff on the sleeve of his own tailor-fitted wool suit. His ostentatious lack of protection against attack carried its own message. He was guarded in other ways. "Sit down, man." With his chin, Rudy indicated the hard plastic chair on the other side of his desk. His own chair was a plush upholstered leather, the color of mahogany.

Baines sat, fiddling nervously with the case of his palm-book. "We need a heart," he repeated. "For, ah, an experiment. We're hoping that your people can help us locate one."

Something didn't sound quite right to Rudy. "And how come oonuh nah use a swine heart?... " (pp. 1-2)¹

Rudy is primarily using features of JC in this scene. His first utterance is the JC profanity "bloodfire," an expression of surprise.²¹ He then uses a JC sentence structure to form the question "Is what you a-say?"²⁰ (SE "What are you saying?") This sentence also uses the JC progressive tense, formed by placing a before the verb.^{12, 13} Man as a form of address is also typical of JC.¹² When he addresses the hospital as an entity, rather than Baines as an individual, Rudy uses the JC second-person plural pronoun, oonuh.¹² The nah in this sentence is a JC feature as well; "nah use" is a contraction of "no a-use."¹³ Rudy's country of origin is never explicitly stated, but Hopkinson is clearly marking him as Jamaican.

Rudy does occasionally use features of TEC, but throughout the novel his speech is primarily Jamaican. The occasional Trinidadian features can be explained by his close contact with TEC speakers, both in the Caribbean and in Toronto. With his use of language, Rudy indexes his identity as Jamaican, and as Caribbean in general.

As a crime kingpin, Rudy must also project masculinity. He does so by creating an image of himself as young and tough, though he is chronologically an elderly man. He uses magic to make his body younger (p. 122), and Tony speculates that he uses steroids (p. 27).¹ Rudy's language use adds to this youthful, strong image. In England, Ben Rampton (qtd. in Fought 203) found that Creole usage is associated with traits such as toughness, "cool," and assertiveness, and Roger Hewitt (qtd. in Fought 203) noted that Creole was linked with youth culture.⁹  Similar ideas appear to exist in Toronto; JC speakers have historically been stereotyped as aggressive and criminal (a stereotype Rudy might gladly embrace!), but the variety possesses some "cool" there as well.⁶ Rudy's use of JC thus augments his visual presentation as a young, muscular man.

Also interesting is that Rudy uses JC while displaying multiple markers of wealth and power: his suit, his chair, and his office itself, which is located in the CN Tower, the tallest building in Toronto. In our present day, SE is the language of power, prestige, and wealth.¹⁶ A standard dialect, however, is simply the dialect favored by the powerful.⁹ With his uncompromising use of JC, Rudy may be indexing his self-appointed authority over the city. If Rudy is in charge, then Rudy's speech is the standard. Lalla (2013) comes to a similar conclusion: "In this contrived setting, Rudy's voice is mainly Jamaican Creole... He establishes the distribution of power in Jamaican with himself as deictic centre: 'Is we a-rule things here now.'"²²

Gros-Jeanne

In the scene below, Gros-Jeanne ("Mami") and her granddaughter Ti-Jeanne are visited by Ti-Jeanne's ex-boyfriend, Tony, who needs help extricating himself from a job Rudy has given him. There is history here; Gros-Jeanne dislikes and distrusts Tony.

A loud kiss-teeth sound came from inside. "Speak of the devil," Mami said as she clumped down the stairs to confront Tony. "What trouble you bringing for we now?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Mistress Gros-Jeanne, but you and Ti-Jeanne are the only two people I have to turn to. I really need help." Tony looked imploringly at Ti-Jeanne. In his nervousness, he had taken the woolen tam off his head and was twisting it into a rag between his hands.

Mami's mouth set hard. "The only help you getting is to help yourself out from my front door, oui. Stupidness."

"Mami, let we hear what he have to say, nuh?"

"No! Ti-Jeanne, you have to break good with this good-for-nothing boy, or you go find yourself mix up in he story again. You see it in the cards for yourself; whatever Tony get into with he posse this time, he ain't getting out of just so." Mami hissed at Tony. "Get your worthless self out of my house now, before I put mal 'jo upon you!" (p. 54)¹

Kissing or sucking the teeth is a noise of disgust used in both Trinidad and Jamaica.^10, 13. Gros-Jeanne expresses her distaste for Tony with this gesture, then asks him what trouble he's bringing in a sentence containing multiple TEC features: copula deletion in the progressive tense ("you bringing")¹⁵ and use of the pronoun "we" as object.¹⁴ She uses copula deletion again two paragraphs later, in addition to the TEC tag word oui.¹⁴ Also characteristic of TEC are her usage of "go" to mark the future tense in "go find,"¹⁴ non-marking of the past tense on "mix" and "see,"¹⁵ and the lack of change to the pronoun "he" when it is used as a possessive, i.e. "he story" instead of "his story."¹⁴ Hopkinson is telling us that Gros-Jeanne is Trinidadian through her use of language.

Stupidness, too, is a feature of TEC.¹⁰ Gros-Jeanne particularly favors this word and uses it frequently, which becomes significant late in the novel.¹  

She threatens to put mal 'jo on Tony; this is a TEC term for the evil eye or a curse.¹⁰ Gros-Jeanne does work as a priestess and perform magic, but she does not actually cast curses. At other points in the novel, she denounces this kind of negative magic.¹ However, it is important to her that Tony—whom she strongly dislikes—believes she could do it. By using the terminology associated with cursing, she claims the identity of a caster of curses, if only briefly.

Another identity associated with Gros-Jeanne is that of healer. Gros-Jeanne has both a formal nursing education and a knowledge of folk herbalism. When treating non-Caribbean patients, Gros-Jeanne employs SE (p. 63).¹ This probably helps facilitate understanding, but it also indexes Gros-Jeanne as an educated authority figure, since SE would have been the language of education and prestige in both Trinidad and Toronto during most of Gros-Jeanne's lifetime.^16, 6

Gros-Jeanne dies during the course of the novel, and it is her heart that is used to save Premier Uttley. When Uttley, who has no Caribbean background and has not spoken any TEC previously, awakens from the anesthesia, she uses the word stupidness twice: first in internal monologue, then in dialogue (pp. 237-239).¹ Hopkinson uses this word, typical of TEC and of Gros-Jeanne in particular, to signal that Gros-Jeanne's spirit has survived within Uttley. In a very real sense, Gros-Jeanne's language is her identity in the end.

Tony

Tony is the only major character whose national origin is specifically stated in the text. He was born in Trinidad, and his family emigrated from there to Toronto when Tony was five.¹ Hopkinson described the process of writing Tony's dialogue as follows:

"Children of immigrants do a peculiar-sounding (to my ears, though I do it myself nowadays) thing where their accent and word choices sound neither completely of the old country nor completely of the new. That's how Tony speaks, and it was a bitch to write."¹⁹

He switches frequently between SE and TEC, sometimes within the same conversation. Here, he has run into his ex-girlfriend Ti-Jeanne on the street after not having seen her in some time:

...In disorientation Ti-Jeanne asked Tony, "What happen? Is where we was?"

Tony frowned at her. "Huh? We were outside, you started running, I followed you inside. You shouldn't be scared by Crazy Betty, you know."

What was he talking about? Slowly, Ti-Jeanne's surroundings registered on her and she realized: Tony hadn't seen what she had! Fear was like ice in her chest. Lately the visions had been growing stronger, more vivid. This was the worst one yet.

Tony didn't seem to notice how dazed she was. He turned to the shop owner, a slight, middle-aged East Indian man, and said, "God Almighty, Roopsingh; what the hell is that crap you playing on the stereo?" He was speaking to Roopsingh with almost the same words he'd used in her vision. Showing off as always for her benefit, Tony switched into the creole his parents had spoken to him when he was a child. Tony had been raised in Toronto by Caribbean parents; his speech wavered between creole and Canadian. "You ain't have anything more tasteful? How many years I coming in here, and all I could hear is some so-so road march?" (p. 19)¹

Tony is using SE forms at the beginning of this passage, when speaking only to Ti-Jeanne, even though Ti-Jeanne is also Caribbean and is using TEC herself. Each of the verbs highlighted would be spoken differently in TEC. "We were outside" would become "we was outside," since TEC uses "was" for all subjects regardless of whether they are singular or plural. "I followed you" would likely be "I follow you," with the past tense implied by context rather than by changing the verb; likewise "you started running" would probably be "you start running" or simply "you run."¹⁵ When TEC speakers in the novel tell one another to be afraid or not to be afraid of something, they generally use the adjective as the predicate¹⁴: "You don't need to 'fraid he" (p. 69),¹ "You should 'fraid of she" (p.95).¹

Once Tony involves another interlocutor in the conversation, he switches to TEC, which Ti-Jeanne interprets as showing off. He may be using TEC for some of the same reasons Rudy uses JC: to establish his masculinity and toughness in relation to another male, for the benefit of Ti-Jeanne as audience. He employs TEC grammatical forms—copula deletion in the progressive tense ("you playing," "I coming"),¹⁵ "ain't" used at the beginning of a negative-interrogative sentence¹⁴, could substituted for can¹⁴—as well as TEC lexical items so-so¹⁰ and road march.¹⁰

Tony is a man struggling with his identity in more ways than just his nationality. Like Gros-Jeanne, Tony was trained as a nurse, but Tony was fired for abusing drugs and is now involved in the criminal underworld. A spirit refers to him as "Mister Healer-Turn-Dealer" (p. 100).¹ Throughout the novel, he is torn between his desire to be a nurturing partner for Ti-Jeanne and father to his baby, and his drug addiction and obligations to Rudy. It is possible that Hopkinson is using his conflicted language habits to symbolize his conflicted personality. It is not so simple as "SE represents his good side, TEC represents his bad side" or vice versa; in another scene, he uses SE to tell a lie with devastating consequences (p. 146).¹ Still, it is tempting to see a parallel between his bifurcated language and bifurcated self.

Ti-Jeanne

Ti-Jeanne wrestles with several questions of identity during the novel. She is a new mother, and has yet to become accustomed to this new role. She has not yet named her newborn baby. Meanwhile, she is being called by the African divine spirits that Gros-Jeanne serves, but initially resists their call. Interestingly, for the most part her inner conflicts are not reflected in her speech. Ti-Jeanne consistently uses Creole speech patterns throughout the novel, no matter the situation or interlocutor. Her speech is TEC, which is consistent with her having been raised by her Trinidadian grandmother:

Something was odd. The lights were on! "It have electricity in here!" Ti-Jeanne exclaimed.

Tony said groggily, "'S a mall. They all have power."

"Yeah," Josée said. "Malls were built with their own generators in case of power failures. We can cook in here, and everything. Let's lie these two down over here."

Not a moment too soon. Tony was almost incoherent, and Chu had gone completely unconscious at some point during the trek. He'd lost a lot of blood; the front of his body was soaked with it. His friend was now carrying him in his arms. He tenderly laid Chu down and cradled his head in his lap. Chu moaned slightly but didn't rouse. The young man stroked Chu's hair away from his face, leaned forward, and kissed his forehead. His tenderness was that of a lover. He asked Ti-Jeanne tearfully, "Is he gonna be all right?"

"I ain't know. He need medical attention."

"Hospital won't come. We can't pay. You're a healer, can't you do something?"

Panicked, she stared down at Chu. "If the bullet rupture a organ, or bust into he intestines," she told the young man, "I might not be able to help he." (pp. 187-188)¹

Ti-Jeanne is speaking to a group of children and teens of several ethnicities, and they are asking her for medical help. This is precisely the situation in which Gros-Jeanne would switch to SE, but Ti-Jeanne does not. TEC features used in this scene include it have used in place of there is¹⁵, negation created by use of ain't¹⁴, zero verb change to indicate the past tense ("rupture," "bust")¹⁵, and he used in the possessive and objective cases¹⁴. Ti-Jeanne's use of a instead of an before organ is also typical of TEC.¹⁵ The lack of subject-verb agreement on he need is a feature of both JC and TEC^8, 15, but appears to be TEC usage in this case, due to its proximity to other TEC features.

Unlike Gros-Jeanne, Ti-Jeanne has spent all of her adolescent and adult years in the closed-off Toronto where Caribbean Creole speakers appear to be in the majority, and she has not had a formal education that might have forced the use of SE; she has been, in effect, homeschooled instead by the TEC-speaking Gros-Jeanne. Ti-Jeanne is not unfamiliar with SE—she is quick to notice when other speakers switch to and from it (Tony on p. 19, Gros-Jeanne on p. 63).¹—yet there are several possible reasons she does not use it herself.

Dagmar Deuber studied young TEC-speaking students in a setting where they were in the majority, and found that they tended to avoid SE, either because they found it "nerdish," because they did not feel comfortable with their abilities in it, or because they simply did not feel the need.²⁰ Ti-Jeanne never expresses negative opinions about SE or its speakers, so it is likely to be one of the latter two reasons: either she is not confident in her SE fluency, or she finds SE unnecessary in her present environment. TEC is sufficient to establish her identity.

One other way in which Ti-Jeanne assumes an identity through language is in her use of the TEC endearment doux-doux. This is a popular diminutive in Trinidad¹⁰ and is used in many relationships in Brown Girl, including parent/child, grandparent/child, medical professional/patient, and between romantic partners. Ti-Jeanne, who is having trouble adjusting to motherhood, does not call her baby doux-doux until after Gros-Jeanne's death:

"She gone, doux-doux," she said to him. She'd never used that endearment with him before. But now he was the only one of her family left... (p. 174)¹

Another family member survives, but Ti-Jeanne does not know that yet. In finally using this endearment, she accepts the nurturing maternal role for the first time.