Kamran, Shezra (2014) Fantastic Languages: CS Lewis and Ursula K
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Kamran, Shezra (2014) Fantastic languages: C. S. Lewis and Ursula K. Le Guin. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5749/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author 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. Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] ! ! Fantastic Languages: C. S. Lewis and Ursula K. Le Guin ! ! ! ! Shezra Kamran ! ! ! ! ! Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Ph.D ! School of Critical Studies ! College of Arts ! University of Glasgow ! ! ! ! January 2014 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !2 Abstract ! This thesis explores the nature and function of language as it is used in twentieth-century fantastic fiction, as represented by the work of C. S. Lewis and Ursula K. Le Guin. In it I argue that the anti-mimetic impulse behind the language of fantasy makes it a polemical, contentious mode, which situates itself against discourses (religious and scientific) that assume the existence of a reality to which language may be said to correspond in certain clearly understood, conventional ways. Both Lewis and Le Guin suggest, by contrast, that experiential reality is an arbitrary and shifting construct, although each writer has a very different attitude towards the category of the ‘real’ and the question of how it may best be articulated. Despite the fact that Lewis uses the language of authority and Le Guin the language of liberation, they both interrogate fundamental ethical, social, political and theological evaluative assumptions embedded in language, disrupting the rigidity that conventional usage confers upon words and the concomitant human tendency to submit unquestioningly to cultural conventions. Lewis challenges the modern, secular, materialist understanding of reality, contending that metaphor has the power to undermine post-secular fixed notions and reveal new semantic fields pertaining to what he understands as the ‘spiritual’. Le Guin celebrates human and non-human embodied existence, with its possibilities and limitations, refuting any transcendent reality. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part One deals with the ‘reactionary’ school of fantasy represented by Lewis. My contention is that Lewis’s Narnian Chronicles dramatise Owen Barfield’s theory of the concomitant evolution of human consciousness and language in relation to the phenomenal world. The three chapters in this part demonstrate that in the Narnia books Lewis represents initial forms of mythical, ‘participatory’ consciousness (as Barfield calls it) – that is, a world in which no linguistic or imaginative distinction is made between the human, animal, material and spiritual dimensions; followed by the loss of participation and the consequent alienation of human beings both from immaterial things and the environment; and concluding with the renewal of participation through a new use of language. Part Two is concerned with Le Guin’s sequence of fantasy novels about the imaginary world of Earthsea. Following Darko Suvin, I divide the sequence into two trilogies, which embody two contrasting responses to the conservative fantasy represented by the Narnia books. For me, the difference between these responses can best be understood through a close examination of Le Guin’s changing attitude to language in the First and Second Trilogies, which I undertake in four chapters. The first chapter explores Le Guin’s !3 initial collusion with Lewis’s patriarchal politics, a collusion signalled by the rigid linguistic conventions and unchanging cultural practices of her imaginary world. The three final chapters deal with the Second Earthsea Trilogy, with particular emphasis on the last two books, since these have so far received little critical attention. In these books she deconstructs the earlier premises of her created world by finding new ways in which to represent the voices that had been excluded or marginalised in her previous trilogy, as well as in the work of her predecessors in fantasy. The thesis as a whole represents an effort to reassess the political implications of linguistic choices, and of attitudes to language, in twentieth-century fantastic fiction. ! ! ! ! ! !4 CONTENTS ! ! Abstract 2 Table of Contents 4 Acknowledgements 5 Author’s Declaration 6 Introduction 7 Chapter One. Syncretism and Participation in The Chronicles of Narnia 24 Chapter Two. Prince Caspian: Revelation in Narnia 59 Chapter Three. Apocalyptic Languages in The Last Battle 74 Chapter Four. Balance and Imbalance in The First Earthsea Trilogy 105 Chapter Five. Tehanu: Re-visions and Revelations 130 Chapter Six. Unauthorising the Bible in Tales from Earthsea 168 Chapter Seven. The Other Apocalypse in The Other Wind 190 Conclusion 226 Bibliography 227 ! ! !5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ! ! I would like to thank, first and foremost, my supervisor, Dr. Robert W. Maslen, not only for his brilliant guidance and immense scholarship which he shares with unstinting generosity, but also for his invariable kindness in being willing to go the extra mile, which allowed me to finish this project in at times very adverse circumstances, when it seemed almost impossible to go on. His !encouragement and help have been invaluable in enabling me to achieve my goal. I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor David Jasper, who has read drafts of this thesis at various stages, and given numerous hints and suggestions that helped to clarify the theological aspects of the topic for me. I would also like to thank Dr. Donald Mackenzie, who gave an insightful and detailed lecture which proved extremely helpful with the section on C. S. Lewis in the early stages !of its inception. Finally, I would like to thank my family, including my father, Rai Mansab, for his inspirational role in my life, Aunt Tani for her life-long love and encouragement, and my husband Kamran and children, Muntaha and Muizzé, for their unending patience and support which made it possible for me to come this far. ! !6 ! AUTHOR’S DECLARATION I declare that, except where explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, that this dissertation is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree at the !University of Glasgow or any other institution. ! ! ! ! !Signature: Shezra Kamran !Printed name: SHEZRA KAMRAN !7 INTRODUCTION ! ! ! ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - that’s all.’ (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass)! ! ! The thesis is concerned with the relationship between language as it is used in twentieth-century fantastic fiction and the very different kinds of language used in the quasi-literary modes of myth and the Bible. The chief difference between these three modes is that fantastic fiction is concerned to construct through its use of language alternate worlds or sets of events which are manifestly fictional and indeed impossible: they never did and never will take place. Mythic and biblical language, on the other hand, claims to describe things that may have really taken place: the death and resurrection of Christ, for instance, or the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, which commentators for many centuries have assumed to be based on actual historical events. The mode of the fantastic, which includes supernatural events, tales of wonder, and miracles, is deployed by all three narrative traditions; but the assumptions and expectations of readers regarding the nature of the worlds they construct through language, and the relationship of these worlds to the ‘real’ world of the reader, are very different. I will particularly concern myself with the question of control in language, which is closely related to the role of the author and of authority. Briefly put, myth and scripture can be said to wield a certain cultural and even social authority to which the writers of fantasy never lay claim; and I shall be considering the effects on fantasy of its frequent interaction with these authoritative modes of narrative, and to what extent fantasy writers are able to maintain authorial control over these effects. Biblical and mythical discourses situate themselves as sacred and true, but with very different attitudes towards authorship. Myths are widely defined as anonymous, quasi-sacred stories with universal significance. The Bible was for many centuries believed to have been authored by God, giving its readers direct access to an objective transcendent reality through the use of language unambiguous in its referents and meanings. However, post-Enlightenment thinking effectively repudiated both mythical and transcendent authority, replacing these with Reason as the sole arbiter of meaning. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, a growing sense of history, from the late !8 eighteenth to the late nineteenth century led to critical methods of reading the Bible as a collection of historically situated texts, of composite authorship. This thesis takes as its premise