Beyond the Human Voice: Francis Poulenc's Psychological Drama La Voix humaine (1958) Page: 16
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the semiotic division of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), into sign, object, and
interpretant, the object is concrete evidence of the sign, and the interpretant is the process
by which one recognizes the sign." Peirce defines a sign as "anything which determines
something else (its interpretant) to refer to an object to which itself refers (its object) in
the same way, the interpretant becoming in turn a sign, and so on ad infinitum."12 Thus,
the telephone (object) is the sign that refers to something else. The woman would not be
holding the telephone if she were not conversing with her ex-lover, and yet she is talking
to him, even if the audience does not see the "something else," the man, to which the sign
refers. The man remains unrevealed to the audience, both visually and audibly. Even so,
the audience is aware of him through the sign whose object is the telephone.
The woman refers to the telephone several times during the conversation,
reminding the audience of the distance between the ex-lovers. At one point, the man
cannot hear her clearly, and the woman responds,
Pourtantje parle trbs fort... Et Ii, tu m'entends?... Je dis: et li, tu m'entends?...
C'est drd1e parce que moi je t'entends comme si tu 6tais dans la chambre.
Yet I am speaking very loudly... And there, do you hear me?... I said: do you
hear me?... It is peculiar because you sound as if you were in the room.
Cocteau's insertion of telephone problems not only serves partially as a plot device, but
also demonstrates that the woman has not separated herself completely from her ex-lover.
As the conversation continues, she also experiences difficulty hearing the man, and she
11 James Hoopes, Introduction, Peirce on Signs, ed. James Hoopes (Chapel Hill: The University of
North Carolina Press, 1991), 7-8.
12 Charles Sanders Peirce, "Sign" in Peirce on Signs, ed. Jamers Hoopes (Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 239.16
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Beard, Cynthia C. Beyond the Human Voice: Francis Poulenc's Psychological Drama La Voix humaine (1958), thesis, May 2000; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2543/m1/22/?q=music: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .