Top 5 Background Readings:
Intertextuality by Graham Allen
On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism by Jonathan Culler
From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature by Malcolm Bradbury, Richard Ruland
John Fowles' Fiction and the Poetics of Postmodernism by Mahmoud Salami
Derrida, Deconstruction and Education: Ethics of Pedagogy and Research by Peter Pericles Trifonas, Michael A. Peters (Edts.)
Introduction
The category of postmodern literature is an integral part
of the historical and most importantly the socio-cultural
process of human psychology and physical existence. It is in general noted
as a determined way of depicting postmodern culture and life, showing
the identity crisis of human beings under the pressure of
sexual, ethnic, cultural and social existence and continuous struggle with the
same for the establishment of legitimate existence in the
hypocritical society (Bertens and Fokkema (edt. 1997).
This paper, in particular, is concentrating on the
process of dealing with the postmodernism elements in John
Fowles’ The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Hours by
Michael Cunningham, with a specific understanding of deconstruction and
essence of intertextuality as used in these narrative arts.
In the genre of postmodern literature, the essence and concept
of authenticity and originality get undermined and even
parodied. The works of this genre never pretend to be
something novel in character or original, yet uses some old forms of
literary art, quotation, kitsch, allusion, etc., recontextualize the
entire meaning of the text under diversified cultural and linguistic
references to show the variations and differences of the past from
the current instances and the representation of contexts in the past
and then difference in the present scenario. The Postmodern literary text conveys
the authenticity and originality of any text through the deliberate application of
plagiarism or the false quotations and kitsch collected from renowned literature or
some texts from other genres. Here, the thematic concern of false
quotations refers to close imitation by the author of the famous
author’s style or idea without offering any bibliographical note
(Hutcheon, 2000).
The essence of deconstruction and intertextuality are
very prominent in John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant's Woman and The
Hours by Michael Cunningham. Though these write-ups are written with
two different approaches, the feature of intertextuality and
deconstructions are found in terms of illustrating the post-modern
ideology and concerns.
Elements of Intertextuality
The post-modern feature of intertextuality can be
noted in a text as the author borrowing and simultaneously transforming some prior
text or referencing a text by a reader while reading some other text. The
technique of intertextuality can be categorised by the connections between
different artistic works along with the respective cultures to which they share
their platforms; the connection between specific genres and the artistic work
of the author; and above all between works of individuals in particular.
This is a feature that is well noted in The French
Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles, where Fowles uses a compelling mode
of historiographic metafiction related to the contemporary literature of
Britain. Fowles interweaves sources from historical as well as literary
backgrounds Victorian Era. Such an approach to intertextuality reinforces the connection
between historical verisimilitudinous along with the approaches of the Victorian
Age, added by the simultaneous materialization of constant conversation with
literature from other genres and the literature from the Victorian Age.
However, self-consciousness related to the fictional form and intrusion into the
modern trend of replacing or surrogating novelists gets interrupted by
narrative coherence with disruption of the historical reality of the Victorian
age. These kinds of paradoxes related to reality or fictionality, along with
past and present are well structured in Fowles’ The French Lieutenant's
Woman. In this novel, there is a breakthrough into the trend of traditional
literary narration of the Victorian age within the structure of historiographic
metafiction, where Fowles employs a parody of the romance of the Victorian age.
This is an imitation that offers critical diversification about the process of
reconstructing the Victorian age, to subvert the traditional kind of fixed
denouement and further the creation of the unique emancipation of French
lieutenant's woman, Sarah Woodruff (Landrum, 1996, p. 110).
The essence of intertextuality is also very prominent in Michael
Cunningham’s The Hours. However, Cunningham’s approach
and style are different from that of Fowles. For instance, Mrs Dalloway in
Virginia Woolf’s novel “she would buy the flowers herself”, in the
opening lines of her novel Mrs Dalloway in the year 1925, is
again used by Michael Cunningham in The Hours in 1998, by
fictionalizing single day from the regular style of Woolf’s writing approach
for her character Mrs Dalloway (Alley, 2006). On one hand, we have the simple
sentence of Woolf that is intertextuality by Cunningham in his chapter of The
Hours about Woolf as
Mrs. Dalloway said something (what?) and got the flowers
herself. […] Virginia awakens. This might be another way to begin, certainly
[…] But is it the right beginning? Is it a little too ordinary? (Cunningham, 1998, p. 29)
As it can be noted Cunningham uses the first sentence of Woolf’s
Mrs. Dalloway and creates the character of Woolf in herself. In this process,
Cunningham also is very skilful in using the thread of stream of consciousness
by Woolf that exactly encompasses one whole day. The novel Cunningham opens
with an early morning scene in Clarissa Vaughan’s life that is Mrs Dalloway ad
the first sentence of the chapter is “There are still the flowers to
buy”. Consequently, Clarissa rushes to get some flowers for herself. This
particular opening scene is very structured in referring back to the opening
scene of Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, who gets into the city so that “she
would buy the flowers herself”.
Elements of Deconstruction
The basic concern of deconstruction is to discover and further inquire
about features of binary oppositions in any metaphysical state in a text. These
binary oppositions are identified as the apparent juxtaposition of the signifier
with the signified; writing with the speech; sensible with the intelligible;
autonomy with the heteronomy; passivity with the activity; immanent with the
transcendent; normal with the abnormal; sane with the mad; empirical with the
transcendental; essence with the appearance; male with the female; the man with
the animal; Sovereign with the beast; rational with the irrational and many
more of the same kind.
In John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant's Woman, the
presence of binary opposition is marked in the use of feminism in the novel.
Deconstruction starts with a troubled kind of love between Charles Smithson and
his beloved Sarah Woodruff. This affair is like any other medieval romance,
where the protagonist makes a regular quest for self-discovery with
emancipation that again connotes feminism in the modern concept. Fowles offers
the character of Sarah Woodruff as a woman with an unusual entity, who is
beyond any exclusive illustration. Sarah stands in contrast to many literary
conventions and is a representation of an enigma. Her characterization is
incomplete in the novel and the readers are left to seek her full description
elsewhere in the socio-cultural existence, outside the particular text (Bump,
1988, p. 17). Sarah further gets compared with modern women. In the words of
the author, "Modern women like Sarah exist, and I have never understood
them" (Fowles, 1992, p. 85). This comment by the narrator makes a
connection between the character of Sarah and the feministic ideology of
understanding a woman in general and making Sarah a proto-New Woman (Hall,
1996).
Realms of deconstruction are well utilised in the narration
of The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Cunningham creates the
essence of deconstruction by making substitution of Clarissa Vaughan for the
character of Clarissa Dalloway, whereby the latter gets the opportunity to live
with Sally. However, on an apparent juxtaposition, Clarissa Dalloway never
seemed happy with her stay with Richard and the relationship as noted between
Clarissa Vaughan and Sally does not appear ideal either. It is the
craftsmanship of Cunningham who is very determined in deconstructing the relationship
of Clarissa with Sally as more self-assured and is also underscoring in terms
of her insecure and complex character (Leavenworth, 2010, p.518). The feature
of deconstruction in The Hours is a regular process of
deconstruction and reconstruction, as a kind of pretext, as the same functions
in Mrs Dalloway by adding features from other kinds of texts.
In the process, The Hours creates space for newer
functionalities for the characters and add relevant explanations for the
character of Mrs Dalloway (Young, 2011). This is a kind of enhancement that
Cunningham did with Woolf’s text. Differences as noted among illustrated
events, in these novels refer directly to different ages in which these novels
were written and consequently, differences are there in interpreting the
events. In a way, the narration of The Hour is a
reconstruction of Woolf’s novel, but at the same time, this reconstruction is
nothing but deconstruction in itself.
Conclusion
From the aforementioned comparisons and contrast, it can be well
marked that John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant's Woman and The
Hours by Michael Cunningham are both post-modern texts but follow
different styles of illustrations. Intertextuality in John Fowles’ The
French Lieutenant's Woman is more about interpreting literary art and
the Victorian age in particular. On the other hand, The Hours by
Michael Cunningham is about looking into the intext meaning of Woolf’s
novel Mrs Dalloway and copying the narrative art of Woolf to
get a closer interpretive dominance for his analytical approach. In the case of
features of deconstruction, John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant's
Woman is a fair play of looking into the contrastive features of
feminism and understanding the role that a woman can play in offering
romance. The Hours by Michael Cunningham, on the other hand,
stands as a total makeover of Woolf’s narration and offers the reader those
aspects of Woolf’s writing that must have been skipped while reading Mrs
Dalloway.
No comments:
Post a Comment