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Distinctive Voices in Literature

            In the novel The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender written by Marele Day, distinctive voices are created through the creation of voices depicted through various literary techniques. Distinctive voices can change our perceptions and views towards an individual. Composers develop distinctive voices within a text to invoke reactions and create experiences that the audience experience as they read or view the text. Marele Day has used a range of literary techniques including first person narration and phrases to successfully create an interchange of unique characters. In the character of Claudia, Day has subverted the chauvinistic male stereotype in the detective genre, and changed the way people perceive women. Sydney is personified to be innocent, and at the same time there are crimes and an untold side to the city that is not displayed. Day has created Harry Lavender as the evil voice behind Sydney's crimes, giving the audience someone to connect to and someone to dislike.
             The character Claudia is initially portrayed as a typical forties, hard-boiled detective. Day plays with this stereotype at the beginning of the novel challenging the traditional beliefs in what people assume a detective would be like: a male figure. This is suggested in "a bottle of Jack Daniels: empty. And an ash tray: full." The use of the punctuation particularly the colon represents Claudia ticking off a linguistic mirror of a mental checklist of all the items and characteristics of the typical male morning after a big night out. This shows how the audience is expecting the character to be a tough male but we are proven wrong when we find out it is a female by the use of feminine pronoun "she". The audience automatically presumes Claudia lives "hard" eating pub food, rare steaks and drinking alcohol. Day expresses Claudia as a character of a tough male detective through the use of aggressive language "you faint, I stick you under a cold shower then I bring you back in again.


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