On Auditory Narratology in The Ivory Acrobat

Journal: Arts Studies and Criticism DOI: 10.32629/asc.v3i2.836

Rui Zhang

School of Foreign Languages, Zhanjiang University of Science and Technology, Zhanjiang 524088, Guangdong, China

Abstract

The Ivory Acrobat is one of the novellas of Don DeLillo (1936-), which is collected in his short-story collection called The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories. And the story depicts an American girl Kyle, who has experienced myriads of earthquakes in Athens, Greece. This paper will survey from the perspective of auditory narratology, by analyzing four different tones, such as main tone, signal sounds, sound marks, and silence to observe functions of listening in the aspects of propelling fiction narrations, and of reflecting people’s fears and terrors in front of natural disasters. The analysis of listening functions also reflect the optimistic attitudes of people when they are facing natural disasters. And it might provide some useful references for people to mitigate their anxiety in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords

auditory narratology, main tone, signal sound, sound mark, silence

Funding

The Key Project of Zhanjiang University of Science and Technology in 2019 (CJKY201802)

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Copyright © 2022 Rui Zhang

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