How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Oh I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head off'n me. 'Deed she would." (2.7)
However crude Twain's attempt to render Jim's manner of speaking may seem, his commitment to capturing different dialects is noteworthy.
Quote #2
"Umf! Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into some owdacious mischief when I wasn't around, right enough." (3.22)
Twain's ability to capture the sound of speech on the page becomes more evident when you compare the different ways characters speak. Here you can see how Aunt Polly's voice compares to Jim's.
Quote #3
"Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?"
"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that -- that --"
"Dares to hold such language," said Tom, prompting -- for they talked "by the book," from memory. (8.17-19)
Here we see that Tom and Joe Harper are actually able to change their manner of speaking to suit their role-playing; they, like Twain, understand what a difference "voice" can make. (It should also be noticed that Tom has no trouble remembering lines from Robin Hood, but he can't even memorize the smallest bit of the Sermon on the Mount for Sunday school.)
Quote #4
He picked up a clean pine shingle that lay in the moonlight, took a little fragment of "red keel" out of his pocket, got the moon on his work, and painfully scrawled these lines, emphasizing each slow down-stroke by clamping his tongue between his teeth, and letting up the pressure on the up-strokes.
Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer swears they will keep mum about This and They wish They may Drop down dead in Their Tracks if They ever Tell and Rot.
Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's facility in writing, and the sublimity of his language. (10.25-7)
Here, Tom demonstrates his mastery of another form of language, this time written: the over-serious oath. The punctuation, replete with unnecessary capital letters, is perfectly suited to the occasion.
Quote #5
"Close upon the hour of noon the whole village was suddenly electrified with the ghastly news. No need of the as yet undreamed-of telegraph; the tale flew from man to man, from group to group, from house to house, with little less than telegraphic speed." (11.1)
Twain illustrates the speed with which small-town gossip gets around with a droll analogy.
Quote #6
"Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put quicksilver in 'em and set 'em afloat, and wherever there's anybody that's drownded, they'll float right there and stop."
"Yes, I've heard about that," said Joe. "I wonder what makes the bread do that."
"Oh, it ain't the bread, so much," said Tom; "I reckon it's mostly what they say over it before they start it out." (14.16-8)
However silly their superstitions may be, the boys do understand the sometimes magical power of words.
Quote #7
It may be remarked, in passing, that the number of compositions in which the word "beauteous" was over-fondled, and human experience referred to as "life's page," was up to the usual average. (21.18)
In describing the students' speeches, Twain pokes fun at conventional ideas about poetic and beautiful language.
Quote #8
[Huck] had to talk so properly that speech was become insipid in his mouth; whithersoever he turned, the bars and shackles of civilization shut him in and bound him hand and foot. (35.5)
By "cleaning up" his language, the Widow Douglas manages to clean up – or take away – Huck's personality; if you were to render some of Huck's earlier dialogue in a clean, polished style, you could get some idea of how damaging such refinement could be.
Quote #9
"Well, I'd got to talk so nice it wasn't no comfort -- I'd got to go up in the attic and rip out awhile, every day, to git a taste in my mouth, or I'd a died, Tom." (35.9)
Huck's connection to his own way of speaking is so visceral that it actually affects him physically; his way of talking really is an important part of his personality.