Voice

Collective Voice:

Voice refers to a number of different aspects of autobiographical texts by delineating the number of different voices in a work. Multiple voices emerge as part of a larger collective voice based on shared ethnic, religious, cultural, or social customs. A collective voice can be heard clearly in dialectic language that employs pronouns such as us, them, we, they, etc. When these words are firmly embedded in autobiographical texts they signal polarized relationality and a sense of the Other. In Cabeza De Vaca’s self-narrative he always refers to the Native Americans as them, while stereotyping their collective identity as barbaric heathens with no souls. This voice stands in stark contrast to the benevolent language De Vaca employs to talk about his fellow brave and virtuous Christian conquistadors that were eventually relegated to complete dependency on the Amerindians’ support in order to survive through the winters in which the noble Europeans turned to cannibalism. However, peculiar passages stand out that demonstrate a radical departure form the dominant voice in break out moments like Cabeza De Vaca’s self-narrative in which he replaces his harsh voice that dismisses the natives as barbarians and completely alien with a sense of wonderment and admiration by writing “These people love their children more and treat them better than any other people the world” (Cabeza 91).

Multi or Poly-vocal Voices:

A change in voice is similar to the change in the tone of a poem; the speaker of a poem might be calm and complacent, and then suddenly becomes soaked in emotions of anger and confusion. Voice in Jonathan Edward’s Personal Narrative take the reader on a emotional roller coaster by being completely filled with the holy spirit that “has appeared as an infinite fountain of divine glory and sweetness” to writing “when I look into my heart, and take a view of my wickedness it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell” (Edwards 395). The radical transitions in Edward’s narrative demonstrate how authors can take on multiple voices within a text. Anne Bradstreet’s poem “The Prologue” evokes gender tension and conflicting voices not typically used in her other works by juxtaposing her social identity as a wholesome puritan mother along side her sharp desire to be acknowledged as a capable and talented female writer.

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue

Who says my hand a needle better firs,

       A poet’s pen all scorn I should thus wrong,

    For such despite they cast on female wits:

    If what I do prove well, it won’t advance,

            They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance.

Personal Take:

I have worked in the food and beverage industry since I was old enough to work. Anyone that has worked in a restaurant will tell you that there is a considerable difference in the ‘server’ voice that waiters use at their tables while talking to customers and the voice they use the rest of the time. The tone, mannerisms, and language used are not authentic representations of voice because they have been shaped for, and directed towards a specific audience. Smith and Watson stress the importance of keeping the author’s voice in context by acknowledging the intended audience, perceiving self-constructed agency, and noticing the shifts in the mood or tone of voice in autobiographies. 

-Joe Fleming