Language Politics
Language Politics (Like Literally): Exploring Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea
By Jenica Amalita
Ella Minnow Pea, named after the book’s protagonist, follows the lives of the citizens of Nollop, an island situated near South Carolina. Nollop has cherished language and the arts over technology, choosing to avoid modernity and its many conveniences. Originally called Utopianna, in 1904, the islanders unanimously voted to change the island’s name to Nollop, honoring Nevin Nollop, the man credited with creating the sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” and thus, gifting language to the islanders.
Fast forward a hundred years, and the novel begins in the backdrop of an inevitable mishap – the statue of Nollop erected alongside the above-mentioned sentence begins to show signs of its age by crumbling, as the letter ‘Z’ falls off. When this is reported to the island’s Council, the solution seems simple: replace the glue for the tiles so they won’t fall off. However, the Council releases a notice banning the letter ‘Z’, claiming Nollop has divinely communicated his displeasure with the letter, and seeks to challenge the islanders to live without it. Since he is credited with creating language, he is now to be obeyed even in death as he takes this gift away.
As a result, books are burnt, names are changed, and tongues are tied. But, when more tiles begin to fall and subsequently get abolished, a question arises – what happens if speech and writing are forever lost? After much petitioning, Ella and her friends were allowed to come up with a new sentence containing all the letters of the alphabet, with, of course, multiple restrictions, including a 32-letter limit. And should the team fail, Nollop is forever doomed to silence.
Mark Dunn’s novel is primarily dystopian fiction, but it is a linguistic dystopia — not because language is a means to the dystopia, but because language is, in and of itself, a dystopia.
To address questions of statehood, tyranny, authority, censorship, law, inclusivity, dissent, free speech and expression, and even free thought, Mark Dunn strips down language to its smallest features, playing around with the alphabet. The first place he chooses to do that is by titling the protagonist and the book “Ella Minnow Pea,” which references the alphabet sequence LMNOP. He further writes the novel in the form of letters to and from the various inhabitants of Nollop. In this way, he already begins to challenge the idea of the letter by forcing us to confront its many meanings at once.
Secondly, he makes use of the lipogram – a work of writing that deliberately excludes the use of one or more letters of the alphabet. As the novel progresses and letters are increasingly banned (with a three-tier penal system created to dissuade use of said letters ending in either exile or death), it becomes harder to convey thought and meaning, which raises further questions on the extent to which thought is dependent on language. Do we think what we think because the language(s) we speak enable us to do so, or have we crafted language to explain what we already think? The novel’s aim is the pangram – a work of writing, a sentence, or even a phrase that makes use of all the alphabet. And this move from the lipogram to the pangram is both literal and metaphorical. What does it mean to not be left out? What does it mean to be open-minded? What does it mean to be fully accepted?
Lastly, Dunn invokes the very origin of language and posits two contrasting theories. However, he inverts them, and in their subversion, we finally see what true devastation looks like. The divine origin theory of language states that language is a God-given gift. In Ella Minnow Pea, language is Nollop’s gift. And the natural sound source theories explain human language as a result of imitating natural sounds existing in nature. Dunn inverts both of these theories by showing a society that moves from enjoying speech to being forced into silence. Instead of asking for, say, an apple, a customer would be forced to point to said apple. And this is the result of the misperceived will of Nevin Nollop.
While the novel has a wholesome ending, it aims to make the reader think, to wonder, and to contrast the world we live in with the island of Nollop. Do the echo chambers we are trapped in resemble the narrow-mindedness of the Nollop Council? How do we know?
The questions that Ella Minnow Pea raises are not just questions on free thought, or free speech, or on censorship. These questions are not just about what language consists of and what a study of language looks like. Rather, they are questions of what being human in a society filled with other humans looks like. Do the Council members stop being human in their foolish assumption that language must be abolished? Are those who fearfully conform to absurd laws really not worth saving? What does bravery look like, and is there a criterion for who ends up being brave? Why do people rebel? What is justice? These are questions that have been asked for centuries, millennia even, and though many have dedicated their lives to looking for an answer, Mark Dunn, through this novel, posits that the only thing we can do with these questions is to ask them.
The island of Nollop is filled with a highly educated and rational society known for its critical thinking and analytical prowess. Yet, it is this same society that chooses to let itself be subject to absurdity, to oppression, and to truth being silenced.
Maybe this is what Dunn is trying to tell us. Asking questions and seeking answers isn’t enough. Perhaps having an abundance of knowledge won’t do the world any good unless we become a society that acts in truth, that loves in truth, and that honors truth above all.
