ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the model of ventriloquism to explore how the dialogue, and tension, between voices is key to Voyage at the narrative level, in the relationship between the instances that are perceived as figural voices by the reader, namely the narrator and the characters. It focuses on the ways in which Celine plays with voice, and how this is already articulated in the relationship between the figural voices in Voyage. In Voyage, the narrator Ferdinand Bardamu uses the voices of his characters dialogically, as he collides with and denounces other discourses. In order to understand how Bardamu uses the power he acquires as narrator, it is important to analyze his evolution from protagonist to narrator, listener to teller, and his relationship with other voices. The question of whether Bardamu is fulfilled by his vocal power as a ventriloquial narrative voice is linked in part to the opposition which belies an inter-dependent relationship between him and Robinson.
