Two Halves Into the Water Michael Kuo Eastern Illinois University This Research Is a Product of the Graduate Program in English at Eastern Illinois University
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Eastern Illinois University The Keep Masters Theses Student Theses & Publications 1989 Two Halves into the Water Michael Kuo Eastern Illinois University This research is a product of the graduate program in English at Eastern Illinois University. Find out more about the program. Recommended Citation Kuo, Michael, "Two Halves into the Water" (1989). Masters Theses. 2407. https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/2407 This is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses & Publications at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THESIS REPRODUCTION CERTIFICATE TO: Graduate Degree Candidates who have written formal theses. SUBJECT: Permission to reproduce theses. The University Library is receiving a number of requests from other institutions asking permission to reproduce dissertations for inclusion in their library holdings. 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Date I respectfully request Booth Library of Eastern Illinois University not allow my thesis be reproduced because .��- Date Author m Two Halves into the Water (TITLE) BY Michael Kuo THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Masters of Arts, English IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL, EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CHARLESTON, ILLINOIS 1989 YEAR I HEREBY RECOMMEND THIS THESIS BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE GRADUATE DEGREE CITED ABOVE # �DVISER �HEAD A B S T R A C T In my introductory essay (11The Dying Star: Character in Contemporary Fiction") I argue that the contemporary fiction writer views character in a new way, breaking with traditional fiction theory and its dependence on the Cartesian division of Self and Other . The con temporary writer "finds Descartes' division of Self and Other impotent , turning instead to a vision of character in which there are no certain ties; a character in contemporary fiction cannot necessarily come to 'know herself' or the world around her." I trace the influence of Des cartes in a wide variety of traditional fiction and theory , and then propose a new vision of character based on an assumption, borrowed in part from Jaques Derrida, that neither Self nor Other is a "tran scendental signified" existing as a "center or origin.11 Following th is proposal I provide readings of several contemporary writers (Borges, Coover , Gaddis and Hawkes) in an attempt to demonstrate th is new vision of character at work in contemporary fiction. I conclude my introduction with a brief demonstration of the same principles at work in my own fictional piece , "Two Halves into the Water ,11 which fol lows the introductory essay. "Two Halves into the Water11 repre sents my be lief that 11the 'self' and the 'world around it' are ar bitrary decisions." The Dying Star: Character in Contemporary Fiction In a traditional view of character, the Cartesian division of Self from Other plays an important ro le, since it is by coming to know these two entities that character is established. The traditional novelist attempts to let us "get to know" a character , letting us picture the depths beneath her surface . In addition, the character 's surroundings are portrayed as a system that, when the surface is scratched , reveals an underlying logic or reason that helps to in dicate the character of the protagonist. There are of course many variations on this theme - ful l knowledge of Self and/or Other - within traditional fiction. By contrast , however , contemporary character tends to be quite different. Notions of Self and/or Other persist (to use Theodore Roethke1s word) in contemporary fiction, creating an illusion of presence that, if pursued , leads not to a definitive abstraction, but instead , farther and farther away from the moment, into a maze of reference. I will argue primarily that the contemporary fiction writer, operating within this maze, despairs of the possibility of knowing either Self or Other , and , without this confidence, she finds Descartes• division of Self and Other impotent , turning instead to a vision of character in which there are no cer tainties; a character in contemporary fiction cannot necessarily come to know herself or the world around her. ** Ian Watt ties the novel to Cartesian phi losophy in The Rise of the Novel , a work that I shall consider more or less representative of "traditional" fiction theory: 2 The greatness of Descartes was primari ly one of method , of the thoroughness of his determination to accept nothing on trust ; and his Discourse on Method (1637) and his Med itations did much to bring about the modern assumption whereby pursuit of truth is conceived of as a wholly individual matter, logically inter dependent of the tradition of past thought , and indeed as more likely to be arrived at by a departure from it. The novel is the form of literature which most fully reflects this individualist and innovating reorientation. (13) It is in Descartes' "determin�tion to accept nothing on trust" that existence is bifurcated into Self and Other, internal seeker of "truth" and external field of experience. Thus the "character" or Self has two tasks: to delve into each rea lm of the division, into the external and the internal, into epistemology and ontology. As Watt notes above, the division of realms also creates a bias : that of individualism, since the external is not to be trusted . Our traditional notions of character depend on this phi losophy ; we expect to see inside a char acter, to see her psychology, her motivations. "This above all: Know thy characters" has become a traditional necessity for the fiction writer, although , as we shall see, some novels rema in traditional in their acceptance of Descartes without delving into Self, but rather into Other. In many traditional novels there seems to be only one imperative that propels the protagon ist from beginning to end: the quest for self-knowledge. E.M. Forster calls this kind of protagonist the "round character" (Aspects 103-1 18). External events and other char acters in these novels acquire a surreal quality , since they seem to 3 exist solely as a kind of counterpoint to the protagonist's journey into Self. Most of Dostoyevsky 's characters fal l under this clas sification , as do many of Jane Austen 's. I have chosen Herman Hesse 's Siddhartha as representative , since we watch Siddhartha journey from, in the first paragraph , the status of a superficial "handsome Brahmin 's son" (3), to a man who has complete knowledge of his Self in the final pages. In between these points Siddhartha makes vain attempts to reach Self-knowledge vis-a-vis the external world (through women , through money , etc .). But it is only through sec lusion that he comes to his understanding: I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again, to sleep deeply again and to awaken refreshed again. I had to become a fool again in order to find Atman in myself, I had to sin in order to live again. (97) Siddhartha is representative of the individual ist bias we spoke of earl ier, in which Self takes precedence over Other. In other traditional novels the external is depicted as a sort of puzzle that, when solved, manages to reveal the internal and its depths. Thus the bias of Se lf is suspended for the duration of the novel unti l, in the final pages, it is reinstated as we discover the internal meanings of the protagonist, having deciphered them from the world around her. Th is occurs frequently in Dickens. In Great Expec tations , for example, Pip's confused identity at the beginning of the novel is resolved in the end through his own discoveries. Discovering his identity is what propels the novel , and it is only accomplished through a realization of the Other, the external, which presents a 4 mystery to be solved. In a third kind of traditional novel the bias of individual ism is suspended throughout - in fact, it is the Other that is given prelim inary status . I have in mind certain strains of Realism, particular ly Natural ism, in which a character's inner psychology is not as impor tant as the external. This is the case in a number of Stephen Crane 's works. For example, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to dis cuss Maggie's notions of Self in "Magg ie, A Girl of the Streets ." And it would certainly be difficult to maintain that Maggie, either through a process of Self-searching or through a process of interplay with an Other, comes to ful l knowledge of her Se lf. Yet even in fiction like "Magg ie, A Girl of the Streets ," we find Descartes' division of Self from Other at play in the generative logic, appropri ated by a fiction which seeks to demonstrate the miniscule importance of internal psy chology in the face of a determining and overpowering Other. To say that we are nothing in the face of an indifferent social or natural machine is at the same time a way of lamenting the powerlessness of the Self. Thus the essential separation of Self from Other remains at the heart of fiction that seeks to demonstrate the obliteration of Self.