This is
a critical reflection on a short passage from the very initial draft of a
longer narrative. During the past twenty years, I have experienced writing
fiction in a language other than English though this would be my first effort
of creative writing in English. Therefore, as a student having a non-English
speaking background, I would emphasise on language as the major challenge in
this reflective essay. Furthermore, I will critically reflect upon the text
particularly in relation to the voice.
This reflection is arranged in accordance with the overall skills that I
have learned throughout the unit of Creative Writing with reference to some of
those academic and literary sources in the reading set.
Every idea, image, and figure needs a tool such as a language,
to be presented. When it comes to creative writing, everything happens within the
language. The language provides the overall basis of symbols and
applicable structures which generate the ideas to be developed and imageries to
be conveyed. According to Bennett and Royle “[l]anguage governs what we […] say
as much as we govern or use language” (154). In fact, we are surrounded by the language and everyone is subject to the rules and effects of the language in
which he or she writes. We develop our language skills, gradually throughout the
time. It means as we grow up we accumulate more proficiency which subsequently
leads to further subjections to the language. Furthermore, languages are
bounded to cultural variations and shape the ways in which we are thinking. As
a student of English major, I have learned some of those skills of writing in
English. Nevertheless, the language in literature can be considered of as being, on
the brainpickings’ website, citing Diane Ackerman’s “a playing with
words until they can impersonate physical objects and abstract ideas” (Maria).
The sufficient acquisition of the English language, for me, has yet to be achieved
because I still think within my mother tongue. I develop my ideas under a
paradigm of thinking which is different from English. Therefore, my creative
writing is affected by an extra factor which is the conversion. The process of
conversion happens at the verbal level by which the eloquence and elegance of
writing fade out and subsequently the lack of proficiency holds me back and
destructs my creative writing to a large extent. Language is the only tool for
creative writing, but I will always use it halfway unless being able to think
in English.
There
might be a variety of voices throughout the whole narrative, though this short
passage may not show them all. The voice is mostly identified by the dialogues
and behaviours of characters. The narrative as a whole cannot be voiceless and
its general voice is to be developed over the course of the entire of the narration.
However, there are some distinctive personal voices by which a character is
being distinguished from another. “Aji […] mumbled with
himself: ‘Ali is mirroring to me from all Australian shores’”. From the
narrator’s point of view, who himself is a character in the story, Aji bears
untold stories and seems reluctant to tell them out. The narrator complains about Aji’s quietness:
“His silences are immense”. Aji has his own voice as he behaves rather
suspiciously “snatched the standard […] and flung it into the Sydney
Harbour”. Ironically, Aji’s voice
is rather overheard through his silences.
More interestingly, his silent voice makes him dominative, because of
being “immense”, and therefore, Aji affects the narrator the same way, and
brings him to a rather abrupt and deeper silence: “Suddenly, a valley of
silence sprang up between us”. Therefore, a polyphonic voice model is used
to narrate the dichotomy of approaches of two generations in dealing with the
same issue.
Writing
a story is making a new world and re-creating the human situation within that
world. The voice characterises the process of creation, so affects the ways in
which the story is conveyed. In other words, voice specifies the relationship
of the narrative with the surrounding world. Therefore, focusing on the voice
of the narrator may lead to some deeper insights in relations to the content of
the work and provides for the possibility to find out what the story finally
stands for. In this passage, Aji seems remorseful about his past and lacks the
possibility and opportunity to acknowledge the past and express his regret. In
fact, a continuum of incidents such as the death of his son who drowned on the
way to Australia, and the implantation of an artificial heart in Aji’s body,
prevent him of any sort of confession. For Aji, his past is unsatisfactory and
the future is not welcomed. This is represented through his silences. Aji’s
voice is resisting against both the future and the past. As Hooks posits
“coming to voice is an act of resistance” (12), the voice in this creative work
is almost full of confrontations. Aji is confronting with himself. The more he
keeps silenced the better his voice became distinctive and subsequently the farther
his resistance developed. Although what may have
initially perceived from the overall voices of the above passage, can vary
from the harsh realities of life in the modern world to the distress of the
illegal immigrants struggling with the limbo situation. Nevertheless, from the
very outset of this passage, the narrator starts to behave against the human
obsession: “how extraordinary is
someone suddenly
stops a lifetime obsession”, this can be thought of as being, in Winterson’s
words, “Art objects” (19). The story actively opposes because its voice
contends in reflecting upon the surrounding world. Furthermore, the narrator
admits the complexity of human beings “[i]t’s really hard to be
certain about things, life is so complex”. Therefore, the inner functioning of the
narrative dignifies the very human wisdom, which is the “wisdom of uncertainty”.
References:
Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An
Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, edited by Andrew Bennett,
and Nicholas Royle, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uwsau/detail.action?docID=4429796.
Diana Ackerman on the
Evolutionary and Existential Purpose of Deep Play’, Brain Pickings. Retrieved
from: https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/08/04/diane-ackerman-deep-play/
Hooks, Bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black.
Boston, MA. South End, 1989. Print.
Winterson,
Jeannette. Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery, Vintage,
1996. p. 3-21.