The Importance Of Diction In Speaker For The Dead

Speaker for the dead is an intricate and complex novel, with the characters to match. While there is a great multitude of diversity, the difference in diction isn’t as evident due to the large presence of highly intelligent main and secondary characters. At first this intellect creates a setback in the search for diction, submerging the readers into a novel with large, confusing, vocabulary and scientific theories that, in a way, create a wall between the character's true personalities and what they are neatly presented as. Speaker for the dead forces deep concentration and thus emotional attachment in order to see the characters for who they really are. Ender wiggin is both destroyer and savior in almost every Ender’s game novel. His insight

is crystal clear and nearly all knowing. Ender is the great storyteller, able to comprehend the emotions and situations those around him are dealing with, better than the characters themselves. His diction portrays that, capturing his blunt nearly devine, honesty. When not in scientific dilemmas (which frequent this novel), his vocab is clear and simple, “But when it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind.

Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart” (271). The message is concise and understandable, and even though though are no difficult words or statements, Orson Scott Card still manages to portray Ender’s great intelligence through the eloquent message itself. Jane, though not a physical human being, has a distinct role and in turn diction like no other in Speaker for the Dead. Technically, Jane does not speak at all, only entering the novel through Ender’s thoughts. “She” is made entirely of a vast connection of computers that connect the hundred worlds together as one, more commonly referred to as the Ansible. Her ties at the beginning of the novel are to ender alone, while this is an interesting dynamic it shows only one side of her personality and diction. Jane uses riddles, similes, metaphors, and a significant amount of allusions when speaking, forming a complex (and highly sarcastic) diction, “‘Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind,’ Jane intoned. ‘Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head’”

(104). The allusion to Pinocchio is one of many allusions that occur when Jane is “speaking”, not only that but the use of “Twisted” and “perverse” have a strong association with disgust, highlighting her sarcasm. Those who have read the Speaker for the Dead know while Jane may seem to have a general apprehension towards humanity and its byproducts she, in truth, is extremely fascinated, another thing her constant allusions show.