Fluffless Corregidora

The diction Gayl Jones uses in her novel Corregidora is straight forward and seemingly nondescript. Metaphors, imagery, and adverbs are rarely used, for example. The tone is created through the literary structure of the novel and the repetition of keywords. The tone of the novel feels distant. However, since it is from the perspective of Ursa, the protagonist of the novel, it also feels raw, vulnerable, and stripped down. She is not hiding behind a fluff of beautiful words and descriptions.

Jones takes the reader on a day by day journey with Ursa. We are with her until she falls asleep and dreams. The dream portions of the novel are written in italics. This device gives the reader a deeper glimpse at Ursa and what she has gone through. Through the dream segments of the novel, the reader learns about the women in Ursa’s life when she was younger: her mother and grandmother. This helps the reader further understand why the loss of her uterus is so catastrophic. She has been fed the narrative that she needs to procreate since she was a small girl.

Throughout the novel, the characters use the word “evil” very often to describe things, often people and their behaviors. It is first used in the very first paragraph of the novel: “... I could see Mutt peeking in, looking drunk and evil…” (Jones 1). It is then used repeatedly after this moment. One passage that I find particularly significant is the following: “‘Ursa, what makes your hair so long?’ ‘I got evil in me.’ Corregidora’s evil.” (39). This is part of one of the dream sequences. Earlier in the novel, she refers to old man Corregidora as evil, the man that raped and sold the body of her grandmother. She genetically has that evil inside of her, at least she believes. That then means that the other women in her family do as well.

Jones does not use descriptive, fluffy diction in her novel. She writes in a tone that is very straight forward and to the point. However, the structure of the novel and Jones’ word choice is very concise. Nothing Jones presents gets lost in jargon. Everything is significant.