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  • Essay / Deference and Reference to Authorship in Dictee

    The back cover of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee describes the book as "a classic autobiographical work that transcends the self." This sentence is contradictory. The Oxford English Dictionary defines autobiography as “a self-given account of a person’s life.” While it is indeed an autobiography, Dictation is unorthodox, as it discusses the accounts of several other people instead of focusing solely on the author. In addition, the variety of media present in Dictée multiplies the unusual character of the book. Identifying the plurality inherent in the material and structural levels of Dictée shows that the contradictions arise from considering Dictée as a “work”. Roland Barthes' approach gives a more precise description of Dictée, as a collection of self-deference. However, while Barthes claims the total removal of the authorship of the text, Cha manages to assert his authorship by deliberately modifying the details of his text, as if his memories were hazy. Working with pluralities in mediation and structure, Cha views Dictee as the text projected through the author's memory. The use of various media in Dictee means that interpretive reading on Dictee does not work. It is difficult to classify Dictée in a single genre, because it mixes several forms of writing, some quoted and others original. In addition, the plurality of the text extends the written medium to the graphic domain. Instead of attributing images or texts separately, Cha interleaves them in Dictee. For example, the Clio section begins with a photograph of Yu Guan Soon, followed by her biography, a calligraphy of Chinese characters meaning woman and man, and an excerpt from a Korean history book. There is also a news article about Japanese forces in Korea, ...... middle of paper ...... the author's subjectivity returns to a more fundamental level, to the projection of the Text. As the Text embodies the author's legacy (the errors), the author also becomes part of the Text. Thus, by “playing” with the Text, Cha achieved the goal she had set for herself in the name of Sappho: “May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bones, more resistant than the tendons, sensitive as the nerves. » The words that Cha wrote belong to the text. They are stored in collective memory, protected from the decadence innate to physical existence. Works Cited Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung. Dictation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Print “Autobiography.” Oxford English Dictionary. 3rd ed. 2011. Internet. March 10, 2014. Barthes, Roland. “The death of the author”, “From the work to the text”. Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephan Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. 142-148, 155-164. Print.