Shocking the middle class reader by silencing the traditional narrative voice

Silencing the traditional narrative voice

Traditional narration, which is tied to a longing for both omniscience and a secure possession of events and characters, is replaced by a limited narrator who does little more than mechanically introduce a scene . ˆ. ˆ.this is a shock for the middle-class reader all that comforting
 surety...all that sitting back and being told he crossed the room and looked at her...

The author's embracing with the status of authority is decentered both undermining narrative authority and the high-art claims of authorship.

By refusing to privilege unity and continuity within a text it unsettles the belief that an artwork requires wholeness

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So there.

tied to a longing for both omniscience and asecure possession of events and characters, isreplaced by a limited narrator who does littlemore than mechanically introduce a scene . ˆ. ˆ.[t]his is a shock for the middle-class reader’(54). Meanwhile, Green’s novel

 Living

 ismarked ‘by its development of a proletarianlanguage. Rather than suppressing dialect,the novel celebrates it, and does so withouttranslating it for the middle-class reader’ (62)Chapter 3 discusses the muted or ousted nar-rative authority of Green’s texts, another areawith clear links to class. Authority in Green’swork is restrained through an avoidance of ex-position and a ‘silencing of the traditional nar-rative voice’ (70