I hope everyone is having a great winter break! I just wanted to share this NPR article, which features a woman quite similar to the character in Borges’s short story:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/12/18/255285479/when-memories-never-fade-the-past-can-poison-the-present?utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook

Butler and Spiegelman

            In Olivia Butler’s Kindred, Dana’s family history connects her back to her ancestors, one of whom belongs to a family that owns slaves in a society that “considered blacks subhuman” (Butler 68). The idea that Dana’s blood kin can both be the reason that she is alive in 1973, but also the cause of so much physical and emotional pain in Dana and her ancestor’s lives, is interesting to me. For one, Dana’s time travel escapades reveal that creation and destruction are not mutually exclusive: that Rufus produces offspring that subsequently become Dana’s ancestors does not mean that he is necessarily their caretaker. Rufus tries to rape Alice; he asks his children to call him “Master” instead of “father.” Societal norms push Rufus to conform, rather than acting like a proper father would. More than that, however, Dana’s situation reveals that blood is a thinner relationship than convention generally implies—the fact that two people are kin does not guarantee a certain life trajectory.

            This is most apparent when contrasting Dana with Rufus. Even though they are kin, the color of their skin results in completely different treatment: Dana lives the life of a slave, while Rufus is assumed to be her future master.

            In drawing this contrast between Dana and Rufus, Kindred ultimately calls to question the precise significance of blood relationship, particularly across generations: What does it mean for later generations trying to make sense of their past given the disjointed continuity between each generation? Dana is both a victim of her ancestry and, by virtue of being related to Rufus, a part of it. Perhaps an even bigger question: when do your ancestors become mere characters in a story—figures that exist to teach you a lesson about a past that is distant from your own being—as opposed to people who reflect who you are and where you come from? In other words, in what ways are your ancestors merely people who belong to stories from long ago, and in what ways are they the unique people who inform you of who you are in the present?

            Of course, it’s difficult to justify that one’s ancestors from generations ago reflect too much of one’s character; given the social changes that occur between the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the conditions in which Dana and Rufus live are so starkly different that it is difficult to give comparison much merit. However, Maus suggests that much is lost even passing down events between one generation, between father and son—and that what is lost is in part the fault of the preceding generation. Even though Artie wants to show the “more real—more human” side of his father, Vladek pushes back and insists on focusing on the Holocaust (23). Spiegelman portrays the writing process that Artie goes through and through this concedes the shortcomings of Artie’s portrait of his father. However, Vladek ultimately remains a character that Artie exploits—at least in the first volume of Maus. In the narrative that Spiegelman reveals, there is no attempt on Artie’s front to make sense of himself through his father’s past. Rather, the story remains very much Vladek’s.

Spiegelman and Amis

As demonstrated by Maus: A Survivor’s Tale and Time’s Arrow, historical events, which rely on a specific sequencing and chronology in order to make sense, also require an overarching narrative in order for readers who did not experience the events to make sense of them.

In Volume I of Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Artie demonstrates a commitment to chronology when he requests that his dad “keep [his] story chronological” or else he would “never get it straight” (Spiegelman 82). It is through understanding the exact order of events, Artie expresses, which can help him portray his father accurately and tell his story “the way it really happened” (Spiegelman 23). Artie’s ambitions seem to imply that he believes in some underlying truth or objective measure of his father’s experience in the Holocaust. Not only that, but Artie’s insistence on sticking to chronology suggests that such a metric is time, or timing: To him, a sequence of events can only bear truth if it is told through a historical framework of cause and effect, first and then. Chronology is integral to Artie’s meaning-making process.

But how much does chronology matter when trying to make meaning of a significant event? When examining other texts, the truth or meaning in historical events seems to transcend such a framework; Time’s Arrow seems to disregard chronology and instead reverses it, portraying Tod’s life in backward order to reveal the truly atrocious implications of a Nazi’s actions. Such contrast in chronology between the two novels is particularly significant given that they are both rooted in the Holocaust and both try to make sense of it. Of course, it is important to note that chronology does play a part in Time’s Arrow, since the novel highlights meaning by portraying events and actions in reverse-order; the order with which the events occur going forward directly influences how they are described as happening backward. Yet, Time’s Arrow does not seem to make a statement on a particular sequence of events, but rather the fact that they happened at all. Throughout the story we see Tod Friendly’s life gravitate backward toward one specific point, when the “world is going to start making sense” (Amis 115). From Time’s Arrow we thus learn that making sense does not always require sequencing events in a specific chronology.

Given that these two texts treat chronology differently and yet both arrive at a statement on the Holocaust, perhaps coming to terms with a traumatic event depends on more than just the contents of the story; perhaps form plays a larger part. That is, how much do historical events speak for themselves as memories, and how much do we as narrators construct them into a cohesive narrative? It seems fitting to understand Time’s Arrow as a narrative—a compilation of events consciously woven together to arrive at a greater meaning—more than a pure transcription of a memory, which can lend itself to many interpretations. What is trickier is Maus, which is the story of a man’s memory. Yet, I think it’s important to note that Spiegelman purposefully incorporates exchanges between Artie and his father so as to highlight the passing on of the memory, and not just the memory itself. The comic is being written by Artie and, in portraying the Holocaust through the passing on of the memory, Artie himself devises a narrative trying to make sense of a past that his father experienced.

Meaning-making is an exercise not only for the possessor of the memory, but also its transcriber.

 

Haneke and Woolf

Both Mrs. Dalloway and Cache revolve around an event in the characters’ past that has profound implications on the characters’ current state of being. Clarissa and Peter spend their day reflecting upon their youth in Bourton and the fleeting potential of their relationship, an event that is particularly significant with Peter’s return to London; Septimus, traumatized by his experience in the war, is experiencing the after-effects of violence as he attends doctor appointments; Georges Laurent is forced to confront—or at least be aware of—the consequences of something he did as a young child when anonymous videotapes start arriving at his doorstep. The stories that these two works tell have one outstanding message: The past inevitably affects the conditions of the future. More specifically, both works draw attention to the fact that how the characters remember events of the past is perhaps more important in influencing the characters’ current state than the truth behind the event.

This is particularly apparent for Clarissa and Peter, who live with the consequences of a choice that Clarissa made decades earlier to marry Richard Dalloway. Even in her marriage with Dalloway, Clarissa spends her day wondering about whether or not she made the right choice—musings which are made obviously biased when Clarissa exclaims, “If I had married him [Peter], this gaiety would have been mine all day!” (46). Because Clarissa perceives herself to have made an uncomfortably wrong choice at age eighteen—and particularly because she perceives her memories of Bourton to be of a simpler and better time, a “sheltered” life—she is left in the present with a sense of regret, which permeates her thoughts as she navigates her mundane errands (32).

Georges does the opposite of Clarissa in Cache by actively (or perhaps subconsciously) distancing himself from the very event that causes his present situation. Superficially, he perceives his memory as nonexistent: He is dismissive toward his wife when she asks about his past. And yet, because Georges remembers this event to be entirely his fault (he was the one who accused Majid of cutting the chicken head), he acts as a guilty perpetrator, which hinders his ability to cope and come to terms with his actions, even as a middle-aged man.

The exploration draws some interesting implications about cause and effect. As Cache demonstrates, the existence of some traumatic event is not a solid precondition to the event consuming one’s life. Of course, Septimus’s problem with PTSD is an example of how events do have very serious consequences. And yet, Cache demonstrates that this is not always the case: Georges lives a life virtually free of guilt; his actions neither debilitate his career—which is quite successful—or his social life. And regardless of what Clarissa may feel about Peter, she remains married to Richard Dalloway and is able to rationalize their marriage by understanding Peter as someone who was too close to her; “for in marriage a little license, a little independence there must be between people living together” (7). This simply was not the case with Peter; and to justify her choice, she must believe this.

But perhaps the works do not go so far as to make a hard statement on the relationship between cause, effect, and memory; after all, physical events haunt these characters, regardless of whether or not they remember the events correctly. Though he essentially pushed away his memory of sending Majid away, Georges is forced to confront his cruel childhood actions by an external actor. In this sense, there is are external force that seems to keep actors accountable: Generally, one cannot just will away her past actions without experiencing their consequences at some later time. Action and reaction are inevitably connected. And yet, it is clear that it is memory—and not the actual truth—of these past actions that influences the trajectory that the characters take from the defining event onward. For example, the fact that Clarissa spends her marriage rationalizing her marriage is contingent upon the fact that she romanticizes her relationship with Peter.

All of this is to say that both Mrs. Dalloway and Cache question the nature of culpability and its implications. Of course, there are more nuances than what I have just presented. For example, it probably matters whether or not a character had agency—or possibility to be an agent—in the event that is remembered. Georges cannot feel guilty if he does not think that he had some control over Majid’s fate. Regardless of these nuances, however, both Mrs. Dalloway and Cache place memory at the crux of their characters’ actions.

Narrative Irony

Broadly speaking, narrative irony is a subversion of expectation. It is when something seemingly simple or straightforward is twisted or undermined—and oftentimes in a “subtly humorous” way (Baldick). When understood in this context, irony can manifest in many different forms: verbal, structural, dramatic, and cosmic irony draw attention to the myriad forms that irony can take in a narrative.

Arguably the “simplest” form of irony is verbal: Quintilian defines such as “saying what is contrary to what is meant” (Baldick, Colebrook 1) In its initial conception, it was primarily a rhetorical tool used to draw contrast to an intended truth. Critics trace the inspiration for this definition to Socrates, who oftentimes employs irony in Plato’s dialogues: Socrates feigns ignorance precisely when he wanted to emphasize his interlocutor’s ignorance. By repeating his interlocutor’s statements, Socrates appears sincere, but actually undermines the very words he utters. In this context, irony becomes a culturally subjective tool: Awareness of its presence requires the audience to understand both that the statement presented on the page cannot possibly be sincere, and that there is a more appropriate—and contradictory—understanding of the statement.

Structural irony abstracts this initial understanding by framing irony in the context of a character’s life or a text’s plot: the ironic twist contrasts the cliché. Time’s Arrow is a loose but fitting example of structural irony: the narrator’s life is reversed entirely, which causes the expected to become unexpected because of a chronological reversal. Mundane tasks eating and defecating become strangely surreal and vile; atrocious acts like murder become acts of kindness. In portraying Tod’s actions as new and kind, respectively, Martin Amis draws attention to the antithesis of such actions.

Especially in the postmodern era, irony has grown to become not just an element of literature, but also the foundation of it. As Claire Colebrook argues, the prevalence of irony is correlated with a cultural shift away from a commitment to sincerity. Furthermore, irony has become a judgment value in literary analysis: Colebrook observes that literature is oftentimes judged based on its ironic weight, “its capacity to mean something other than a commonsense or everyday use of language” (12). Reading between the lines and explicating the implications of a text has become a primary focus in literary analysis.

Works Cited

Amis, Martin. Time’s Arrow. New York City: Harmony, 1991. Print.

Baldick, Chris. “Irony.” The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms 3 (2012). Web. 18 Oct 2013.

Colebrook, Claire. Irony. New York City: Routledge, 2004. Print.

Plato. Laches and Charmides. Trans. Rosamond Kent Sprague. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992. Print.