Lecture 15 - abridged

3. Represented speech

- the blending of viewpoints of the author and the character

- a combination of the author’s and the character’s speech

• the author interprets the manner in which the character’s speech is uttered

Б.А.Успенский: «скольжение авторской позиции, когда говорящий в процессе речи меняет ее»

Nabokov Lolita

Wednesday. In the afternoon, Haze said she was driving downtown to buy a present for a friend of a friend of hers and would I please come too because I have such a wonderful taste in textures and perfumes.

–“Choose your favourite seduction,” she purred.

Types:

A/ uttered

B/ inner

A/ uttered represented speech

• the writer’s reproduction of the character’s uttered speech

- preserves the main lexical and syntactical features of direct speech

• the 3^rd person presentation

“Barbara”, said Kit, “you’re not cross with me?”

Oh, dear! Why should Barbara be cross? And what right had she to be cross? And what did it matter whether she was cross or no? Who minded her?

“Why. I do,” said Kit. “Of course I do.”

(J. Austеn)

B/ unuttered / inner represented speech

-the reproduction of the character’s thinking by the author

-close to the inner speech of the character

-the 3^rd person presentation

-may have the author’s qualitative words

A. Huxley Crome Yellow

Denis groaned in his spirit, condemned himself utterly with all his works. What right had he to sit in the sunshine, to occupy corner seats in third-class carriages to be alive? None, none, none.

M.Lowry Under the Volcano

Yet in the Earthly Paradise, what had he done? He had made few friends. He had acquired a Mexican mistress with whom he quarrelled, and numerous beautiful Mayan idols he would be unable to take out of the country, and he had …. M. Laruelle wondered if it was going to rain.

Direct speech of the character

“Yet in the Earthly Paradise, what have I done?” - He wondered. “ I have made few friends”, he thought to himself. Then he pondered: “I have acquired a Mexican mistress with whom I quarrelled ….”

Inner speech of the character

Yet in the Earthly Paradise, what have I done? I have made few fiends. I have acquired a Mexican mistress with who I quarrelled …

Functions of represented speech:

-to reflect the presence of the author’s viewpoint

-is a means to show the inner world of the character

• is a device to depict a character’s image

The image of the character

characters :

real people or words?

features or doings?

R. Fowels - character is:

 actions

 a set of traits

 a proper name

peculiar structure and content of the language and thoughts

W.S. Maugham

I have been blamed because I have drawn my characters from living persons. It is the universal custom. From the beginning of literature authors have had originals for their creations. Turgenev stated that he could not create a character at all unless as a starting point he could fix his imagination on a living person. As he said, it is only if you have a definite person in your mind that you can give vitality and idiosyncrasy to your own creation.

The writer does not copy his original; he takes what he wants from them, a few traits that have caught his attention, a turn of mind that has fired his imagination, and therefore constructs his character. He is not concerned whether it is a truthful likeness; he is concerned only to create a plausible harmony convenient for his own purpose.

Types of characters

Forster:

1.Flat

-simple, stable

-constructed around a single idea or quality (caricature types)

-distant from human beings

2. Round

- having more than one feature

- complex, changeable

• closer to human beings

Ewen:

•axis of complexity:

-around one dominant trait

-complex

•axis of development:

-static

-fully developed

•axis of penetration into the “inner life”:

-whose consciousness is presented from within

-seen only from the outside

Basic methods of characterisation

1. Direct