THE OUROBOROS SEIZES ITS TALE: STRATEGIES OF MYTHOPOEIA IN NARRATIVE FICTION FROM THE MID-FIFTIES TO THE MID-SEVENTIES: SIX EXAMPLES by IVAN ROKSANDIC B.A., The University of Belgrade, 1985 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES The Programme in Comparative Literature We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October 2002 © Ivan Roksandic, 2002 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of ^~ohpflB.A7^-on /ue. £<Te/zA7~ &<? The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date DE-6 (2/88) 11 ABSTRACT The research presented here examines complex interrelations between myth and literature, focusing specifically on mythopoeia in some narrative fictions in the period from the mid-fifties to the mid-seventies. After giving an overview of different theories of myth developed in the Western tradition since ancient Greek times, the thesis examines both their usefulness and the value of the concept of myth itself, and proposes a new way of defining it by delimiting its semantic field through four separate sets of features: in terms of its structure, content, function and social role. It then analyses six largely modernist novels representative of literary mythopoeia, namely Yacine Kateb's Nedjma (1956), Wilson Harris' Palace of the Peacock (1960), Wole Soyinka's The Interpreters (1965), Chingiz Aitmatov's Eejibin napoxoa IThe White Steamship! (1970), Michel Tournier's Le Roi des aulnes (1970), and Darcy Ribeiro's Maira (1976). They were all written during the decades when the 'mythic method' spread worldwide, and when differences between various national literatures diminished as they got closer, influencing each other to a larger extent than ever before. The novels, which come from six different cultural backgrounds on four continents, reflect various mythopoeic stances, using myth not to rediscover some pristine immediacy, but as a tool for exploring and contesting both the socio-historic world and larger questions of human existence. Although widely dissimilar in regard to their narrative strategies, their novelistic form and content, they have a number of common characteristics: eclectic use of myth, the merging of mythic and realistic planes, interplay of space and time, preference for totemism, animism and shamanism to monotheistic religions, consideration of problems of roots, identity and hybridity, concern for nature, ambiguous ends. More importantly, they all have cyclical time as the main structural device, because uncertainty about the future and loss of belief in eternal progress are primary preoccupations of their authors. As the examined novels show, mythopoeia in narrative fiction is very much present and productive in the second half of the twentieth century, making up an important part of contemporary world literature, for the human propensity to create mythic stories is perennial. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Acknowledgements iv Dedication v Epigraph vi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 Myth and Literature: Intricate Connections and Continuing Interdependence 6 CHAPTER 2 Chingiz Aitmatov's The White Steamship: Myth as Metaphysical and Moral Allegory 67 CHAPTER 3 Darcy Ribeiro' s Maira: Search for Spirituality in a Despiritualized World 101 CHAPTER 4 Wole Soyinka's The Interpreters: Mythical Essences and the Contemporary World 140 CHAPTER 5 Kateb Yacine's Nedima: The Polyphony of Myth, History and Fiction 184 CHAPTER 6 Michel Tournier's Le Roi des aulnes: Multiple Strata of Meaning in Mythopoeic Fiction 221 CHAPTER 7 Wilson Harris' Palace of the Peacock: Writer as Trickster and Shaman 254 AFTERTHOUGHTS 274 References 280 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is with the greatest of pleasure and gratitude that I acknowledge my indebtedness to many people, professors, colleagues, friends and family members, without whose assistance this thesis would not be possible. My deepest thanks are due to my supervisor, Professor Patricia Merivale, for her guidance, fruitful discussions which helped crystallize my often rambling ideas, and innumerable useful comments and suggestions. I am grateful for the time she was able to offer and for encouragement in times of doubt. Special recognition is extended to Professor Steven Taubeneck for his generous assistance when it was most needed. I consider myself fortunate to have worked with Professors Graham Good, Gloria Onyeoziri, and Julie Cruikshank, who provided excellent direction and constructive criticism throughout my research. Professors Thomas Salumets, Eva-Marie Kroller, Nancy Frelick, and Carlo Testa have helped make my years at the UBC an excellent academic experience. I would like to express my thanks to all of them, and to my fellow students at the Programme in Comparative Literature, for stimulating and gratifying intellectual atmosphere. I acknowledge financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and from the UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies, which, through the SSHRC graduate fellowship and the UGF, made this research possible. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to my nearest and dearest: to my mother for being my first and most influential teacher of world literature, to my father for his unfailing generous support of all my academic endeavors, to Mirjana for serious conversations, and, last but most important, to Koshtana for being an inspiration. Of course, the list would not be complete without Bananas, who kept me company in the long lonely nights polluted by droning of the computer fan. V To the memory of all civilians dismissed as 'collateral damage' "The obliterated shall be remembered." vi Cuando desperto, el dinosaurio todavia estaba alii. 1 INTRODUCTION II prit une plume pour crayonner sur I'innocence du papier la cruaute de son ame. Espines d'amour (qtd. in Bechtel and Carriere 189) Se non e vera, e molto ben trovato. Italian common saying (Oxford Dictionary 21) Interrelations between myth and literature are perennial and very complex. Although myth is sometimes seen as a minimal narrative sequence, a condensed story- image, an 'elementary form' existing prior to verbal or any other expression (Jolles 77- 101), a collection of symbols that can be reduced to a permanent structure (Bilen 861), or "un systeme dynamique de symboles, d'archetypes et de schemes, systeme dynamique qui, sous l'impulsion d'un scheme, tend a se composer en recit" (Durand 54), whose meaning can be put forth just as well through some other mediums — for example, in the form of drawings or "pictomyths" (Vizenor 20) — it is undeniable that all that is mythic is most often expressed by means of literature (Boyer 164), that is, either through oral recitations or through the written word. This state of affairs justifies the often asked question: "Is there such a thing as a non-literary myth?" and explains the fact that myth is usually seen as a specifically literary form: "Myth is literature and must be considered as an aesthetic creation of the human imagination" (Chase 73). Conversely, it is impossible to overlook the importance of myth for literature. Many writers thought it absolutely crucial, as is illustrated by the famous statement of Jorge Luis Borges: "For in the beginning of literature is the myth, and in the end as well" (242). We do 2 not need to go that far, or to claim, as Northrop Frye did, that myth furnishes literature with all its principal structures and defines narrative types, poetic forms, character types and patterns of imagery (Anatomy); nonetheless, we are bound to come up against myth at some point of literary analysis, for mythology, in the sense of a body of myths belonging to particular cultural traditions, has always been a source from which writers took themes, subjects, characters, situations, plots, scenes and images for their works, using them in many different ways. Old mythic narratives are sometimes retold from the modern point of view (e.g., Hercules, My Shipmate by Robert Graves, or Joseph und seine Bruder by Thomas Mann), used as principal structural devices for literary works (e.g., Los pasos perdidos by Alejo Carpentier, or L'Emploi du temps by Michel Butor), or employed as structural devices in counterpoint to contemporary plots, giving them larger perspectives (e.g., Ulysses by James Joyce, or The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor). Mythologems, i.e., mythical motifs, can be used as resonant, powerful stories inside longer works of fiction (e.g., Eejihiii napoxoj [The White Steamship! by Chingiz Aitmatov, or M/T et l'histoire des merveilles de la foret1 by Kenzaburo Oe), combined into a network of connotations, suggestions, associations and metaphors blended into the basically realistic fabric of a novel (e.g., Les Soleils des independances by Ahmadou Kourouma, or Leaves of the Banyan Tree by Albert Wendt), or woven into a complex myth-like structure (e.g., MacTep H Maprapnra fThe Master and Margarita! by Mikhail Bulgakov, or Hombres de maiz by Miguel Angel Asturias). 1 The only rendering to date of Oe's novel M/T to mori no fushigi no monogatari into a European language is its translation into French by Rene de Ceccatty and Ryoji Nakamura. 3 A "universal cultural phenomenon" (Bidney 22), present in all societies around the globe, myth has attracted a lot of theoretical consideration in the course of centuries, since interest in it has never waned, and it has been explained and understood in many different ways.