The similarity of Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer and The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark is the usage of English language in non-conventional form. The original journal was published without altering Meriwheter Lewis’ and William Clark’s written account of their expedition and the major parts of the novel were written as told by a non-English narrator. The authors’ choices of grammar, terminologies, malapropism and misspellings did not spoil the overall purpose of these literatures and even made the writings more authentic, interesting, intriguing and entertaining.These important and well-acclaimed literatures demonstrated that the preference in the form of writing is crucial to the context of artistic and scientific presentation.
Moreover, their preferred form is effective because of the content and significance of the writing involves multi-cultural complications and on period when it was written. Other similarities between the literatures are that they were narrated from the point of view of two major characters through writings and both dealt with quest.The journals were written by Lewis and Clark whose characters contrast, which became evident during their expedition in quest for the Pacific. The novel was narrated, in a form of letter, by fictional Ukrainian character and the novel within the novel, the history of fictional place, was told by young American Jew that is named from the author of the novel.
The two characters, also with contrasting personalities, are brought together in the story in search for fictional hamlet in Ukraine. The Semblance of Everything is Illuminated and The Journals of Lewis and ClarkThe glaring features of the novel ‘Everything is Illuminated’ and the Journals of Lewis is the deviation to the rules on how the English language is to be used. Aside from similarities in theme and relationship of the character, both publications are written in an unconventional English writing. Laden with misspellings, errors in grammars, simple sentence structures, capitalization, punctuations and florid terms, this literary style may upset linguists and distract readers but it positively brought charm and humor to these literatures.In order to justify the form of these writings, readers are made aware of the purpose, authenticity, consistency multi-cultural complicity content of the two literatures.
Written centuries ago, the Journal recorded the authors’ expedition in a writing manner that is seemingly for personal use. Interestingly, Lewis and Clark are qualified in carrying out and leading the expedition and collecting scientific data, they are not exemplary writers. Especially in the case of Clark who has little formal schooling.Commissioned by Thomas Jefferson to navigate the Missouri River and document their observations, this was difficult assignment for both men as they had their own ways of capitalizing, spelling, and using grammar, factors that are intriguing.
It is apparent that conventional writing was not being strictly followed in the 1800’s. However, the content of the journal succeeded to become an important American literature for its contribution to American, cartography, meteorology, collection of the region’s flora and fauna, understanding indigenous peoples’ culture, open the route that became crucial to progress of trading industry.The publication of the Journal on its original form added appeal to its presentation without the intention and pretension of becoming a literary classic. The novel Everything is Illuminated is mostly narrated by a character ‘dubbed’ as Alex through letters he wrote to a fictional American writer ‘dubbed’ as Jonathan Safran after the name author of the novel. The two characters met during their search in the heart of Ukraine for a hamlet known to them only as ‘Trachimbrod’ in search for a person that will eventually answer the quest for the past and identity and bring changes in their lives.
Alex served as an amusing local tourist guide, translator and letter writer for Jonathan with all his flowery and mangled vocabulary and malapropisms. Jonathan’s writing part in the novel is the narration of the interspersing fictional history of Trachimbarod which he invented as his family’s heritage. His writing part was written in conventional form but less interesting content compared to Alex’s portion. Despite having distracting but entertaining form, boasts and exaggerations, Alex’s narrates about what ‘really happened’ in contrast to Jonathan’s ‘historical fiction’ that is full of magical realism.Despite the authors’ preferred way of spelling and grammar use, the journal’s contents, the observations, instructions and accounts are precise and the novel served its creative purpose. Lewis and Clark applied phonetics in their journal; they spelled words and construct sentence as they would have pronounced and how they utter them.
Though, there was no audio recording device during the expedition, the language form used makes a reader hear how the forefathers’ way of talking. Clark wrote that the Yankton Sioux wore "leagins and mockersons," he and Captain Lewis "assended" a hill.The tribe of Indians spoke with a different "axcent," and he was entertained by "Musitions playing on tambereens,". These Indians "tanterlised" him, and lived in houses built in "oxigon" form. A "Slupe" or a "Skooner," is sailing ship and the Pacific as an "emence Ocian. ".
A naturalist is a "natirless," a botanist is a "Botents, a umbrella is an "Humbrallo’. A duct in the digestive system of a fish is an "alimentary Duck" and beaver swimming in a river made a "flacking" noise.Example of malapropisms is sentence like ‘two rifles were damaged when they "bursted near the muscle" and that the Indian chief "transfired his power to his Sun. " In The Novel, instead of saying ‘fluent’ Alex keeps saying “fluid” in English. Alex uses malapropisms like "rotated" for "turned", "luxuriated" for "enjoyed", "premium" for "important", or "appeased" for "pleased", used interchangeably.
The author made Alex use superlative adjectives and adverbs like "I did not yearn to mention this, but I will" and "Enough of my miniature talking,” where simple words would do.He also has a quaint way in his adjectives—t "boring" when he means "bored" and when he refers to sleeping as "manufacturing Z's". Both literatures have each recurring choice of words. In the Journal, “&c”, whatever that indicates, is always used and in the Novel, Alex is insistent in using ‘dubbed’ instead of ‘named’. "But all of my many friends dub me Alex, because that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal name’.
There are several amusing materials in both literatures.For example, the word Sioux was spelled in different ways in the Journal ("Scioux," "Seauex," "Seeaux," "Soux,", "Suouez" and "Cucoux. "). In the Journal, the authors are quirky in spelling the names of people and places; the last name of Toussaint Charbonneau, their interpreters became "Chabonat," Chabonee," and "Shabowner" and "Charbono. ") and Clark spelled Captain Lewis’ name as "Cap Lewers".
The Salmon River became"Louis's river. " And the river Clark referred to as the "Missoppie", was it the Mississippi, the Missouri, or combination referring to both rivers?In the Novel, the form in which Alex narrates his story resulted to the hilarity of his character and to the whole book. The excuse is that because he is Ukrainian learning to be ‘fluid’ in English. His narratives, which are splattered with elaborate vocabulary and malapropisms never failed to miss the relevant points and they are consistent in the effective flow of the narrative. One poignant scene in the Novel is when he berated Jonathan when the latter butted in, in English, while he was asking for direction to local road workers.
Jonathan has no answer to Alex question “Why do speak English?! ”Another similarity between the two literatures, is the presence of two minor characters that are worthy to development of the stories and deserve separate stories of their own, despite their silence or their detachment from the rest of the characters. The grandfather character in the Novel could be paralleled to the Sacagawea in the Journal. Both characters served as guide and tracker as their respective roles. Amidst being in the presence of main characters that were resourceful in choice of words in the flow of the stories, these two minor characters have little to do with them in terms of verbal and written communication.Apparently unintentional in the case of the Journal, they became a device to stress that forms could be unconventional- even without form, these un-verbal characters made an important impression. The publication of the novel and the journal written as it truly retains the rawness of setting and situation and added color to the characters of the writers.
Such style makes readers think and feel more involved by having the semblance of getting the first hand information. It was as though one is face to face with the characters when they utter “we commenced wrighting &c. " or “You are here. I am It.
