Writing Like Speaking: Never the Opposite in Mrs. Dalloway

Speech Like Writing

Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Wolff is a powerful testament to the flexibility of language. I will present three points, which should lend weight to my assertion that: speech-like texts can reach a broader audience because of their ability to communicate more indirectly.

Firstly, speech and writing are vastly different. As Roland Barthes suggested throughout his career, speech and writing are separate processes (WDZ 13). There is a plurality in speech that I will argue, far surpasses the plurality in writing for the fact that speaking is an act that doesn't suffer the consequence of dissemination, and examination. Speech acts are not timeless; hence, they cannot endure the rigor of endless scrutinization.

Speech, unlike writing, is allowed to evolve on its page; it is oftentimes negated, withdrawn by the speaker, or compromised by a reactionary speaker. Writing, with its final destination - the last word, is a closed discussion. There is no possibility for compromise; the reader is forced to manipulate the signs within the structure, to reflect his or her own personal connotation of each sign, resulting in a closed interpretation of the text. Speech, on the other hand, allows the listener to engage in dialogical discourse. Writing is a closed form, not open to discussion; it is open to interpretation, but not compromise or discourse. I use the word discourse in this case to mean: the challenging of facts and ideas asserted in writing.

In his essay, The Death of the Author, Barthes makes the point that "To give a text an author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing" (Richter, 256). As we know, speech can never have this result; it is an organic mechanism of the thought process.

Secondly, writing exists because of speech, not vice-versa.The action of speech has a natural counterpart, reactionary speech - someone responding. It is like a book with changing words - a book that floats on the air, has no starting points and no end meaning. It is written by anyone and everyone.