Victory Gardens

Language

 

The language of Victory Gardens is noticeably masculine.

There is little narrative voice but there is extensive use of dialogue.

There are also sequences from letters.

The writing and speech of the female characters

is only a little different from that of the male characters.

From:

Playing around


I know you go a lot farther with that whole postmodern thing than I do. Like that crazy Boris of yours you think everything's a game of some sort. You don't worry about what's unchangeable and final, outside the game. What's real, not simulated. You always figure you're going to get another chance, one more time on the field or something.

(10)    


This extract is from a letter from Thea to her student Emily,

who is in the army serving in the Gulf.

The text plays with the idea of the real

and the unreal.

Nothing is what it seems.

The language itself is hard to pin down in this elaborate game.

The text is like Schrodinger's box.

You never know from one minute to the next whether the occupant is dead or alive

- but one cannot even look to see, as one cannot decide where to look.

Much of the language is aggressive.

There is frequent swearing.

Both women and men swear though the men are more hostile.