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Julia
read and liked
Sarah Brink's
review of Witness:
"*Please forgive me for the length of this review. I actually could have easily written a whole dissertation about this novel.*
First of all, I have to say that this book is amazing. At first, I wasn’t sure how a novel could be made usi...more
*Please forgive me for the length of this review. I actually could have easily written a whole dissertation about this novel.*
First of all, I have to say that this book is amazing. At first, I wasn’t sure how a novel could be made using verse; however, Ms. Hesse has shown me that not only is it possible, it suits very well for telling a story through characters’ accounts. As the book is set up almost as if it were a play, it makes sense to have a style of writing that is almost like people talking. The words flow with the rhythm of natural speech. Verse helps to allow for emotion, passion, drama, or even a reluctance to show these; natural speech does not always follow the conventions of perfect grammar, sentence structure and punctuation.
The story starts out by telling who the characters are in the story. Photos of real people from the time period have been attributed fictional personas. Under each photo, simple details are given: the person’s name (first and last), age, and profession (for the adults). The only details about the setting are that it takes place in Vermont in 1924. Even though these details are sparse, they really tell so much. A reader with the right knowledge of American history of the time period would be able to glean that this story takes place in the North in an area that is sometimes known for conservatism. It is not at the heart of the United States as it is a bit more remote than, say, Boston or New York City. It was not a “slave state” in earlier historical times, yet racism was prevalent. There were probably few Black or Jewish families living out there. The year is significant because it was after the Civil War, a few years after the Great War (World War I), a wave of immigrants coming to the U.S.A, just after women were given the right to vote, during Prohibition, and a couple of years before the Stock Market Crash which would lead into the Great Depression. Some “modern” women “bobbed” their hair and began showing more independence. It was also a time when the Klu Klux Klan’s influence was at an al-time high. All of this can be applied to the story with only the words “Setting: Vermont. Time: 1924.”
The author continues on using simple ways to tell us about the characters, their views, actions, and motives. (Interestingly, she uses only lowercase letters throughout the whole story.) Style is established using key words and phrases in each person’s monologue that tell us so much. For example, the very first time we meet Leonora Sutter on page 3, even without looking at the photo attributed to the character, we know that she is a proud Black girl. She talks about being talked into being part of a dance performance by “miss harvey," which we can assume must be her teacher. She dances, “separated on the stage from all those limb-tight white girls.” Leonora goes on saying that many of the girls “wouldn’t dance with a negro,/ they went home in a huff that first day.” From this we get a sense of indignacy, and we can interpret that the “brown skin girl” in question is Leonora; however, it is not until the final line of the page that she says, “only esther didn’t mind about me being colored.” Along the same lines, we are never told directly that Esther and her father (a character who actually is not a speaker in the book, but is often referred to) are foreign, only that they have come from New York and are Jewish. Yet we can infer that Esther is probably not originally from the USA by the way people speak about her as being “that funny talking kid” (3) and by her speech pattern. Although she speaks English and is able to communicate ideas well, the order of her words and unusual grammar gives one sense of not being a native speaker, perhaps from Poland or Russia, or some other Slavic country. Her verb tenses, use of plurals and unusual use of the word “squeaks” are very telling of this, as in the following passage from page 65:
“sara chickering did come with me
and we did gather
sticks and sticks of rhubarbs from the garden.
we did put the rhubarbs in my wagon
and have squeaks, squeaks to town,
pulling rhubarbs behind us all the places
and we did sell sara chickering’s rhubarbs,
ten sticks a nickel.
and we had comings back with the rattle-empty wagon,
and five jingle nickels.”
There are many, many other examples of the author’s supreme usage of literary elements; however, I fear that I could end up writing my own book to cover all of these.
This would be a fantastic book to use with a high school class. They would have to have an understanding of the history of the United States at the time, but this could also be part of the unit. An excellent way to go about reading and understanding the book and the author’s clever use of literary elements, would be the same way I went about reading this book. As I read, I kept up a notecard for each character. (I started to do this after I had started reading a bit and needed a way to keep track of them.) On the lined side I wrote the name of the character and the information given about the character at the beginning of the book. As I learned more about the character I jotted down notes and wrote the page number. On the back of the card, I wrote list (in column form) of the pages on which they “spoke.” I did not do this, but it could also be useful to have a second column to list pages on which that character was mentioned (and by whom). This is useful because it lets me see which characters are more prevalent or have more to say during certain acts. (I put a line in between numbers to denote a new act of the “play.”) As I found plot elements or other important information I wanted to note, I wrote these down on another card. (I ended up using more than one card for this.) To make it easier, I color coded the cards. I only had five colors of cards, plus some white ones, so I did the following:
color of cards---character---reason:
Pink —Leonora Sutter and Esther Hirsh—young girls
Purple—Sara Chickering and Iris Weaver—adult women
Yellow—Viola Pettibone and Harvey Pettibone—married couple, often listed on same page
Blue—Merlin Van Tornhout and Johnny Reeves—Male, displayed racism from beginning
Green—Percelle Johnson, Fitzgerald Flitt, Reynard Alexander—Male, seemed that either neutral, or was not evident for sure if racist
White—for story, literary info
This is the way that I chose to take notes and arrange information, but others might find other ways to have students keep track of things. This information can then be used to focus on certain literary elements later on. Students could apply this to studies of character, voice, intentions of the author, plot development, motivations, etc.
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