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Microfilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 8403501 Corn, Peggy Ward FUNCTIONS OF THE STORY WITHIN A STORY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE The Ohio State University PH.D. 1983 University Microfilms I ntemSltiOncU 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml48106 Copyright 1984 by Corn, Peggy Ward All Rights Reserved FUNCTIONS OF THE STORY WITHIN A STORY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE DISSERTATION Presented In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy In the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Peggy Ward Corn, B.A., M.A. ****** THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 1983 Reading Committee: Approved by: Professor Morris Beja Professor Robert Jones Advlserv Professor James Phelan Department of English ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Morris Beja, for all he has taught me about twentieth-century literature, and for his valuable assistance on this dissertation. I am grateful for the assistance of the other two members of my committee, Robert Jones, who Introduced me to the Renaissance play within a play and asked the right questions, and James Phelan, who helped me to define my topic and kept me on the right track. I am also grateful to Professor Altlck for teaching me how to do dissertation research, and to the librarians In the English section of the OSU Library for their thoughtful and knowledgeable aid. Tina Han I on helped enourmously by typing most of the first revision and by being a friend In need. Finally, I especially want to thank my husband Ron and son Patrick for their love, encouragement, and belief In me. II VITA December 14, 1949 Born - Ash I and, Kentucky 1971 B.A., University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 1977-1983 Graduate Teaching Associate Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1978 M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1979-1980 Instructor, Writing Skills Laboratory, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Twentieth Century Literature. Professor Morris Beja. Renaissance and Seventeenth Century Literature. Professor Robert C. Jones Rhetoric and Composition. Professor Edward P.J. Corbett. The Novel. Professor Arnold Shapiro fit TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS II VITA Ill INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. RUSSIAN DOLLS, MOEBIUS STRIPS, AND THE FUTURE OF FICTION 15 II. FOUR READERS READING 71 III. DETACHED CHARACTERS IN THREE MODERN DRAMAS 149 IV. THE RUSSIAN DOLL DEVICE AND THE FUTURE OF FICTION 178 CONCLUSION 213 BIBLIOGRAPHY 217 lv INTRODUCTION This study examines several works of twentieth-century literature In which an Inner story Is contained by an outer one. In order to show how the story within a story device functions In these works. The use of the story within a story In the novel goes back to the tales of the Arabian Nights,1 and flourished In Renaissance and Jacobean drama, as several excellent studies have demonstrated.* In this century playwrights and novelists of the stature of Lulgl Pirandello, John Barth, and Vladimir Nabokov, to name only a few, have revived what I refer to as the Russian doll device. They have found In It a form that serves them as well In this century as It did their predecessors, though In different ways. The three plays and eight novels discussed at length In the chapters that follow have been Included not because they are necessarily representative of the great number of works that employ the Russian doll technique In this century, but because they demonstrate the extraordinary possibilities of the technique. The .Golden. Notebook and if en a winter's night a. .traveler., for example, achieve their effects because they so skillfully exploit the doubleness of narration that the Russian doll technique affords. A Russian doll novel or play should not be confused with other similarly constructed works. A work which uses the Russian doll 1 2 device must contain two (or more) substantial and distinct narratives. The fact that both narratives must be substantial eliminates works such as The Turn fit the Screwr In which the governess1s narrative Is preceded by an account of the acquisition of her manuscript. John Barth's GI les Goat-Boy uses the same sort of frame to Introduce the main story. Such a frame Is often Incomplete, beginning but not ending the story, and readers tend to forget the frame when they become absorbed In the longer narrative that follows. In a Russian doll novel or play, however, what Interests us In either story depends largely on Its Interaction with the other. Each of the stories In a Russian doll work must be read as Integral to the meaning of the novel or play as a whole: neither can be considered relatively unimportant. The Interaction between narratives Is the key to understanding the literary work they comprise. Almost always the author moves back and forth between the stories rather than using one to Introduce the other, "main" story, as Is the case with framed stories. A frame Is a fragment. Its characters not developed fully. Its "plot," such as It Is, Interrupted and overwhelmed by the main story. The second requirement, that the narratives be distinct, two separate stories, Is more difficult to explain. In a Russian doll work, each story should deal with a different set of characters and a separate plot. In October LightP for example, Sally Page's trashy novel (the Inner story) concerns a band of drug smugglers, but her own life as the widow of a New England dentist (the outer story) could not be more different from theirs. When she reads, Sally 3 enters an entirely different world. The Golden Notebook presents a trickier case, however. The reader assumes until very near the end that the Anna of the notebooks and the Anna of Free Wjanen are the very same woman because the characters have the same names. But Lesslng surprises us late In the novel with the revelation that Free Wjanen Is Anna's novel, not Lesslng's story of Anna's life, and thus Free Jjtojneji's Anna Is a fictional character. The Tommy of the notebooks Is a consclenctlous objector who marries a socialist, whereas the Tommy of Free Women, set In London In 1957, after Tommy has married In the notebooks, Is a single man who blinds himself and takes up with his father's second wife. The "plot" of the blue and golden notebooks ends differently from the plot of Free Women. Because of these differences, and because Lesslng uses the Russian doll device to show how autobiographical data are transmuted Into fiction, I have Included The Golden Notebook In this study. John Fowles's The Magus Is similar to Russian doll novels, but because It Is told from a single perspective, the story of Nicholas' young life and the "masque" orchestrated by Conch Is cannot be considered two separate stories. The exclusion of The Magus from the Russian doll category Is Instructive, I believe, because of what It reveals about the Importance of perspective to a definition of the Russian doll technique. Conchls' masque consists of a series of tableaux; stories about Conchls' past and present told by two young women he employs and by Conchls himself; and theatrical scenes acted out not on stage but at various sites on Phraxos, the Island where Conchls has his estate. Nicholas Is drawn Into these scenes which 4 resemble con games In their execution but not In their Intention.3 The scenes In which Conchls Involves Nicholas do not add up to a coherent, complete Inner story In large part because, as a series of challenges to Nicholas' professed beliefs, Conchls' masque Is not Intended to be one story but rather a series of metaphors for various aspects of Nicholas' existence.

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