Voice in "Roger Ebert: The Essential Man"

            As Janet Burroway puts it in Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, in order to fully understand a character in a novel, “you need to hear a character’s voice in your head in order to bring him or her to life successfully,” (Burroway 83).  In the article “Roger Ebert: The Essential Man,” Chris Jones creates just this sort of understanding and connection between the reader and the character through his “connective” and story-like style of writing for the voice of Roger Ebert, a famous movie critic that lost his lower jaw due to cancer. 

            Jones does not make the narration boring or “fact-like” like many non-fiction articles. Jones creates a story through Roger Ebert’s life, and makes many of his experiences come to life. He sets up the tone to make it appear as if the reader were seeing what Roger Ebert sees and experiences.  In this sense, the article is very easy to follow – we, the readers, are drawn into the article by Roger’s “character” as if we were seeing into the characters that Roger writes about.  Burroway also suggests that the concept of writing through someone else’s voice can be quite difficult.  Burroway suggests to “write a monologue in your character’s voice” (Burroway 84).  Jones manages to create just this sort of monologue between the reader and Roger Ebert as we are given the story of his life without much factual evidence. 

            Thus, Jones does not need to provide evidence to prove who Roger is – he only needs to describe through a story-like tone of who Roger is which makes his life and this article all the more interesting and compelling.  Jones further gives us a sense of Roger by incorporating significant quotes and sayings that provide a vision into Roger’s life – especially when Roger writes, “when I am writing, my problems become invisible and I am the same person I always was.  All is well.  I am as I should be.”  Lines such as these, (direct quotes from the person), provide so much insight into a character, and most importantly into a human being that grants the reader with so much detail and valuable information into a person’s life.  We are able to relate with Roger and understand a piece of what he sees and what he does.  Furthermore, Chris Jones gives Roger Ebert his own "voice" within this article.