ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

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strode on. He said, with his eyes now looking straight in front of him: ‘I’m sorry. There must be some confusion.’ He tried to get past, but the two policemen barred his way. The inspector said: ‘Now be reasonable, sir. You’re only . . .’ He did not hear any more. His head went round faster and faster, until his body could do nothing but follow it. His shoulders swung round, and one foot crossed over the other. He toppled heavily in the gutter, knocking off the police-constable’s helmet as he went down. (77-78) This passage reveals a remarkable degree of both separation and unity of Frobisheras-narrator and Frobisher-as-character. On the one hand, the narrator retains distance from his subject. The final paragraph in particular mingles narration of physical events with narration of the man’s mental state in the same objective tone. On the other hand, the narrator adheres to a strict focalization, making only observations and judgments available to Frobisher’s mind in the moment, to the point where the chapter ends as he loses consciousness. This combination of unity and split echoes the split within Frobisher both thematically and technically, as, in the moment, Frobisher maintains a belief that he is only observing, rather than living, his life. The scene reinforces this doubling with apparently objective aspects of the scene. There are two cars, two occupants in each, two policemen. The woman is twice quoted calling Frobisher’s name, repeating “Alick” twice on each occasion. The 203
impulse of fear comes to Frobisher twice before he begins to run away. Frobisher’s thoughts are similarly allusive, even as he seems less aware than ever of his own actions: he refers to the possibility of a lover’s quarrel (his own relationship with Richard being left ambiguous), and to the possibility of a crime. Previously, at the newsstand, he seemed at least somewhat aware that he himself was involved in a sort of crime—but here the crime is externalized, even from the “other” Frobisher. Most ironically, Frobisher quotes himself saying, “There must be some confusion.” This last piece of dialog not only reflects Frobisher’s mental state, but the position the narrator has put the reader in. The man and the woman are not clearly identified as Richard St. Hilda and Frobisher’s wife Margaret, even as the narrative of the two Frobishers seems to be resolving itself. Meanwhile, the split between Frobisher-asnarrator, Frobisher-as-character is maintained, even heightened, at the very moment that the two Frobishers in the scene are definitively revealed as the same person. Frobisher’s disturbed mental state makes it difficult to grasp exactly what is going on, even if we are able to get the general idea. But the revelation of the identity of the Frobishers heightens the reader’s awareness of the narrator’s silence on this matter. Rather than state what is plainly true, the narrator maintains his modernist stance of objectively narrating subjective mental states. But there is something impossible about narrating the subjective mental state of a man who is two men, since only one mind can be narrated at once. We are left with a sense of not quite understanding what is going on inside of Frobisher, just as we are not quite sure what is going on in the scene. Frobisher’s mind is, at this point, beyond the traditional resources of modernist narration. More traditional narration—with its ability to summarize and 204
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ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH
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BRITISH MODERNIST NARRATIVE MIDDLES
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Dedication To my wife Pat, my disse
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Table of Contents Dedication ......
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necessarily after anything else, an
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eginning. That is, a modernist midd
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and Mario Ortiz-Robles have brought
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Princess Casamassima. The former is
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choice of McHale’s definition is
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In examining modernist middles, I w
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“is to overlook the other fundame
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evolution of capitalism strikes me
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spatial and temporal confines. On t
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narratives in Beckett’s Molloy, c
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Johnson mark an end to Britain’s
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period somewhat peripheral, a parti
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is oriented around endings (Jim’s
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eal world, yet the novel explores i
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Ulysses, the second half of In Tran
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Modernist texts may also contain mi
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chapters), and the end as Marlow’
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potentially be used to highlight ep
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middle) of the veracity of the Time
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Jim’s actions within a causal nar
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to Patusan midway through the novel
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violation of the unity of action, b
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which mass culture will be articula
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Jameson shows how the difference be
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genres, connected by multiple middl
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it does in Jameson’s reading. How
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text, since only a vast rupture req
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actually see Jim make the deal with
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for interpreting his own life and t
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garners an enthusiastic response fr
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circular encasement, which has the
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text’s initial questions are begi
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Chapter 2: Modernist Points of View
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it seems that the marriage plot is
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centering his novels within his pro
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singular, centered focalization—a
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inn. The lovers will return to Char
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consciousness itself seems to contr
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created, in part, by the use of mul
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epistemological problem: how do the
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observation leads immediately and i
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ineffectiveness” (Kafalenos 125).
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shall have everything’” (266).
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can to the sheer unspeakable narrat
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induce me” (277). Fanny, then, re
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and the objective world. Instead, M
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‘Sure. Nothing will. Good-night,
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It was not till many days had passe
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which a story unfolds, and perhaps
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When Amerigo arrives, Maggie’s co
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accomplish, who she will meet, what
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Chapter 3: “Time Passes”: The M
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narrative force towards modernist m
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Even as “Time Passes” serves an
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technique of modernist narrative, b
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ground of any rival solutions to Li
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summary and scene” (Genette, Narr
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Window,” and the ending section,
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presentation in “Time Passes.”
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where things happen. Events are mad
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has promised James that they will g
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For Lucio Ruotolo, however, this na
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eginning, middle, and end together
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integral to the musical and dramati
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spring from the narrative problem o
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who creates a mind for inanimate ob
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own thoughts nor that of any charac
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language, and thus subject to the c
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Lighthouse,” and narrations of th
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in so far as her presence helps the
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anthropomorphizing narrative—but
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In the initial description of summe
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they find “something out of harmo
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upper rooms of the empty house only
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like to be up here at dusk alone ne
Page 160 and 161: armistice, but it follows so immedi
Page 162 and 163: y the narrator, allow a world unpop
Page 164 and 165: Furthermore, passages like this fun
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Page 168 and 169: Mrs. McNab and Mrs. Bast are arguab
Page 170 and 171: unclear whether time flows forward,
Page 172 and 173: conventions of modernist and tradit
Page 174 and 175: middle by making itself markedly di
Page 176 and 177: Lighthouse’s primary narrative pa
Page 178 and 179: served to marginalize experimental
Page 180 and 181: the author’s other novels. Alick
Page 182 and 183: himself. In an episode that resembl
Page 184 and 185: unity between time story time and n
Page 186 and 187: accept the lying perspective as par
Page 188 and 189: cause and which effect. Any attempt
Page 190 and 191: died on October, 1938” (7). Frobi
Page 192 and 193: middle of fundamental change; the u
Page 194 and 195: However, like the stories Macmann a
Page 196 and 197: which takes Saturnine to the edge o
Page 198 and 199: Aspic, to thank him for his kindnes
Page 200 and 201: Whereas Genette’s discussion of h
Page 202 and 203: problems of the self, but instead p
Page 204 and 205: sees in the faces. But here we can
Page 206 and 207: narration. Frobisher has entered a
Page 208 and 209: Frobisher is reassured both by the
Page 212 and 213: analyze mental states from outside
Page 214 and 215: journey up. But meaning emanates fr
Page 216 and 217: death vision, in which life is self
Page 218 and 219: Thus, after a tile falls from the r
Page 220 and 221: objection to realism: yes, an objec
Page 222 and 223: esulted in a doubling—or repetiti
Page 224 and 225: The ending Frobisher comes to with
Page 226 and 227: though the novel’s return to epis
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Page 232 and 233: created by a formal device that rep
Page 234 and 235: final section resolves the scenario
Page 236 and 237: that each of the novel’s sections
Page 238 and 239: inadequate to me for such a narrati
Page 240 and 241: narratives. This fundamental differ
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Page 244 and 245: unburden the author’s memory. How
Page 246 and 247: Instead, the middle of The Unfortun
Page 248 and 249: By contrast, the second type of sec
Page 250 and 251: at both. This particular failure is
Page 252 and 253: as knowing it, as he did not know o
Page 254 and 255: had been so full-fleshed, the whole
Page 256 and 257: had talked, Tony” (“That was th
Page 258 and 259: epudiation of its own central moder
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narrator/rememberer. Johnson mainta
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etrospective, an attempt to think i
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it, welcome it) the ball spun lazil
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worn” 9-10). The image finds the
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like a miracle, though he still cou
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By contrast, when the narrator firs
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memory: a mixture of the ordered an
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Chapter 6: Indivisible Form, Divide
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ecause postmodernism concerns the n
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in the diegetic reality of the nove
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section one LINGUISTIC LEPROSY Alle
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In Transit’s musical subtitles al
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they are perched between or represe
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performative in a Butlerian sense,
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the chorus describe themselves as a
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lamentable incident which I am now
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social component of thought only th
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identity, which remains unitary and
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not an effort to give the narrator
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Novelist 33). That is, Pat-the-narr
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primarily with classifying Pat’s
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now irrelevant, replaced by the pur
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etween reader and author. When Pat
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consequences for the entire world o
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world presented to the reader in Se
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of Pat’s own life, and by forgett
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evolutionaries find that another gr
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However, Brophy is not entirely don
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masculinity. Its manifestations are
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to violate. In Transit’s postmode
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ontological—shifts to consider de
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However, I would argue that we read
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Conclusion Modernism and narrative
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approximately half of the narrative
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little attention in the past, littl
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Brophy, Brigid. Don’t Never Forge
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1989. 162-185. ---. “Periodizing
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Johnson, B. S. The Unfortunates. Ed
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Political in the Novels of Virginia
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Said, Edward. Beginnings: Intention
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