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FREE INDIRECT DISCOURSE IN VIRGINIA WOOLF'S NOVELS


ANCA MIHAELA DOBRINESCU
University of Ploiesti

Issue:

CP, Number 5

Section:

No. 5/6 (2000/2001)  Editorial

Abstract:

Free indirect discourse is a relatively new technique, coming into prominence in the nineteenth century with Jane Austen's novels, which Virginia Woolf praised mainly for the narrator's impersonality. By extensively using free indirect discourse, Woolf managed to blend the narrator's and the characters' voices in such a ratio so as to create in her novels this quality of impersonality. In Woolf s case, free indirect discourse characterizes a type of dialogic narrative in which several voices and consciousnesses interact. That is why the narrative may produce, at first sight, an impression of incoherence. Coherence is achieved by an elaborate use of language. Free indirect discourse interpreted cross-sententially, associated with Woolf s attentive use of paragraph boundaries distinctly shapes the several points of view which alternate in her narrative. The narrator is still present in the narrative, but his intervention is to unobtrusive one. From the reader's point of view, free indirect discourse creates both empathy and ambiguity. The reader feels that he has direct access to what happens in a character's mind, but at the same time s/he cannot always clearly distinguish between the two voices in the discourse, the narrator's and the character's.

Keywords:

free indirect discourse, free indirect speech/thought, dialogic/ monologic narrative, coherence, cohesion.

Code [ID]:

CP200056V00S01A0004 [0004541]


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