Well, for what it’s worth, The Shawshank Redemption was shot mostly in Ohio, largely at a prison that had closed several years before and in some nearby towns for the scenes outside of the prison.
People in Maine, especially in the days long before television but even still through to this day, can have a distinct and strong accent.
Even those who know almost nothing of the US would recognize its sort of “cousin” - the Boston sound (the cliche is “pahk your cah in hahvhahd yahd” vs. park your car in Harvard Yard.)
Stephen King set many of his stories in his home state of Maine. Shawshank Redemption takes place in Maine. No one in the cast even attempted anything like a Maine accent. The only accent that I’d say is not generic/neutral is a couple of Southern boys, which would have required interesting backstory for someone that sounded like that to be in a Maine prison for life.
So we have all seen Animal House over and over. The last time I saw it I realized that the sorority girls that were riding on the Camelot float with the huge JFK head were wearing pink outfits just like the one Jackie was wearing the day of the assassination in Dallas.
Wait! Are you sure it isn’t this accent?
Green eggs and ham: the ham is green, too. I realized this literally just now.
I’m colorblind, so I always just assumed the ham wasn’t the same color as the eggs. The way I read it, “green” is only describing the eggs.
All kidding aside, here’s what an authentic Maine accent sounds like nowadays. Pretty similar to an authentic Alabama accent or an authentic Hawaiian accent. Regional accents seem to have blended into a generic American accent.
I happened to glance over at the screen while my three-year-old was watching The Little Mermaid on VHS and realized Ariel has some serious upper body strength. I didn’t remember the brief shot of her hauling herself up the outside hull of the ship to look at Prince Eric’s party using only her arms.
In A Christmas Carol, Bob Cratchit is irresponsible. He gets fired for knocking off Scrooge’s hat, so what does he do with his last payday? He buys a big goose, potatoes, nuts, and all the stuff for a Christmas feast. Dude, that was your last money as far as you know. Should have saved some for keeping his family alive after Christmas.
Which version are you referencing? I thought it was Scrooge (post-ghosts) who bought the goose for the Cratchits.
I was watching the 1938 version with Richard Owen. Bob buys the goose after being fired. I haven’t watched to the end yet but I assume Scrooge also buys a goose for him on Christmas. So now Bob’s going to have two geese in the days before Tupperware for leftovers.
Nor was Bob Cratchit fired; Scrooged threatened to fire him for being late the day after Christmas, just before saying “PSYCH! JK!” and giving him a raise.
I also think it was a turkey Scrooge sent to the Cratchits, not a goose. I remember wondering if turkeys were common in England in Dickens’ time.
In the Richard Owen 1938 version, Bob knocks of Scrooge’s hat and it gets run over by a cart wheel. Scrooge sacks him on the spot, and gives him his two week’s severance after deducting a shilling to replace the hat.
I have not seen it, but I have read it and my memory from the story is:
Scrooge never fires Bob. He gives him Xmas day off, but makes him come early the next day to make up some of the time. He does pretend like he might fire him at the end, but says something like, “I’m going…to…raise your pay.”
And he has paid some kid to buy a goose from the butcher so they can eat.
I think he is fired Christmas Eve, and gets rehired Christmas day with a raise after Scrooge’s transformation.
“You’ll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?” said Scrooge.
“If quite convenient, sir.”
“It’s not convenient,” said Scrooge, “and it’s not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you’d think yourself ill-used, I’ll be bound?”
The clerk smiled faintly.
“And yet,” said Scrooge, “you don’t think me ill-used, when I pay a day’s wages for no work.”
The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
“A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!” said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. “But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning.”
– Charles Dickens
I will say that every version I’ve seen has quoted this exchange verbatim. In other words, no, Cratchit was not fired.
Can’t speak to any of the film versions, but in the original story, Bob Cratchit isn’t fired at any point. (Scrooge pretends he’s going to fire him for being late at the very end, and then gives him a raise instead, but this whole exchange takes only about a minute.) The Cratchits originally have a goose (a small one, which is all they can afford); Scrooge pays a boy to buy them a giant turkey as well. As there are six Cratchit children, and the family is quite capable of finishing almost the whole goose at a single meal, I don’t think they’re going to have too much difficulty disposing of two birds – if nothing else, they surely have friends and neighbors who would appreciate some leftover goose and / or turkey.
I always wondered about that turkey. The kid that Scrooge hires to go buy it says that it’s almost as big as he is. Which means Mrs. Cratchit and her daughters are going to spend all Christmas day plucking, stuffing, and roasting that monster (assuming they even have access to a sufficiently large oven). They’re not going to sit down to their Christmas dinner until midnight. Maybe it’ll be dinner for Boxing Day.
In the book, they didn’t have an oven at all, but- as was pretty common for the poorer folk in society- had it cooked at the baking shop (at least, the original goose was cooked at the bakers).
They probably just had a fireplace and almost everything would be boiled. Food that needed an oven would be rare enough for a large chunk of society in Victorian London that it wasn’t worth owning one, even if they had the space, hence bakers where you brought your own food to be cooked.
They don’t have an oven.
I don’t think it’s specifically mentioned, but they are English, and the story was published in 1843. They don’t have an oven.
While we’re here, that’s why the English eat “Christmas Pudding”. Because they don’t have an oven, the closest thing they can get to a cake is a boiled pudding. And the Bennets, in “Pride and Prejudice” (1813) don’t have an oven either – they get their roasted apples done by the baker.