Language In The Book Of Night Women

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Recommended: Literary strategies in slave narratives

In Marlon James’ novel The Book of Night Women he uses explicit language and scenery to tell his narrative. The majority of the story takes place in 19th century Jamaica, the story is about a young slave girl named Lilith and what she has to deal with on the slave plantation. James uses harsh language in order to incite emotion in the reader and to show the reality of the time period. Sexual violence and profanity occurred often on slave plantations. It is not surprising that James uses these events to further the character development or to gather reaction from his audience. A reader might consider though, is this use of strong language and explicit scenery an effective way to tell this story, or could have it been done a better way. I think that Marlon James’ use of language is exceptional storytelling and is a very effective way to tell a slave narrative. This is especially true for a slave narrative as they are stories …show more content…

It is in the aftermath that James goes into his violent detail about how the slave masters went about interrogating slaves for information. James writes, “For the next two day they strip all them niggers naked, wet they skin and whip them with the cowhide. … The commander have the soldiers light corn husk and scrape off the burnin’ bits so that the fire rain down on her belly, face and titties.” (p. 235) This scene really shows the power slave masters had over their slaves and how they would torture slaves until they got what they wanted. This is the case whether they wanted information out of a slave, or wanted them to work harder without mistakes. This use of extreme “positive punishment” is what ran the slave plantation and brought about fear in each and every slave. This use of sexual language as well as explicit scenery allows for the reader to easily picture the scene in their mind. Even though this is horrid scene, the detail given is important to telling a clear

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