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Canada Du Canada Canadian Theses Service Service Des Theses Canadiennes • ^ • National Library Bibliotheque nationale of Canada du Canada Canadian Theses Service Service des theses canadiennes Ottawa, Canada K1A0N4 NOTICE AVIS The quality of this microform is heavily dependent upon the La qualite" de cette microforme depend grandement de la quality of the original thesis submitted for microfilming. quality de la these soumise au microfilmage. Nous avons Every effort has been made to ensure the highest quality of tout fait pour assurer une qualite" sup6rieure de reproduc­ reproduction possible. tion If pages are missing, contact the university which granted S'il manque des pages, veuillez communiquer avec the degree. I'universite" qui a confe>6 le grade. Some pages may have indistinct print especially if the La qualite" d'impression de certaines pages peut laisser a original pages were typed with a poor typewriter ribbon or d^sirer, surtout si les pages originales ont 6te" dactylogra­ if the university sent us an inferior photocopy. phies a I'aide d'un ruban use" ou si I'universite" nous a fait parvenirune photocopie de qualite" inf6rieure. Reproduction in full or in part of this microform is governed La reproduction, m§me partielle, de cette microforme est by the Canadian Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1970, c. C-30, and soumise a la Loi canadienne sur le droit d'auteur, SRC subsequent amendments. 1970, c. C-30, et ses amendements subs6quents. NL-339 (r. 3B/04) c Canada Romancing Scheherazade: John Barth's Self-Perpetuating Narrative Machine From The Floating Opera Through Chimera. by Lahsen Ben Aziza Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada June, 1991 (^ Copyright by Lahsen Ben Aziza, 1991. National Library Bibliotheque nationale of Canada du Canada Canadian Theses Service Service des theses canadiennes Ottawa. Canada K1A0N4 The author has granted an irrevocable non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence irrevocable et exclusive licence allowing the National Library non exclusive permettant a la Bibliotheque of Canada to reproduce, ban, distribute or sell nationale du Canada-de reproduce, preter, copies of his/her thesis by any means and in distribuer ou vendre des copies de sa these any form or format, making this thesis available de quelque maniere et sous quelque forme to interested persons. que ce soit pour mettre des exemplaires de cette these a la disposition des personnes interessees. The author retains ownership of the copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur in his/her thesis. Neither the thesis nor qui protege sa these. Ni la these ni des extraits substantial extracts from it may be printed or substantiels de celle-ci ne doivent etre otherwise reproduced without his/her per­ imprimes ou autrement reproduits sans son mission. autorisation. ISBN 0-315-71521-9 Canada m TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents IV Abstract v Acknowledgements vi Chapter 1: John Barth's Affair with Scheherazade Chapter 2: Orality Versus Textuality on Board The Floating Opera 37 Chapter 3: The End of the Road: The Price of Narrative Restraint 74 Chapter 4: The Sot-Weed Factor: Barth's Art of Storytelling 100 Chapter 5: Giles Goat-Boy and the Mise en Abyme 149 Chapter 6: Lost in the Funhouse and Metaphoric Framing 186 Chapter 7: Chimera: The Last Limits of The Frame- Tale Technique 242 Conclusion: Back to the Beginning 287 Bibliography 307 iv Abstract This study explores John Barth's use of framing as a narrative-generating strategy. Barth fights literary exhaustion by spinning tales endlessly or by repeating the same tale over and over again under an infinite number of disguises. He strongly believes in the redemptive power of fabulation and is thus interested above all in keeping his story-machine rolling. For Barth narrative is a survival strategy because it is a defense against silence, a way of keeping on living. The philosophical constructs with which he juggles are all subordinate to his aim of getting on and on with the story. Ideas for the incorrigible fabulator that Barth is are valuable mostly because they supply him with material for his narrative machine. Barth uses the frame-tale technique precisely because it is the horn of plenty that allows him to tell tales endlessly. The most essential quality of this ancient narrative convention is the perpetuation of narrative. Framed narrative is by essence self-generating, self-perpetuating, and Barth capitalizes on this property with a vengeance. Barth is aware that one can write a potentially infinite book by embedding subordinate narratives within the main narrative, just as one can expand the most basic sentence by inserting within it an infinite series of subordinate clauses. To the extent that the structure of tales within tales is an open-ended structure, it allows an infinte continuing along an infinite sequence of suspensions which can become in their turn new narrative- launching points. A frame closes the story it contains only to usher in a new one, thus enabling the narrative to perpetuate itself ad infinitum. Of all the classics of frame-tale literature, The Arabian Nights is Barth's favourite. He has a long-standing obsession with Scheherazade, who saves her life from King Shahryar's murderous misogyny by bewitching him with a myriad of tales within tales spun ove one thousand and one nights. Barth finds Scheherazade's terrifying publish-or-perish situation emblematic of the daunting task that the artist must grapple with. For Barth, eluding the menace of artistic impotence is no less dreadful than the menace of death Scheherazade contends with for one thousand and one nights. The ontological implications of Scheherazade's situation are deeply embedded in Barth's fiction. Finally by studying the frame-tale technique as a narrative strategy in Barth's fiction, this study links Barth with such masters of frame-tale literature as Scheherazade, Boccaccio and Chaucer, and, by doing so, it points to a critical direction that has not received the attention it deserves. Despite his obsession with convoluted forms, Barth practises an art which is positive and enduring to the extent that it harks back to the old tradition of storytelling. v I Acknowledgements I owe special thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Michael Klug, for his wise guidance and moral support. I could not have had a better supervisor. Thanks are also due to Dr. Peter Ohlin, Dr. Leonard Diepeveen, Dr. Andy Wainright, and Dr. John Fraser, for their careful reading of my thesis and their helpful suggestions. This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my parents. vi CHAPTER 1 JOHN BARTH'S AFFAIR WITH SCHEHERAZADE Bomb bomb bomb us into oblivion if you're there But each word I speak will be a shield against your savagery Eanh line I utter protection from your terror. Sir [Albert Finney] in Peter Yates' The Dresser 1 2 Once upon a time there was an old storyteller who came from nowhere to a fair held every Wednesday in, Benslimane, a town near Casablanca, and beguiled the fair-goers with his tales. The fair itself, or Le Souk du Mercredi as it is still called, is by Western standards quite an unusual affair. With peasants haggling over prices of mules and camels, fortunetellers unravelling the secrets of their clients' lives, barbers occasionally turning into dentists and pulling a tooth or two, and charlatans lauding the virtues of the potion that cures all ills, the fair is a gigantic curiosity and a slice of life conjured up from the long-gone Medieval Period. There was also once a young boy who would on fair day skip school and its drudgery, rush to the Souk, arm himself with a shish kebab casse-croute. and run to the Storytellers' Square. The boy would locate his favourite storyteller, elbo^/ his way through the crowd to the front row, squat comfortably on the ground to follow for a few hours the melodious voice of the storyteller as it rose with the clatter of the warriors' swords and feO.1 wi*.i the whispers of lovers who peopled the tales he recreated for his enchanted audience. The wily storyteller would lead his tale to a climax, then pause, and hat in hand, he would walk around the crowd of listeners and make pleas to their generous hearts. All too eager to see him get on with the story, the listeners would fumble for change in their pockets and toss a rain of coins in the storyteller's hat. But instead of resuming the interrupted story and 3 leading it to its denouement, the storyteller wculd surreptitiously digress, open another frame, get another story off the ground, lead it to its cliruax, and pause again for more money, only to digress again, open the third frame, and tell a new story, and so it went for, as it were, one thousand and one Wednesdays. The boy begrudged the storyteller Tor his "dishonest" tactics, but kept going, hoping against hope that one day all those unfinished stories would be brought to an end. The boy, who was many a time scolded and grounded by his parents and his teachers, ended up renouncing his Wednesday escapades. It took that boy quite a few years of academic training to realize that the old "illiterate" fabulator of his youth was by instinct a master of the art of storytelling. Necessity must have taught him that by framing he could go on telling stories ad infinitum, and by doing so, he could go on earning a living forever. In other words, he understood the connection between framing, the regressus in infinitum, and survival and capitalized on the connection with a vengeance.
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