“Voice” in Narrative Texts: The Example of As I Lay Dying
1979; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 94; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/461893
ISSN1938-1530
Autores Tópico(s)American and British Literature Analysis
ResumoAbstract In discussions of fiction, the implications of the term “voice” are seldom explored beyond its figurative uses. In As I Lay Dying, however, “voice” is central to our experience of narrative. The novel has two kinds of voice, mimetic and textual. Mimetic voice derives from represented speech, from the features of discourse by which readers identify speakers; but Faulkner’s novel dissimulates the origins of voices. The voices we hear turn out to belong to narrators and seem to originate in an author’s discourse. Textual voice arises from the printed text itself. Such features as italics, drawings, lists, and section headings generate signification independent of verbal meaning and establish an expressive context analogous to the paralinguistic context created by the voice in speech. As a result of the disruption of mimetic voices and of the presence of textual voice, language in As I Lay Dying transcends the conventional limitations of mimesis.
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