creole names and etc

[TheDon]

I've got 1-2 pages double spaced to type for Wednesday (rough draft) that is party VI of Kate Chopin's The Storm....while my idea is rather simple... I just can't think like a white creole to create the dialog or some of the French... help?

what I plan to do is have Alcee and Calixta suffer through the mental torment that their fooling around has brought while Clarisse explores her freedoms while Alcee is away.. ultimately ending up with Alcee hanging from a tree with a tormented Calixta living with a skeleton in the closet


here is the story if anyone wants to help

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/kchopin/bl-kchop-thestorm.htm

[Mistress]

Sounds like a job for Bot, JD or Carleton...you know the name Blanche just screams Southern......then there is Edwina and Eudora.

http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/common%20names/commonnames.htm

[Hatterasguy]

Ship Carleton a bottle of his favorite drink, he could help.

[John Doe]

Not to speak for Bot, but I and I suspect he too deal with Cajuns, who have nothing to do with or would they appreciate (think the N word) being mistaken for Creole. Creole is more of a New Orleans thing and he lives and I play in Acadiana.

[John Doe]

Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

Ship Carleton a bottle of his favorite drink, he could help.

That would probably cost more than his class does

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted by TheDon

I've got 1-2 pages double spaced to type for Wednesday (rough draft) that is party VI of Kate Chopin's The Storm....while my idea is rather simple... I just can't think like a white creole to create the dialog or some of the French... help?

what I plan to do is have Alcee and Calixta suffer through the mental torment that their fooling around has brought while Clarisse explores her freedoms while Alcee is away.. ultimately ending up with Alcee hanging from a tree with a tormented Calixta living with a skeleton in the closet


here is the story if anyone wants to help

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/kchopin/bl-kchop-thestorm.htm

So the assignment is to write 1-2 pages (I'd guess about 500 words) in Kate Chopin's style?

Seems to me (and though I lived in Lafayette for three years, I'm no expert) that a lot of the flavor and rhythm comes from the speaker tacking a "yes" or "no" on the end of a sentence to sort of validate and intensify what he says.

For example, one character in the text you linked to says, "Mama'll be 'fraid, yes." I can imagine someone like this saying, "He ain't hurt, no," as a more definite way of saying "He ain't hurt."

As I recall, the Cajuns also do this a lot. A positive statement gets intensified/confirmed with a "yes" at the end, a negative with a "no."

As for the French, don't ask me. "Dieu sait" is "God knows," isn't it?
.

[Mistress]

or....It was a hot and steamy night down on the bayou, the moisture dripping down Miss Eudora's back from the mid summer night's heat could fill a bath tub. How am I doing so far?

[Botnst]

Kate Chopin grew-up in the northernmost extremity of the French colonies in Louisiana -- the Red River in Natchitoches Parish. The community she lived in as an adult, Cloutierville, is a plantation town. The dominant family (white) in the area is unsurprisingly, the Cloutier family. Their roots extend to the earliest settlers and the very large family owned numerous plantations and were prominant planters and bankers. Their wealth survived the War Between the States, though diminished. Incidentally, the word cloutier means nail, IIRC.

The area is complex. Cloutierville is near the Kisatchie Hills, which were home to a very large indian population that is still present today. the early French settlers were followed later by French investors and grantees from France and New Orleans. These were NOT the plantation homes of Natchez, MS. These were working plantations. French slavery of Louisiana was different from American slavery of the East coast of the USA. liaisons between slave owners and slaves were common and not a huge scandal resulting in ruined lives and reputation. Manumission of the children and sometimes the mistress was also common. Particularly favored children of such liaisons were often bankrolled by the father into a trade. There were several plantations in the Cloutierville area (often called "Cane River Country) that were deeded to sons of mixed race. Common names can be easily found in the telephone directories of Cloutierville and Natchitoches. It gets confusing because the surnames give no indication as to the race of the individual. there are Trichel's, Roque's, Rachal's, Bayonne's, etc in the directory but their various pigmentations range from black as molasses to lily white. Geneaology, an interest growing by leaps and bounds in the African-American community in Louisiana is according to my mother (herself a multiple-published genealogist) is charitably characterized as "complicated".

BTW, the sheriff of Natchitoches Parish, Luther Jones, is "black" and a descendent of a prominant mixed-race planter family.

Also look for a novel entitled, "Children of Strangers" by Lyle Saxon (contemporary of Chopin) and "Cane River" by Lalita Tademy, a descendent of mixed-race slaves from that area.

It's complicated.

B

[Botnst]

^^^ Not Cajuns!

[tankdriver]

I can help with the French translations, but not the way French words are used in New Orleans.

[rickg]

ahhh.....Cajuns.
They'll eat anything that don't eat them first

[Mistress]

TheDon- we expect to see a copy of the finished product.

[TheDon]

you shall.. I'll have it up tomorrow

[John Doe]

Originally Posted by tankdriver

I can help with the French translations, but not the way French words are used in New Orleans.

The French language is merely a novelty in New Orleans, whereas some in Acadiana still speak French at home. That said, the cute French street signs, menus and hotel direction subtitles used in New Orleans are plain 'ole French, not bastardized Cajun or Creole/Portuguese gobbledygook (damn, that must really be a word because spell checker caught it).

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by John Doe

The French language is merely a novelty in New Orleans, whereas some in Acadiana still speak French at home. That said, the cute French street signs, menus and hotel direction subtitles used in New Orleans are plain 'ole French, not bastardized Cajun or Creole/Portuguese gobbledygook (damn, that must really be a word because spell checker caught it).

A biologist who used to work for me learned French a la maison. He was a trip+++. Left me to take a job as a roady for a Belgian band. Stayed in Europe 2 years. Now in PT school. being single is great, isn't it? I think I remember it.

B