Tarantino

The mediocre diction and lack of punctuation in “Hazel Tells Laverne” contrasts the typical image of a princess. Although the typical story of the princess and the frog centers around an impoverished, attractive female, her speech rarely matches her status. This poem uses the dialogue this character should possess. The other device Machan uses in her poem, is the deviation from the classic story. She replaces the romantic dreamer with a realist and portrays the frog as an outrageous lunatic.

Machan utilizes the monologue to portray this moment as dramatic but also lackluster in comparison to the classic fairytale. The narrator, a maid cleaning the bathroom, speaks quickly with poor grammar and seems to have little control over what she says. She appears to have no filter. One reason Machan uses no punctuation to make this poem one great breath of words, as if the maid talks in a rush and takes not a single pause.

If Machan had told this tale from an observer’s standpoint, the listener would shudder and shout at the maid’s missed opportunity. When the maid herself tells the story, then the listener understands the ugliness of the frog, its sudden intrusion on her responsibilities, and his obscene request. Without the emotion and reasoning of the speaker, this story would annoy most listeners. Her passionate and quick telling of the story portrays the rushed and horrifying nature of the circumstance. Few people would, if put in the maid’s shoes, actually kiss the frog.

Machan carefully handles this traditional story and morphs it in a manner that does not outrage the listener, reminiscent of Tarantino’s modern retelling of the murder of Hitler in The Inglorious Basterds. Both grab a hold of the reader with familarity, weave them into the protagonists story, and then surprise them with the ending. Only with the ethos of their narrator can they achieve this feat.