This thesis discusses female silence, voice and representation as portrayed in four postcolonial novels written by Asian female writers or those from the Asian diaspora. The novels included in the corpus are The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo, Brick Lane by Monica Ali and Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne. This thesis aims to explore the different strategies adopted by the authors to represent different forms of silence of the type highlighted in theoretical work by Spivak, Olsen and Showalter. The novels analysed open up new contexts in which issues of silence, migration, displacement and multiculturalism, which are central in postcolonial literature, are explored. In its examination of these issues in detail, the thesis has been influenced by postcolonial and diasporic studies, with a focus on women’s issues and feminist thought. Instead of focusing on the role of silence solely in relation to specific characters, the thesis attempts to engage with the complex ways in which these narratives represent various forms, moments and scenes of silence. From the analysis, we can exemplify that the novels can also be used to suggest the ambivalences of speaking/not-speaking via the narrative representations of silence. Authorial silence involves the author’s deliberate refusal to speak directly in the text ; instead, the author utilises several literary devices to convey something indirectly to the reader. Silence is also linked to concepts such as shame, secrets and gossip. One is likely to refrain from speaking if he or she is ashamed, secretive or is the topic of gossip in one’s community. There are also some female characters who are portrayed as not-speaking, or choosing to remain silent so as not to cause problems for the family. A few other characters have been portrayed as refusing to speak out as they have been traumatised into silence. Lastly, women can also be complicit in holding on to patriarchal structures and in the process, attempt to speak out in order to to silence or to cause problems to other women.

[No Abstract]

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of French, Classics and Italian, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Apr. 1, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 256-262). Also issued in print.

Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Universiẗat, Diss., 2005.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed September 28, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54)

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, November, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 271-277). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Expressed Silence: A Study of the Metaphorics of Word in Selected Nineteenth-Century American Texts This dissertation explores the patterned use of certain “metaphors of word”——images of reading, writing, listening, and speaking——in four American texts: Emerson’s Nature, Thoreau’s Walden, Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, and Melville’s Moby Dick. Assumed in my discussion is the modern view of metaphor as a cognitive device used, not for mere stylistic ornament, but for creating a certain mental perspective. Based on the perspectival view and on the experiential—gestalt account of metaphor, the structures of these metaphors of word are examined in order to discern the systematic nature of their argument and to determine the cultural and historical reasons why language imagery, and not some other type of imagery, was chosen to represent this argument. After surveying the cultural influences of democracy, mercantilism, Romanticism, and Calvinism, I characterize the metaphoric systems of each text and then move on to a closer study of the role of silence within these systems. From this analysis, I conclude that these nineteenth— century texts reflect a shift away from the book toward the voice as a predominant symbol, and away from writing toward speaking as a privileged metaphor. Language imagery works to represent ways of knowing, so that linguistic and epistemic concerns become inextricably intertwined. The process of using language operates as a metaphor for the process of gaining knowledge. In this metaphorics of word, silence emerges as a particularly striking metaphor in the way that it expresses the coalescence of being and knowing, the realization that we know what we know. In this scheme, metaphors of word structure ways of understanding, and the expressed silence metaphor highlights the way interior speech can function in the discernment of knowledge. Ultimately, I contend that the perspective provided by this nineteenth—century metaphorics of word forecasts the modern view of rhetoric as epistemic. By employing linguistic action as a figure for representing epistemic action, a metaphorics of word promotes an understanding of rhetoric’s primary purpose as the interrogation of truth.

Expressed Silence: A Study of the Metaphorics of Word in Selected Nineteenth-Century American Texts This dissertation explores the patterned use of certain “metaphors of word”——images of reading, writing, listening, and speaking——in four American texts: Emerson’s Nature, Thoreau’s Walden, Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, and Melville’s Moby Dick. Assumed in my discussion is the modern view of metaphor as a cognitive device used, not for mere stylistic ornament, but for creating a certain mental perspective. Based on the perspectival view and on the experiential—gestalt account of metaphor, the structures of these metaphors of word are examined in order to discern the systematic nature of their argument and to determine the cultural and historical reasons why language imagery, and not some other type of imagery, was chosen to represent this argument. After surveying the cultural influences of democracy, mercantilism, Romanticism, and Calvinism, I characterize the metaphoric systems of each text and then move on to a closer study of the role of silence within these systems. From this analysis, I conclude that these nineteenth— century texts reflect a shift away from the book toward the voice as a predominant symbol, and away from writing toward speaking as a privileged metaphor. Language imagery works to represent ways of knowing, so that linguistic and epistemic concerns become inextricably intertwined. The process of using language operates as a metaphor for the process of gaining knowledge. In this metaphorics of word, silence emerges as a particularly striking metaphor in the way that it expresses the coalescence of being and knowing, the realization that we know what we know. In this scheme, metaphors of word structure ways of understanding, and the expressed silence metaphor highlights the way interior speech can function in the discernment of knowledge. Ultimately, I contend that the perspective provided by this nineteenth—century metaphorics of word forecasts the modern view of rhetoric as epistemic. By employing linguistic action as a figure for representing epistemic action, a metaphorics of word promotes an understanding of rhetoric’s primary purpose as the interrogation of truth. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Secrets and silence appear frequently in the work of Toni Morrison. In three novels, The Bluest Eye, Jazz, and Paradise, she repeats a specific phrase that acts as a signal to the reader. Morrison three times writes, “Quiet as it’s kept” in her novels to alert readers to the particular significance secrets and silence play in these novels. Morrison portrays this secrecy and silence as a barrier to building strong communities and even a strong self-identity. While the phrase appears in the same form, with each subsequent appearance, Morrison takes the idea a step further. In each novel she demonstrates how breaking the silence and refusing to keep quiet is an act of healing or salvation and she expands this healing to be increasingly inclusive. What begins as a single voice breaking the silence in The Bluest Eye becomes a group of people sharing their secrets in Jazz, and finally an entire town coming to terms with the power of speaking up. This thesis looks at the secrets and their impact on characters in each novel and explores the progression of the power in refusing to keep quiet.