American Pastoral

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starts in the early childhood and nothing Merry did could change that. It develops at the same time as children learn “grammar, accents, and other fundamentals of speech and language”(1). When children fail to learn “speech breathing, vocal fold control, and how to articulate sounds”(1) that is when they develop disfluencies, which can turn into stuttering or stammering. If children do not learn these fundamentals at the right critical time, it is difficult or impossible to learn later. Children will develop these problems between the ages of two and six, when development is most crucial. Which is around the age that Merry developed the stutter in the novel. Usually people will not develop speech problems past the age of eleven. More boys than girls develop speech disorders. Which is why it was even more rare for Merry to have the stutter because it’s not as common in girls. Even then, the girls tend to outgrow their problems, up until their forties. . It is difficult to ...

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in the novel when she adopts some of these ideas and speaks fluently. One time, she walks in on her dad in the bathroom and she starts speaking in French, “Oh, pardonnez-moi – j’ai pense que…” (89) and she speaks completely fluent. Also, one summer Merry adored Audrey Hepburn. Merry would sing along all the songs in “the charming way that Audrey Hepburn did, and absolutely fluently”(95). The Swede knows that it was a ludicrous dream to want to be Audrey Hepburn someday, but he thinks “if Audrey Hepburn could help her shut down just a little of the stuttering, then let her go on ludicrously pretending”(95). He would rather that she has unattainable goals, than make her one ...

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