Radical Communication Types in William H. Gass’s The Tunnel
Radical Communication Types in William H. Gass’s The Tunnel

Summary/Abstract: Radical communication largely characterizes W. H. Gass’s The Tunnel. The novel incorporates many forms of radical speech and thought, it unfolds a number of radically charged issues of public and private life. It features a multitude of innovative experimental techniques and, in many instances, it demonstrates predominance of language and form over the content. In this paper, we have ascertained that the authenticity and multitude of radical communication forms in the said novel can essentially be grasped in terms of disjointing the Ich-Erzähler’s narrative voice and the authorial one. It has been ascertained that the sincerity in narrative largely governs its radical content while the book’s radical composition and radical language and style form the second set of the radical communication styles in the novel, reflecting Gass’s bent on experimental fiction. In the paper, the following radical communication style varieties have been singled out: “breaking the narrative monotony,” “hate intensifying,” “filial unwillingness to forgive,” “revulsion invoking,” “provoking indecipherability/unreadability,” “accentuated total criticism,” or “downgrading metanarratives,” “ambivalent portrayal of the war and Holocaust,” “pictorial communication style,” “communication style of radically structured composition,” “communication style of verbal adornment,” “embellishment,” “conceit” (as a figure of speech).

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