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

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consequences for the entire world of the transit lounge’s ontology, which first came under attack (more on this theme in Section Four) from the lesbian underworld just outside. Initially, these two characters appear in the same scene, with Burleigh the lawyer touting his Holmesian devotion to Logic while discussing the case with his secretary Bunny. Their initial dialogue may be read as an externalization of two aspects of an internal character—that is, spoken words from two different characters standing in for thoughts from two parts of a single character’s personality. Even here, however, we are reminded that this is no transparent dramatization of Pat’s “true” complex personality and thoughts. Instead, we have comically hackneyed dialogue, with the woman in a clearly subservient position. Despite this doubling of character, Bunny seems to be there only to encourage Burleigh; her contribution to the dialogue is perhaps even less than the contributions of Socrates’ disciples (detective fiction is not the only genre invoked here), with affirmations (“I’ll do that, chief”) and expressions of concern (“You will be careful, chief?”) (164). Soon, however, Burleigh and Bunny split up, with an agreement to meet again in the bar. When Bunny fails to arrive, the narrative itself splits in into two columns. Whereas, in Sexshuntwo, these columns represent the parallel thoughts of a single consciousness, here they represent the separate thoughts and actions (still in third person) of two separate characters. Burleigh and Bunny’s attempts to meet as they investigate the “mystery” have a Superman/Clark Kent quality, but the novel undermines the idea that they are, in fact, one person. Burleigh and Bunny not only exist as external personas, but also display an independent consciousness and awareness of each other. They also engage in parallel actions in the same investigation, so that the reader is 299
held in suspense about when they will be reunited. The two columns, with Burleigh (increasingly referred to as O’Rooley or Patrick) on the left and Bunny (increasingly referred to as Patricia or simply “the heroine”) on the right) alternate in Section Three—once again preserving at least the idea that these two characters cannot be in the same place (here, the same place on the page) at once. Split from each other, Burleigh and Bunny fall into other genres, roles, and personalities. Opera once again seems to dominate, with the stagecraft keeping the two characters apart marked by diagrams. The various roles Pat takes on in Section Three are therefore portrayed both as manifestations of one character and as irreconcilable both to each other and to a stable reality. These roles are explicitly the roles of fiction, with the characters’ very actions dictated by the needs of fiction. This includes the very suspense created by the metafictional idea that these two characters are in fact the single character we have known through the novel’s first half. We might, therefore, look for a unifying consciousness not in roles or characters within the drama, but in the genre itself. That is, if Pat can still be said to exist in this novel, the character is increasingly present only as an author—but, specifically, an author whose material is an explicit patchwork of existing genres and tropes. By late in Section Three, therefore, not only has Brophy eliminated the single fictional character as the storehouse for a single fictional consciousness, but has crushed the very connection between character and consciousness. By removing us from not only a realistic, logically coherent world, but also from a world in which character and consciousness are bound together, Brophy has made her most decisive move into postmodernism. It is not simply the case that the 300
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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
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armistice, but it follows so immedi
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y the narrator, allow a world unpop
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Furthermore, passages like this fun
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(“narrated monologue”) as “a
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Mrs. McNab and Mrs. Bast are arguab
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unclear whether time flows forward,
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conventions of modernist and tradit
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middle by making itself markedly di
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Lighthouse’s primary narrative pa
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served to marginalize experimental
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the author’s other novels. Alick
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himself. In an episode that resembl
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unity between time story time and n
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accept the lying perspective as par
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cause and which effect. Any attempt
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died on October, 1938” (7). Frobi
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middle of fundamental change; the u
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However, like the stories Macmann a
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which takes Saturnine to the edge o
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Aspic, to thank him for his kindnes
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Whereas Genette’s discussion of h
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problems of the self, but instead p
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sees in the faces. But here we can
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narration. Frobisher has entered a
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Frobisher is reassured both by the
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strode on. He said, with his eyes n
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analyze mental states from outside
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journey up. But meaning emanates fr
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death vision, in which life is self
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Thus, after a tile falls from the r
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objection to realism: yes, an objec
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esulted in a doubling—or repetiti
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The ending Frobisher comes to with
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though the novel’s return to epis
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andom order. However, each memory r
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middle therefore randomizes the nov
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created by a formal device that rep
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final section resolves the scenario
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that each of the novel’s sections
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inadequate to me for such a narrati
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narratives. This fundamental differ
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turned into a thing. In fact, as Jo
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unburden the author’s memory. How
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Instead, the middle of The Unfortun
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By contrast, the second type of sec
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at both. This particular failure is
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as knowing it, as he did not know o
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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
Page 260 and 261: narrator/rememberer. Johnson mainta
Page 262 and 263: etrospective, an attempt to think i
Page 264 and 265: it, welcome it) the ball spun lazil
Page 266 and 267: worn” 9-10). The image finds the
Page 268 and 269: like a miracle, though he still cou
Page 270 and 271: By contrast, when the narrator firs
Page 272 and 273: memory: a mixture of the ordered an
Page 274 and 275: Chapter 6: Indivisible Form, Divide
Page 276 and 277: ecause postmodernism concerns the n
Page 278 and 279: in the diegetic reality of the nove
Page 280 and 281: section one LINGUISTIC LEPROSY Alle
Page 282 and 283: In Transit’s musical subtitles al
Page 284 and 285: they are perched between or represe
Page 286 and 287: performative in a Butlerian sense,
Page 288 and 289: the chorus describe themselves as a
Page 290 and 291: lamentable incident which I am now
Page 292 and 293: social component of thought only th
Page 294 and 295: identity, which remains unitary and
Page 296 and 297: not an effort to give the narrator
Page 298 and 299: Novelist 33). That is, Pat-the-narr
Page 300 and 301: primarily with classifying Pat’s
Page 302 and 303: now irrelevant, replaced by the pur
Page 304 and 305: etween reader and author. When Pat
Page 308 and 309: world presented to the reader in Se
Page 310 and 311: of Pat’s own life, and by forgett
Page 312 and 313: evolutionaries find that another gr
Page 314 and 315: However, Brophy is not entirely don
Page 316 and 317: masculinity. Its manifestations are
Page 318 and 319: to violate. In Transit’s postmode
Page 320 and 321: ontological—shifts to consider de
Page 322 and 323: However, I would argue that we read
Page 324 and 325: Conclusion Modernism and narrative
Page 326 and 327: approximately half of the narrative
Page 328 and 329: little attention in the past, littl
Page 330 and 331: Brophy, Brigid. Don’t Never Forge
Page 332 and 333: 1989. 162-185. ---. “Periodizing
Page 334 and 335: Johnson, B. S. The Unfortunates. Ed
Page 336 and 337: Political in the Novels of Virginia
Page 338 and 339: Said, Edward. Beginnings: Intention
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