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Dialect
Explanation and Analysis—Dumb Okies:
In Chapter 6 of Part 3, Dean and Sal stay with Sal's old neighbors in Denver: a single mother named Frankie and her three kids. Although Dean gets on with Frankie and her family at first, they eventually come to blows over whether she should buy a used car. Kerouac renders Dean's unique manner of speaking with dialect, as well as deliberate use of italics and punctuation.
"For a hunnerd you can't get anything better!" [Dean] swore he'd never talk to [Frankie] again, he cursed till his face was purple, he was about to jump in the car and drive it away anyway. "Oh these dumb dumb dumb Okies, they'll never change, how com-pletely and how unbelievably dumb, the moment it comes time to act, this paralysis, scared, hysterical, nothing frightens em more than what they want—it's my father my father my father all over again!"
Frankie doesn't have the freedom Dean does. She can't run off with a stolen car, nor can she waste a hundred dollars, hence her hesitation to make such a large purchase. Dean, who abhors stasis and hesitation, becomes frustrated. Dean's midwestern dialect turns a hundred into "a hunnerd" and them into "em." He also uses the nickname "Okies" for people from Oklahoma, and he characterizes them as frightened and slow to act. Interestingly, he says these traits remind him of his father: "nothing frightens em more than what they want." This outburst may well be an indication of how Dean feels about his missing father. Perhaps he's suggesting that his father avoids him because he so badly wants a relationship with his son, and that desire scares him into staying away. Regardless of how a reader understands Dean's complaints, his frenzied dialect shows just how worked up he is.
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