| This study refutes the claim that Bellow's narrators function as his mouthpieces. Examining the narrators of Henderson the Rain King, Humboldt's Gift, and More Die of Heartbreak, this dissertation demonstrates that there is no single narratorial discourse that can be identified with that of the author. Because each narrator's language displays the competing tendencies of other character's language and the discourse associated with various institutional and cultural forces, it opens up what is ostensibly a monologue to the possibilities of dialogue.; This investigation employed Bakhtin's concept of dialogue as multiple-voiced speech within a single speaker's language. Because each voice provides a horizon against which other voices are heard, no single voice is granted absolute say.; Thus, although Bellow's narrators initially assume those forms of discourse privileged by the dominant culture, the act of telling their stories reorients them. Specifically, in joining discrete forms of discourse within a single speaker's language, hybrid constructions have the effect of debunking the privileged language of the dominant culture.; Henderson's impersonation of the tight-lipped discourse of the Hemingway hero becomes a parody of the real man as it is set in dialogue with Henderson's more authentic expression of fears and desires. Similarly, Citrine's deployment of Marxist rhetoric functions as a parody of radical intellectualism when it is countered by the simultaneous presence of language betraying his allegiance to the capitalist enterprise. In both cases, the narrator's language becomes less self reinforcing and more self conscious by virtue of the process of narrating.; In Bellow's later fiction, the authentic self is driven increasingly underground, so that, in More Die of Heartbreak, Kenneth not only contends with the false gender role assigned by his language use but also with the cultural agenda to which he has subordinated his narrative. Instead of enabling him to become conscious of the way language has authored him, the narrative primarily reinforces the ideology of Social Darwinism underlying his academic discourse. The main conclusion drawn is that, contrary to prevailing critical opinion, Bellow's voice is not intrusive in these novels. |
