Alan Noble | Oklahoma Baptist University (original) (raw)
Supervisors: Dr. Luke Ferretter
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Papers by Alan Noble
Western American Literature, 2012
Two defining features of Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing are the vatic speeches given by character... more Two defining features of Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing are the vatic speeches given by characters with very different worldviews and cultures and the polyphonic narrative. A challenge of this novel is how to relate these features. According to Mikhail Bakhtin, a truly polyphonic novel allows for “diversity of social speech types,” but many of the most significant speeches in The Crossing share the same voice: the vatic style identified with the narrator. This paper explores how the repeated intrusion of the narrator’s voice upon the speeches of various characters affects a Bakhtinian reading of The Crossing. Specifically, it argues that these intrusions, which alter the words and therefore the worldviews of the characters, represent the narrator’s voice entering into the discourse of the novel on being and narrative. Thus, the narrator stifles the heteroglossia of the language of certain characters even as he contributes to the novel’s dialogic nature.
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 2012
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 2012
Western American Literature, 2012
South Atlantic Review, 2011
At the heart of McCarthy's novel resides a tremendous interpretive challenge: how can we reconcil... more At the heart of McCarthy's novel resides a tremendous interpretive challenge: how can we reconcile the ending, which is hopeful about the future, with the fatalism that dominates the text? This paper explores how Søren Kierkegaard's treatment of Abraham and Isaac, found in his work, Fear and Trembling, can help elucidate the tension between hope and nihilism in The Road. Based on a note referring to Kierkegaard found in an early draft of McCarthy’s novel, this paper argues that the father in The Road displays an absurd faith in goodness and the future which can be best explained in relation to Kierkegaard's depiction of Abraham’s faith in Fear and Trembling.
Western American Literature, 2012
Two defining features of Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing are the vatic speeches given by character... more Two defining features of Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing are the vatic speeches given by characters with very different worldviews and cultures and the polyphonic narrative. A challenge of this novel is how to relate these features. According to Mikhail Bakhtin, a truly polyphonic novel allows for “diversity of social speech types,” but many of the most significant speeches in The Crossing share the same voice: the vatic style identified with the narrator. This paper explores how the repeated intrusion of the narrator’s voice upon the speeches of various characters affects a Bakhtinian reading of The Crossing. Specifically, it argues that these intrusions, which alter the words and therefore the worldviews of the characters, represent the narrator’s voice entering into the discourse of the novel on being and narrative. Thus, the narrator stifles the heteroglossia of the language of certain characters even as he contributes to the novel’s dialogic nature.
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 2012
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 2012
Western American Literature, 2012
South Atlantic Review, 2011
At the heart of McCarthy's novel resides a tremendous interpretive challenge: how can we reconcil... more At the heart of McCarthy's novel resides a tremendous interpretive challenge: how can we reconcile the ending, which is hopeful about the future, with the fatalism that dominates the text? This paper explores how Søren Kierkegaard's treatment of Abraham and Isaac, found in his work, Fear and Trembling, can help elucidate the tension between hope and nihilism in The Road. Based on a note referring to Kierkegaard found in an early draft of McCarthy’s novel, this paper argues that the father in The Road displays an absurd faith in goodness and the future which can be best explained in relation to Kierkegaard's depiction of Abraham’s faith in Fear and Trembling.