E_Reliability_of_the_Narrative_Voice_or_Voices_in_Kiss_of_the_Spiderwoman_and_Chronicle_of_a_Death_Foretold

How far has the confidence in the reliability of the narrative voice or voices had an impact on your appreciation of works of fictional prose' Both “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and “Kiss of the Spider Woman” by Manuel Puig are fictional narratives (although loosely based on real events) which employ modes of narrative that affect the reader quite impartially at surface and only convey deeper implications through an embedded narrative. These therefore demand of the audience more interpretation of a multifaceted, informative discourse with or without the definite entity of a narrator than the assimilation of a narrator’s preconceptions presented in a more authoritative discourse. Here, the audience’s confidence in the reliability of narrative voices impacts the appreciation of fictional works especially in the conveyance of the author’s perspective through this embedded narrative; wherein the fictive aspect of the work is made realistic through the overt acknowledgement of its fictive nature; tackled by the avoidance of narrative authority through heteroglossia in “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and journalistic discourse in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”. The reliability of these narrative voices impacts directly the unearthing of the embedded narrative such that the indeterminate reliability of these voices cause the audience to interpret the narrative further, ultimately revealing the author’s perspective (or uncovering the embedded narrative). In”Kiss of the Spider Woman”, Puig uses heteroglossia, or the coexistence of distinct varieties within a single “linguistic code”, in order to avoid concentrated narrative authority and achieve the superficial informative discourse. The narrative encompasses a range of narrative voices- the most prominent of which are the dialogue between Molina and Valentin, Molina’s recounting of films to Valentin, the bureaucratic disourse in the form the reports and the academic discourse of the footnotes. Most of the narrative is a dialogue between Molina and Valentin where even the dialogue tags are omitted, forcing the reader to extrapolate from the dialogues even basic information about setting, context and character. This pre-empts the subsequent reading between the lines that Puig requires throughout the novel in order to bring out the embedded narrative of the merging of Molina and Valentin’s initially very separate identities. Here the unreliability of the dialogue in providing unambiguous details and important information for the plot impacts the audience as to make them look further than the dialogue between the two. An important demonstration of this is when Molina and Valentin first consummate their relationship sexually (p.217-219). When Molina first asks to touch the mole above Valentin’s eyebrow, there is a clear separation of identities, and the dialogue can be interpreted, at a second level, to reflect the way Molina touched Valentin with his sense of aesthetics and emotionality after a long see saw of exchanges –you’re kind to me, really you are…no you’re the one who’s kind- and tension followed by relief –no, that way it hurts a lot, a little slower, that’s better- until the point that Molina tries to touch the mole on his own forehead- the ultimate merging of identities. Here, the audience not only extrapolates at a superficial level that they are physically intimate with each other, but also, further, that they are mentally merging their identities. A large portion of the narrative is also Molina’s recounting of the films he has seen to Valentin. These descriptions are already secondhand information which have been affected by Molina’s perception- providing the audience with, at a superficial level, information about Molina’s thoughts tastes, and character, but more importantly, they reflect situations in their lives at another level- for example, in the Zombie movie, “the witch doctors themselves are the ones who kill them, with a special poison they prepare” which reflects the warden’s poisoning Valentin’s food or the in the Panther woman film Molina can identify with Irena and Valentin with the psychiatrist who will become Irena’s victim on responding to her advances. Here, the unreliability of the narrative lies in its explicit fictiveness and thus apparent isolation from the plot making it unable to provide any useful information, along with the fact that it is subjective information because Molina may well have manipulated it. This in turn causes the audience to search deeper in order to better appreciate the work. The bureaucratic documents, footnotes, lists and letters present a different strength of narrative authority in comparison, because they are traditionally more reliable modes of narration which are able to offer accurate, coherent and relevant information in an objective manner. Interestingly, however, Puig dissents this convention, and interestingly, introduces inaccuracy in this mode of narration, effectively communicating in the second degree of narration the problems with notion of reliability in a traditional authoritative narrator. In chapter fifteen, for example, the officer making observations on Molina’s movements reports him as having said “camel only” in a conversation about lunch and mistakes it for code language, when in fact, as they later realize, he was only mentioning his desire for cannelloni- the unreliability revealed here communicates Puig’s problems with authoritative narration. The footnotes reveal this even more overtly- the pedantic diction and authoritative narration seem only subtly ironic at first, but with the invention of Dr. Anneli Taube, Puig unequivocally refers the audience to his disagreement with academic discourse by blatantly emphasizing the line between fiction and reality through the destruction of it. This is achieved by the demonstration that all Puig needed to legitimize Taube was to introduce her as an academic with the strong authoritative narrative voice of the footnotes. In “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, on the other hand, Marquez uses a journalistic mode of discourse in order to achieve the peripheral informative address. Here the polyphony is in the dialogue of conflicting accounts of the characters and the reference to the autopsy and magistrate’s notes. Marquez compiles accounts from all the sources he can and chooses not let the task of interpreting the information hamper his objectivity by presenting all the information to the audience- even those which clearly contradict other accounts. This is journalistic because it reflects the journalistic search for truth and dedication to ethical representation. The embedded narrative in this case is a contemplation on the responsibility of the society towards Nasar’s death with some contemplation on its religious hypocrisy. Accounts from the townsfolk comprise the main stock of the information the audience receives, and it is clear from the text that “there had never been a death more foretold” (p.50) where “ 22 people declared they had heard everything said, and they all coincided in the impression that the only reason they (the Vicario brothers) had said it was for someone to hear them ” (p.51) from which we can infer the secondary narrative to tell us that it was the responsibility of them all. Here the narrative voice is completely unreliable wherein it actually contradicts itself and is completely subjective being a mere recitation of a personal account of what happened. The death itself is also shown to be overtly fictive- the circumstances used coincidences that are even “forbidden to literature” (p.100); both lead the audience to interpret the scrambled information and uncover the embedded narrative. The religious hypocrisy is exposed similarly, through statements revealing the people’s attitude towards the bishop, e.g. Linero’s assertion that he would just “give an obligatory blessing” because he “hates this town” (p. 6), and the doctor’s assertion that “only a priest could be so dumb” (p.76) in context of the autopsy and the use of religion to justify inaction in the case of the priest who excuses himself from his obligation to warn Nasar by claiming it had to be understood that “the bishop was coming on that unfortunate day” (p.71). The audience can infer without doubt from this that Marquez is manifestly mocking the institution of religion and demonstrating the hypocrisy of the people in its regard. The autopsy notes in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” (p.75-76) are also inaccurate, similar to the report on Molina in “Kiss of the Spider Woman” revealing the secondary narrative of where academic writing is ironically revealed to be even more blatantly inaccurate than the jumbled accounts of the townspeople. Here the stab wound is compared to a stigma of the crucified Christ and they state that Nasar was of superior intelligence with a brilliant future. Although the narrative here is significantly more authoritative coming from what should be impersonal firsthand academic observations, and thus more reliable, it is clearly not, ensuring the audience will look below the surface and see the inherent critique of the style of narrative. To conclude, we can affirm by focusing on certain aspects of the narrative voices in both texts that the confidence in the reliability of the narrative voices is quite influential in the appreciation of works of fiction such as “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman”, which employ the use of a second narrative embedded into the main narrative along with radical and/or numerous narrative voices- the journalistic narrative in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” and the heteroglossia in “Kiss of the Spider Woma