TEXT 14
In the first paragraph the old woman is referred to in the third person. Subsequently she is referred to in the second-person singular.
ATTRIBUTION Text 13 Bharati Mukherjee, Jasmine, pp. 34–5.
Text 14 Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm, pp. 113–14.
Verdict
TEXT 13
Text 13 is explicit about the ambiguity inherent in you—which can be either singular or plural, specific or general. In fact, many dialects of English avoid this ambiguity by distinguishing between plural and singular formally, for example:
you singular youse plural
you singular you all plural
TEXT 14
Text 14 illustrates a more complex use of you. Here, the shift from third to second person (the old woman—she—you) comes as the narrative enters the old woman’s thoughts and represents them directly (‘Make some excuse…shut her out’). It is possible therefore to see this second-person form as standing for a first-person I. The technique allows the author to be ‘inside’ the character’s head in a vivid and direct way (more directly than third person would allow) while retaining a sense of distance which is vital to the humour and irony the passage creates—as the woman’s thoughts ramble from woodshed to toolshed to bikeshed to drowsy yaks.
1.8
Pronouns: the second person (2)
Definition
You can refer to one specific person, addressed by the speaker, or several specific persons, addressed by the speaker.
You can also refer to any or all people in an unspecific way, for example: You’ve got to laugh, or else you’d cry.
Speakers can use you to refer to themselves, in an impersonal way, for example: I didn’t think about the consequences, because if you do that, you’d never get anywhere.
In this kind of usage, the apparent switch of person merely disguises a continuity of referent. It is an attempt to objectify what is a subjective argument since such usages present a personal opinion as if it was a general one, shared by all people. These impersonal uses of pronouns can be a way of avoiding appearing self- centred, or they can attempt to deceive—to pass something contentious off as inevitable, or generally agreed upon.
Authors may use this ambiguity of referent for stylistic effect—is the you a singular usage, referring to a character in the novel; or is it a plural you, including the reader?
EXAMPLES Singular, specific person
Paul, have you done your homework? Plural, specific person
You two, come here. General, direct address
You want to be with the Prudential. General, unspecific address You can’t beat a nice cup of tea.
TASK
Identify the you pronouns in Text 15. What kinds of you pronouns are they?
Contrast this type of reference with that of the other pronouns in the text—I/ me/my, he/his, they, her.
Why does the passage use you in the way it does?
TEXT 15
I went quickly away from her down the room and out and down the tiled staircase to the front hall. I didn’t see anybody when I left. I found my hat alone this time. Outside the bright gardens had a haunted look, as though small wild eyes were watching me from behind the bushes, as though the sunshine itself had a mysterious something in its light. I got into my car and drove off down the hill. What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was. But the old man didn’t have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on the sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as grey as ashes. And in a little while he too, like Rusty Regan, would be sleeping the big sleep.
On the way downtown I stopped at a bar and had a couple of double Scotches. They didn’t do me any good. All they did was make me think of Silver-Wig, and I never saw her again.
Solution
The you forms in this text, all of them concentrated in the first few lines of the second paragraph, refer to everyone, including the reader and the narrator. They could be replaced (though with a change in stylistic effect) by the third-person singular pronoun one.
The referents of the other pronouns are much more specific: I/me/my to the narrator (although he is not named here, this is Philip Marlowe, the private detective played by Humphrey Bogart in many films); he/his to the old man; they to the drinks; her to Silver-Wig. Note too how the I, you and he pronouns are kept separate in the first two paragraphs, apart from the pivotal Me, I, which marks the shift from you to he.
ATTRIBUTION Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, p. 220.
Verdict
This passage is the closing scene of Raymond Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep. Chandler wrote detective fiction, but he is also widely recognised as an STYLISTICS 31
exceptional stylist, someone who could combine the narrative energy demanded by the thriller form with the interest in character and moral seriousness of the ‘literary’ novel. This passage illustrates how he manages to deal with ‘big issues’—death and guilt—without sounding pretentious. Note the simple syntactic style of coordination, or single-clause sentences, but most of all note how the use of generic you allows Chandler to introduce universal issues without sententiousness. The passage proceeds syntactically from first-person pronoun clustering, to second-person pronoun clustering, to third-person pronoun clustering. All treat the subject of death, the great social leveller; and on this moral note the novel closes.
In each novel he appears in, Marlowe participates in scenes of high emotional content. Yet his wit is always dry, his speech terse. How then is he to reflect on matters of such universal magnitude as death, without resorting to purple prose or subordinate clauses? Chandler’s solution here is to embrace all persons, by means of pronoun development. Were Marlowe to address mankind, or to use such items of vocabulary as humanity or even man, his reflections would appear sententious. This is partly because man is so general that it is hard to identify with. Compare the stylistic effect of ‘What does it matter where man lies once he is dead?’ with the original. Although the you in this sentence has a general, third- person referent, it also includes ‘you, the reader’, and hence strikes the personal note. By contrasting the second person with the first person, Marlowe is given a certain bitter, dismissive edge.
The use of you, with its connotations of direct address as well as general address, allows Chandler to deal with these issues in a non-abstract way—making them real to the reader. The lack of distance implied by you (rather than one) makes the musings on mortality something more than just literary padding. The rigid separation of pronouns, and simple syntax, mean that the passage relies on the seriousness of its topics for effect, not deliberately inflated language.
TASK
Chandler’s you was consistently generic, but it is possible for writers to use generic you in a less clear-cut way.
What are the precise ranges of reference of you in the following?
(You will notice dialect features in this text—they are listed in the Verdict, hut do not affect the usage of you.)
TEXT 16
I was admiring a bevy of them as they come trouncing in the market in Shepherd’s Bush one morning. They make for one of those shops what does sell everything for the head except brains. Iron comb to straighten your hair, pomades and lotions to make it shine, and of course, wigs. Wigs is in now. All 32 THE NOUN PHRASE
kinds of Afro hair styles on display in the shop window, mixed up with some blondy, long-haired ones for those who have aspirations to be fair.
The girls stand up by the window looking in like professional head hunters, then they went in and start to try on wigs. I don’t know if you have seen them women in C & A or Woolworths trying on hats, how they turn and twist and do Yoga exercises in an attempt to change their physiognomies to suit the hat they fancy. Also, the fashion being fairly new, they had to experiment and pit their wits against this latest female accoutrement.
The trouble with a wig, as I see it, is not that you trying on a new suit or a pair of shoes. It is actually going to be a part of you, like a new hand or nose or something. A time will doubtless come when you could buy a complete new face, or fit a different upper lip, or purchase a pair of new ears over the counter and put them on right away. But the greatest invention will be when you can walk in black as midnight and emerge as pure and white as the driven snow.
Solution
Referents of you: the reader (with curly hair), the reader, anyone, the reader, everybody, everybody (in particular, black people).
ATTRIBUTION Sam Selvon, Moses Ascending, p. 22.
Verdict
Sam Selvon, a Trinidadian, wrote in a mix of Trinidadian English and London English. This is not the point we want to dwell on here (in this section we’re concerned with the purposes authors put pronouns to); but here’s a rapid checklist of Trinidadian English features found in the text:
• auxiliary be may be absent: not that you trying on a new suit
• the simple present tense is used, where Standard English would use either the past tense, or a compound tense:
they make for one of those shops as they come trouncing in
• the subject and verb don’t have to agree in number: wigs is in now
• the verb do marks a habitual aspect:
one of those shops what does sell everything for the head • singular rather than plural nouns are used for generic purposes:
iron comb to straighten your hair
These are all features of Trinidadian English and hence are a feature of any writer who chooses to write in Trinidadian English, not just Sam Selvon.
Text 2 shows a subtle usage of you, with shifting referents not made explicit: 1 iron comb to straighten your hair
2 I don’t know if you have seen them women in C & A or Woolworths. 3 The trouble with a wig, as I see it, is not that you trying on a new suit. 4 It is actually going to be a part of you.
5 A time will doubtless come when you could buy a complete new face. 6 But the greatest invention will be when you can walk in black as midnight. (1) refers to all who read this text, but only those readers with curly hair will actually be able to identify with it. This will include black readers, but plenty of other readers as well. So it’s a second-person plural usage. (2) refers to all who read this text, not only those who’ve seen women trying on hats in C & A or Woolworths, but those of us who have are invited to identify especially with this usage. Again, a plural referent. (3) refers to all readers who buy suits or shoes, so it is plural. (4) is a singular usage as each reader has only one body. (Compare the paraphrase: it is actually going to be a part of your body). In (5), you could be substituted by one, so it is a third-person singular usage. (6) refers to all readers, so is a plural usage, but it assumes that the reader is black.
In this passage the instances of you start off as general, referring to all readers, and then become specific, referring to you yourself (4). (5) is generic, yet still includes a personal identification on the part of the reader, so that by the time the reader reaches (6), the reader identifies with the referent, whether black or not.
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