A Contextual View of Narrative Fiction in The First Person Plural

A Contextual View of Narrative Fiction in the First Person Plural
Author(s): Amit Marcus

Source: Narrative, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Jan., 2008), pp. 46-64
Published by: Ohio State University Press
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Amit Marcus
A Contextual View of Narrative

Fiction in the First Person Plural
"We" fictional narratives have-as Brian Richardson has recently argued per-
suasively-"a supple technique with a continuous history of over a century that con-
tinues to be deployed in a considerable number of texts" (55-56). Richardson's
contention lies in contrast with Margolin's view that "we" literary narratives have al-
ways been rare (115). The debate between Margolin and Richardson is partly the re-
sult of their different uses of the term "'we' fictional narratives." Margolin employs
the term more rigorously, as referring only to narratives told wholly or mostly in the
first person plural. By contrast, Richardson's use is suppler, designating also narra-
tives in which there are thematically significant shifts from "we" to other pronouns
and vice versa. However, the more interesting difference between them, in my view,
lies in Richardson's emphasis on the historical conditions of composition of these
narratives, which contrasts Margolin's disregard of contextual norms and their effect
on narrative technique.
In endorsing Richardson's contextual outlook, I wish to demonstrate that the
frequency of first person plural narration depends on a variety of norms: philosophi-
cal (what beliefs about consciousness operate in the writer's community?), social-
political (what are the societal and political conditions under which the narrative is
being composed and how might the narrative be addressing them?), and literary
(should the form and the ideology of the narrative represent the hegemonic system of
values or subvert it? what counts as a deviation from the literary norm?). My main
goal in this essay is to analyze some of the norms that may hinder or, alternatively,
Amit Marcus is a postdoctoral scholar at the universities of Freiburg and Giepen. His postdoctoral
research concerns "we" fictional narratives. He has recently published a book entitled Self-Deception in
Philosophy and Literature (2007). His other publications include several essays on unreliable and self-
deceived narration.
NARRATIVE, Vol. 16, No. 1 (January 2008)

Copyright 2008 by The Ohio State University
First Person Plural Narration 47
foster the creation of first person plural literary works. The historical awarenes
the fluidity of literary (and other) values will also contribute to my discussion
other, non-contextual approaches to "we" narratives.
Margolin (132) cites three reasons for what he considers as the rarity of "w
fictional narratives. The first is "what Roman Jakobson has called 'the semantic in-
stability and internal contradiction, [two] inherent properties of the first person
plural"' (454).' The second is the "inherently unresolved" mental access in "we" nar-
ratives, which combines "immediate first-person inside knowledge with a second- or
third-person inferential one." The third reason mentioned by Margolin is that "the in-
tense sense of collective subject ... is probably easier to convey directly in lyrical or
meditative texts than to embody in a description of situations and courses of events."
Margolin's synchronic analysis is founded on classical Structuralist assump-
tions and method, and as such, does not take into account philosophical, social-polit-
ical, and literary conventions that determine the preference of one pronoun to
another. It implies that first person plural narration always is and always will be rare
to the same degree. I intend to demonstrate that this effect is dependent on a certain
conception of consciousness and narration in literature which is, by its very nature,
contextually bounded.
The approach that links the preference of certain pronouns in the narration of
fictional works to a specific ideology, historical conditions and intellectual atmos-
phere is familiar. For example, Roland Barthes (29-40) analyzes the use of the third
person in the classical nineteenth-century novel as a manifestation of bourgeois ide-
ology, which seeks to disguise its interests and world-view and represent them as
universal truths-in other words, to naturalize them. Barthes argues that the author-
ity of the omniscient narrator serves this purpose much better than a first person nar-
rator would, since the latter's system of beliefs and values is perceived by the reader
from the outset as subjective and therefore disputable.
By contrast, Brian Richardson ("I etcetera" 320-1) contends that there is no un-
equivocal connection between a certain ideology and the use of a specific form of
narration. He points out that authors who sympathized with fascism, such as Louis-
Ferdinand Celine, frequently use first person singular narrators, thereby confirming
that first person narratives are not essentially more emancipatory than third person
narratives.
However, I believe it is worthwhile to articulate connections between ideology

and form (including narrative locus) that are more complicated and less rigid than
the ones criticized by Richardson. Thus, Cdline and other authors who supported au-
thoritarianism may have preferred first person singular narration because personal
experience is considered in their society and in the tradition of the Western novel to
have greater power and effect on the reader than impersonal (third person) narration.
Hence the dissent of these authors regarding the modern liberal conception of the au-
tonomous subject does not necessarily prevent them from harnessing it to their own
aims. In the next paragraphs, I shall examine Margolin's explanations of the rarity of
"we" narratives in light of a contextual approach that seeks to formulate subtle con-
nections between ideology and form.
48 Amit Marcus
REPRESENTATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
AND "WE" FICTIONAL NARRATIVES
Margolin is correct in characterizing (after Jakobson) first person plural narra-

tion as semantically instable, or at least potentially so. But can this truly justify a
thors' avoidance of this form of narration, in an era that consecrates incoherenc
inconsistency, and equivocation? Indeed, stability (whether in content or in form
has proved to be one of the most depreciated values in modem and postmodern liter
ary fiction. Authors such as Donald Barthelme, Christine Brooke-Rose, James Joyc
Toni Morrison, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, and Virginia Woolf ha
destabilized conventional attitudes and beliefs concerning plot, character, and narr
tion. Moreover, second person narration is semantically unstable to a greater degre
than first person plural narration, thus promoting a reconceptualization of the basi
category "person" and a reexamination of the distinctions between story and dis-
course2 (Genette's "r6cit" and "histoire") as well as between the virtual and the ac
tual3. Nonetheless (or for this very reason), "you" narratives have flourished in th
last few decades. "We" narratives are one way to subvert established forms and con
ventions of narration, and this subversion is not prima facie more radical or difficu
to achieve than those undertaken by other literary texts.
The second reason proposed by Margolin for the uncommonness of first person
plural narratives calls for a more thorough exploration. Margolin's Cartesian4 con
ception of consciousness causes him to distinguish between the self's direct access
to his or her own consciousness, and the indirect access of others to the same con
tents or images. Yet this view is highly problematic and has been attacked from man
different angles, psychological and philosophical, over the twentieth century. No
was it consensual in previous eras. Some of the disputes concerning the structure o
consciousness are reflected in "we" fictional narratives, as will be shown. Other fir
person plural narratives display (explicit or implicit) awareness of the conception
voiced by Margolin and confront it in various ways.
Theoretically, the first component of Margolin's contention, privileging the sel
with the most immediate and accurate knowledge of that self, has been challenge
radically and in detail by Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalysts, who attributed
the most significant role in mental life to the unconscious. If this part of the con-
tention is rejected and the self's access to his or her own consciousness is deemed in
ferential, the difference between this kind of inference and the inference of anoth
about the self's state of mind requires clarification.
The inference of other people's states of consciousness based on their speech
and conduct, despite its relatively high fallibility, is not usually considered implaus
ble or unreliable, neither in ordinary life nor in literature. A large part of the info
mation that each of us gathers about others relies on such conjectures. Yet simila
conjectures are made about one's own self. I do not mean to deny the essential dif
ference that exists between one's knowledge of the state of mind of another person
which is based solely on external signs, and one's knowledge of their own state o
mind, which is founded on internal factors as well. Nor do I reject the privileged po
sition of the self in closely inspecting one's "stream" of mental images, thoughts
and sensations. However, no mind is transparent, except perhaps in some litera

narratives, to paraphrase Dorrit Cohn's well-known title.
Ludwig Wittgenstein's criticism of the common-sense conception of consciou
ness as comprising purely private experiences took an utterly different direction
that of Freud's. According to Wittgentein's Philosophical Investigations, "even i
trospective discourse is a public institution which depends on conventions and he
on training."' Wittgenstein was not an adherent of radical behaviorism. He neit
denied that there are mental processes and internal experiences, nor identified su
processes and experiences with physical events.6 Yet he insisted that there is no su
thing as a "private language"7: everything we learn and express in words, includi
one's own states of mind, is based on external manifestations and on the correct
of words within specific practices.8 Hence no one can detect his own pain based
solely on his own experience (293). The meaning of pain (as of every other priv
sensation or image) is always dependent on its use in a "language game" shared wi
other people. For example, when one sees another person inadvertently place hi
hand in a fire and recoil immediately, the external observer knows that the other
dividual feels considerable pain by external signs, such as the cry of pain, the bu
hand, and previously, the recoil itself.
Wittgenstein's criticism of what is familiar to most of us as "private languag
is significant to my argument because it emphasizes the public nature of all (lingu
tic) knowledge. This approach does not regard the attribution of mental states
other people as necessarily more speculative or doubtful than the attribution of m
tal states to oneself'. Hence the credibility of statements such as "we feel ashame
"we are in great pain" or "we believe in God" should not be automatically consid
ered suspect either in everyday life or in literature.
An example from literature may be helpful at this point. The narrator of Aharo
Appelfeld's Laish tells the story of a group of travelers who wander around Euro
with the intention of arriving in Jerusalem, where all their pain, sorrow, and distre
shall disappear. The hope of salvation drives the travelers onwards in their quest,
spite the difficulties facing them. Many openly express this hope, and their m
meaningful actions are linked to their belief in a better life that is awaiting them
the Holy City, which they never reach. The narrator supplies enough evidence in
speech and conduct of the characters to justify his conclusion: "but we deceived ou
selves that salvation is imminent" (158, my translation). The same account given
the first person singular would not have been more trustworthy or less inferential.
Some "we" fictional narratives justify the representation of collective men
events by highlighting the close affinity between individual consciousnesses, wh
results in similar thoughts, volitions, and emotions. Western social philosophers
divided into individualists, who hold that "any complete explanation of social eve
would have to trace them to the behavior of those constituent parts" (Carr 123),
holists, who "argue that society consists not merely of individuals but also of the
lations among them..,. and that the 'behavior' of individuals cannot even be und
stood apart from those relations" (ibid. 123). However, even the adherents of holi
refuse to accept the personification of social groups-in other words, to treat gro
as analogues of persons (ibid. 122).
50 Amit Marcus
In certain non-Western cultures, by contrast, the idea of a separate consc

ness is perceived as a fatal error. The error is not just conceptual, but what is
important, practical, since it threatens the solidarity and cohesiveness of the c
nity. Ayi Kwei Armah's Two Thousand Seasons is the best illustration of thi
ception among "we" fictional narratives. In portraying the mythical history o
black people, the novel represents an ideology that considers private, autono
consciousness as a spurious and dangerous belief of white people. The individ
compounding the black community of "our way, the way" are compared to the
of a human body. Individual consciousness that functions separately is deemed
less and ineffective as are severed limbs; the community is, or should be, an
whole:
Of unconnected consciousness is there more to say beyond the clear recognition

this is destruction's keenest tool against the soul? That the left hand should be
kept ignorant of what its right twin is made to do. ... That the heart detached
should beat no faster even when limbs familiar to it are moved to heinous
acts-is that not already the severed atrophy of connected faculties. ... That the
passion and the thinking and the action of any one of us should be cut off from
our connected consciousness by mere physical things, walls of wood or walls of
stone-that would indeed be the manic celebration of death's white empire....
In these surroundings built to separate each of us from the other, to turn each
discrete one selfish from the whole, the seeing and the hearing and the thinking
of each of us would find no understanding with any other, not even access to the
general consciousness, and all our uttering would be like the wild, senseless ca-
cophony of the market places. (128-29)
Other first person plural narratives do not present such a systematic and un-
equivocal view of human consciousness, but they do suggest that close connections
between people (whether these connections are created by free choice, as between
couples, or by coercion, as between prisoners) promote similarity between their sep-
arate consciousnesses. The dream is conventionally treated in modern Western tradi-
tion as a sphere of private consciousness completely inaccessible to others (unlike,
of course, the narration of the dream). Normally, the contents of someone's dream
are more difficult to infer from words, gestures, and behavior than the contents of
other mental states, experienced in the course of waking life. Perhaps for this very
reason the dream has become, in some "we" fictional narratives, the paradigmatic
case of such close connections.
Appelfeld's novel The Ice Mine mentions in passing the similar dreams of pris-
oners in a Nazi concentration camp (94). Conversely, in John Barth's novel Sabbat-
ical the shared dream becomes a central topic. The married couple who tell the
story, Susan and Fenwick, share with each other the dreams they had during one of
the nights of their journey. At first, it seems that the two dreams are astonishingly
alike and perhaps even identical-actually a single dream, "our dream" (202-3,
208). But as the story continues, a few conjectures subvert this conception of the
dreams' sameness. The most interesting among these is that the two characters have
each unconsciously accommodated her or his version of the dream to the other's in
order to prove their harmonious partnership. The dreams are finally revealed as sim-
ilar, but not identical. Nonetheless, "our dream" enables Susan and Fenwick to ful-
fill their unrealizable wish to become one and the same person. Their anxiety
dreams during later stages of the story demonstrate how distant they have grown
(286, 313-14, 319).
A provisional conclusion from the above is that both private consciousness and
collective consciousness are portrayed in various ways in first person plural narra-
tives, and that the depiction of states of mind in such narratives is not always as prob-
lematic or "inherently unresolved" as Margolin claims. More precisely, the problem
may be formulated, as Susan Sniader Lanser suggests, as "the product of individual-
ist cultures which presume consciousness to be unique and literature the 'original'
product of single authorship" (256). This problem is thus political-ideological, rather
than (merely) epistemological.
In a recently published book, Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern
and Contemporary Fiction, Richardson addresses Margolin's three reasons for the
rarity of "we" narratives in a similar way to the one proposed here.lo Richardson
states that "we may agree that the narrator's access to the contents of other minds is
potentially problematic, but hasten to point out that this is only an issue if we insist
on postulating a mimetic framework for the text." Yet he also notes that "[e]ven
within a realistic framework, it is not clear to me that the presumed knowledge of
other minds is always some kind of embarrassment. . . . The drama created for the
reader is thus to determine how literally and how figuratively to take each such ex-
pression of shared mental events" (57).
All the above qualifications notwithstanding, I believe that Margolin's asser-
tion, according to which the representation of consciousness in "we" fictional narra
tives is a more complex issue than in other types of narratives, is not utterly
incorrect. Some first person plural narratives avoid this difficulty by minimizing the
representation of mental events and emphasizing action instead. The motivations for
this focus on action vary. I previously mentioned Armah's Two Thousand Seasons as
a novel that replaces the conception of individual consciousness with that of collec-
tive consciousness. In accordance with this conception, the narrator lays emphasis
on shared action for the accomplishment of collective goals. The reestablishment of
the black-African community requires the rejection of foreign ideas, primarily the
idea of the autonomous subject. Accordingly, private states of mind are rarely repre-
sented in this novel.
A different motivation for minimizing the representation of consciousness is

most prominent in Agota Kristof's novel Le Grand Cahier and, to a lesser degree, in
Appelfeld's Holocaust and post-Holocaust novels Searing Light and The Ice Mine.
In these literary works, the "we" group (or "we" couple in Kristof) helps the indi-
vidual survive in extreme conditions. Conversely, faculties of consciousness, such as
feeling, believing, wishing, and remembering are perceived as a threat: they weaken
one's instinct to survive, since instead of focusing all the attention on ways of coping
with his or her hostile surroundings, the individual engages in fantasies about an es-
sentially different world."
52 Amit Marcus
Appelfeld, in his First-person Essays (19, 28, 31), claims that even wh
treme conditions no longer exist, survivors tend to avoid introspection, pr
cause they are afraid to reveal that their moral and emotional faculties h
severely damaged. The gap between the ideal-self or the former (pre-war,
caust, etc.) self-image and the current self-image (if one dared to retrospe
trospect) is perhaps what makes the survivor his own worst enemy (31). T
the identification of the individual with a "we" group in such circumstanc
evidence of the insufficiency of the self and a reasonable solution to avoid
collapse.
The challenge in the representation of mental events in first person plural narra-
tion, if it adheres to the norms of realistic literature, corresponds to a challenge in the
representation of speech. We know from everyday speech that two people or more do
not usually pronounce exactly the same words at precisely the same time, because
they are considered to have (or to be) separate consciousnesses. Therefore a report of
collective speech seems to correlate with-and evoke similar problems to-a report
of collective states of mind. Collective speech-more accurately, "twin speech"-is
a non-realistic narrative technique employed by Kristof in Le Grand Cahier. The
twins, who narrate their story in one voice as if they had a single story and a unified,
consolidated identity, always say the same things at the same time in their dialogues
with other characters.12 In the Western literary tradition, at least, this representation
of speech cannot be regarded as realistic.
To conclude: Margolin's view of consciousness, which causes him to consider
the representation of mental events in "we" fictional narratives as inherently prob-
lematic, does not take into account alternative ways of conceiving and depicting con-
sciousness in literary works (as well as in everyday life). Nonetheless, some first
person plural narratives hint at potential difficulties in portraying a collective con-
sciousness, or bypass these difficulties by focusing on the representation of action.
CONTEXTUALIZING "WE" FICTIONAL NARRATIVES:

THE CASE OF HEBREW LITERATURE
Returning to our preliminary question regarding the rarity of first person plu
narratives, it seems that changing the perspective of the argument can perhaps
some rewarding insights. Instead of a merely grammatical and epistemological p
of view, I suggest focusing on the political, sociological, and ethical aspects of
issue. I will not attempt to present at this time a thorough and systematic histo
"we" fictional narratives. My main concern will be with Hebrew twentieth-cent
fiction, which manifests in a most remarkable way the connection between cha
in norms and conceptions, and the preference for specific forms of narration, in
ing the use of personal pronouns.
One of the most ancient "we" narratives in the Jewish-Hebrew tradition is the
Passover Haggadah, which tells, partly in the first person plural, the story of the He-
brew people who were brought out of Egypt to the Promised Land, regained their
freedom and (re)established their national identity. The "we" group referred to in the
Haggadah "may in fact refer to any and all generations of the Jewish people t
court" (Margolin "Telling" 614). The Haggadah was a fundamental text in the Is
communal settlements (the kibbutzim), not only because it highlights national f
dom and collective identity, but also because it requires each member of the comm
nity to actively participate in the creation and recreation of this identity, and de
the repeated narration of the shared story a means of achieving this ideological g
In this way, "this collectivity that is telling its own story is in fact also addressing
self as its own collective narratee" (ibid. 615).
The 1940s and 1950s were the formative years of the Israeli state, giving voi
most vehemently to a communitarian ideology. Surprisingly, Israeli "we" narrat
were considerably less common in the period shortly after the establishment of
state than during the following three decades (beginning at the 1960s). Subject
experience was probably deemed during those formative years more persuasive f
the didactic goal of educating a nation, both because it is easier to identify wit
hero (or a heroine) successfully accomplishing a goal than with a relatively ano
mous "we" community, and because the collectivist society was considered succ
ful if it was able to exhibit perfect compatibility between self-fulfillment and
achievement of collective objectives.
One story, "The Fish Grillers," in Moshe Shamir's collection of stories With
Own Hands: Alik's Story and two stories by Yizhar Smilansky, "The Story of Hir
Hizah" and "The Prisoner," are the most prominent fictional narratives of the
decades narrated partly in the first person plural. Smilansky's use of "we" prefig
the ironic and critical stance of authors from the 1960s and the next decades, with
gard to accepted collective values.
"The Story of Hirbet Hizah" tells of the expulsion of Arab villagers by Isr
soldiers during Israel's War of Independence. On the one hand, the narrator hi
lights the spiritual gulf between the Jewish soldiers and the Arab villagers: the l
are "vicious, collaborators of the enemy" (34); they are abject, filthy, and flea-rid
they possess beautiful lands, but in contrast to "us" soldiers, they are unwillin
fight for their property, and simply run away (40-41). No wonder one of the sold
concludes that the villagers are simply "non-human" (41). On the other hand, t
narrator alludes to the similarity between the recent history of the Jews and tha
the Arabs, when describing the unjust and aggressive acts of the Israeli soldier
terms associated with the Jewish Holocaust, which had come to a close only a
years before. The Arab villagers are led to the "concentration place" (58) li
"frightened and obedient flock" (71) and are driven away in station wagons.
The narrator oscillates between two contrasting voices: the first voice acce
unreservedly the corrupt norms of his "we" group, interiorized by the self, a
wishes to contribute to the general goals of the community, no matter what they
it is indifferent to the suffering of the Arabs or even enthusiastic about aggrava
their pain. The other voice desires to avoid participating in the crimes that are ca
out against the villagers. However, this voice is not purely conscientious. It is m
vated by apprehensiveness and indecisiveness as well as by a real concern for t
fate of innocent human beings (see esp. 64-68). The temporal distance betw
story and narration matches a change in the narrator's vantage point: the seco
54 Amit Marcus
rebellious voice has overcome the conforming voice in his resolution to t

story; the narrator contrasts his authentic voice with the deceptive voice o
[once in a while I would reawaken, wondering how easily one can be

and misled, with eyes wide open, and join on the spur of the moment t
general community of liars, made up of ignorance, utilitarian indiffere
sheer unabashed egoism, exchanging one great truth for the supposedl
shoulder-shrug of a veteran felon. I realized that I must not waver any m
although I had not yet decided what recourse there might be, it seemed
any case that instead of keeping silent, I should apparently begin to tel
(33, my translation)
The conforming voice is correlated, to a great extent, with the use of

person plural, whereas the non-conforming voice is correlated with the fi
singular. Hence some interesting transitions from "I" to "we" (and vice ve
detected in the story,13 for instance, in the following paragraph:
The chords that had been clamoring within me all along resounded at
a rebellious wave flooded me. And I could sense that taunting someon
me grit his teeth and clench his fists. We tried to retain our indifferent
ignore everything that happened down below, like a goose emerging f
water. We loudly distributed the canned food and the biscuits, attempti
rich variety of words to find something that could make us burst out
as we sprawled among the rotten foliage of a bare fig tree, but inste
opaque something was accumulating in the air..." (64, ibid., my italics
Explicitly, the boisterous behavior of the soldiers was intended to he

"ignore everything that happened down below" in the Arab village. Howeve
narrator (and possibly for other soldiers as well), no less important is the s
the non-conforming voice "inside," the voice of private consciousness. C
consciousness is described in the cited lines by the words "our indiffere
which it is plausible to access through external manifestations (without su
being, in my view, "inherently unresolved").
During the 1960s and the following two decades, the collective norms
society, previously taken for granted by most authors (Smilansky is an ex
this respect), were being challenged.14 Some of the major writers of thi
claimed that the new state had rapidly corrupted and strayed from the sup
ues of social justice, solidarity, and equality, that it had abandoned its vol
and pioneering spirit, and given up its aspirations to make every effort
peace with its Arab neighbor states. These writers spoke of a tremendous
haps even a chasm, torn between their universal and national ideals and
political reality.'5
Prominent Israeli author Amos Oz is a case in point: during the early 1
was notoriously active in a social-democratic circle called Min Hayes
protested against the glorification of the state, the army, the administrati
leader (David Ben-Gurion) as values in their own right, instead of regarding them
means for achieving shared national goals. The members of Min Hayesod believ
that this unwelcome trend induced passivity and irresponsibility: the authorit
judge, evaluate, and impose norms was vested exclusively in the hands of a sm
group of experts, while all other citizens were deprived of the power to guide or
vise government officials in making decisions that directly affected people's live
addition, the authorities sometimes misused their powers by disguising corrupt
tions and presenting them as motivated by national interests.
Despite the disappointment with the great gulf between promise and reali
Min Hayesod did not consider "retreat to the inner citadel," to use Isaiah Berli
term,16 a suitable solution to the value crisis and continued to seek for appropr
ways to create a society in which collective ideas might fulfill a significant role.
group's criticism was directed against the deterioration of moral values in the
state of Israel, the uniformity of thought that it encouraged, and its insensitivit
the specific needs of individuals.
Israeli "we" fictional texts produced from the early 1960s until the early 19
usually manifest the debates within Israeli society regarding the status of collec
values: their implied authors simultaneously acknowledge the importance of th
community for the survival, development, and prosperity of a nation surrounded
enemies, and display awareness of the potential dangers and distortions of unb
anced ideological collectivism that annihilates the subjective voice of the "I". T
ironic or critical position towards the "we" in these narratives expresses, on the
hand, disappointment with the way in which Zionism and Socialism were realize
the young Israeli society, while, on the other hand, rejecting a thoroughgoing de
of collective ideas and actions meant to achieve common goals.
The sort of group signified by the pronoun "we" in Israeli narratives varie
They can be the members of a kibbutz (as in Oz's novel Elsewhere Perhaps and
short stories "A Hollow Stone," "Where the Jackals Howl," and "Nomad and
Viper"); a group of soldiers in the Israeli army (Smilansky's stories; Yitzhak La
novel The People, Food Fit for A King; Oz's "The Trappist Monastery"); Holocau
prisoners, survivors and refugees (Appelfeld's novels Searing Light and Th
Mine and his story "Cold Spring"); a convoy of Jews heading toward Jerusalem
pelfeld'd Laish); a family or part of a family (Moshe Shamir's "The Fish Griller
Smilansky's "The Escapade" and "A Story That Did Not Begin"); a group of trav
ers (Smilansky's "Running by the Sea"); and the inhabitants of an imaginary or
defined place (Abraham B. Yehoshua's "The Yatir Evening Express" and Appelfe
"Our Lawyer").
In some "we" literary texts of the period, especially Oz's "Nomad and Viper"
and Yehoshua's allegorical story "The Yatir Evening Express," narration in the first
person plural disguises the loneliness, frustration, and despair felt by the anti-hero
narrator. The community ostensibly fulfills its goal of protecting the individual, sup-
porting him, and enhancing his sense of affiliation. Yet in fact, it encourages confor-
mity, passivity, irresoluteness, and dependence on others, while giving the individual
the false impression that he is powerful, courageous, and independent. This sense of
"we" is capable of expressing, as well as reinforcing, individual self-deception."7
56 Amit Marcus
The narrating character of "The Yatir Evening Express" was one of the
trators of a horrible crime: the deliberate and well-prepared swerving of t
express train off the rails. The moment of appearance and immediate disap
of the train is the only thrilling event in the dull life of the inhabitants of Ya
and isolated village. This ever-repeated moment constitutes the pinnacle
daily experience: the train's noise, its rapid movement, and most of all, the
people that it transports from and to other worlds, symbolize the unattaina
tunities of the village inhabitants and evoke "that vague feeling of ferven
tion and impotent fury" (142). Hence the narrating character's conse
collaboration with this evil scheme is motivated not only by his desire for
girl who malevolently plans it, but also by a life of desolation, despair, an
death. The only way the residents of Yatir find to change their lives is by en
the lives of others.
The narrating character's use of "we," like everything else that he says
follows Ziva's. When Ziva proposes that they go together to Barradon, th
secretary, and tell him "what's on our mind" (145), the narrating characte
protest at her use of the first person plural, as if they had one and the same
his thoughts were transparent to her. Instead, in the next paragraph he use
rator, the first person plural, when he uses similar words to Ziva's: "the gir
tell him our fears, our thoughts" (ibid). Ziva's "our" expresses her feelings
riority and her wish to overpower her enchanted friend, whereas the narra
acter's acceptance of her plural reference demonstrates his passivity, feeb
lack of autonomous will.
Unlike "The Yatir Evening Express," in which the narrator mostly employs the
first person singular and shifts to the first person plural only at some key points in the
story, Amos Oz's Elsewhere Perhaps is narrated by a single narrator who employs
the "we" pronoun throughout the great majority of the novel. This "we" in question
mostly refers to the voices of kibbutz members transmitted through gossip."8 Gossip
is presented as the essence of kibbutz life, since it is engaged in by everybody and
about everybody. The narrator points to gossip as his main source of information, his
"testimonial function, or function of attestation," in Genette's terms of narration
(256). Gossip is personified as "our old ally" (133), and as an ally, it shares with sto-
ries in general the yearning for "the complexities of love, hatred, jealousy, ambition,
loneliness, horror, etc." (196 in Hebrew, my translation).19 On the one hand, gossip
consolidates the community, because its formation is dependent on the group that
creates and transmits it, and because it encourages individuals who deviate from the
social norms to accept them; on the other hand, gossip undermines the foundations
of the community, since it focuses on private stories and demonstrates ideas and con-
duct that differ from the conventional ones. Such informal conversations expose the
gap between the sublime ideological principles supposedly upheld by the commu-
nity, and their application. Yet the narrator's blindness causes him to deny the exis-
tence of this gap, or at least to minimize its significance (86-87).20
Oz's narrator sometimes serves as a vessel for transmitting other people's gos-
sip, thus ridiculing the traditional transmission of the words of the Muse by the om-
niscient narrator in the great epics: "Einav Geva tells Nina Goldring what she has
heard from Dafna Isarov. Nina Goldring tells Einav Geva what she has heard fr
Yitzhak Friedrich, the treasurer. Fruma Rominov tells Hasia Ramigolski, on the a
thority of Gerda Zohar, who heard from Bronka Berger, the original source: Reuv
Harish is worn out and depressed" (177). At other times, he is one of the many ma
ufacturers of rumors. Being aware of the omnipresence of gossip, he expresses
anxiety of being caught in its snare if he misbehaves: "In any case, we are beginn
to attract attention by standing here all this time by the swing door, scrutiniz
everyone who comes past on his way to supper. If we linger here any longer, our
tentions will supply welcome grist for the mill of gossip" (35). In the next para
graphs, the narrator recounts that six people are sitting around "our" table, and
describes five of them. Thus the reader concludes that in this case, "we" refers o
to the narrator, who finds gossip as his potential rival. Nonetheless, he is so accu
tomed to speaking on behalf of the whole kibbutz, that he continues to do so even
a situation that lays bare his external perspective as an observer of the group and
as a fully participating member.
Gossip is portrayed as wishing, interpreting, and most of all, judging: "Wit
eyes like hawks' we observe our neighbors' actions. Our judgments take effect i
hundred and one devious21 ways" (177).22 The collective "we" denounces every b
havior that deviates from the norms of the kibbutz, especially those behaviors t
show a preference for individual desires and interests, since such conduct is pe
ceived as a threat to the unity and cohesiveness of the group. The kibbutz memb
as a unified body, are the only ones authorized to permit the "legitimate" type of pe
sonal relationships and to prohibit any other, "illegitimate" types.
The narrator portrays the judgments of the gossip mongers as objective, did
tic, uncompromising, and just (8-9, 135-36, 145). As such, gossip is identical to
omniscient narrator. Another characteristic of gossip that indicates its omniscien
and omnipotence is its ability to fabricate fictional worlds by combining imaginat
with information about the characters: the narrator suggests that "we" (undefine
this case, perhaps including the reader as well as the narrator) can peek in on priv
letters and summarize their contents as if they were actually read (137). Howev
the opinions spread by rumors are revealed, at a relatively advanced stage of th
story (i.e. 119), not only as fallible because they are based on conjectures, but also
motivated by the will to power and authority. In addition, gossip can be disgracef
because its enthusiasts enjoy wallowing in the mire of indecent deeds (196-97 in
Hebrew). Finally, the omniscience of a first person plural narrator is disclosed as
reliable, but the concept of omniscience itself is shattered, if its pretension to pe
trate the consciousness of all characters is implicitly compared to describi
personal letters one has never read.
Only on the last chapter of the novel does the narrator confess that he, a fir
person singular narrator, has exploited the first person plural mode as a mask. T
type of "we" narration is neither a case of pluralis modestatis, employed to demo
strate the modest opinion of the narrator, nor a case of pluralis majestatis ("ro
we"), which lays emphasis on the praiseworthiness of the narrator who presents
addresses) herself or himself in the plural. It is, instead, the plural of camouflag
the narrator deploys the first-plural as a rhetorical device for disclaiming respons
58 Amit Marcus
ity for his own words, for his own role as a gossip monger ("The Yatir Ev
press" is another example of such use of the plural). Moreover, describin
tions, thoughts, and beliefs of others is the narrator's way of avoiding intr
Contrary to Margolin's view, the consciousness of such a narrator is anythin
mediately accessible to himself. He is the representative of a society of go
gers, for whom the contents of private consciousness should be ev
disguised, since each transmitter of gossip is himself or herself watched c
the public eyes of the "Big Brother".
Needless to say, "we" narration is not the only possible way to criticize
ety that glorifies collective unrealizable ideals. However, in the Israeli so
1965, the year in which Oz's Elsewhere Perhaps was published, the use of "
ration served to mirror the prolific use of the first person plural in the pu
of Israeli life, a use which often appeared vain or evasive.
Unlike Oz's bitter irony, Appelfeld represents a more ambivalent pos
ward communal values in his "we" fictional narratives. Also unlike Oz, App
his fiction, is not preoccupied with the gap between collective ideology and
lematic application to everyday life; rather, his work seeks to demonstrate
plex relationships within a group of people forced to live and to function t
Appelfeld nevertheless shares with Oz a critical attitude toward commun
which were often exalted and admired by the Israeli leadership as well as b
erary works of previous decades.25 In Appelfeld's novels, the narrator and
characters subsumed under the pronoun "we" are prisoners of the Nazi conc
camps (in The Ice Mine) and refugees, Holocaust survivors (in Searin
whose existence is endangered both internally (for example, by ideological
and externally (by various kinds of disease and fatal dangers).
Large parts of these novels are narrated in the first person plural (while
is told in the first person singular). Although the signifier "we" creates th
sion of constancy and stability, its fluctuating signified indicates the grou
precarious situation. The groups formed in both novels are heterogeneou
ject to contrasting, centripetal and centrifugal forces.26
The theme of madness is especially interesting in this context: on the o
madness is one of the main centrifugal forces, since it is manifested by th
of the mad person and his or her increasing difficulty in cooperating with
even participating in their conversation. On the other hand, the contagious
madness (Searing 21) within the community demonstrates not only the g
weakness of individuals, but also the deep and extensive emotional ties be
members of the group, that is, the strength of its centripetal forces. Madn
ceived as the result of mental acts of private consciousness, such as thinkin
ing, wishing, expecting, and dreaming, which challenge the accepted nor
community and are therefore regarded as fatal to the efforts of survival.
Unlike Oz's narrator of Elsewhere Perhaps, the single narrators of Ap
novels do not disguise themselves in the form of "plural of camouflage":
"we" narration, they speak overtly on behalf of others. Furthermore, in ce
texts, such as the narrator's love affair in The Ice Mine and his artistic insp
Searing Light (esp. 53-62, 100-102), they adhere to the first person singu
ever, when they do narrate in the first person plural, they focus on actions and wor
(external manifestations of consciousness) and seldom represent consciousness in
ternally at all, whether individual or collective. Thus the problems which Margol
mentions regarding the representation of consciousness in the first person plural
hardly relevant to these narratives. Rather, they reveal the connections between l
lived in circumstances of extreme danger, suffering, and humiliation, the need fo
protective community, and the avoidance of introspection, retrospection, a
prospection.
The pronoun "we" used by the narrator represents neither a stable communit
nor a well defined world-view or system of values. However, all individuals wh
take part in the "we" group share the wish to survive. Those who fall into despair
sooner or later expelled from the group, which feels threatened and acts in self-
fense (Searing 108; Ice Mine 10-15). Survival in the concentration camps or
refugees after the end of the Holocaust generally depends on the cooperation and
emotional support that the victims provide to each other; dissociating oneself fro
the group decreases one's chances of survival. The characters of The Ice Mine th
seek solitude and differentiate themselves from the group soon die. Yet some s
vivors of the camps consider the togetherness of the "we" to be no longer trustw
thy after the war has ended. The group is no longer viewed as protecting t
individual, but on the contrary, as an obstacle in adapting him/herself to the skills i
dispensable for leading an independent life: "Buchbinder believes that we should
separate as Butzi suggested. Our togetherness is dangerous" (Ice Mine 135).27
The 1990s have produced, besides Appelfeld's The Ice Mine and Laish, a few
fictional narratives in which "we" narration is mingled with narration in the first p
son singular and in the second person. Two of Smilansky's stories ("A Story Th
Did Not Begin" and "The Runaway") are preoccupied much less with political is-
sues than his stories from the late 1940s, focusing instead on the individual, his p
sonal experiences and close relationships. Accordingly, the "we" consists of a sm
group or a pair (a family in "The Runaway," a father and son in "A Story That
Not Begin;" both in Stories of the Plain). In another story ("Running by The Sea,
By The Sea), Smilansky is subtly engaged with politics by ironically alluding to
analogies between "fathers" and "sons," the Hebrew Zealots of Massada in the fi
century CE and the Zionists of modern times.
Collectivism in Israeli society, particularly in its military form, is acutely an
harshly criticized in Yitzhak Laor's novel The People, Food Fit for A King. Laor
soldiers of 1967 do not share collective values that are considered crucial for a victo-
rious war, like solidarity and the willingness to sacrifice oneself for a just common
cause. On the contrary, they are self-centered, admit to having no principles (67), and
cooperate mainly in order to improve the chances of each to advance their own per-
sonal interests. They obey the orders of their superiors only in order to avoid trouble
(90), and they fail to cooperate even when deserting their base (504). In such cir-
cumstances, the narrator asserts that his own use of the first person plural in certain
paragraphs is dubious (77).28
Unlike Oz's narratives of the 1960s, in Laor's novel collective ideals no longer
exist, except in the shallow and unambiguous minds of authoritarian leaders and
60 Amit Marcus
commanders, who cynically manipulate their subjects in the interest of

will to power. Nonetheless, the novel offers an alternative model of shar
(and an alternative history): the soldiers decide to desert their base when th
the impending war. Although they fail to cooperate with each other in th
they succeed in preventing the Six-Day War by resisting the collective c
government and the army officials for self-sacrifice (504-18).
CONCLUSION
My critique of Margolin's analysis of "we" fictional narratives demonstra

that his conception of consciousness as private, unique, self-transparent, and im
etrable to others is itself contextually bounded. Instead of being inherently pro
atic, some of these narratives depict states of mind in ways that are incompa
with the Cartesian epistemological tradition that Margolin follows. I suggeste
dorsing instead Richardson's contextual perspective to this issue, which bette
counts for the variety of "we" narratives.
However, Israeli "we" narratives shed light on Richardon's recent study f
another perspective. Richardson offers a historical survey of "we" narration, b
ning with Joseph Conrad's The Nigger of the Narcissus, and laying emphasis o
cialist, postcolonial, and gynocentric fiction. He concludes that "[t]he vast majo
of 'we' texts valorize collective identity in no uncertain terms: 'we' is almost al
a favored term and a desirable subject position that is to be sought out and inha
(Unnatural 50). Perhaps this generalization is accurate when applied to the post
nial "we" fiction analyzed by Richardson. Yet it is inaccurate as regards Israeli
fiction, which has actualized the subversive potential of this grammatical for
critically examine collective norms, as well as the authority and knowledge of
lective source of narration. This is further evidence for the aptness of Richard
own argument referred to at the beginning of this article, in which he urges read
avoid drawing general unequivocal connections between ideology and the narr
form.
The broad range of effects that Israeli writers have created in their various uses
of "we" narration does not conform to what one might expect from a simple as-
sumption that the emphasis on community would foster first person plural narration
that celebrates collective identity. Israeli "we" fictional narratives at the same time
reflect and give rise to intense doubts about collective values, namely, the ideals of
Zionism and Socialism, and their implementation in Israeli society. Their employ-
ment of the first person plural displays growing discontent with the established ide-
ology and disillusionment with the myth of the Sabra, the "new Hebrew."
Israeli "we" narratives, particularly from the 1960s until the 1980s, show con-
siderable awareness of conflicts between the individual will and the achievement of
collective goals, of the sub-groups within any community that represent different
(and often irreconcilable) interests, of the evasion of personal responsibility under
the consoling cover of the "we," and of the destructive potential of the community in
reinforcing the effect of sinister impulses. Most Israeli "we" fictional narratives are
characterized by a "largely realistic narration that nevertheless stretches verisim

tude at key points" (Unnatural 59), hence, in terms of their form, they do not exhau
the potential for "semantic instability" that Margolin rightly attributes to the prono
"we". Nonetheless, they are subversive with regard to the mainstream of Israeli f
tion in previous decades.
ENDNOTES
I am grateful to Monika Fludernik, Ansgar Ntinning, Anat Schultz, and the anonymous reader of N
tive for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this essay. I would also like to thank Brian Ric
son for sharing his book manuscript with me before its publication.
1. Margolin mentions three referential ambiguities that generate semantic instability and internal
tradictio,: "Whenever more than two agents are involved in a 'we' state or action description
exact scope of 'we' may remain ambiguous, since it may cover most, but not all members of
given group; A. M.], since it may or may not include the speaker, and since its reference group
consist of somewhat different subsets of G on different occasions of use" (ibid. 132).
2. See Fludernik ("Introduction" 290-92; "Second-Person" 457-60).
3. See Herman 379, Fludernik ("Second-Person" 457-58).
4. I have designated Margolin's conception of consciousness "Cartesian", due to the transparenc

immediacy that he, like Descartes, attributes to introspection. Margolin's position is also similar
that of some empiricist philosophers, such as John Locke and George Berkeley, who claimed that
mediate private sensations are the foundation of all knowledge. See Kenny 142.
5. Bloor 64. See similar formulations in Kenny 144 and Stern 182-84.
6. See Wittgenstein 306-7.
7. The exact term "private language" does not occur anywhere in Wittgenstein's published writing
Stern 175), perhaps because it may be misleading. "Private" is used here "not in the sense that is
culiar to a single user, but in the sense that [the] words [in that language] have acquired their mea
for each of us by an essentially private process" (Kenny 142).
8. See Ayer 74-77.
9. However, Wittgenstein does state that "experiences ... can be kept secret without being pub
manifested in any way" (Kenny 150).
10. My critique of Margolin's position was articulated prior to reading Richardson's text. Despit
clear similarities between our positions, Richardson's critique emphasizes "we" narratives that tr
scend a realistic or mimetic representation, whereas my critique highlights alternative ways of un
standing and depicting consciousness within a mimetic framework.
11. Existential psychoanalysts such as Viktor Frankl propose an alternative way of dealing
extremely harsh living conditions, like the ones faced by the twins in Kristof's novel-a way
enables the agent to maintain his or her moral responsibility. Frankl claims that a human b
must know "the 'why' for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any 'how' " (88). See
cus (84).
12. See Marcus (82).
13. In "the prisoner," the reader may notice a similar dramatized struggle between a conforming a
non-conforming voice, but unlike in "The Story of Hirbet Hiz'ah", the conforming voice correl
with "I", and the non-conforming voice-with "you". It is implied that the "I" must be dista
from the egocentric self in order to hear the voice of the other, which is the call of conscience.
62 Amit Marcus
14. The following three paragraphs are based, to a large extent, on Gretz.
15. Two central developments that brought about this criticism were the 1955 Lavon affair and
cations (named after Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon, this affair involved a scandal ove
Israeli covert operation in Egypt, in which Egyptian, American and British-owned targets
were bombed), and the Sinai Campaign of 1956.
16. The metaphor "retreat to the inner citadel" is used by Berlin (135-41) in an essentially dif
text, as part of his distinction between positive and negative freedom.
17. Shaked (76, 138-39) contrasts the anti-stereotypical characters and anti-realistic plot in He
ratives of the 1960s with the stereotypical characters and realistic plot of the previous two
18. A preliminary version of gossip as the collective voice of the kibbutz is illustrated in Oz's s
low Stone" (1963). Another interesting example of gossip as the agent of "we" narration an
tion to narrative unreliability is cited by Richardson (Unnatural 55).
19. The English translation of the novel omits some passages of the Hebrew original. In such c
page numbers refer to the Hebrew edition.
20. Another sign of the narrator's unreliability is his statement that unlike what some readers
conclude, the kibbutz is not suffused with gossip (230). In arguing this, he is inconsistent
way in which gossip is presented in the rest of his story.
21. The Hebrew original is much more subtle in this case; it does not explicitly mention any c
scheming intent.
22. However, in certain intimate situations, the gaze of gossip turns aside and does not dare t
(48).
23. I am indebted to Johnathan Stavsky for suggesting this term. Susan Sniader Lanser gives the designa-
tion "singular communal voice" to narration by a single narrator that "'pretends' to speak both for
and as an entire community" (254), and contends that "within an individually authored novel, such a
communal voice is actually the most fictional of all fictions of authority" (ibid.).
24. In his First-person Essays, Appelfeld feels obligated to emphasize that his use of the first person
plural in is not meant to exceed the scope of "subjective issues" and "personal response" (7). The nar-
rator of Appelfeld's The Ice Mine (who presumably represents the views of the implied author) ex-
presses a similar opinion when he tells his girlfriend Ida that only "I" is the language of truth, whereas
"we" is the language of disguise and blinding generalization (23). However, contrary to authorial in-
tention, Appelfeld's "we" narration addresses collective issues and experiences as well.
25. David Ben-Gurion, for example, famously sought to cultivate in his speeches Israeli collective, espe-
cially military, values. See Ohana and Wistrich 149-51. A notorious example of a novel that ex-
presses the collective norms of the new state of Israel is Moshe Shamir's He Walked Through the
Fields.
26. In Discourse in the Novel, Mikhail Bakhtin distinguishes between two perpetually conflicting forces
of language: centripetal, striving for the unification of language, and centrifugal, decentralizing lan-
guage and manifesting its heterogeneous features. However, my use of these Bakhtinian terms is not
limited to language. It includes all the social elements affecting the integration and the disintegration
of the group.
27. See also Appelfeld's short story "Cold Spring." The gold merchant in Appelfeld's Laish expresses a
similar attitude when a plague threatens the existence of the group of travelers to which he belongs
(142).
28. This assertion concludes the story of Avikam, a soldier who naively tells his fellow soldiers of his re-
lationship with his family and his girlfriend and - perhaps due to his extraordinary frankness - is
being brutally beaten by them until he loses his consciousness. The narrator criticizes his own use of
"we," because it obfuscates the disintegration of the group and creates the false impression of a col-
lective memory, whereas in fact there is no consensus among the soldiers about what they actually
to Avikam: "Did he have any enemies? No. Who hated among us? The narratorial first person plu
is also dubious: some remembered the incident [of the beating] and some remembered the opposi
and some remembered the anus of his girlfriend Tzeira" (77, my translation). The Hebrew word "m
fukpak", used by Laor, means both "dubious" and "doubtful".
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A Contextual View of Narrative Fiction in the First Person Plural

Author(s): Amit Marcus

A Contextual View of Narrative

NARRATIVE, Vol. 16, No. 1 (January 2008)

However, I believe it is worthwhile to articulate connections between ideology

Margolin is correct in characterizing (after Jakobson) first person plural narra-

and sensations. However, no mind is transparent, except perhaps in some litera

In certain non-Western cultures, by contrast, the idea of a separate consc

Of unconnected consciousness is there more to say beyond the clear recognition

A different motivation for minimizing the representation of consciousness is

CONTEXTUALIZING "WE" FICTIONAL NARRATIVES:

rebellious voice has overcome the conforming voice in his resolution to t

[once in a while I would reawaken, wondering how easily one can be

The conforming voice is correlated, to a great extent, with the use of

Explicitly, the boisterous behavior of the soldiers was intended to he

commanders, who cynically manipulate their subjects in the interest of

My critique of Margolin's analysis of "we" fictional narratives demonstra

characterized by a "largely realistic narration that nevertheless stretches verisim

2. See Fludernik ("Introduction" 290-92; "Second-Person" 457-60).

3. See Herman 379, Fludernik ("Second-Person" 457-58).

4. I have designated Margolin's conception of consciousness "Cartesian", due to the transparenc

6. See Wittgenstein 306-7.

8. See Ayer 74-77.

12. See Marcus (82).

Appelfeld, Aharon. "Cold Spring." In Smoke (Ashan). Jerusalem: Ahshav, 1962.

- . Searing Light (Mikhvat Haor). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1980.

- . Laish. Jerusalem: Keter, 1994.

- . The Ice Mine (Mikhre Hakerah). Jerusalem: Keter, 1997.

Ayer, Alfred Jules. Wittgenstein. New York: Random House, 1985.

Barth, John. Sabbatical. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1982.

Jacobson, Roman. Questions de podtique. Paris: Seuil, 1973.

Kenny, Anthony. Wittgenstein. London: A. Lane, 1973.

Kristof, Agota. Le Grand Cahier. Paris: Seuil, 1986.

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