From the start, as the writer of fiction puts pen to paper, s/he is met with the dumbness of the blank space of the page and challenged by a welter of questions: How to begin? What to say? How to inform silence? How to make sense and coherence out of inchoate amorphousness? How to account for the lived experience? The novel’s primary aim is to tell a story, according to E. M. Forster in his not-so-antiquated "Aspects of the Novel".
The narrated story, more often than not, voices silent characters whose histories and frames of mind are revealed by an external agent/consciousness (the narrator/the author/another character/a godlike or limited viewpoint). Occasionally, the story tells itself in the form of first-hand dramatised dialogues when the characters assume some distinct voice of their own, different from, and / or blending with, that of a third-person narrator/godlike author.
Table of Contents
1. Problematic Silence and Sense In Modern Narrative Fiction
Research Objectives and Themes
This work aims to explore the multifaceted notion of "silence" within modern narrative fiction, specifically examining how silence functions as a narrative strategy to address the limits of language, represent subjective experience, and express meaning beyond verbal articulation. By analyzing selected novels, the research questions the extent to which silence serves as an integral component of artistic license and character psychological depth.
- The relationship between silence, sense, and the limits of language in modernist literature.
- Application of Bakhtinian dialogism to the silence-filled discourse of modern novels.
- Psychoanalytic perspectives on the "unsaid" and the unconscious in narrative structure.
- The role of silence as a tool for character self-defense, resistance, and existential navigation.
- Comparative analysis of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and D. H. Lawrence regarding incommunicable experience.
Excerpt from the Book
Problematic Silence and Sense In Modern Narrative Fiction
From the start, as the writer of fiction puts pen to paper, s/he is met with the dumbness of the blank space of the page and challenged by a welter of questions: How to begin? What to say? How to inform silence? How to make sense and coherence out of inchoate amorphousness? How to account for the lived experience? The novel’s primary aim is to tell a story, according to E. M. Forster in his not-so-antiquated Aspects of the Novel. The narrated story, more often than not, voices silent characters whose histories and frames of mind are revealed by an external agent / consciousness (the narrator/ the author/ another character/ a godlike or limited viewpoint). Occasionally, the story tells itself in the form of first-hand dramatised dialogues when the characters assume some distinct voice of their own, different from, and / or blending with, that of a third-person narrator / godlike author.
However, characters’ thoughts, inner debates, silences, emotions, schemes and motives may be revealed through the use of interior monologue or stream-of consciousness method, which tends to verbally and metaphorically bring to life the unsaid parts of the narrated experience, with stronger and more palpable immediacy. Central to this modernist narrative technique, stream of consciousness, is the narrator’s attempt to voice the characters’ inner speech and represent language in its extreme form as a pre-verbalised, tentative and embryonic thought process.
Summary of Chapters
1. Problematic Silence and Sense In Modern Narrative Fiction: This chapter introduces the theoretical framework regarding silence in literature, utilizing Bakhtinian and psychoanalytical concepts to examine how authors like Woolf, Joyce, and Lawrence use silence to navigate the limitations of language and express the depths of human consciousness.
Keywords
Silence, Modern Narrative Fiction, Stream of Consciousness, Bakhtin, Dialogism, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Psychoanalysis, Interior Monologue, Language, Incommunicable, Subjectivity, Unconscious, Sense.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this academic work?
This work examines the problematic notion of "silence and sense" in modern narrative fiction, focusing on how novelists represent the unsaid and the ineffable within their characters' experiences.
Which authors are primarily analyzed in this study?
The study centers on the works of Virginia Woolf (Mrs Dalloway), James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), and D. H. Lawrence (Women in Love).
What is the central research question?
The research asks how silence functions as an integral narrative space that allows for artistic license, character instability, and the indeterminacy of meaning in modern writing.
Which theoretical frameworks are applied?
The author employs Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of dialogism and novelistic discourse, as well as psychoanalytical perspectives from Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan, to analyze the linguistic fissures in narrative.
How is the "stream of consciousness" method treated?
The stream of consciousness is explored as a tool for voicing a character's inner speech, serving as a formal and semantic device to provide data and make sense of confusing existential experiences.
What key terms define the scope of this paper?
Key terms include silence, dialogism, stream of consciousness, ineffable experience, linguistic alienation, and the unconscious structure of language.
How does the author interpret Septimus Warren Smith’s suicide in Mrs Dalloway?
The author interprets Septimus’s suicide as an act of resistance—a refusal to accept a relation of dominance under a medical authority that seeks to silence him through enforced ideologies.
What significance is attributed to silence in James Joyce’s work?
For the persona of Stephen Dedalus, silence, along with exile and cunning, serves as an ultimate strategy of self-defense against the dominant jingoistic and religious discourse.
How does D. H. Lawrence’s depiction of silence relate to love?
In Lawrence's view, genuine love acts as a liberating force that transcends deceptive language, allowing silence and sense to conflate into an ineffable experience of perfect Oneness.
What is the final conclusion regarding silence in fiction?
The author concludes that silence is a complex reality inseparable from speech; while it cannot be fully communicated through language, it remains an essential component of the "lived experience" in modern narrative.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Mansour Khelifa (Autor:in), 2009, Problematic Silence and Sense in Modern Narrative Fiction, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/314256
