American Pastoral Language and Communication Quotes

Writing is Zuckerman's chief means of communication. These quotes you're reading suggest he's pretty good with words. His books are often obsessed with miscommunications, with fluidity, with speech, and with a wide variety of communication tools.

This is the Swede's explanation for Merry's stuttering. It's way different from the view of Merry's psychiatrist, who thinks she does it on purpose to get back at her parents for being so outwardly perfect. Merry's stuttering gets lots and lots of focus in the novel. Why?

So Merry has to write down the mistakes she makes when she's speaking. This is only one of the ways that botched communication is compounded in American Pastoral.