E Reliability of the Narrative Voice or Voices in Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Chronicle of a Death Foretold
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 03/28/2011 02:05 AM
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How far has the confidence in the reliability of the narrative voice or voices had an impact on your appreciation of works of fictional prose?
Both “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and “Kiss of the Spider Woman” by Manuel Puig are fictional narratives (although loosely based on real events) which employ modes of narrative that affect the reader quite impartially at surface and only convey deeper implications through an embedded narrative. These therefore demand of the audience more interpretation of a multifaceted, informative discourse with or without the definite entity of a narrator than the assimilation of a narrator’s preconceptions presented in a more authoritative discourse. Here, the audience’s confidence in the reliability of narrative voices impacts the appreciation of fictional works especially in the conveyance of the author’s perspective through this embedded narrative; wherein the fictive aspect of the work is made realistic through the overt acknowledgement of its fictive nature; tackled by the avoidance of narrative authority through heteroglossia in “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and journalistic discourse in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”. The reliability of these narrative voices impacts directly the unearthing of the embedded narrative such that the indeterminate reliability of these voices cause the audience to interpret the narrative further, ultimately revealing the author’s perspective (or uncovering the embedded narrative).
In”Kiss of the Spider Woman”, Puig uses heteroglossia, or the coexistence of distinct varieties within a single “linguistic code”, in order to avoid concentrated narrative authority and achieve the superficial informative discourse. The narrative encompasses a range of narrative voices- the most prominent of which are the dialogue between...
Both “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and “Kiss of the Spider Woman” by Manuel Puig are fictional narratives (although loosely based on real events) which employ modes of narrative that affect the reader quite impartially at surface and only convey deeper implications through an embedded narrative. These therefore demand of the audience more interpretation of a multifaceted, informative discourse with or without the definite entity of a narrator than the assimilation of a narrator’s preconceptions presented in a more authoritative discourse. Here, the audience’s confidence in the reliability of narrative voices impacts the appreciation of fictional works especially in the conveyance of the author’s perspective through this embedded narrative; wherein the fictive aspect of the work is made realistic through the overt acknowledgement of its fictive nature; tackled by the avoidance of narrative authority through heteroglossia in “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and journalistic discourse in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”. The reliability of these narrative voices impacts directly the unearthing of the embedded narrative such that the indeterminate reliability of these voices cause the audience to interpret the narrative further, ultimately revealing the author’s perspective (or uncovering the embedded narrative).
In”Kiss of the Spider Woman”, Puig uses heteroglossia, or the coexistence of distinct varieties within a single “linguistic code”, in order to avoid concentrated narrative authority and achieve the superficial informative discourse. The narrative encompasses a range of narrative voices- the most prominent of which are the dialogue between...