Discuss the postmodern tool of ventriloquism, referring to three texts: Flaubert's Parrot, The Passion (by Jeanette Winterson), and Babysitter by...

Ventriloquism typically refers to a specific type of stage performance in which a person (the ventriloquist) creates the illusion of his/her voice coming from a different place (usually a dummy or puppet). As a postmodern literary tool, the term ventriloquism is also used to describe voices that cannot be traced to a source, that are dissociated or displaced. Postmodern literature frequently challenges cultural and political assumptions about authorship, originality, and subjectivity that are based in Enlightenment thought. Ventriloquism can thus be seen as one means used by postmodern authors to challenge these assumptions.

In Julian Barnes’s novel Flaubert’s Parrot, for example, the narrator, Dr. Geoffrey Braithwaite, examines Flaubert’s life from different perspectives while searching for a stuffed parrot that supposedly sat on Flaubert’s desk while he wrote “Un coeur simple.” Significantly, the text features many instances of intertextuality that make it at times difficult to differentiate between the narrator and Flaubert’s own texts and correspondence. This is particularly apparent in the chapters “The Flaubert Bestiary” and “Examination Papers,” which seem to be comprised of collages of Flaubert’s correspondence. Similarly, the chapter “Braithwaite’s Dictionary of Accepted Ideas” is a parody and pastiche of Flaubert’s “Dictionary of Accepted Ideas” (i.e., the narrator adopts and emulates Flaubert’s voice and hence ironically undermines notions of authorship, subjectivity, and originality).

Jeannette Winterson’s The Passion, on the other hand, uses ventriloquism in the form of historiographic metafiction. The term metafiction refers to a specific form of fiction that is self-conscious and openly addresses the fact that it is imaginary. Winterson’s novel is set during the Napoleonic Wars and tells the story of a young French soldier. However, while some parts of the novel are based on real historic events, Winterson also takes liberties in depicting and interpreting certain historic events. In doing so, Winterson calls into question how history is told and by whom. This, too, can be seen as an instance of literary ventriloquism.

Robert Coover’s short story “The Babysitter” uses ventriloquism by presenting various versions of the same simple plot. Each version of the plot is different, which speaks to the fact that Coover tries to suggest that various versions of reality may exist side by side. This draws attention to the fact that our knowledge is shaped by narratives, and whoever controls the narrative also controls the story. This, of course, has wider ideological implications about how meta-narratives are shaped and what implications this may have for our sense of reality.