| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學研究所 === 101 === The thesis is an analysis of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying based on the dialogic angle of metalinguisitc approach proposed by Mikhail Bakhtin. According to the spirit of metalinguistics, the methodology analyzes the novel involved with polyphonic nature from the interrelationships between a person’s discourse and someone else’s words. In the process of metalinguistic analysis, dialogic dimensions are exposed through various types of “double-voiced discourse” within compositional unities of the novel. Accordingly, in my discussion of the novel, I shall proceed from the major characters’ self-enclosed utterances to the internal dialogization of the characters’ narrative discourses, and finally to specially arranged compositional dialogues for a number of characters. My analysis surveys how double-voiced discourses, including stylization, internal polemics, and hidden dialogues, are distributed in the narrative sections of the major characters, the Bundrens and their acquaintances, and how the function of these dialogic relationships contribute to the understanding of Faulkner’s attitudes toward specific characters, the counterpoised views on a number of subjects, and the tensions of personal inquiries into the problems of their lives.
Overall, I attempt to expose two of Faulkner’s artistic temperament --- muffled dialogues within the mode of monologue and unresolved conflicts of voices. Muffled dialogues cover the development of character’s views of human life as well as the process of their inward debates. The confrontations of varying semantic attitudes are realized by Addie’s internal polemic as well as the phenomena of hidden dialogicality exposed in narratives of the Bundren members and Rev. Whitfield. The realm of unresolved conflicts is displayed by inter-orientations between Addie and Cora and between Darl and the voice of his “other self.” With the metalinguistic methodology, it is possible to uncover dialogic reactions manifested by double-voiced discourse for the major characters.
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