Literary Architecture, Dwelling and the Return-Home in the Works of Rachel
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ADVERTIMENT. Lʼaccés als continguts dʼaquesta tesi queda condicionat a lʼacceptació de les condicions dʼús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://cat.creativecommons.org/?page_id=184 ADVERTENCIA. El acceso a los contenidos de esta tesis queda condicionado a la aceptación de las condiciones de uso establecidas por la siguiente licencia Creative Commons: http://es.creativecommons.org/blog/licencias/ WARNING. The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en LITERARY ARCHITECTURE, DWELLING AND THE RETURN-HOME IN THE WORKS OF RACHEL SEIFFERT. CHRISTINA ANGELA HOWES PhD THESIS. 2018 Supervised by Dr. Andrew Monnickendam Departament de Filologia Anglesa I Germanística Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank most heartily my supervisor, Dr. Andrew Monnickendam without whose advice and encouragement this thesis would not have been possible. I appreciate him leaving me free reign to develop my own thoughts and consequently to make my own errors, yet for keeping me on track and for always being available for guidance when needed. I am especially grateful for his belief that I would be capable, particularly at this stage in my life, of completing this project, since it has turned out to be an even more rewarding and enriching experience than I at first imagined it to be. I am also indebted to the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Jordi Coral, Dr. Joan Corbet, Dr. Sara Martìn, for their critique at various stages of this project. Outside their official role as committee members, I would like to thank Dr. Jordi Coral for his personal encouragement, kind words in the corridor and at the coffee machine, and for pointing out some invaluable references that I would otherwise have overlooked. I hope these stimulating intellectual conversations will continue. I am also grateful to Dr. Joan Corbet, again for his unending encouragement and most useful advice. I also extend my gratitude to Dr. Sara Martín without whose initial encouragement I would probably never have embarked on this project. My thanks also go to all my colleagues in the English Department for their kind words and for taking an interest in the progress of my work. Also, a small part of this thesis was financed by the research project ‘Rewriting i War: The Paradigms of Contemporary War Fiction in English’ (FF12017.85525-P) to which I am grateful. Many thanks also to my office colleagues, past and present, who have extended a life-line in times of need. I especially would like to thank Dr. Angelica Carlit and Carme Andrés who were convinced I could join them in writing a thesis and that it was never too late. I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is all your doing. To Lola Serraf, I have not enough words to express my most profound gratitude for her support and friendship. We have shared many enjoyable moments and at others we have given each other much needed support. I will miss you dearly. And last but by no means least, I thank my husband Toni Mengual for his endless patience throughout the years I have dedicated to writing two Master’s dissertations and finally this thesis, and to my son Alexander Mengual-Howes, to whom I should apologize for not always having been available when perhaps I was most needed. I hope in the future you will understand why. This thesis is dedicated to you both. ii Prefatory Note List of Abbreviations: The following works are cited with an abbreviation for ease of reference: Field Study (FS) The Dark Room (TDR) The Walk Home (TWH) A Boy in Winter (ABIW) Formatting: This thesis has been written in general accordance with the Modern Language Association Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (Eighth Edition). For ease of reference, footnotes have been placed at the foot of each page. iii iv CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... I PREFATORY NOTE ........................................................................................................... III List of Abbreviations: ............................................................................................................ iii Formatting: ............................................................................................................................. iii INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1 I. Rationale and Objectives ................................................................................................. 4 I.i. Hypotheses .......................................................................................................................... 9 II. Theoretical Frameworks ................................................................................................ 11 III. Overview of Chapters ..................................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER ONE .................................................................................................................... 35 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 35 1.1. Existential Anxiety, Ontological Security and Home in 'Architect' ....................... 36 1.1.i Im-Placement: Going Back Home ................................................................................ 51 1.2. A Boy in Winter as a Discourse of Resistance: A Poetics of Place and Proximity ................................................................................................................................ 65 1.2.i The Arrival of Modernity: Totalitarianism and the ‘Civilizing Process’ ..................... 71 1.2. ii. The World as it should be: The Return-Home and Reconstructive Postmodernism ................................................................................................................... 112 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 134 CHAPTER TWO ................................................................................................................. 137 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 137 2.1. Concealment and Alienation in 'Helmut' ................................................................... 144 2.2. Hostile Spaces and Displacement in 'Lore' ................................................................. 163 2.3 The Return of the Repressed and Psychological Disorientation in ‘Micha’............. 186 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 206 CHAPTER THREE. ............................................................................................................ 213 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 214 3.1. Globalization, Socio-Historical ‘Contamination’ and the Emotional Identity of Place in Field Study ............................................................................................................. 222 3.2. Trauma and the Inability to Return Home in Afterwards ..................................... 231 3.2.i. Decorating as Psychic Healing.................................................................................. 232 3.2.ii. Pastoral Space as a Site of Healing .......................................................................... 237 3.3. Diaspora, Displacement and the Counterforces of Memory in The Walk Home .... 249 3.3.i. Public and Private Worlds ......................................................................................... 277 3.3. ii. The Journey Home .................................................................................................. 290 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 299 FINAL CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH ............................................... 301 1. General Conclusions ..................................................................................................... 301 2. Implications ................................................................................................................... 310 3. Further Research .......................................................................................................... 312 WORKS CITED .................................................................................................................. 319 Introduction INTRODUCTION All the circles of our home […] are an inalienable part of us, and an inseparable element of our human identity. Deprived of all the aspects of his home, man would be deprived of himself, of his humanity (Havel, qtd. in Shelley 83). [...] they built huts from dead wood and cardboard and old bits of corrugated iron. When they were finished they sat in them, smiling with satisfaction, wondering what to do (MacLaverty 147-148). Figure 1. Rachel Seiffert. Photographed by Murdo MacLeod for The Guardian. Contemporary British writer Rachel Seiffert (b. 1971) has received much critical attention for