Use of AAVE in The Wife of His Youth
African American Vernacular English, usually abbreviated to AAVE, is a common dialect among African Americans. AAVE is the natural accent of many Americans, so it has unsurprisingly been represented countless times in the media. It is even common in different written forms, with some authors writing in predominantly AAVE. Zora Neale Hurston is a prominent example of an author who uses AAVE to bring her readers into her writing. She writes in different styles to represent the region from which her characters originate, but most of her writing takes place in the Southern United States. Charles Chesnutt also used AAVE in some of his stories, including The Wife of His Youth . AAVE has been appropriated in racist ways by White people, beginning during slavery. Minstrel shows involving blackface, racist dances and impressions, and the imitation of AAVE was at one point a staple of American culture. Because of this terrible history with the racist mockery of AAVE and Black culture, using AAVE...