In an excerpt from her book The Heroine with 1001 Faces, Maria Tatar examines the cultural power of gossip. “Chatter, chitchat, gossip, idle talk, and conversation have always done deep cultural work for us, and today they continue to serve as sources of knowledge, helping us make sense of the world, providing opportunities for social bonding, and shaping our ways of understanding the values of the world in which we live,” Tatar writes.
While moralists warn against listening to or engaging in gossip, everyone does, even if we call it small talk or dinner conversation. Yet, the type of gossip that is most often maligned can fairly be categorized as women’s speech. “The idea of loose talk spills over into the concept of loose morals, reminding us that the verbal and sexual freedom of women creates high anxiety and incites efforts to contain and police their liberties and especially any libertine behaviors,” Tatar explains. “What is gossip’s greatest sin? One possibility is that gossip knits women together to create networks of social interactions beyond patriarchal control and oversight.”
Do the characters in your novel engage in gossip (or small talk or dinner chat…)? How does your work characterize gossip – inconsequential, immoral, dangerous? Could any of your characters benefit from a bit of gossip – either by using it to strengthen their position or to undermine an enemy? How does it affect your plot or characterization?
While it might not be a factor in every story you write, it would be hard to avoid the concept of gossip altogether, as it is a distinctly human pastime.
