Contested Knowing: Narratological Readings Of
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CONTESTED KNOWING: NARRATOLOGICAL READINGS OF DAPHNE MARLATT'S HOW HUG A STONE AND NICOLE BROSSARD'S PICTURE THEORY By SUSAN LYNNE KNUTSON B.A., Simon Fraser University, 1975 M.A., Simon Fraser University, 1982 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (The Department of English) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA August 1989 <Q) Susan Lynne Knutson, 1989 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 The University of British Columbia 1956 Main Mall Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Y3 DE-6f 3/811 Abstract This study begins with a question: what are the formal attributes of narrative in the feminine? Structural analysis of narrative posits a universal narrative grammar based on the quest: a subject seeks an object. At its most abstract, a subject crosses a boundary. Within this teleological framework, the subject's prog• ress is complicated by helpers and opponents. Teresa de Lauretis argues that this narrative grammar impli• cates binary, patriarchal gender. How is such a gram• mar transformed by feminist writing? Narratological analysis of Daphne Marlatt's How Hug a Stone and Nicole Brossard's Picture Theory permits systematic descrip• tion at the three interpretive levels of fabula, story and text, and thus enables comparison with hypothetical universal narrative grammar. Narratological analysis illuminates the ways that both Marlatt and Brossard transform the quest into more open-ended, gender- neutral and female-positive forms. In How Hug a Stoner the narrator's quest for her mother becomes a journey into the mothertongue and the realm of the arche- mother. The quest structure is displaced from the structuring level of fabula to the level of story, where it is a function of the powerful focalization by a paradigmatic female subject-in-formation. In Picture iii Theoryf Nicole Brossard develops a dialogic narrative grammar involving a multiple lesbian actant who sepa• rates, reassembles and generates energy. This energy guides the actant in a spiralling movement out of the circle of "f6minit6," towards the Utopia signified by a hologram of "la femme integrale." Both authors gener• ate a fabula structure which thwarts the generically masculine and single questing hero. At the story level, Marlatt pushes focalization to the limits of language, and in so doing, provides formal criteria for "writing the body." Brossard refuses single focus, engaging multiple perspectives which "metamorphose men• tal space" and "open the mind." At the textual level, both authors construct meaning intertextually, thus acknowledging the collectivity of meaning. Both face the consequences of writing as a woman, and in so doing, contribute to a new epistemology which validates the experience of women. I V Table of Contents Page Abstract ii List of Figures v Acknowledgement vi Part I: Narrative, Gender and the Grammar of Knowledge 1 Notes ~ 35 Part II: A Narratological Reading of How Hug a Stone A. Fabula Event 4 0 Actors 49 Beyond the Teleology of the Quest . 54 B. Story Focalization 61 Temporal Relations 67 C. Text Locution/Subjectivity/Gender . 81 From "I" to "i" 91 The Narrator of How Hug a Stone . 96 Dialogism/Intertextuality . 103 Postscript: Narrative in Language 124 Notes 129 Part III: A Narratological Reading of Picture Theory A. Fabula Event 135 B. Story From Actant to Characters . 187 Temporal Relations 201 Focalization 205 C. Text The Narrative Contract .... 209 Narrative Embedding 220 Intertextuality 229 Notes 245 Part IV: Narrative/Knowing in the Feminine . 251 Notes . 271 Bibliography 273 Appendix 280 V List of Figures Figure 1 The Neolithic Complex at Avebury Parish, Wiltshire, England (after Stukeley). Page 113 Figure 2 Nicole Brossard's spiral of culture "au f£minin," from La lettre aerienne. Page 158 Figure 3 Diagram of microstructure of synaptic domains in cortex, from Pribram. Page 167 vi Acknowledgement This dissertation was made possible by financial assistance from the Morris and Tina Wagner Foundation, and The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Doctoral Fellowships Division. Many thanks are due to Daphne Marlatt and Nicole Brossard for their unfailing generosity and inspiration; to Dorothy Kidd, for irreplaceable discussion of the major ideas in this text; to James Quinlan, for working with me on the final draft, and to Lorraine Weir, for pushing me to my limit, over and over again. I cannot forget, either, Gladys Tulloch, Carl, Doreen, Ellen, Robert and John Knutson, Joan Meister and Alleson Kase, for their encouragement over the four years it took me to complete this project. 1 Part I: Narrative, Gender and the Grammar of Knowledge to narrate: tr. To give an oral or written account of, tell (a story). intr. To give an account or description, especially, to supply a running commentary for a motion picture or other performance. [Latin narrare, from gnarusf knowing.} see gno-. gno-. To know. 1. Extended form *qnow- in Germanic *know- *kne(w)- in Old English cnawan. to know: KNOW. 2. Zero-grade form *qna- in a. Germanic *kunnan in Old English, cunnan, to know, know how to, be able to: CAN, CON, CUNNING; b. Germanic causative verb *kann1an, to make known, in Old English cennan, to declare, and Old Norse kenna, to name (in a formal poetic metaphor). KEN, (KENNING); c. Germanic *kunth- in Old English cuth, known, well-known, usual, excellent, familiar: COUTH, UNCOUTH; d. Germanic *kunthitha- in Old English cyth(the), cyththu, knowledge, aquaintance, friendship, kinfolk: KITH. 3. Suffixed form *an5- sko- in Latin (g)noscerer to get to know, get acquainted with: NOTICE, NOTIFY, NOTION, NOTORIOUS; ACQUAINT, COGNITION, (COGNIZANCE), CONNOISSEUR, QUAINT, RECOGNIZE. 4. Suffixed form *ano-ro- in Latin Iqnorare, not to know . (IGNORANT). 5. Suffixed form *qno-dhli- in Latin nobilis, knowable, known, famous, noble: NOBLE. 6. Reduplicated and suffixed form *ai-ano-sko- in Greek gjgnoskein. to know, think, judge (and *gno- in gnomonr a judge, interpreter): GNOME, GNOMON, GNOSIS; DIAGNOSIS, PHYSIOGNOMY, PROGNOSIS. 7. ^ Suffixed zero-grade form *qn9-ro in Latin gnarus, knowing, expert, whence narrare (< *gnarrare)f to tell, relate: NARRATE./I/ This dissertation is a narratological study of two books, Daphne Marlatt's How Hug a Stone /2/ and Nicole Brossard's Picture Theory./3/ Daphne Marlatt and Nicole Brossard, writing from Vancouver and Montreal respectively, are leading contributors to contemporary writing in Canada. Both are poets, theorists, novelists, editors, teachers and feminist activists. Daphne Marlatt is one of the few women to have partici• pated in the Tish movement and the evolution of post• modernism in English Canada; Nicole Brossard played a key role in the flowering of contemporary Quebecois writing and the elaboration of "la modernite." Recog• nizing the "crisis of narratives," which characterizes our contemporary or postmodern age,/4/ both writers have expressed distrust of traditional narrative forms. Narratological analysis of How Hug a Stone and Picture Theory demonstrates that both Daphne Marlatt and Nicole Brossard are innovators in the field of contemporary narrative. Each encodes the narrative quest as a woman's successful break from the inherited confines of femininity. Both texts revise narrative grammar, chal• lenging deeply rooted binary structures which have his• torically determined western narrative. Before proceeding with my analysis I will briefly sketch the history of narratology. Structuralist study of narrative was inaugurated in 1928 by Vladimir Propp, 3 of the Folktale. The book was published in the U.S.S.R. during Stalin's regime, when Russian formalism was in decline; it was thirty years before most Euro• pean and American scholars were able to read it. Its translation and republication in 1958 inspired sig• nificant scholarly response from Claude Levi-Strauss, Claude Bremond, A.J. Greimas and others. Alan Dundes, in the Introduction to the revised English translation of Propp's Morphology, reviews the history of the book's reception by European and American scholars who were themselves caught up in the structuralist revision of the human sciences./5/ Dundes argues that Propp's analysis was both induc• tive and syntagmatic in its basic approach: (T]he structure or formal organization of a folk- lorlstic text is described following the chronologi• cal order of the linear sequence of elements in the text as reported from an informant. Thus if a tale consists of elements A to Z, the structure of the tale is delineated in terms of this same sequence. Following L6vi-Strauss (1964:312), this linear sequential structural analysis we might term "syntagmatic" structural analysis, borrowing from the notion of syntax in the study of language (cf. Greimas 1996a:404)./6/ Propp identified thirty-one narrative functions or elementary events which combine to form specific narra• tives. 4 European structuralist readings, especially those of Levi-Strauss, Greimas and Bremond, responded to Propp's work by shifting it towards the paradigmatic and deductive methodology inspired by the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure. This involved a reformula• tion of underlying mythical structure as a dynamic model rather than a sequence of functions; the model, furthermore, was "usually based on an a priori princi• ple of opposition"/?/: The champion of paradigmatic structural analysis is Claude L6vi-Strauss and it should be noted that he presented a paradigmatic model as early as 1955, that is, well before the English translation of Propp's work.