Absent Voices Research Articles

“Where is That Voice Coming from?”: Walker Percy and the Demonic

Anyone familiar with the history and practice of literary criticism over the past several decades knows that the study of narrative voice, or what is called narratology, is a major interest of scholars of the novel. Once the belief in a logocentric tradition in language, which had affirmed an ultimate Authority for the word, was challenged, it was inevitable that the truth status of the narrating voice in fiction would become a principal focus of scholarly concern. Formalism, structuralism, Marxism, deconstruction, poststructuralism, and several other schools of critical theory all bear witness to this concern, and the work of probably every major fiction writer for the past 300 years has become the subject of narratological analysis. The study of fictional and the polyphonic nuances of point of view have reached ever-dizzying levels of dissection, often leaving the reader of such analyses feeling like the person trapped in the room of mirrors in John Barth's carnival funhouse. Who would have imagined fifty years ago how incredibly naive D. H. Lawrence seems now when he advised us to Never trust the artist, trust the talc? It seems that the talc, as well as the teller, whoever he or she might really be, are now the very last things we should trust. Understandably, Walker Percy's fictions, with their elusive language and complex interplay of voices, lend themselves to such narratological scrutiny. Most recently, Michael Kobre's fine analysis of voice in Percy's fiction studies the subject from the perspective of Bahktinian dialogism, by which he tracks Percy's development as a novelist in terms of a process of becoming (18). That is, Kobre sees Percy's protagonists as struggling with a variety of competing voices that exist within their consciousnesses--voices of fathers, friends, would-be mentors, and moral arbiters, even the silence of absent voices--all interacting in the protagonist's journey toward self-realization. Kobre's study is only the latest in a long list of Percy scholarship that has worked to pin down and define the many elliptical voices of the author, which are by turn aloof, ironic, humorous, bemused, angry, and vitriolic, yet also wonderfully generous in their appreciation of human virtues and foibles, as well as of the beauties of the natural world. The question I want to address is whether the narratological perspectives applied to Percy's fiction by literary critics are adequate to circumscribe the full mystery of voice in Percy's novels. The matter of narrative voice in fiction finally comes down to a consideration of the ultimate authority of language itself. And in Percy's case we do well to raise the question asked in the title of one of Eudora Welty's stories: Where is that voice coming The question is particularly important for scholars and teachers with Christian concerns, since the students sitting before us are almost all children of the age of deconstruction and linguistic relativism who often learn that language has no stable meanings. The answer many interpreters of Mikhail Bakhtin seem to find is that voice in fiction is a culturally constructed interplay of discourses spoken across history as it is shaped by political, social, and ideological forces. These interpreters of Bakhtin tend to regard language as being exclusively of human creation. However, a recent study of Christian motifs in Bakhtin's writings by Ruth Coates argues that Bakhtin's ideas on discourse can be assimilated to a theology of the Incarnation and that the problems of authority in narrative reflect Bakhtin's own struggle over the Fall of man, the exile of the human author from the absolute Author of language and being. However we interpret Bakhtin, the questions he raised were of central importance to Percy, a writer well read in the philosophy of language, deeply concerned with language, and one whose novels themselves often probe the key question: Where is that voice coming from? …

Absent voices compromise the effectiveness of nursing home regulation: a critique of regulatory reform in the UK nursing home industry.

Over the last decade there has been consistent pressure for the healthcare services in the UK to become more accountable to users. Now over half the healthcare beds in England are in the privatised nursing home sector, and regulation of the sector is under reform. Yet requirements for user accountability have not been reflected in these reforms. In other sectors, consumer involvement in regulatory agencies and processes is seen as important to the success of the regulatory enterprise. But in the care sector neither users nor their representatives have been given legal rights of involvement in the National Care Standards Commission or in regulatory processes. This paper argues that failure to involve users not only places the regulation enterprise at risk of capture by the industry, but will also weaken the legitimacy of the new Commission.

Absent voices: accommodating the interests of future generations in current decision-making processes

Underlying the paper's arguments is the proposition that current built environment policies are based on a particular rationality that fails to accommodate the value of keeping options open in the interest of future generations. This failure brings to the fore the question of what counts as a sustainable decision. Consideration is given to how established deliberative techniques might be adapted to include future generations and other absent voices in the decision constituency so as to create democratic procedures that are more inclusive.

Creating a Space for Absent Voices: Disabled Women's Experience of Receiving Assistance with Daily Living Activities

Feminist research on community care and ‘informal carers’ identified this as a women's issue but failed to address the interests and experiences of older and disabled women – those who received ‘care’ One consequence is that such feminist research has implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, undermined disabled women's rights to a home, children and personal relationships. Using qualitative research, the article highlights the actual experience of women whose physical impairment means that they need help with daily living activities, looking at the different circumstances in which such help is received. The disability movement's concept of ‘independent living’ raises particular issues for disabled women. ‘Independent living’ is about having choice and control over the assistance needed, rather than necessarily doing everything for yourself. However, gender inequalities may also inhibit the choice and control that women have in their lives. Assistance can be given within a personal relationship as an expression of love, but disabled women may also experience abusive, restrictive or exploitative relationships. Public services do not generally provide assistance in a way which enables a woman to have choice and control in her life, or even to carry out child-caring or homemaking tasks. The research on the various ways of receiving personal assistance found that those women who were able to purchase their own help were most likely to be living independently, in the sense of exerting choice and control in their lives. Feminist research can help to create a space for disabled women's absent voices, and add to the pressure for change in the way that personal assistance needs are met. This is a human and civil rights issue which has a key impact on the control that disabled women have over their lives.

Creating a Space for Absent Voices: Disabled Women's Experience of Receiving Assistance with Daily Living Activities

Creating a Space for Absent Voices: Disabled Women's Experience of Receiving Assistance with Daily Living Activities

In the Company of Strangers: Absent Voices in Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Beckett's Company

In the Company of Strangers: Absent Voices in Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Beckett's Company