“Right here is a good Christian lady”: Reported speech in personal narratives

Abstract

The personal narratives told by a North Carolina woman contribute to our understanding of both the relationship of personal narratives to the overall speech economy of an area and gender‐specific narrative technique. Reported speech provides the means for this narrator to bring local speech practices into her stories where they support her claims for individual worth and the value of women's work without directly contravening local prohibitions against self‐promotion. Bessie Eldreth's narrative style displays features previously attributed to both male and female narrators in Anglo‐American culture, suggesting how she works strategically within the formal and moral structures available to her. By combining a performance approach and a close analysis of narrative structure with an understanding of cultural background, this analysis reveals that the relation between community norms and the individual goals of a teller of personal narratives may be more problematic than usually described and that reported speech is a powerful tool for negotiating such conflicts.