TY  - BOOK
AU  - Fizza Rasheed
PY  - 2015
CY  - Hamburg, Germany
PB  - Anchor Academic Publishing
SN  - 9783954899098
TI  - Social Heterogeneity and Narrative Techniques -  A Dialogic Reading of Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
UR  - https://m.anchor-publishing.com/document/295106
N2  - This paper does an analysis of the narrative techniques employed in the novel Let the Great World Spin. The paper argues that McCann in this novel breaks away with traditional narrative modes to evolve a narrative structure that makes it possible for multiple voices to co-exist and contest within the text. The paper makes use of Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism for such a study. The key concepts of polyphony, heteroglossia, carnivalesque and ambivalence have been employed in this regard. The paper first establishes that the narrative structure of the text makes room for an exploration of social heterogeneity to exist within the immediate context of the novel. This in turn leads to an exploration and analysis of multiple consciousnesses in their separate but inter-linked existence. The paper then outlines the analysis of all the voices in the text under the detailed scrutiny of Bakhtin’s terms of Polyphony and Heteroglossia, identifying its socio-economic dimensions and exploring some of the problems which it generates. The paper uses Bakhtin’s theory of Discourse for an analysis of proliferation of meaning as a result of this social diversity in which every character’s voice is given an equal significance and no voice is prioritized over other. It is argued that Bakhtinian terms of Polyphony, Heteroglossia and Carnivalesque provides us with a potent framework within which to perform such analysis, and this also facilitates us with complete interrogation of the text and engagement with Bakhtin’s theory.The paper then does an analysis of the selected voices by using Bakhtin’s concept of Carnival which tends to present a world with no hierarchical positions in which different voices are heard and interact, breaking down those conventions to enable a genuine dialogue. It creates an alternative social space. As the paper also explores the issue social heterogeneity through the lens of the concept of the Carnival, it argues that the narrative progresses without any authorial dominance in the text and its relevance to the modern world making connections between fact and fiction. It also investigates the centralizing and decentralizing tendencies in the text by using these concepts. It is argued in the conclusion that the dialogic study of the text encourages the revival of suppressed and repressed creative energies. It also provides a new perspective and new order of things by showing the relative nature of all the voices.
KW  - Narrativ Techniques, Novel, Let the Great World Spin
LA  - English
ER  -