Durham E-Theses A Shadow in the Glass: The Trauma of Inuence in Contemporary British Women's Writing WOZNIAK, AGATA,URSZULA How to cite: WOZNIAK, AGATA,URSZULA (2015) A Shadow in the Glass: The Trauma of Inuence in Contemporary British Women's Writing, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11067/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 A Shadow in the Glass: The Trauma of Influence in Contemporary British Women's Writing Agata Woźniak This thesis investigates literary relationships between three contemporary women writers— Jeanette Winterson, Pat Barker and Hilary Mantel—and their proposed female precursors— Virginia Woolf and Muriel Spark. Analysing the usefulness of the most influential theories of intertextual relations—Harold Bloom's "anxiety of influence", T. S. Eliot's model of tradition and the post-structuralist notion of intertextuality among others—the thesis proposes a revised model of literary influence, drawing on the concept of psychological trauma as developed in writings of psychologists and trauma theorists since the (re-)invention of the category of post-traumatic stress disorder by the American Psychiatric Association (1980). The thesis seeks to demonstrate the numerous ways in which a vocabulary taken from contemporary trauma theory can shed new light upon the phenomenon and paradigms of literary influence, as well as upon the specific literary relationships under investigation here. While there are many differences between literary influence and traumatic experience, the thesis argues that the former can be seen as a threat to the writer's uniqueness, literary identity and the integrity of his or her text, in ways analogous to how trauma itself can be defined as a threat to the subject's psychological and often bodily integrity. Relying on the elaboration of an idea of the 'trauma' of literary influence that draws on the psychological research on trauma, the thesis examines, through the analysis of Winterson's, Barker's and Mantel's respective fictions, a number of possible new approaches to the study of intertextual relationships in women's writing with potential to extend beyond the focus of the thesis. The discussion of Winterson's engagement with Virginia Woolf's work foregrounds the issues of writerly self-promotion and self-invention and connects Winterson's reliance on Woolf's fiction and essays with the concept of narcissism as elaborated by the self-psychologist Heinz Kohut. By contrast, the investigation of Pat Barker's very different engagement with Woolf's oeuvre draws attention to the highly ambivalent nature of her return to Woolf's fictional and critical work and incorporates the horizontal dimension of sibling relationships, thus emphasising the desirability of combining vertical and horizontal approaches in the study of literary influence. Finally, the analysis of Hilary Mantel's engagement with Spark's work illustrates the difference between a 'traumatic' and a 'non-traumatic' return to the work of a particular predecessor and demonstrates the applicability of the concept of anorexia to the study of intertextual relations. Through its emphasis on the connections between literary influence and the concept of psychological trauma, and its creation of new sub-models of intertextuality, the thesis attempts to demonstrate not only the necessity to construct ever new theories of literary relationships, but also the flexibility and the wide applicability of a modified 'trauma' model of literary influence. A Shadow in the Glass: The Trauma of Influence in Contemporary British Women's Writing Agata Woźniak Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Studies Durham University 2014 Table of Contents Acknowledgements .....................................................................................................8 Introduction ...............................................................................................................10 CHAPTER I Psychological Trauma, Sameness and Difference: A New Model of Literary Influence .................................................................................................17 SECTION ONE: Previous Models of Influence and Their Relation to Trauma.....................................18 1.1 THE TRAUMA OF BLOOM'S "ANXIETY OF INFLUENCE" ..........................................19 1.2 THE TRAUMATIC IN T. S. ELIOT'S CONCEPT OF TRADITION...................................30 1.3 VIRGINIA WOOLF AND THE TRAUMAS OF RE-WRITING IN FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM ............................................................................................35 1.4 THE THEORY OF INTERTEXTUALITY, OR THE TRAUMATIC MODEL PAR EXCELLENCE ..........................................................................................................40 SECTION TWO: Trauma as a Model of Intertextual Relations..............................................................45 1.5 TRAUMA AND INTERTEXTUALITY IN CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM ......................45 1.6 CONTEMPORARY TRAUMA THEORY: LITERALITY, DISTORTION AND TRAUMA THERAPY ........................................................................................47 1.7 MIMESIS, ANTI-MIMESIS AND TRADITIONAL MODELS OF LITERARY INFLUENCE ...........................................................................................49 1.8 LITERARY INFLUENCE AS TRAUMA: (1) INCORPORATION, (2) SAMENESS AND DIFFERENCE, (3) COLLECTIVITY, (4) TRANSMISSIBILITY, (5) BELATEDNESS AND (6) POWER .........................................................................51 1.9 THE ISSUES OF (7) GENDER AND (8) AUTHORSHIP .................................................57 3 CHAPTER II A Reflection of My Own: Jeanette Winterson, Virginia Woolf and the Narcissism of Hommage ..............................................................................59 SECTION ONE: "I see no reason to refuse to bend the knee": Winterson's Tribute at Virginia Woolf's 'Altar'...............................................................................................60 1.1 WINTERSON'S PRAISE IN ART OBJECTS (1995) ........................................................61 1.2 WOMAN-CENTRED ANDROGYNY IN WINTERSON'S FICTION ................................62 1.3 BREAKING THE SENTENCE AND THE SEQUENCE .................................................72 1.4 GENDER, TIME AND IDENTITY IN WINTERSON'S RE-WRITINGS OF ORLANDO .........................................................................................................76 1.5 WINTERSON'S CONTEMPORARY WOOLF ..............................................................86 SECTION TWO: Writing as "mirror geography": Jeanette Winterson's 'Selfobjectification' of Virginia Woolf........................................................................................................88 1.6 THE "DAMNED EGOTISTICAL SELF" OF WINTERSON'S FICTION .............................88 1.7 WINTERSON'S "I" ON THE MEDIA WORLD ..............................................................93 1.8 WOOLF AS WINTERSON'S SELFOBJECT ................................................................100 CHAPTER III The Dead Sister in a Broken Mirror: Pat Barker's Subversive Hommage to Virginia Woolf ..................................................................................109 SECTION ONE: "Nothing exists except insofar as it does not exist": "Border Crossing" in Barker and Woolf..................................................................................................110 1.1 THE DICHOTOMY OF ABSENCE/PRESENCE IN BARKER'S AND WOOLF'S RESPECTIVE FICTIONS .........................................................................................110 1.2 MIND INTO BODY AND MAN INTO WOMAN: BARKER'S AND WOOLF'S "VANISHING BOUNDARIES" .................................................................................120 4 SECTION TWO: Binary Pairs, Magritte's Mirror and the First World War: Intertextuality as the Transformation of Absence into Presence in Pat Barker's Fiction...............................................................................................130 1.1 THE WOUNDS OF WORLD WAR I IN VIRGINIA WOOLF'S FICTION ........................130 1.2 PAT BARKER'S PORTRAYAL OF THE GREAT WAR, OR VIRGINIA WOOLF IN MAGRITTE'S MIRROR......................................................................................144 SECTION THREE: "Such were some of the parts, but how bring them together?": The Literary Sibling as Dr Frankenstein in Pat Barker's Toby's Room ..........................................151 1.1 BARKER AND WOOLF AS LITERARY SISTERS ......................................................151 1.2 ART AS THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE DEAD ....................................................156 1.3 ELINOR BROOKE AS A DEAD(LY) SISTER .............................................................162 1.4