THE MONO-DIALOGIC NARRATIVE IN AMERICA (BAKHTIN, NONFICTION)

MALINI JOHAR SCHUELLER, Purdue University

Abstract

Many important American writers have used generically hybrid narrative forms to create a distinctive discourse that foregrounds its socio-political significance. Works as seemingly diverse as Franklin's Autobiography, Thoreau's Walden, Twain's Life on the Mississippi, James's The American Scene, Adams's The Education of Henry Adams, Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and Mailer's Armies of the Night have in common the need to authoritatively affirm or repudiate particular ideologies and polemicize to their readers as well as to question authoritativeness both as a linguistic construct and as a social phenomenon. I call these works Mono-Dialogic Narratives. As a genre, the Mono-Dialogic Narrative is significant in the sheer complexity with which it mixes what Mikhail Bakhtin calls "monologic" (ideologically unified) and "dialogic" (ideologically conflictual and diverse) forms of discourse. Bakhtin's theoretical framework is particularly useful in studying these texts both because his theories question generic hegemony and because the writers of this genre have, in different ways, used the mono-dialogic form to serve their political needs. These works therefore demand that their stylistics be viewed ideologically. Bakhtin's emphasis on language social phenomenon allows for an analytic strategy sensitive both to the verbal and ideological features of this discourse. Emphasis throughout this study is on examining the confluence between the politics of these writers and the particular configurations of the mono-dialogic tension in these works, especially as manifested in the status of the authorial voice in relation to textualized readers and other ideological voices in the text. Franklin's politics of national consolidation and Thoreau's politics of artistic priesthood lead to the privileging of primarily monologic authorial voices. Twain's attraction to class structure and subversive democracy expresses itself in a bi-univocal monologism. Recognizing the inadequacy of narratives of consensus, James and Agee attempt to dialogically decenter their voices while their politics of racial purity and apolitical divinity respectively compel them to legitimize hegemonic authorial voices. Finally, Adams's cognizance of multiplicity in the political and cultural spheres and Mailer's advocacy of a politics of differentiation generate narratives in which the authorial voice is dialogically dispersed and monologic authority remains only as a trace.

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

American literature

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