Understanding Second-Person Storytelling

Evgenia Iliopoulou Because of You: Understanding Second-Person Storytelling Lettre Evgenia Iliopoulou born in 1986, lives in Zurich, Switzerland, and specializes in narratology, theory of literature and interdisciplinary approaches within Comparative Literature. She holds an undergraduate degree in Greek Philology from her hometown University of Patras, Greece, and an MA in Comparative Literature from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. In 2014, during her doctoral studies, Zurich University sponsored her participation in the summer session of School of Theory and Criticism at Cornell University in the US. Evgenia Iliopoulou Because of You: Understanding Second-Person Storytelling This work was accepted as a PhD thesis by the Faculty of Arts and Social Scien- ces, University of Zurich in the fall semester 2017 on the recommendation of the Doctoral Committee: Prof. Dr. Thomas Fries «main supervisor», Prof. Dr. Sandro Zanetti. Published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Na- tionalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No- Derivatives 4.0 (BY-NC-ND) which means that the text may be used for non-commer- cial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ To create an adaptation, translation, or derivative of the original work and for commer- cial use, further permission is required and can be obtained by contacting rights@ transcript-verlag.de Creative Commons license terms for re-use do not apply to any content (such as graphs, figures, photos, excerpts, etc.) not original to the Open Access publication and further permission may be required from the rights holder. The obligation to research and clear permission lies solely with the party re-using the material. © 2019 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld Cover layout: Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Typeset by Francisco Bragança, Bielefeld Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-4537-8 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-4537-2 https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839445372 Preface This thesis is the result of a critical investigation that began in April 2011. It started as a study of interactive fiction that aspired to con- tribute to the topic by exploring the reader’s active participation and involvement in the text. Necessitating constant modification over the years, the research has generated in me an abiding interest in second-person storytelling that evolved to become the actual theme of this thesis. This research aims to improve our understanding of the phenomenon within the literary paradigm. Because of You: Understanding Second-Person Storytelling had its origins in open text formats and experimental narratives along the lines of “choose your own adventure” stories such as Italo Calvi- no’s Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore and extended to cyber texts. This wide range of narrative typologies offered grounds for exploring interactivity in a multidisciplinary manner, afforded by the dialogic dimension of the second person in other media as well as in non-fiction employments. Once the research centred on fiction and second-person narratives, the question regarding the grade and nature of the reader’s interaction with the text proved to be indicative of the richness of second-person storytelling. Italo Calvino’s novel marked a transition in my research. The- matising reading and the reader-author relationship in a unique and emphatic way, his novel immersed me in the concept of address-dom- inated narratives. It introduced me to the richness and dynamics of the second-person narrative technique by revealing some of its main characteristics such as its ludic character, self-reflexivity and intertextuality. Though Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore was not 6 Because of You selected for the close-reading part of this thesis, it still needs to be mentioned as a benchmark and catalyst for my research and the for- mulation of key ideas and assumptions. One major challenge that I faced in defining the actual focus of my research was the angle and perspective I should most prof- itably employ. Since neither theory nor criticism were offering sat- isfactory answers or ideas, neglecting as they were the rich history of second-person examples in literature and the adaptation of the technique in lyrics and drama, I often reached dead ends having embarked on misleading cognitive routes. Once I had decided to follow a more inductive method towards drawing my conclusions by focussing on the fundamentals of person, pronoun, grammar and rhetoric, the texts themselves provided the answer. One key observation I made was that though second-person texts have been continually present and diverse in the history of literature, they also reflected an intriguing uniqueness as they always appeared only once in the oeuvre of their authors. This observation generated questions about the kind of stories that authors prefer to tell in the second person. Exploring their methods and reasons for doing so, as well as studying the implications of the technique, helped to define the aims of my study. Instead of ambitiously seeking homogeneity and common characteristics that would enable me gradually to model a theory of second-person fiction, I was fascinated to notice some affinities between prayers and postmodern texts, texts from medieval times and the nouveau roman, epic poems and recent prose: it seemed as if second-person texts belonged to a literary history that involves an eternal dialogue between texts and authors. My focus then moved to intertextuality but only so as to establish a dialogue as I was reluctant to impose any generalisations or groupings. Examples such as Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster, Michel Butor’s La Modification, Georges Perec’s Un homme qui dort, Ilse Aichinger’s Spiegelgeschichte, Günter Grass’s Katz und Maus, Frederick Barthelme’s stories in Moon Deluxe and Paul Auster’s Winter Journal, though all written in the second Preface 7 person, are different enough from each other to require examination as individual case studies. Choosing autobiographical and pseudo-autobiographical examples written in the second person, I have strengthened my focus on the I–you relationship and orientated my research onto the possible reasons why the first person is missing, is disguised, silenced or implied in these second-person novels. Reflecting on my readings, observations and my selection of texts and trying to trans- form these reflections into writing, I encountered elements that were decisive for my study even at a later stage of my doctorate: the alternating power of every process of representation; the dynamics of language and self-reflexivity; the constant transformations and modifications of the narrative; the idea of multiple versions of a life, of a self, of an I, one that could be better expressed by a you as, for example, in Butor’s La Modification, revealing the close though important distance between the evolving poles of the I–you constellation. On completing my readings and having articulated all my thoughts and speculations, I managed to explain the second-person enigma as a liminal technique that reflects liminal narrative cir- cumstances while always engaging the reader in a role that’s not merely passive. I found that I had reached my aim of understanding second-person storytelling better. This is reflected in the understanding of the textual examples and in the analysis of the four texts of the second part, in revisiting the fundamentals of grammar and rhetoric and in listing the origins, implications and rich elaborations of the phenomenon. It was further proved by my writing of the first and final chapters of this thesis only when I had finished the part on the texts themselves, treating them not only as the object but also as the source of my research. In undertaking this research and writing this thesis I bene- fited from the advice and encouragement of many people. First and foremost, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Thomas Fries and Prof. Dr. Sandro Zanetti for supervising my work. Their example, teaching 8 Because of You and support helped me realise the project. Thanks to my friends for the fruitful discussions and interest. Special thanks to Christine; Michael, Lucia, Cameron; to Tairi, Popi, Hara, Maria, Irene, Fania, Vivi. I would also like to offer sincere thanks and gratitude to my family for their unstinting support over all these years. Mom, Dad, Ilia, our we, no matter the constellation it took over the years, has been always safeguarding my I, and the development of my thoughts on you. Thank you for giving me the courage to embark on this journey, remain on that path and complete what I started. to that person Table of Contents Preface | 5 PART 1 INTRODUCTION Prologue | 14 The Second-Person Enigma | 15 Theory | 21 Person | 33 Pronoun | 38 The Rhetoric of the Second Person | 55 PART 2 CLOSE READING 2.1 Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster Learning to Say “I” | 83 The Main Narrative Components | 85 Narrative Levels: Nelly Jordan | 93 Narrative Levels: The Narrator | 101 Other Narrative Levels | 108 Conclusion | 113 2.2 Michel Butor’s La Modification Addressing the Unknown | 121 The Novel | 123 Léon’s Adventure | 126 The Adventure of Writing | 137 The Narrative Perspective | 140

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