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personal note of "[the shop] where her father had bought his suits for fifty years", in passage (2) the emotional word  , 'ruthlessly'. Only here the wordgroup  , and  is found in narrator-text as against 10 occurrences in direct speech. |
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In both passages it is the narrator who verbalizes Mrs. Dalloway's and Andromache's perceptions; the characters themselves do not speak. The implication is that only the reader is informed about these perceptions and feelings, and not the characters in the story. This implication is not always relevant; thus in passage (1) there are no other characters present, while in passage (2) Andromache's feelings are no secret. In most of the instances of embedded focalization in the Iliad secrecy plays no role.7 The implication can, however, be exploited with great effect, when thoughts are deliberately left unspoken by a character and there is a discrepancy between the knowledge of the reader, who is aware of what is going on in the mind of the character, and that of the other characters in the story, who are not.8 This happens frequently in the Odyssey. |
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That the Homeric narrator was aware of the 'unspokenness' of embedded focalization can be illustrated quite simply from his use of the monologue form to present a character's thoughts, as opposed to the embedded focalization form: the monologue form is used when a character is alone, cannot be overheard by others and hence can safely utter what he thinks. The embedded focalization form is used when other characters are present.9 Thus, at the beginning of book 6 of the Odyssey we find first a monologue by Odysseus, in which he asks himself where he has landed this time (11026); then, when he stands opposite Nausicaa, his deliberation as to how to approach the girl takes the form of embedded focalization (1418), since she is clearly not meant to overhear his thoughts. |
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Let us now look at the ways in which the device of unspoken thought is used in the Odyssey.10 I will concentrate on the second half of the poem, the story of Odysseus' homecoming, which contains most of the instances. The champion of unspoken thought is, of course, Odysseus himself. |
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Odysseus' Unspoken Thoughts |
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The point of departure for Odysseus' secrecy is the following instruction which Athena gives him as soon as he lands on the shore of Ithaca: |
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7 See De Jong (1987) 102123. |
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8 See Bal (1985) 110. |
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9 Hentze (1905) 23 and Scully (1984) 13 mention other criteria for choosing between the two forms: the monologue form allows the poet to characterize a person and to explain more fully his motives. |
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10 The importance of thoughts in the Odyssey (as opposed to actions and words) is noted but not worked out systematically by Austin (1975) 180 and Rutherford (1985) 144. |
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