Transcendent voices: Heteroglossia and the Power of Female Identity in Three Films by David Lynch

Abstract

In this thesis, I perform a feminist-semiotic analysis of three of David Lynch’s movies—Twin

Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. I use Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of

heteroglossia as the tool for my examination, focusing on how the lead female characters in these films

assert their voices against the other conflicting elements within the text. This thesis situates Lynch’s films

within feminist film scholarship due to his strong female characters who function as active subjects of the

narrative, furthering the action, in opposition with Laura Mulvey’s image of the passive woman. I argue

that Lynch’s non-coherent narrative form is particularly useful for feminism because it reveals new

representations for women and new ways for them to assert their agency.