The author's I, the author's playing with language

For the notion « the author’s I, the author’s playing with language », we studied different literary genre like autobiography and theatre of the absurd. It can be defined as the author’s style, the quality that makes his writing unique and which conveys the author’s attitude. Language is a characteristic style of speech or writing, a system for the expression of thoughts and feelings. My presentation is going to fall into two parts. The first one is the author’s I and the second one the author’s playing with language.

        First of all we studied a document entitled Narrative of William Welles Brown, A fugitive Slave, Written by Himself. It is an odd writing. The name, the conditions are clearly stated and that how the link with the theme “the author’s I”. The writer makes us understand what it was to escape from a cotton plantation, to cross the USA and then to fight for the abolition of slavery. Moreover, William wells brown plays with language as he uses formal English whereas he was born a slave and slaves were seldom taught how to read and write. This gives another dimension to his narrative. Then we talked about the chapter thirteen of The French Lieutenant Woman written by John Fowles in 1969. It talks about Sara who had a love affair with the French lieutenant and he left her after their night getaway, because of this, she is now seen as a whore. This chapter corresponds very well to the author’s I because in this chapter, we can see that the author is playing with his readers, he’s making fun of them, acting as if he is the only one to control the situation. On the fifth paragraph the author makes a number of comparisons between his job and others and gives reasons why writers write. On the whole, it is quite negative and doesn’t give a good image of writing. The last paragraphs shows clearly what has changed between Victorian Novels and metafictions, the author is no longer omniscient but a tolerant god encouraging freedom. If the reader doesn’t agree with the writer’s definition, he is criticized or mocked. My personal document is a letter from James Baldwin to his nephew, entitled My Dungeon Shook in 1963. Baldwin begins by telling his nephew that he has tried to write this letter five times, but has torn up each attempt. It illustrates the notion because it is a memoir and the memoir is a way to tell the world our life.

        Secondly, we studied two documents which illustrate the author’s playing with language. We first talked about an extract of Waiting for Godot which is a play written by Samuel Beckett, an Irish playwright. He writes in English and in French. Waiting for Godot belongs to the theatre of the absurd and has often been seen as a kind of allegory for Post-modern condition. Its characteristics are the isolation of characters and the absence of communication and of plot, an unrealistic setting illogical language and a scene of nothingness. These elements are clearly illustrated in this play where two men pass the time aimlessly while waiting for someone who never comes. The question is “ is life to be taken seriously or is it just a brief and silly flash of time ?” and the way Beckett contrasts the two men thoughts with their actions shows that both can be true. Godot stands for God in a literary genre which is based on existentialism (in which there is no God). The second document is an extract from Colour Purple by Alice Walker in 1992. She is an American contemporary and a committed writer. This novel tells the story of a fourteen year old black girl, named Celie. She has been raped by her father and had two children, one of them is dead and the other one is sold by her father. One day she is sold to Mr and Mr treats her very badly, he beats her. We can see that she is not educated because of the way she writes. The author is playing with language because she makes Celie writing as she speaks; there are a lot of mistakes.

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