In the introduction to David Wittenberg’s book Time Travel: The Popular Philosophy of Narrative, he defines the concept of ‘psychohistoriography’ in terms of time travel narratives as “concern[ing] the meaning of the individual historical event and its capacity to affect and define the broader historical record, as well as, alternatively, the capacity of that historical record to define and characterize the individual event.” And so, when analyzing time travel narratives he first makes the distinction that “it is not the specific theoretical or philosophical issue at hand, nor its unusual level of complexity, but rather the mode in which that issue is woven into the substance of the narrative itself”. And second, that the ambiguity of the term ‘history’ “unites the objective with the subjective side” and “comprehends not less what has happened than the narration of what has happened” (Wittenberg, 11). In other words, according to Wittenberg, when it comes to time travel fiction, it is crucial to see that how history is written is as important as, if not more important than, the events of history themselves. In Orlando, Virginia Woolf creates a fictional biography in which her narratological interjections situate us in Woolf’s time while simultaneously placing the focus on the time-travelling gender-shifting Orlando, and thus allowing us to view history through Orlando’s own personal history.
Throughout Orlando, it becomes increasingly apparent that the narration of what has happened dominates over what actually has happened. That is, Woolf stylistically narrates history in a way that confounds the common conception of time as exclusive and cleanly incremented, while simultaneously inserting the biographer’s own time within the na...
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...onstrates how these terms of temporality hold no great significance to the passage of life.
Overall, the character Orlando works to enact Wittenberg’s “fundamental psychohistoriographical question” of how the past is reconstructed by or within the present in the way she caries her history with her while still representing the spirit of each age – a portrayal that would not have been possible without the narratology of time travel (Wittenberg, 14). Furthermore, the novel as a whole demonstrates how Woolf values the very mode of representing the past over the “facts” of history themselves: namely, in the way the biographical style of the novel places more importance on Orlando’s personal events than historical ones, as well as in the way the notion of time itself is depicted as an apparatus incapable of fully conveying the interpretability and subjectivity of history.
The setting is London in 1854, which is very different to anything we know today. Johnson’s description of this time and place makes it seem like a whole other world from the here and now....
When inquiring about the comparisons and contrasts between Melville’s Benito Cereno and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, Written by Himself, the following question almost inevitably arises: Can a work of fiction and an autobiography be compared at all? Indeed, the structure of the two stories differs greatly. Whereas Douglass’s Narrative adapts a typical pattern of autobiographies, i.e. a chronological order of birth, childhood memories, events that helped shape the narrator etc., Benito Cereno is based on a peculiar three-layered foundation of a central story recounting the main events, a deposition delineating the events prior to the first part, and an ending.
... to mind works written by subsequent generations of women novelists. One sees Chopin’s text straining toward, among other elements, the narrative innovations achieved in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and The Waves. One is also reminded of the “lyric” novels of the American writer Carole Maso, whose so-called experimental works typically eschew plot and conventional linear narration. In a recent book of essays, Maso admits that her erotic novel Aureole was “shaped by desire’s magical and subversive qualities,” she notes; “[desire] imposed its swellings, its ruptures, its erasures, it motions.” (Break Every Rule, 115). If contemporary authors like Maso are able to access such boundless spheres of narrative play, it may be due in part to the pioneering efforts of writers such as Chopin, who first began to articulate the need for such liberating spaces in the novel.
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” female heroine Louise Mallard’s judgment is questioned after her inability to show emotion following her husband’s death. Instead of feeling desperate and hopeless, Louise feels a sense of freedom and liberation. This depiction of an independent woman prevails in The Awakening as Chopin discusses a woman who battles to fulfill traditional Victorian female ethics in the midst of undergoing a physical and emotional awakening. Edna and Louise are similar because neither woman is happy with accepting conventional gender roles. In The Awakening, Chopin discusses the different female roles that Edna Pontellier, Adele Ratignolle, and Mademoiselle Reiz’s represent to emphasize the different ideas that women
Before White Teeth begins its journey in exploring the roots of a specific and collective history through various ideological stances, Zadie Smith opens with a reminder that “What is past is prologue”. The novel’s epigraph, a gravid phrase taken from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, tells us the story about to unfold is an inevitable one, a fated account. Smith’s narrator, from the very start knows this—she knows everything there is to know. She is blunt, bemused, casual and almost shaking their head at the stories she is relaying as if trying her best to elude the true sentiment attached and rooted at its very core. Searching for meaning, Smith’s listless characters bumble about, talking at each other through ideological vagaries and crusades of self-validation—all convenient and performative social veils. White Teeth succeeds in emphasizing these themes with its idiosyncratic narrator and a stylistic use of irony, carefully weaved in the novel’s long sentences, thick paragraphs, often interrupting thoughts and added anecdotes. It is an
The symbols and imagery used by Kate Chopin's in “The Story of an Hour” give the reader a sense of Mrs. Mallard’s new life appearing before her through her view of an “open window” (para. 4). Louise Mallard experiences what most individuals long for throughout their lives; freedom and happiness. By spending an hour in a “comfortable, roomy armchair” (para.4) in front of an open window, she undergoes a transformation that makes her understand the importance of her freedom. The author's use of Spring time imagery also creates a sense of renewal that captures the author's idea that Mrs. Mallard was set free after the news of her husband's death.
Woolf’s pathos to begin the story paints a picture in readers minds of what the
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” allows one to explore many ironic instances throughout the story, the main one in which a woman unpredictably feels free after her husband’s assumed death. Chopin uses Mrs. Mallard’s bizarre story to illustrate the struggles of reaching personal freedom and trying to be true to yourself to reach self-assertion while being a part of something else, like a marriage. In “The Story of an Hour” the main character, Mrs. Mallard, celebrates the death of her husband, yet Chopin uses several ironic situations and certain symbols to criticize the behavior of Mrs. Mallard during the time of her “loving” husband’s assumed death.
Historically, women have been treated as second class citizens. The Napoleonic Code stated that women were controlled by their husbands and cannot freely do their own will without the authority of their husband. This paper shows how this is evident in the "Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and " A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner. In both stories, the use of literary elements such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and significant meaning of the titles are essential in bringing the reader to an unexpected and ironic conclusion.
Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, eds. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Vol. 3. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1977.
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Introduction by D.M. Hoare, Ph.D. London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1960
Thompson, Nicola. "Some Theories of One's Own: Orlando and the Novel." Studies in the Novel 25:3 (1993): 306-17.
History is no more confined to a monolithic collection of facts and their hegemonic interpretations but has found a prominent space in narratives. The recent surge in using narrative in contemporary history has given historical fiction a space in historiography. With Hayden White’s definition of history as a “verbal structure in the form of a narrative prose discourse” literature is perceived to be closer to historiography, in the present age (ix). History has regained acceptance and popularity in the guise of fiction, as signified by the rising status of historical fiction in the post colonial literary world.
I read a story, after I finished reading it my mind was still reeling over what I had just read. Stories like this are quite impressive magnificent; they draw the reader into the story and leave them with a strong impact. How we interpret a text is in itself impressive, as every person is different, every interpretation is too. As I read “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, I could not help but notice that Kate Chopin uses the window to symbolize the future that Mrs. Mallard has been pinning for all her life. Chopin also uses Mrs. Mallard’s heart condition as a symbol of Mrs. Mallard’s marriage. The short story is consequentially the story of an oppressed woman who had to confine herself to the social norms of marriage. Through Formalism Criticism, we will explore the various symbols that Chopin uses to describe how Mrs. Mallard yearns for freedom, and through the Feminist Criticism, we will explore how the institution of marriage oppresses our heroin.
“The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin, is a story that has been controversial since its publication in 1894, with reviews ranging from highly critical to great acclaim. The story follows Chopin’s character Mrs. Mallard who is introduced at the same time she is receiving news of her husband’s death. The story is largely a mixture of radical views for its time, subtle meanings, and symbolism. While modern day readers read this story with an open mind, many men - of the 1890’s and much of the 1900’s - would have been outraged at its surface meaning. However, even today Chopin’s story receives criticism for being a gross portrayal of a woman's loss. This is due to the fact that many individuals continue to view the story at face value. Nevertheless, readers of Chopin’s story will find themselves reacting either one extreme or the other. But it is this reader participation that is crucial in determining what the story will be. Despite all beliefs, Mrs. Mallard is a woman who is stuck in her time trying to escape society’s constraints, develop her own identity, all while “coping” with the loss of her husband.