8.

3 Multiplicity of values
The multifaceted nature of our value picture is a matter not only of coexisting spheres of
value, but of coexisting levels of discourse. A novel can contain an embedded hierarchy
of discourses and there is a potential distinction between character, narrator, implied
author, and real author. These levels of discourse are conflated, as well as the value
pictures associated with these levels. In some novels with a first-person hero, such as
David Copperfield, there is little need to distinguish the values of the first-person
character (David as child and young man), the narrator (David as adult), the implied
author (‘Dickens’) and the real author (Dickens): they all take the same attitude, for
example, in liking Peggotty and disliking Mr Murdstone. In spite of differences in the
standards of different ages, groups and individuals, there are SHARED VALUES to which
writers can appeal.
As fellow human-beings, Dickens and his reader tend to have certain standards and
values shared among them unless this is the case how can we understand the value
picture of the implied author and of the novel itself.
Contrast of values
However, there are cases where the standards of judgment on one level contrast
with those on another level. One case is that which Booth calls the ‘unreliable narrator’,
citing the example of the Jason section of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. As Jason,
trying to beat his niece, is hindered by the aged servant Dilsey, neither the actions
attributed to Jason nor the sentiments he expresses can be reconciled with our shared
values. Jason seems to be morally flawed character. The reader's response is on two
levels: 1. We respond as interlocutors to Jason's self-incriminating monologue and 2. As
implied readers participating in the implied author's judgement on it. Another case of
value contrast Booth illustrates from Emma, where the corrective to the heroine's point
of view is provided in part by another character, the 'reliable' character of Mr Kinghcly.
In such cases of value contrast there is what Booth calls a ‘secret communion’
between (implied) author and (implied) reader, which is founded on shared standards of
evaluation, and on the manner in which these are controlled and developed through the
novel. It may be that the assumption of agreement between addresser and addressee is
one of the features that distinguish fictional discourse from other kinds of discourse (e.g.
conversation, political propaganda). It is not that a reader cannot disagree with the
values portrayed by the author, but that if he is made conscious of disagreement, this is a
sign of the author’s failure to carry the reader with him.

8.4 Irony
The concept of irony is a closely related aspect with the idea of contrast of values. This
‘secret communion’ between author and reader is the basis of irony. For fictional
purposes irony can be defined as "a double significance which arises from the contrast in
values associated with two different points of view". So defined, irony is a wide-ranging
phenomenon which can be manifested in a single sentence, or can extend over a whole
novel. The most usual kind is that which involves a contrast between a point of view
stated or implied in some part of the fiction, and the assumed point of view of the
author, and hence of the reader. On a small scale, irony may be located in details of lexis
and syntax (e.g. the first sentence of Emma)
The manifestations of irony
Irony can be shown or realized in fiction through different aspects:
1- collocative clash: it is the combination of words which conflicts with our expectations,
it can be clarified through the following example:
" Heark ye, Clinker, you are a most notorious offender – You stand convicted of sickness,
hunger, wretchedness, and want." [Tobias Smollett, Humphry Clinker]
After ‘You stand convicted of . . .’ the only nouns normally allowable are names of crimes,
such as larceny, bigamy, burglary, etc. Instead, Smollett uses words from another value
set: words referring to misfortunes. So the value picture this sentence seems to present
is one in which misfortune is equated with crime. This is the overt and patently
unacceptable meaning; the covert meaning is the one which author and reader share by
virtue of their ‘secret communion’: a satirical sense as both of them originally know that
poverty and misfortune are to be sympathized not punished.
2- Antithesis
It is the opposition or contrast between two terms. It is clear in the following example:
"He had a good healthy sense of meum, and as little of tuum as he could help".[Samuel
Butler, The Way of All Flesh]1
The irony is underlined by the antithesis of meum and tuum, and normally the things
which we ‘can’t help’ are unpleasant, but in this case the character restrains himself from
the desirable emotion of generosity.2

3- The sequencing of impressions

It is also important to irony. Its effect can be shown by the citing the following two lines
for Maugham:

1
This is also an example of collocative clash since "good healthy" are two value terms which are incompatible with the
implication of selfishness in meum.
2
It is worth noting here that irony derives much of its force from conventions of politeness and euphemism.
 " Smith said that Roy was a time server (1). He said he was a snob (2). He said he was a
humbug (3).Smith was wrong here (4)" [Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale]
The repeated parallelism ‘X said that Y was a Z’ in (1)– (3) is the first clue that Maugham
is aiming for a rhetorical build-up. The irony would be much weaker if such patterning
were eliminated, for example by the following paraphrase:
"Smith was mistaken in saying that Roy was a time-server, a snob, and a humbug, for
sincerity was Alroy’s most shining characteristic . . ."
If we examine the rest of the passage we find the author reversing our
expectations. In normal usage, one ‘pursues’ occupations and hobbies, but hardly ‘vices’;
one ‘practices' such things as philanthropy and self-denial, but not ‘adultery’ and
‘gluttony’. And when we read that hypocrisy is a ‘difficult and nerve-racking vice’, it is as
if the commission of the seven deadly sins is regarded as a duty not to be shunned. By
these juxtapositions, Maugham proposes a distortion of accepted values: VICE =VIRTUE.
In these examples, there is a clear division between what we think, and what the
language says. But irony is too broad a term of literary appreciation and not to be only
restricted to the formula of a satirical reversal of values.
In the following part it will be placed within the more general context of tone.

8.5. Authorial Tone

AUTHORIAL TONE means the 'stance or attitude taken by an (implied) author
towards his readers and towards (parts of) his message' (Fig. 8.8, p. 281). We assume that
there is a symmetry between the attitudes the author expresses and the attitudes elicited
from the reader, as if the reader's attitude is a mirror of the author's. By virtue of this
symmetry, critics can talk about 'the tone of a novel' or 'the tone of a passage', merging
the theoretically distinct attitudes of author and reader.
The notion of DISTANCE is the key to this symmetry of tone.it involves both the
author's relation with his readers and with the subject matter.
A. On one hand, the authorial address to the reader may be relatively distant,
formal, public, or relatively intimate, colloquial, or private. We can, for example,
contrast the authorial manner of Fielding in Tom Jones with that of Sterne's in
Tristram Shandy. Fielding maintains the polite distance of an 18 th century
gentleman talking with ease with his public: his utmost familiarity is 'Examine
your heart, my good reader…'. But Sterne can joke with and cajole the reader as
if he is an intimate: "…as we jog on, either laugh with me, or at me…- only keep
your temper".
This kind of familiarity and distance is mutual: to the extent that the author is
distanced from the reader, the reader is distanced from the author.
 B. On the other hand, the relation between the author and the subject matter is
also of variable distance. This is always presented in the difference between the
knowledge, sympathy, and values of the implied author on the one hand and
those of the characters and the society which he portrays on the other hand.
The reader shares these differences by sharing his 'secret communication' with
the author.
However, there are some respects in which the author-reader relation is not
symmetrical. As an unfolder of the fiction, the author may grant and withhold
information; as ironist, he may delay and disguise the judgement of character. Thus, he
takes the role of a guide, a mentor, or a stage-manager who controls the reader's
response. For example, in Dombey and Son, Dickens changes his style, and thereby his
tone, and so regulates the reader's sympathy and distance from one part of the novel to
the other. This control is most evident when the author directly addresses the reader
about the contents of the as George Eliot does in her novel Middlemarch. She rejects the
reader's response of wonderment and replaces it by her own response. (e.g.) Then she
resorts to the rhetorical question which is considered one of the favourite devices of
reader-control. (e.g.)
Hence, the authorial tone can be achieved via many stylistic ingredients. What was
mentioned in the preceding parts:
1- Evaluative terms and evaluative inferences
2-ironic contrast and reversal
Together with:
3- Direct appeal to the reader through rhetorical questions
4- Indirect appeal to the reader through generic statements and other references to a
commonality of experience and judgement
All these lead to a complex weighing up of one attitude against another, particularly the
sympathetic attitude against ironic.
The value of authorial tone:
The authorial tone has multiple values. For example, irony is not one piece, but it has
many degrees of distance, ranging from a satirical bitterness to good awareness of the
contradictory ipulses which can undermine good intentions in even the best-motivated of
characters. For example, in Daniel Deronda, George Eliot presents a three-dimensional
description of the character of Mr. Gascoigne which has three points of View:
 The clear sympathetic stance of the author who is determined to see him in the
best light that is compatible with the evidence
 The negative attitude imputed to "bitter observers"
  The implied author's point of view which emerges from the balancing of these
sympathetic and unsympathetic assessments
So Eliot here appears as sympathetic and ironic at the same time. (analysis of example p.
285)
To conclude, the stylistic values here have 3 levels: point of view, distance, and
tone. They contribute to the way in which a literary work is interpreted as a transaction
between author and reader. This point of view is appreciated in the case of 'intrusive
authors' like George Eliot who takes the role of a guide, presenter, and interpreter.