Melkamu Teshome

Narrative Voice in Dhaba Woyessa's Godaannisa and Gurraacha Abbayyaa: a Comparative Study Melkamu Teshome

The purpose of this study is to analyze how a narrative voice is manifested in two Oromo narratives: Godaannisa and Gurraacha Abbayyaa, written by Dhaba Woyyessa. The intention is to show how an author applies different styles from text to text in terms of narrative voice. It is also attempted to indicate that the application of voice in a narrative can be analyzed not only irrespective of the medium but also irrespective of the language in which the narrative is presented. When analyzed critically, as Genette (1980), Booth (1983), Phelan (1996) and Bal (1997) among others would argue, a narrative voice can help to understand the characteristics of a certain text. So to analyze the narrative voice in each selected narrative, source, level, text and time relationship, and degrees of conspicuousness and reliability of the narrator are used as criteria. The study revealed that the narrative voice in Godaannisa is a personified, extra-homodiegetic, overt, retrospective and unreliable while the narrative voice in Gurraacha Abbayyaa is unpersonified, extra-hetrodiegetic, moderately overt, retrospective and slightly unreliable.