Non-Human Narration in Ted Chiang's The Great Silence
School of Foreign Languages, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan 430205, China
| Abstract: | This paper adopts non-human narrative theory as the primary research perspective, exploring how Ted Chiang's short story The Great Silence breaks through the traditional anthropocentric discourse model through non-human narration. In the story, the Puerto Rican parrot serves as the first-person narrator, placing the animal—originally an object of observation—at the center of the narrative. Firstly, the parrot functions as the narrative voice of the entire text, becoming the narrative subject. Secondly, as a non-human observer, it creates an effect of reversed perspective, transforming humans from observers into observed subjects, thereby revealing the limitations of human cognition in understanding others. Finally, the story juxtaposes the "silence" of the universe with the gradual disappearance of non-human voices on Earth through the parrot's endangered situation, making species extinction not only a biological loss but also the vanishing of a unique memory and culture. By incorporating "the voices of animals" into the text and making them the narrative subject through non-human narration, The Great Silence reflects on anthropocentrism and offers a new narrative perspective for human understanding of non-human life. |
| Keywords: | Ted Chiang; The Great Silence; Non-human Narration; Anthropocentrism |
| DOI: | 10.57237/j.jsts.2026.02.002 |
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Received: 6 July 2026
Accepted: 17 August 2026
Published Online: 7 September 2026
Funding
| 1. | 武汉工程大学第十七届研究生教育创新基金 (基金编号: CX2025515) |
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