A Novel and "Time, Self and Metaphor in Illness Stories": an Exegesis

School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts "The Homecoming": A Novel and "Time, Self and Metaphor in Illness Stories": An Exegesis Rosemary Winifred Stevens This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Creative Arts of Curtin University December 2012 Declaration: To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgement has been made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. Rosemary Stevens: ………………………………………….. Date: …………………………. ii Acknowledgements My warm and sincere thanks go to my principal supervisor, Dr. Julienne Van Loon, for her enthusiastic interest in my topic from the beginning, and for her wise guidance and critical insight. To co-supervisors, Professor Tim Dolin, for his intellectual rigour, constructive criticism and eye for detail, and Dr. Rachel Robertson for her careful, exact and sensitive feedback, and for her encouragement and friendship. I acknowledge Dr. Ron Blaber, Chair of my Thesis Committee and Dr. Deborah Hunn, who acted as supervisor in Julienne's absence. I am also indebted to Dr. Barbara Turner-Vesselago for her mentorship and belief in me as a writer for the past twenty years. I gratefully acknowledge fellow writers and members of the Writing Connection for their inspirational practice, and especially Dr. Louise Allen for her specialist medical knowledge, and Dena Lawrence for her professional advice on technical and therapeutic aspects of art. I am ever grateful to my sister, Sue Stevens, for her invaluable endnote expertise and willing consultation on matters pertaining to the West Midlands. Above all, I wish to express heartfelt appreciation to my husband, Garvin Crozier, for his patient and generous technical help, and whose enduring love and support are a constant inspiration. I acknowledge with gratitude Curtin University, whose financial and institutional contribution greatly facilitated the completion of this project. iii Abstract This thesis comprises a creative work in the form of a novel, and an academic exegesis. Together they address the question of how narrative representations of time can be used to reconfigure a selfhood undermined by temporal disruption due to illness. In view of the fact that narrative is traditionally defined by temporal succession and causal relationship, it becomes problematic when both are distorted. This thesis examines temporal perception in illness, its effects on the self and the role narrative plays in reconfiguring the self. In short, it addresses the question; how might the ill protagonist tell their story when they have, quite literally, lost the plot? In my novel, The Homecoming, a breast cancer diagnosis acts as a catalyst for change for Helen, a middle-aged woman, whose mother, Vera, has recently suffered a stroke. The reconciliation of mother and daughter through their illness crises forms the central theme. The exegesis analyses autobiographical and fictional illness stories for relationships between illness, self and temporal representation, with particular emphasis on the form of the novel. My main focus is on metaphor and its ability to effect or negate self-change in the sufferer. I argue that, on the one hand, when metaphor is striking and original it serves as a temporal bridge to reunite the emergent self with aspects disassociated through illness. On the other hand, dead or clichéd tropes undermine efforts to integrate the present health crisis with one’s former and therefore future self. My conclusion is that metaphor acts as an important transformational medium, not only for the illness protagonist (whether memorial or fictional), but also for the reader. iv Contents Declaration: ..................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ iii Abstract .......................................................................................................... iv Contents ......................................................................................................... v THE HOMECOMING ..................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER 1 ......................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 2 ........................................................................................................42 CHAPTER 3 ........................................................................................................96 CHAPTER 4 ...................................................................................................... 135 CHAPTER 5 ...................................................................................................... 179 CHAPTER 6 ...................................................................................................... 218 TIME, SELF AND METAPHOR IN ILLNESS STORIES ............................. 247 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 248 CHAPTER 1: Background ................................................................................. 254 CHAPTER 2: Metaphor in Illness Memoir .......................................................... 265 CHAPTER 3: Metaphor in Fictional Narratives of Illness ................................... 289 CHAPTER 4: Flow and Illness Narrative: George’s Story .................................. 306 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 319 Bibliography ............................................................................................... 326 v THE HOMECOMING 6 CHAPTER 1 Helen closes her eyes against the tears and the beginnings of a tension headache, her shoulders twitching against the unaccustomed heaviness of the coat. “Good job you’re flying Emirates,” Kate said on the phone. “That way, someone can pick you up from Birmingham.” ‘Someone’, Helen presumed, meaning Kate or Roger. But when Helen checked her mobile at Dubai, there was a text message from her sister. Can’t make it to airport. Will meet at S Junction. Text me. Kate. And it sounded simple enough. Yet it has taken Helen over an hour to get from the airport to New Street Station, just the other side of Birmingham. A skittering sound announces a cascade of white letters settling into once familiar names. Coventry. Wolverhampton. Stafford. The Stourbridge train is scheduled for platform one and the wind knifes under her collar as she stands in its draught. She draws her case in, pressing her jelly legs against its weight as she clutches at the handle, mentally beaming a message to her mother: Wait for me. The tannoy buzzes with static and the tracks become song lines, channelling the train, exactly as she remembers, and she almost expects to feel her mother’s hand, checking she’s safe. Helen never thought to ask if Mum squeezed and released Kate’s hand on the other side. All she sees now in her mind’s eye is a pair of leather gloves gripping the pushchair with Roger in it. Like all mothers, Vera was an octopus, as Kate is now. Helen, who is not a mother, marvels at the things she took for granted. Helen hauls her suitcase up the steps and into the nearest compartment, where she realises too late she is facing the wrong way. And so, she will be dragged backwards through the names of all the places she’s forgotten. The train moves off. Stops and starts, then slows out of the tunnel, jolting to a stand-still with a hiss of air. Under Helen’s feet the floor vibrates to the thrum of the engine. 7 OLD HILL. Not an official stop, but just a pause in the scenery. This is the Black Country. To the untrained eye, it could be a suburb of Birmingham. But Helen knows the difference. The air is dense and muffled, with a barely audible static, like an old film. This is where she went to school. There are banks of weeds, tall grasses, clumps of thorny brambles. They must be blackberries. In memory she can still taste their tartness with that powdering of dust embedded in the fruit. LYE. The train does not stop here either and the name is gone in a flash. Helen knows what comes next, but dare not look. And yet as the train crosses the track, she cannot help herself. The sign on the signal box reads “Stourbridge Junction”. Her stomach does a somersault. There is the house, perched on top of the hill; one in a row of similar others, a mirror image of the house next door. To her childish gaze, her parents’ dormer window always winked and Roger’s window smiled. Helen looks at the plain brick house with the brown tiled roof, the cream garage door and black drain pipes. The windows flash, opaque. Her mother is not there. Kate switches on the lamp and the shadows lift, stirring the familiar nick- knacks and furniture to life. A sense of vitality issues from the brocade curtains, exactly as Helen remembers, with everything more or less in place. She feels jetlagged and the small talk irritates her. She hears the sound of a car on the drive, headlights searching the room, the wrench of a handbrake, followed by Roger’s springing step; the idiosyncratic rattle of his key. The door catches and resists and their brother bursts in. By which time Helen is in the hall, unprepared for the sight of his sunken shoulders and the feel of something coming

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