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Only Time Will Tell Redefining Meaning in Othello, Bleak House, and “The Waste Land”

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Only Time Will Tell Redefining Meaning in Othello, Bleak House, and “The Waste Land” Forster- 1 - Only Time Will Tell Redefining Meaning in Othello, Bleak House, and “The Waste Land” By: Vera Forster LIT-480-001 Professor Richard Sha 4/26/10 Forster- 2 - This project analyzes the relationship between time and literature, particularly how fictional time functions differently from real time. In fiction, time has the opportunity of digressing from a linear model, which is not feasible in day to day reality. In real life, one’s perception of time does not alter the concrete reality of the kitchen clock ticking away the seconds, minutes, and hours in the traditional model of chronological progression. I argue that authors use not only conventional literary devices, such as formal structure and plot, but also time to create meaning. The most fertile examples of such temporal experiments can be found precisely when fictional time departs from a realistic model. In this project, I examine moments of time in several works of literature which run against the linear narrative. In these moments, time apparently stands still and frustrates forward progression. I use the terms horizontal time and vertical time to designate these different categories of time. I loosely base my terminology of horizontal and vertical time on Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy in The Logic of Sense. Although I do not attempt to employ his radical epistemological model, I am indebted to Deleuze for his redefinition of time in spatial language. His remarks have enabled my notion of time as running horizontally and vertically. Horizontal time is the linear chronological progression from one event to another or the sequential order of a narrative. Although stories do not always progress in a chronologically linear format (e.g. flashbacks, flash-forwards, stream-of- consciousness, etc), the actions or events occur in a certain order with relationship to each other. Something must happen first, and this leads to something else, which reaches some conclusion. Horizontal time may be subdivided into the traditional categories of Forster- 3 - beginning, middle, and end. Aristotle articulates this perspective in his foundational work of literary criticism. He writes: …Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude; for there may be a whole that is wanting in magnitude. A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it (Aristotle 8). Although a philosopher would be more concerned with the cause and effect of particular actions (or “causal necessity”), Aristotle’s categorizations rely on a sequential temporal order. Horizontal time is a necessary category because it defines the narrative’s temporal structure. The story occurs in a certain order, and horizontal time enables the unification of a plot’s many intricacies under one name. Vertical time is a moment of time that departs from the horizontal order because its user is prevented from progressing forward to the next event. In other words, the victim of vertical time becomes stuck in a moment from which they cannot escape for various reasons. The critical moment which signals the departure to vertical time must involve a collapse of the traditional temporal order. So instead of living in the present, remembering the past, and looking forward to the future, as is the norm, vertical time involves the simultaneity of past, present, and future. This temporal trap prevents regeneration or progressive movement. Vertical time can be subtitled as the time-sense of eternity since in that moment, the user longs for an existence outside of temporal progression. In eternity, there is no movement because past, present, and future are conflated, like in vertical time. Vertical time links eras that are separated by centuries and geographic locations that are thousands of miles apart. This category is useful Forster- 4 - because it allows for analysis of those paralyzing moments which prevent forward progression. The tension between horizontal and vertical time represents the struggle extant in our own lives between reality and fiction. Humans desire permanence, and this hope is apparently satisfied in the realm of vertical time. However, this temporality is never generative and is continually frustrated in literature as a trap for the unsuspecting. This perspective on vertical time is only possible from a distanced bystander. The actual individuals involved in vertical time long for temporal suspension and their desire for this temporality often reveals an otherwise subconscious thread in a work of literature. In other words, an analysis of horizontal and vertical time in literature redefines meaning, which is usually only garnered at the level of plot. My analysis proposes to examine the conventional interpretations of three representative texts from Western literature using time as the catalyst for action or inaction. An examination of moments of vertical time in literature reveals how time is the most powerful factor in ordering human experience. I will use horizontal and vertical time to analyze William Shakespeare’s Othello, Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, and T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” on three different levels. In Othello, an individual character demonstrates how Otherness and identity are constructed through one’s time-sense. Othello is the Other in the play and also gets stuck in vertical time through his obsession with Desdemona’s betrayal. The handkerchief links Otherness with time and demonstrates how Othello is forced into an alternate time sense. Ultimately, the play chronicles the tragedy of the Other. In Bleak House, I analyze time at the level of public institutions to conclude how the personal act of recreating one’s own time sense must occur in the public domain of Forster- 5 - writing. The court system of Chancery becomes the figuration of vertical time in the novel since both the victims and agents of the court are trapped in temporal stasis. Chancery acts as a vortex sucking in various characters throughout the novel with the exception of the narrator-protagonist, Esther Summerson. Esther is able to resist the vertical trap because she is engaged in the act of writing her own history and time-sense through her narration. Finally, in “The Waste Land,” horizontal and vertical time operate to fragment the poem and demonstrate that history is fundamentally disjointed. Unlike the previous two works that I have discussed, horizontal and vertical time are not easily distinguishable in the poem. This temporal confusion defies narrative coherence and ultimately prevents a redemptive reading of the poem. Eliot does not provide a way in which Modernity can either be unified with historical experience or completely divorced from it. He objects to the categorization of time that insists upon unifying the past with the present. In all of these works, moments of vertical time provide a generative paralysis. In other words, vertical time necessarily involves a state of inaction or stasis, but this temporal trap does not prevent reflection or interpretation for the reader. Of course, the individuals involved in vertical time—like Othello or Richard Carstone—are not able to use vertical time productively because they are ignorant of their sense of time. These characters are unaware that they are trapped in vertical time and so cannot benefit from the illusion of permanence. However, this project hopes to alert the reader to a closer relationship with time in literature so that the reader may understand the stakes of trying to live with an opposing sense of time. All of the characters and narrative forms (e.g. Forster- 6 - Eliot’s poem) stuck in vertical time are ultimately destroyed or are prevented from achieving coherence. Although vertical time may provides a comforting illusion of permanence or even a temporary moment for reflection, one cannot survive in this other time in the real world. ************ “We Must Obey The Time:” Time and Othering in Othello In Othello, William Shakespeare situates Othello outside of the horizontal temporality of the other characters in order to demonstrate the destructive effects of Othering. Shakespeare chooses to complicate time in the play because it is a categorization of events that all humans supposedly share. However, Othello’s sense of time actually excludes him from participating in the reality of the other characters. Othello is the Other because of his blackness and foreignness, which become temporal through the figuration of the handkerchief. This object links Othello’s orientalism with the past and therefore forces the Moor into a time-sense that is separate from that of Venice. Othello becomes trapped in vertical time, which consequently forces him into a destructive cycle of obsessive vengeance. In short, Othello’s blackness defines his time- sense, which in turn causes his obsessive behavior. Othello’s racial identity is an integral and inseparable part of the play fully titled “The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice.” Othello’s race is a paradox: he is a Moor and racially African yet he is “of Venice.” Before any action has even occurred, Othello is already being forced into the apparently unnatural confines of the predominately white Venetian state. Indeed, before Othello is ever named in the play, he is referred to as “the Moor” no less than ten times (1.1.32, 39, 57, 118, 127, 148, 165, 178; 1.2.58, 47). He is Forster- 7 - finally called “valiant Othello” by the Duke, who represents the official head of the Venetian state. Millicent Bell suggests that Othello’s acceptance into Venetian society stems entirely from his military achievements. She discusses how in this play Shakespeare is explores the “instability of personality” and how identity is socially constructed (Bell 11).
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