Language

Style of language

The short story “Born of Man and Woman” by Richard Matheson is written in broken English, which is the consequence of the narrator being locked up all its life: “… until they are sorry they didn’t be nice to me” (p. 186, ll. 2-3) and “this is another times” (p. 185, l. 37). Because it has little human contact, the narrator expresses itself using frequently misspelled words and grammatical mistakes. 

When it comes to the choice of words, the author introduces several verbs related to violence. As the child is often abused by its parents, verbs such as “hit” (p. 184, l. 13), “spilled” (p. 184, l. 29), “tied” (p. 184, l. 33) or “beat” (p. 186, l. 4) are used several times throughout the story. The child’s use of these words suggests its trauma.

Furthermore, the child’s appearance i...