Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Hogg's Scottish Elements
I agree with dep’s post. The text pretty much
explicitly says that James Hogg was unappreciated in his own time. Ironically
he was illiterate for much of his life, and teased about his accent. This is
ironic considering part of the allure of his writing is its Scottish elements.
The dialogue in The Brownie of Black
Haggs is written in Scottish dialect. It is nearly impossible to read the
story without recognizing the author’s heritage. Hogg closes the story with the
tale of the fox and the hound that sounds as though it could have been passed
down orally. For me it added an element of familiarity to the text. It makes the entire story seem as though it was told to you by a
friend. It makes it seem as if it could almost be true, like a neighborhood
myth, the beast in the Sandlot. Hogg’s last sentence about not believing the
tale makes you wonder if there are any details you can believe within the story,
which makes the gothic elements of the story more entertaining.
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Great point about the fox and hound folk tale/parable at the end. There is also a story of a colley dog that begins the story (p. 204): what do you think Hogg intended by framing the story with two stories about dogs? These stories are spoken in the voice of the narrator, and both stories compare one of the characters to a dog (in the first story, the laird is compared to the colley who is fine with hunting until he realizes that guns kill things; in the second, the lady is the hound who chases the fox). Are these people just brute animals? Have they ceased to be human?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about Hogg's own admission of non-believing adding to the story. Hogg's admission informs the reader that Hogg is not just reiterating a crazy story of a goblin making a woman lose her mind and eventually die, but that he has found worth in the story beyond the supernatural. Hogg's admission makes the reader look closer for the true meaning beyond entertainment.
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