I. "Why do you never find anything written about that idiosyncratic thought you avert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands? Because it is up to you. There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment." - Anne Dillard
In a paper of either academic discourse or creative writing, voice is a stylistic technique. In the quote above Anne Dillard states, “you were made and set here to give voice to this.” I believe that in all writing, the writer gives a voice to their piece of writing, whether they want to or not. Writers put in voice unconsciously; they use the style of voice to put their own opinions and beliefs in whatever they are writing. Some say that papers of academic discourse are “thoughtless” and just written through quickly, but in all the classes I have been in whether it was biological science or creative writing, my personal opinion still gets put in somehow.
Now I’m not saying that all the other elements of a paper get dismissed. The theme and tone of the paper play a major part in how a writer uses voice. The theme of the paper definitely decides the amount of voice that is going to be used. If a writer is writing about that mathematical equation history of Einstein, the writer is going to use mainly facts they find elsewhere. However, I think that even in a paper that is so factual, there is a stylistic twist, where the writer gets to pick which facts they choose to put in the paper. On the other hand, the tone of the paper doesn’t have to be parallel with the voice. The tone in a piece formulates only opinion, where voice is weaved into an opinion. The tone does fit in if you want to persuade an audience or truly and deeply get a point across. Using your obvious stated opinion (the tone) with an extra hidden individual point of view (voice) will make a work persuasive to an audience.
II. In Frankfurt’s On Truth, he discusses the argument of whether our thoughts are guided by our individual point of view or authoritative point of view. I see the individual point of view as being the voice as style. If we go with my opinion that voice as style can be unconscious, then the person is only seeing the “inside of the box”. Here I will rewrite a passage that shows an individual point of view using voice.
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On the doctrine of individual point of view, a person cannot consciously see that their personal perspectives are clogging what society wants them to see, or what they in essence should see. These “clogged” viewpoints can be made because of the conditions of economical and political requirements on society. Postmodernists rely on the fact that social pressures and even individual pressures restrain a person. Whether that restraint is merely because the person won’t “open their eyes” or if they can’t open their eyes, is what postmodernists are trying to figure out. Frankfurt looks at what postmodernists are saying and he think they are reaching too far. He thinks that whatever viewpoint you stand on, it doesn’t really matter, because it should always be correct. An engineer and architect can strive to succeed by avoiding obstacles that are inherent, however, they cannot believe that their “individual” perspective or even social discipline will make them correct. A person most be correct, whatever the circumstances.
III. After doing this imitation exercise, I realized that voice is much more complicated than I originally thought it was. At first I argued that no matter what a writer is writing about, there is a voice behind it. I still believe that to be true, but now the term “voice” seems more complicated. After putting my own voice into the passage above, I think that my voice somewhat altered what Frankfurt was trying to get across. My interpretation of Frankfurt’s ideas isn’t necessarily other’s interpretations of his work. So with that in mind, does my opinion of a piece of work then alter another persons to the point where what Frankfurt originally wrote about gets lost?
Voice isn’t supposed to make a piece of writing confusing, it is supposed to provide enough personal viewpoint matched with fact to make a piece have more clarity. After I did the imitation however, I only felt that I confused Frankfurt’s words rather than made them clearer. In my mind I felt that I didn’t fully understand everything that Frankfurt was saying, so I tried to move past certain concepts and ideas that obviously were vital to what he was saying, but I didn’t bother covering them. That right there can alter and mess up what an author is trying to say.
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Obviously a writers point and direction is going to only be theirs. A person can choose to take what the writer is saying, and by putting their voice into it, make it their own. This is another instance where the term voice gets confusing. If a person is imitating another’s writing, then the original authors point of view and voice are already attached to the piece. Now if someone like me comes along and interprets their writing to make it my own with a twist of my own voice, is it possible to have multiple uses of voice in one piece of writing? Without knowing what Frankfurt, or any author for that matter, had in mind while writing, a future imitator of their writing will never know if the meanings will get tangled and a new meaning will arise. But in reality, I guess that is what is supposed to happen: take little bits of others writing, in their voice, and write your own work, in your own voice. The mixture of stylistic uses of voice will formulate new ideas, new opinions. Isn’t that what its all about anyways? After doing all of this imitation and uncovering what voice actually does to a piece of writing, I finally came to a conclusion that a writer must take others ideas and imitate them to find your own voice. You find your voice through others.
Posted by nugewriter16 on October 13, 2008
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