Ok and Un, Early Champions of Literalism

(x-posted from the Valve)

Adam Roberts thinks he can find better evidence of Jack London’s mastery of the art of dialogue than yours truly, a trained Jack London scholar.  He is so very, very wrong.  I now present an excerpt from London’s play The First Poet, collected in The Turtles of Tasman.  The scene:

The hill nearest to the plain terminates in a cliff, in the face of which, nearly at the level of the ground, are four caves, with low, narrow entrances. Before the caves, and distant from them less than one hundred feet, is a broad, flat rock, on which are laid several sharp slivers of flint, which, like the rock, are blood-stained. Between the rock and the cave-entrances, on a low pile of stones, is squatted a man, stout and hairy. Across his knees is a thick club, and behind him crouches a woman. At his right and left are two men somewhat resembling him, and like him, bearing wooden clubs ... It is late afternoon. The name of him on the pile of stones is Uk, the name of his mate, Ala; and of those at his right and left, Ok and Un.

Uk: Be still! (turning to the woman behind him) Thou seest that they become still. None save me can make his kind be still, except perhaps the chief of the apes, when in the night he deems he hears a serpent.... At whom dost thou stare so long? At Oan? Oan, come to me!

Oan: I am thy cub.

Uk: Oan, thou art a fool!

Ok and Un: Ho! ho! Oan is a fool!

All the Tribe: Ho! ho! Oan is a fool!

Oan: Why am I a fool?

Uk: Dost thou not chant strange words? Last night I heard thee chant strange words at the mouth of thy cave.

Oan: Ay! They are marvellous words; they were born within me in the dark.

Uk: Art thou a woman, that thou shouldst bring forth? Why dost thou not sleep when it is dark?

Oan: I did half sleep; perhaps I dreamed.

Don’t leave!  The cavemen haven’t even discussed the danger of non-literal speech yet:

Oan: They are wonderful words. They are such:

The bright day is gone—

Uk: Now I see thou art liar as well as fool: behold, the day is not gone!

Oan: But the day was gone in that hour when my song was born to me.

Uk: Then shouldst thou have sung it only at that time, and not when it is yet day. But beware lest thou awaken me in the night. Make thou many stars, that they fly in the whiskers of Gurr.

Did I forget to introduce Gurr?  He’s a tiger.  You heard me right.  The danger of non-literal speech is being eaten by a tiger.  Not to mentio—LOOK OUT!

O men! O men with the heart of hyenas! Behold, Gurr cometh not! I did but strive to deceive you, that I might the more easily slay this singer, who is very swift of foot. Gather ye before me, for I would speak wisdom...

Where does one even start analyzing a play about cave-people rendered in a ninth grader’s notion of Shakespearean English?  With an acknowledgment of Uk’s hypocritical use of non-literal speech—he yelled “Behold! Gurr cometh! He cometh swiftly from the wood!” before crushing Oan’s skull with his club—and an analysis of what it suggests London thought about the application of literary techniques and tropes in the public sphere?  (Three guesses as to what I’m working on right now. Answers failing to rhyme with “evisceration” will be ignored.)

Comments

[eb]

You're working on your commiseration?

[Adam Roberts]

'Oan' is an alright name. My nephew is called Oan. (Well, Owen). But 'Uk'? Uk?

Caveman-shaman. I name this child ... [coughing abruptly and violently] uk! uk !uk! uk! ... [prolonged throat-clearing, then speaking sotto voce] damn fishbone in my throat ...

[Adam Roberts]

Incidentally, I was going to check out the whole play, but the link to The First Poet in your opening paragraph don't work. Neither does it on the Valve neither, nope.

[The Constructivist]

A mini-bleg for deep thoughts on the representation of Japan in The Iron Heel: I've read Lye on the subject--anything else?

[Jonathan Dresner]

Thanks, Scott. Grading season is upon us, and this trenchant reminder of the true depths to which the English language can be taken is a service. I now have a true measure of awfulness against which I can judge my students and find them only miserable.

[Josh]

There's people named "Chad" and "India" and "China" and "America"--why not UK?