Placental narrative: voice and focus of the narrator Benjamin in the Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

• Grant number: 16/07090-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2016
• End date: December 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Paulo César Andrade da Silva
• Grantee: Claudimar Pereira da Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to construct an analysis of the narrator Benjamin, from the novel The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner. Departing from Gérard Genette's theoretical statements such as the concepts of focus and voice, we intend to investigate the first part of the novel, concerning the stream-of-consciousness of the character Benjamin, a narrative voice which is considered one of the most singular and complex of all time. We aim to comprehend how the mechanism of voice and focus contribute to construct the narrative syntax of Benjamin and to his configuration, as a character in the novel. In this direction, we propose a poetic classification to the discourse of the narrator Benjamin as placental or amniotic, that is, constituted by a primary, basic and fragmented way of narration.