This Thesis Has Been Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for a Postgraduate Degree (E.G
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This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Crossing Limits – Liminality and Transgression in Contemporary Scottish Fiction Julia Maria Hammer Doctor of Philosophy – PhD The University of Edinburgh 2017 2 Declaration This is to certify that that the work contained within has been composed by me and is entirely my own work. No part of this thesis has been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Signed: Julia Maria Hammer, March 2017 3 Abstract In my thesis, I aim to show that a focus on liminality in contemporary Scottish fictional texts illustrates underlying developments of relevant social phenomena with regard to class issues, gender and sexual identity. The anthropological concept of liminality looks at a situation of “being between”. The liminar faces a situation of having to renegotiate their values and perceptions in order to proceed. Liminality always involves the existence of limits which have to be transgressed and against which the individual negotiates a personal situation. I further hypothesise that the transgression of limits can be seen as an instrument to create order. I take an anthropological approach to my thesis. Arnold van Gennep’s early studies on rites of passage and Victor Turner’s study of liminality originate in the observation of tribe- internal, social structures of personal development. Van Gennep assumes a tripartite structure among which liminality is the middle stage, the phase in which the initiand has to perform tasks to re-enter and become part of the community. Turner isolates the middle stage and transfers this concept to western societies. This theory is taken up and developed further by several literary critics and anthropologists. While the transgression of limits is often regarded as a violation of those norms which regulate societies, the transgression of limits in a rite of passage and connected with liminality is a vital aspect and socially necessary. Several concepts are related to this theory, which will play a major role in my thesis: Turner’s permanent liminality, Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalesque as well as Foucault’s transgression. In the first chapter, I contrast two of Alasdair Gray’s novels, stating that the most powerful message of social and capitalist criticism is not just visible on the surface of the hyperbolic texts, but particularly prominent in liminal passages. The theories of Bakhtin and Turner plays the most important role in this chapter. In the second chapter, A. L. Kennedy’s novels are contrasted. In So I am Glad a difficult psycho-social issue is solved by a liminal trigger-figure, Paradise is an example of the destructive and restrictive effects of permanent liminality. In chapter three, I deal with the issue of passing and an individual redefinition of gender identity. The performativity of masculinity reveals ambiguous definitions of gender and morale. The Wasp Factory portrays a 4 form of masculinity which has destructive effects on the individual and its environment. It is the tension in the liminal situation of a gender myth, a brutally performed masculinity and the character’s biological sex which expresses a harsh criticism of society’s definition of masculinity. In Trumpet, the binary model of gender is questioned. The text suggests a different definition of identity as fluid, passing between the two ‘extremes’, formulating the possibility of a state of being ‘something in-between’. It is the confrontation with this ‘otherness’ which provokes a wave of rejection and protest in the environment of the individual passing as a member of the ‘other sex’. In this case, it is not the obvious liminal individual, but his son who undergoes a process of change and thus a process of renegotiating his strict value system. The final chapter deals with liminal spaces and how these reflect and support the internal development which the protagonists undergo. The choice of Orkney as a mystical place and the fictional setting in a war game show that liminal spaces – both real and fictitious – trigger a personal development and reconnect present day life in Scotland with historical events which have had a shaping role for Scottish and European life. 5 Content Title page 1 Declaration 2 Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 6 List of Abbreviations 7 Introduction: Theoretical Perspectives 8 1. Carnivalesque and liminal motifs as tools to overcome power narratives in Alasdair Gray’s Lanark (1981) and 1982, Janine (1984) 38 2. Communicating the Self in A. L. Kennedy’s Paradise (2004) and So I am Glad (1995) 87 3. Constructions of Masculinity in Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory (1984) and Jackie Kay’s Trumpet (1998) 130 4. Liminal Spaces in Zoë Strachan’s Negative Space (2003) and Ever Fallen in Love (2011) 174 Conclusion 212 References 217 6 Acknowledgements Writing this dissertation has turned out to be a cross-border project. I am very grateful for the help many wonderful people have offered to me on this journey. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors Carole Jones, Aaron Kelly and Robert Irvine for their inspiration, for thought provoking conversations and their critical feedback. They have guided me through these years with patience and support. Studying in Edinburgh while living and working in Germany has naturally confronted me with challenges that I had to surmount. I am grateful for the help that my fellow PhD candidates, Sarah Sharp and Muireann Crowley, have offered to me when I decided to move back to Germany. Thank you for giving me a place to stay, for warm words, friendship and academic impulses. I also thank my friends and my colleagues at the Federal Government for their support and their advice. I could not have started this project without two generous scholarships that I was awarded by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung since my years as an undergraduate. This is why I would like to thank the foundation – not only for financial support, but also for the opportunity to develop personally and intellectually in the outstanding network of fellow scholars. Finally, I would like to thank those who I love the most and to whom this thesis is dedicated. I am deeply indebted to my parents Klaus and Heike Hammer, to my siblings Anna and Luke and, of course, to John Krupp. Thank you for always believing in me even in times when I did not. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for picking me up and for being by my side. Thank you for your patience, for proofreading and for your thoughts. Thank you for teaching me to accept things as they are, to have the courage to change situations that did not feel right and to believe that things would turn out well. Thank you for showing me what matters in life. Thank you for love. 7 List of Abbreviations L – Lanark J – 1982, Janine P – Paradise SIAG – So I am Glad WF – The Wasp Factory T – Trumpet NS – Negative Space EF – Ever Fallen in Love 8 Introduction: Theoretical Perspectives Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial. [...] They may be disguised as monsters, wear only a strip of clothing, or even go naked, to demonstrate that as liminal beings they have no status, property, insignia, secular clothing indicating rank or role, position in a kinship system – in short, nothing that may distinguish them from their fellow neophytes or initiands. (Turner 1969: 95) Being ‘betwixt and between’ means being in dialogue with a limit. It can involve crossing this limit. And it also implies a critical reflection on the normativity of this particular border. Crossing a boundary is often thought of as a revolutionary act, an act of rebelling against a system which defines norms, which defines the realm of what is accepted and what is not. It is an act of rebelling against the direction of what is normal and what is not, of what is good and what is not. But is this always the case? What happens when a border is crossed? What happens during this dialogue, this interaction with the norm? What happens when an individual, a place, a situation is termed liminal? In the case above, Turner describes the very origin of the concept of liminality: it is rooted in cultural anthropology. My thesis is a study of the processes of change which are triggered by liminal and transgressive situations. It seeks to examine whatever norms and borders reveal in order to gather a new understanding of norms, values and, perhaps, ethics dealt with in works of fiction. I focus on the liminal in contemporary Scottish fiction, which appears in a remarkably distinct manner. Liminal and transgressive phenomena appear together and can be identified in many works of recent Scottish literature. They offer the possibility of a negotiation of characters and situations and thus aid a deeper understanding of underlying political discourse within the works of fiction examined. The condition of ‘being between’ is not the degeneration of a culture but the essential means of its generation.