The Representation of Memory in Recent Fiction in English

Home , Historic recurrence, The Sense of an Ending

The representation of memory in recent fiction in English

Masterarbeit

Zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades

Master of Arts (MA)

An der Karl-Franzens Universität Graz

vorgelegt von

Anja TROMPLER

am Institut für Anglistik

Begutachter Werner Wolf, O.Univ.-Prof. Mag.art. Dr.phil.

Graz, 2013

Table of contents:

1. Introduction...... 4

2. Theoretical Approaches to Memory ...... 6 2.1. The relevance of memory for literary studies...... 6 2.2. A survey of modern memory theories ...... 17 2.2.1. The reconsolidation theory of (long-term) memory...... 21 2.2.2. The theory of memory distortion...... 24 2.2.3. The relation between language and memory...... 25

3. Major Forms of Memory...... 28 3.1. Functional and storage memory...... 28 3.2. Cultural memory...... 33 3.2.1. ‘Individual’ and ‘collective memory’...... 34 3.2.2. ‘Communicative’ and ‘cultural memory’...... 36 3.3. Traumatic memory...... 38 3.4. Summary...... 40

4. John Banville’s Birchwood: Memory as a Source of Distortion...... 41 4.1. Introduction to Birchwood...... 41 4.2. The workings of memory in Birchwood: general remarks...... 44 4.3. Memory as controlled recollection of the past versus memory as involuntary chaos...... 50 4.4. The unreliability of the narrator in Birchwood...... 53

5. Ron Butlin’s The Sound of my Voice: Trauma and Identity...... 56 5.1. Introduction to The Sound of My Voice...... 56 5.2. The Sound of My Voice as a trauma narrative...... 58 5.3. Memory and identity in The Sound of My Voice ...... 62

6. Janice Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing: Traumatic Memory...... 65 6.1. Introduction to The Trick is to Keep Breathing...... 65 6.2. A deconstructive and a reconstructive reading of The Trick is to Keep Breathing as two possibilities...... 66 6.3. Typographic manifestations of trauma in The Trick is to Keep Breathing...... 69

7. Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending: Memory Re-evaluated...... 76 7.1. Intoduction to The Sense of an Ending...... 76 7.2. The interplay between time, history, and memory in The Sense of an Ending...... 79 7.3. The unreliability of the narrator in The Sense of an Ending...... 83

8. Conclusion...... 87

9. Bibliography...... 89

Abbreviations:

BW= Birchwood SV= The Sound of my Voice TT= The Trick is to Keep Breathing SE= The Sense of an Ending

1. Introduction

The act of recollection has increasingly become a matter of interdisciplinary research in the recent past. A plethora of approaches and theories on memory have been put forward, all of which contribute to gaining a deeper understanding of the workings of recollection and the role of memory within society. The reason why the act of remembering has become subject to interdisciplinary debate is the fact that the understanding of memory has undergone a number of crucial changes. While remembering used to be seen as an art form known as mnemotechnics in classical antiquity, the understanding of memory has shifted towards being closely linked to identity since the publication of John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). Nowadays awareness has been raised that the role of memory is primarily an existential question in that it is debatable to what extent identity is shaped by memory. It is undoubtedly the case, though, that the act of remembering has become a decisive component in defining individual as well as collective identity in today’s society. Especially formative events such as World War II and 9/11 have, on the one hand, led to the establishment of a culture of memory that is concerned with coming to terms with the past and, on the other hand, elicited a body of contemporary work on traumatic memory that demonstrates the problem of being unable to forget. In addition to the effect of memory on the individual and society, a popular contemporary field of interest are the cognitive processes involved in remembering because recent research has revealed that an authentic reproduction of events in the past is impossible. Instead, memory can be understood as a productive process which inevitably involves a certain degree of distortion. Similar to other academic disciplines, literary approaches to the topic have undergone numerous changes and developments, which manifest themselves in the form of, for instance, different narrative techniques and literary devices used to represent memory. Taking these developments into account, the purpose of this thesis is not only to contribute to illuminating the contemporary frame of mind with respect to the understanding of memory in literary and cultural studies, but also to provide insight into distinct approaches to the topic within contemporary literature. Due to the vast body of literature available nowadays, however, a selection of significant works that conduce to gaining insight into current literary approaches to the topic is essential. Therefore, four novels by Irish, Scottish and English authors have been selected, namely John Banville’s Birchwood (1973), Ron Butlin’s The Sound of my Voice (1987), Janice Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing (1989), and Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an 4

Ending (2011), all of which make a unique contribution to the understanding of memory. Not only do they make use of a variety of narrative techniques to highlight the unreliability of memory, but they also raise essential questions concerning the relationship between personal identity and memory as well as trauma and memory. In addition, a number of other parallels can be drawn between the novels in questions. First of all, the books primarily address individual rather than cultural memory, demonstrating the complex cognitive processes involved in the act of recollection as well as the connection between personal identity and memory. Second of all, the relation between language and recollection plays a crucial role in that each of the novels explores the limits of language and the text as media to represent memory. Finally, the use of unreliable narration not only blurs the boundaries between reality and imagination, but it also involves the reader in the process of constructing the narrative to a certain extent. In order to get a better understanding of contemporary literary approaches to memory, it is useful to provide an overview of significant developments with respect to the representation of memory within literary history. While this will be the focus of the first chapter, the second part of the theoretical analysis will contain an outline of current theories on the cognitive processes involved in the act of remembering as well as an introduction to major forms of memory. These, in turn, serve as a means to elucidate the complexities involved in the act of recollection and may be useful in connection with an analysis of the narrative techniques utilised in the novels discussed. The second part of this thesis will be devoted to a literary analysis of the novels in chronological order, whereby each work of fiction will offer different representations of memory, though still using similar means to highlight the complex relations between identity, trauma, language and memory.

2. Theoretical Approaches to Memory

In order to be able to analyse the representation of memory in various literary works, it is, first of all, useful to clarify the meaning of the term ‘memory’ because some languages have a somewhat different understanding of the concept. The term ‘memory’ appears to have a broader function in the English language than in German. The German language distinguishes between two separate concepts of memory, namely Gedächtnis and Erinnerung. While the former is closely related to knowledge, the latter can be thought of as individual experience. The difference between these terms may not be immediately apparent but it is of crucial significance. Gedächtnis serves as a storehouse of learned material, which can be reproduced consciously. In contrast to this, Erinnerung can be regarded as an internal process and does not allow for a conscious reproduction of its contents (cf. Jünger 1957: 48 as in A. Assmann 2011: 19). The distinction between these terms highlights the fact that the concept of memory fulfils various functions. This thesis will primarily be concerned with the term Erinnerung because the novels analysed below explore the experience of individual memory from different perspectives using various narrative techniques and literary genres. However, the theoretical part of this thesis will offer an introduction to both concepts, as they are essential to gaining a deeper understanding of the processes involved in remembering. The following chapter will provide an overview of the most significant developments with respect to the representation of memory in literature over time in order to gain a better understanding of contemporary approaches to the topic.

2.1. The relevance of memory for literary studies

The complex question how the act of remembering functions has been subject to debate since classical antiquity. While remembering in the sense of recitation used to be seen as an art form known as mnemotechnics, the understanding of memory today has changed drastically. Recitation is no longer considered a popular skill in today’s society because of the vast amount of media available to store and recall knowledge (cf. A. Assmann 2009: 11). The interest in memory nowadays has shifted towards, on the one hand, cognitive processes involved in the act of recollection and, on the other hand, the impact of memory on the individual as well as society. As a result of the ongoing interest in the field, the topic of memory has become an interdisciplinary research domain. Theories range from psychological to historical, social, political, cultural, literary and philosophical approaches, all of which 6 provide different insights into the complex field of research. Due to the fact that the focus of this thesis is set on a literary perspective with influences of cultural studies and psychological research, the scope of theories introduced will be limited to these academic disciplines. Contemporary literary studies have been dealing with memory on an individual as well as cultural level, showing the strong relation between memory and identity. In order to understand contemporary approaches to the topic it is useful to provide an introduction of how the understanding of memory has changed over the past and how literature has responded to these developments. In addition, due to the fact that memory has been of interest to humanity for such a long period of time, it is essential to limit the historical overview to a number of crucial works. Therefore, the following analysis will focus on the representation of memory in English literature, including certain philosophical works that had a significant impact on the conception of memory in literature.1 The analysis will begin with a philosophical work that has marked a significant change in the conception of memory, namely John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). According to A. Assmann (2009: 95) Locke’s position can be considered a turning point with respect to the relationship between memory and identity. The reason for this is that identity used to be defined by genealogy, which means that an individual was thought to be shaped by his or her antecedents.2 This view changed radically, though, with Locke’s position that identity is connected to one’s lifespan (cf. 2009: 95). It is one’s personal life story, as A. Assmann (2009: 95) puts it, which becomes interrelated with one’s identity. This novel understanding of memory and identity follows the path of spiritual autobiographies, whose major concerns were individual memory and self-reflection (cf. 2009: 95). The individual, in Locke’s sense, was meant to objectify and closely observe him- or herself as well as his or her environment. In addition, time and, in particular, the limitations of time became the focus of attention, which was set in opposition to Cartesian philosophy. While Descartes’ cogito ergo sum argument is characterised by timelessness, Locke’s subject is defined by the limits of time because the subject’s identity is determined by memory (cf. 2009: 95-6). However, Locke is not only interested in the relation between memory and identity, but he is also concerned with how personal identity is formed by the interplay between remembering and forgetting. A question Locke deals with is how one can stay the same person over time if one’s memory of the past fades in the course of one’s lifespan. The fact

1 The American novel The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner will also be included, as it best demonstrates certain narrative techniques used during Modernism to represent memory such as unreliable narration and multiple perspectives. 2 In addition to genealogy, group affiliation in terms of religion, allegiance to a ruler, and belonging to a guild was also seen as a significant factor to define identity. 7 that one’s consciousness is constantly interrupted by instances of forgetting poses a challenge to the idea that one remains the same “thinking thing” over time (Locke. Essay 2.27.10.). The solution Locke offers to this problem is that memory serves as a means by which one constructs one’s own self. It is through one’s consciousness that events in the past can become integrated into one’s self in the present, thereby establishing a connection between the past and the present.3 In short, A. Assmann (2009: 97) suggests that while according to Descartes, one’s existence is determined by thinking, Locke advocates the view that one’s existence is defined by remembering (cf. 2009: 96-8). Locke’s proposition, however, was strongly criticised by David Hume, who argues that defining identity solely through memory does not create the unity of a person but generates a fragmented self (cf. 2009: 99). He explains his position by taking Locke’s theory one step further and asking whether one would not consider oneself the same person if one did not remember the events of a specific day in the past.

For how few of our past actions are there, of which we have any memory? Who can tell me, for instance, what were his thoughts and actions on the first of January 1715, the 11th of March 1719, and the 3rd of August 1733? Or will he affirm, because he has entirely forgot the incidents of these days, that the present self is not the same person with the self of that time? (Hume. Treatise 1.4.6.)

Taking Locke’s proposition as well as Hume’s critique into account, one could further ask whether one still has an identity if one entirely lacks a memory of one’s past. This discussion will be taken up in the analysis of Ron Butlin’s novel The Sound of My Voice, in which this question becomes essential with respect to the narrator’s personal identity. Locke’s Essay, however, deals with another issue that is of crucial significance to the development of the representation of memory in literature, namely the association of ideas. In chapter 33 of Book II Locke analyses the manner in which human thinking operates, namely by means of association. Producing one thought may lead to another, entirely different train of thought merely because of one element that is associated with another. This part of Locke’s Essay had a major influence on Laurence Sterne, whose novel Tristram Shandy (1759) responds to Locke’s theory on the association of ideas in that the narrative is entirely constructed by association. The narrator offers an account of his life story; however, his memories lead him to constantly digress as far as to arrive at his birth only by the third volume of the novel. As a result of the manifold digressions, the representation of memory

3 A. Assmann (2009: 98) introduces Harald Weinrich’s term “Brückenfunktion des Gedächtnisses”, which refers to the ability of human memory to make a connection between the past and the present. 8 takes on a novel form in Tristram Shandy because the act of remembering is depicted as a flow of associations, which are mechanically attached to one another. Chronology is largely suspended, demonstrating that the act of remembering does not produce a chronological narrative but, instead, a disordered set of memories linked by association.4 The representation of memory also adopts a novel form in the Romantic era. Especially William Wordsworth foregrounds the act of recollection in his work, most notably in his autobiographical poem, The Prelude. Wordsworth’s new representation of memory is characterised, most significantly, by the foregrounding of formative experiences. The highly disturbing experiences depicted in The Prelude demonstrate the power of formative events in the poet’s childhood, which stick to the mind more strongly because they are moments of emotional intensity. The power of such moments enlarges the imagination and, thereby, contributes to the growth of the poet’s mind. Wordsworth also thematises the challenges he faces when recollecting moments of his childhood. In part II of The Prelude he addresses the problem of writing autobiography, as he is required to distinguish between a child's perception and his present view: “sometimes, when I think of them [days past]/ I seem two consciousnesses, conscious of/ Myself and of some other being” (Wordsworth. Prelude 2.29- 31; cf. Duff 2012). When recollecting, the poet steps out of himself and adopts an analytical view of his past, thereby foregrounding the problems of remembering and interpreting (cf. Duff 2012). Examining formative moments in the past, Wordsworth attempts to find the origin of how the mind is shaped. He refers to “spots of time”, which are moments of emotional intensity that serve as a distraction from the depressing everyday life and foster the “imaginative power” that is crucial to the growth of the mind (Wordsworth. Prelude 1.288, 293): There are in our existence spots of time Which with distinct pre-eminence retain A fructifying virtue, whence, depressed By trivial occupations and the round Of ordinary intercourse, our minds (Especially the imaginative power) Are nourished, and invisibly repaired. Such moments chiefly seem to have their date In our first childhood. (Wordsworth. Prelude 1.288-296)

4 The highly innovative style of Sterne’s novel offers revolutionary insights into the workings of memory, which were later suspended during the Victorian era and replaced by realist descriptions that promoted a chronological, highly detailed depiction of what was considered reality. Only during the Modernist period did writers readopt the view that the act of recollecting is not a chronological process and should, therefore, not be represented as such.

A child’s perception is marked by great imagination, which is the reason why Wordsworth seeks to reconstruct experiences in his past in which his imagination had an overpowering effect in order to detect the origin of how his mind was shaped or, in his words, when his “habits were first sown” (2.246). Four episodes are described in The Prelude, all of which portray highly disturbing incidents in the poet’s life that shaped his mind and stimulated his imagination. For instance, the episode in which the poet steals a boat is formed by his imagination in that the cliff he perceives is not, in fact, chasing him but the guilt he feels for stealing the boat opens his imagination, making him believe that the cliff is set in motion to haunt him (cf. 1.67-129). Another formative experience described in the poem is the traumatic incident when the poet discovers the “ghastly face” of a drowned man; a scene which is impressed on his mind and becomes foregrounded by his memory (cf. 1.279; cf. 1.258-287). Similarly, the episode of the gibbet as well as the death of his father further contribute to the formation of the poet’s mind because events of great emotional involvement are remembered more vividly (cf.1.297-227; 1.228-360). Wordsworth not only realises that the act of remembering involves foregrounding, but he also acknowledges the difficulty in representing memory through poetry, which is the fact that his present perspective differs greatly from his perception as a child. Following the Romantic era, realist depictions of memory advocated the position that memories can be reconstructed through descriptions of minute detail. Novels such as Dickens’ Great Expectations show at length how realist writers attempted to convey an authentic depiction of memories by providing vivid and precise descriptions of what was understood as reality. The focus was set on a chronological narration because a coherent account was considered to come closest to the realist definition of the real life. It is only in the modernist period that the representation of memory as a chronological process is again called into question. Modernist writers, as McHale (1994: 9) discerns, were primarily concerned with epistemological questions, challenging whether any certainty exists as to what human beings can know. McHale (1994: 9) provides a number of questions modernist writers struggled with and gave priority in their literary works:

What is there to be known?; Who knows it?; How do they know it, and with what degree of certainty?; How is knowledge transmitted from one knower to another, and with what degree of reliability?; How does the object of knowledge change as it passes from knower to knower?; What are the limits of the knowable? (1994: 9)

Questions such as these occupied modernist writers to the extent that they experimented with narrative techniques in order for the text to reflect their epistemological concerns. Especially the use of interior monologue, the stream of consciousness technique and the disruption of chronology challenge the realist understanding of reality in that neither thoughts nor memories are processed coherently and chronologically. On the contrary, modernist writers demonstrate through their use of narrative techniques the immediacy as well as the incoherency of human thought processes, suspending the moral judgement of a narrator typical of realist fiction. Modernist literature frequently features unreliable narrators, thereby emphasising the subjectivity and relativity of reality. The realist aspiration of representing an objective reality is substituted by the modernist emphasis on the subjectivity of reality. William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury is a prime example of the modernist representation of human thought processes and the act of recollection. The novel is divided into four parts, each of which renders a different point of view. The characters are engaged in recollecting events in the past, some of which coincide, although rendered from a different point of view. The use of multiple perspectives demonstrates the subjective quality of memories, highlighting the negation of an objective reality by modernist writers. In addition, the use of stream of consciousness draws on the representation of memory in Tristram Shandy in that the act of recollection represented in The Sound and the Fury is characterised by immediacy, incoherencies, and disruptions of chronology. One of the major concerns of the novel seems to be to negate fixed meaning, highlighting the limitations of human knowledge. In his essay “‘Now I Can Write’: Faulkner’s Novel of Invention” Kartiganer (1993) accurately describes the epistemological concerns raised in the novel:

[…] The Sound and the Fury fiercely celebrates invention, the freedom of a prose that communicates yet will not be controlled into what normally passes into a stable set of meanings. The novel insists […] on ‘signifying nothing’ – a nothing that is neither chaos nor philosophical nihilism, but rather the projection of a profundity that lies within its words and yet looms beyond what we can claim as our comprehension. (Kartiganer 1993: 72)

The negation of objective meaning in the novel, as Kartiganer’s comment underlines, captures the modernist intention to challenge traditional conceptions of knowledge, suggesting that knowledge largely depends on perspective. Similarly, the traditional understanding of memory is called into question, as memories are seen as non-linear and subjective. Language is used to reflect the non-linear structure of memories in that the stream of consciousness technique is meant to demonstrate the free flow of the mind when producing thoughts and memories. In addition, a distinction between voluntary and involuntary recollection can be 11 considered an important element of the modernist representation of memory due to a crucial work of that time, namely Marcel Proust’s À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (1913-1927). The well-known episode of the madeleine in the first book, Du côté de chez Swann, vividly demonstrates the narrator’s experience of epiphanic recollections, i.e. mémoires involontaires, in that the taste of a piece of madeleine has such a powerful effect on the narrator that he is spontaneously transferred back to his childhood through his memories.5 The depiction of memory in postmodernist fiction, on the other hand, responds to the prevalent “crisis of representation” at the time, which advocates the position that representation necessarily “signals distortion” and “assumes unconscious rules governing relationships” (Rosenau 1992: 94). Prior to going into more detail on the ‘crisis of representation’, though, I would like to introduce key elements of the postmodernist worldview as proposed by Werner Wolf in his essay “Geschichtsfiktion im Kontext dekonstruktivistischer Tendenzen in neuerer Historik und literarischer Post-Moderne: Tom Stoppards Travesties” (1986).6 Firstly, Wolf (1986: 328) identifies the fictionalisation of our experience of the world as a decisive characteristic of postmodernist thinking. The notions of reality and fiction are no longer considered opposites, but, as a matter of fact, the fictionalisation of reality leads to an approximation of reality to literature (cf. 1986: 328). Postmodernists further negate the notion of a direct access to the world because, as Wolf (1986: 328) observes, accessing the world is thought to be possible only through media. The means by which our experience of the world can be communicated, though, inevitably produce a distorted image of reality.

5 The distinction between mémoire volontaire and mémoire involontaire goes back to Henri Bergson, whose work Matière et Mémoire (1896) distinguishes between two major forms of memory. The first form is characterised by Bergson as habitual and is closely connected to the act of learning by heart, meaning that it can be acquired through repetition. The second form, by contrast, is described as spontaneous recollection. Bergson (1896/1949: 91) refers to the first form as “souvenir-habitude” and to the second as “souvenir-image”. A major characteristic of the second form is that it is not remembered voluntarily but that it appears suddenly in the form of flashes: “Ce souvenir spontané, qui se cache sans doute derrière le souvenir acquis, peut se révéler par des éclairs brusques : mais il se dérobe, au moindre movement de la mémoire volontaire” (Bergson 1896/1949: 93). In addition, Bergson comments on the association of ideas, which has already been addressed in the analysis of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) as well as Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1759). According to Bergson, the two forms of memory complement each other:

La première, conquise par l’effort, reste sous la dépendance de notre volonté ; la seconde, toute spontanée, met autant de caprice à reproduire que de fidélité à conserver. Le seul service régulier et certain que la seconde puisse rendre à la première est de lui montrer les images de ce qui a précédé ou suivi des situations analogues à la situation présente, afin d’éclairer son choix : en cela consiste l’association des idées. (Bergson 1896/1949: 95)

6 It should be noted, though, that the term ‘postmodernism’ is rather vague and refers to a plurality of movements. However, the theories presented in this analysis should be seen as general tendencies that can be extracted from the wide spectrum of postmodernist theories. 12

The second criterion of postmodernist thinking mentioned by Wolf (1986: 329) is the fictionalisation of all systems of meaning, including their formal and logical structures. The reason why all systems of meaning are considered fiction, as Wolf (1986: 329) points out, is their relationship to language. The idea that our thinking and experience of the world are directly connected to language was primarily promoted by Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose theories concerning the limits of language are crucial to postmodernist thinking. In his work Tractatus logico-philosophicus (1922) Wittgenstein generally proposes that language cannot grasp the essence of reality. This idea, as Wolf (1986: 330) explains, was seized by Jacques Derrida who considered extralinguistic existence to be inexpressible. Not only does this assertion lead to the deconstruction of meaning, but also, as Wolf (1986: 330) points out referring to Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Pour un nouveau roman (1963), to the acceptance of the world as ‘meaningless’ (cf. 1986: 329- 330). A third major characteristic of postmodernist thinking has been identified by Wolf (1986: 331) as the deconstruction of the knowing subject. The opposition between subject and object is no longer seen as valid or, in other words, becomes irrelevant because, in Wolf’s (1986: 331) words, this distinction does not comply with the universal subjectivity and fictionality of the so-called reality. As a consequence, the knowing subject itself becomes fictional due to the fact that its position in an objective reality is itself subjective (cf. 1986: 331). This complex train of thought is defined as ‘decentralisation of the subject’ in postmodernist thinking, a concept that has been emphasised, in particular, by Roland Barthes. Barthes’s term “décomposition” (Barthes 1975: 68), as Wolf (1986: 331) goes on to explain, refers to the understanding of the subject not as an autonomous agent but as an intersection between various discourses. The three categories of a postmodernist worldview established by Wolf (1986: 328- 31) form the basis of what has been termed the ‘crisis of representation’ or ‘the crisis of narrative’ in postmodernist literature. Citing Ronald Sukenick’s ‘critifiction’ passage of his novella The Death of the Novel (1969), Wolf (1986: 332) draws attention to some of the most significant factors involved in triggering the ‘crisis of representation’.7 In order to get a better understanding of Sukenick’s juxtaposition of realist and postmodernist writing, I find it useful to quote the ‘citifiction’ passage at this point as well, as it captures precisely the uncertainties prevalent at that time and addresses the problematic nature of realistic writing:

7 The term ‘critifiction’, as Wolf (1986: 309) explains, refers to Raymond Federman’s connection between fiction and metafictional reflection in postmodernist literature. 13

The contemporary writer- the writer who is acutely in touch with the life of which he is part- is forced to start from scratch: Reality doesn’t exist, time doesn’t exist, personality doesn’t exist. God was the omniscient author, but he died; now no one knows the plot, and since our reality lacks the sanction of a creator, there’s no guarantee as to the authenticity of the received version. Time is reduced to presence, the content of a series of discontinuous moments. Time is no longer purposive, and so there is no destiny, only chance. Reality is, simply, our experience, and objectivity is, of course, an illusion. Personality, after passing through a phase of awkward self-consciousness, has become, quite minimally, a mere locus for our experience. In view of these annihilations, it should be no surprise that literature, also, does not exist- how could it? There is only reading and writing, which are things we do, like eating and making love, to pass the time, ways of maintaining a considered boredom in face of the abyss. (Sukenick 1969: 41)

This passage demonstrates that postmodernists not only question established truths such as the notion of objectivity, but also the authenticity of any version of reality. In addition, mimesis, i.e. the function of literature and art to imitate reality, is no longer valid, as representation can, in a postmodernist sense, at best produce a distorted image of reality. Drawing parallels to certain developments within historiography, Wolf (1986: 332) filters out two major manifestations of the ‘crisis of narrative’ within the body of postmodernist literature. First, the notions of time and space are considered mere fictional concepts. The discontinuity of time and space is emphasised instead as a result of the fictionalisation of our experience of the world as well as the deconstruction of all systems of meaning (cf. 1986: 330). Second, the identity of the acting subject along with the identity of fictional characters, as Wolf (1986: 332) puts it, is dismissed due to the decentralisation of the subject.8 With respect to the developments within historiography, Wolf (1986) elaborates in great detail on changes that have taken place concerning the understanding of historiography and the authenticity of historical accounts. A selection of key arguments will be presented at this point, beginning with an important turning point regarding the position of historians. This turning point, as Wolf (1986: 311) asserts, was brought about in 1935 by Robin G. Collingwood, whose “Epilegomena” to his work The Idea of History promotes novel epistemological proposals that discard the idea that historians can reconstruct historical events ‘as they really happened’ (cf. 1986: 311).9 Collingwood ascribes a rather different function to the historian, as Wolf (1986: 314) continues to explain, namely that historiography revives historical events by means of selecting historical documents and empathising with historical

8 Wolf (1986: 333) adds a third component that should be mentioned in passing, namely the dismissal of an autonomous author. He or she disappears within a web of intertextual references of which his or her text is composed (cf. 1986: 333). 9 Wolf (1986: 311) explains that it was Leopold von Ranke who promoted the idea that historians can authentically reconstruct past events and, thereby, arrive at the ‘truth’ of historical events. 14 figures. The historian’s perspective, thus, has a great impact on historical accounts, which is the reason why Collingwood not only distances himself from the notion of objective historical knowledge, but he also puts emphasis on the constructive nature of historiography (cf. 1986: 314-5). Wolf (1986: 328) asserts that Collingwood adopts a tendentially weaker position on the innovative ideas concerning historiography compared to the more radicalised views in the postmodernist literary movement. While Collingwood acknowledges a lack of objectivity when it comes to historical accounts, postmodernists promote a more radical view according to which our experience of history is considered fictional (cf. 1986: 328). In addition, the objectivity of historical knowledge is challenged by postmodernists to the extent that historical knowledge is viewed as subjective (cf. 1986: 331). Wolf (1986: 315) further explains that while Collingwood (1966: 245) observes parallels between the historian and the novelist, as they both create narrative accounts with the significant difference that historians aim at the truth, whereas the literary postmodernist movement regards the experience of history as fictional (cf. Collingwood 1966: 245-6 as in Wolf 1986: 315; 1986: 328).10 With respect to the representation of memory in postmodernist literature, one can observe a response to the ‘crisis of representation’ in that postmodernists realise that past events cannot be authentically reproduced.11 Reconstructing original events inevitably leads to distortion, which means that memories are produced rather than reproduced. Depictions of memory in postmodernist fiction are primarily characterised by a lack of chronology and linearity, an absence of causality and coherency as well as unreliable narration. The use of narrative techniques such as these is connected to the postmodernist understanding of time, space, and history. As Wolf (1986: 333) deduces from Sukenick’s The Death of the Novel, teleology is suspended due to the fact that time has lost its purpose and causality is challenged as result of the postmodernist dismissal of destiny, which is substituted by chance (1986: 333). The questions concerning reality, representation, time and space raised by postmodernists demonstrate their focus on ontological concerns. McHale (1994: 10) observes a shift of priorities from modernism to postmodernism, the former exhibiting an epistemological dominant and the latter featuring an ontological dominant. Questions which

10 The discussion on the role of historians as well as different views concerning the authenticity of historiography will be revisited in the analysis of Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending (2011). 11 Jean Baudrillard’s concept of the ‘simulacrum’ captures the problematic nature of authenticity, which is explained as follows: “[r]epresentation assumes the validity of a copy that is only a simulacrum, a copy of a copy, a copy for which there is no original” (Rosenau 1992: 95 as in Baudrillard 1983).

15 preoccupied postmodernist writers revolved around the ontology of a world as well as a text and how they are structured (cf. 1994: 10). As a result of the prevalent debate on representation, some postmodernists suggest finding novel ways of representation. These new proposals were concerned with giving minorities that had been oppressed for a long period of time a voice and space for representation (cf. Rosenau 1992: 93-4). Some of the representatives of minorities were particularly concerned with memory, as they sought a way to process and convey their experience of oppression. Scott Momaday’s novel House Made of Dawn, for instance, gives Native Americans a voice and conveys the traumatic memories of displacement, World War II, and the resulting problem of alcoholism among Native Americans. Other postmodernist works on memory primarily focused on the productive quality and selective nature of memory. A number of memory plays were produced such as Tom Stoppard’s Travesties, which foregrounds the unreliability of memory through the improbable account provided by the character Henry Carr, whose memories form the basis of the play’s plot. It is Carr’s “dubious virtues of memory”, as Demastes (2013: 69) puts it, which generate repeated “time slips” and intermingle historical fact with fiction (2013: 72 as in Stoppard. Travesties Act I, p.27). While the main characters in the play are real historical figures that happened to be in Zurich at the same time, Carr’s memories display an account of their encounters which never actually took place. In fact, the play contains various delusive elements, which is most strikingly shown by the fact that the physical locations of the play are an illusion, as the plot actually stems from an old Carr’s memory. For instance, Zinman (2001: 123) observes that the prologue contains a trompe-l’œil in that the setting of the library in actuality takes place in Carr’s memory. In addition, a trompe l’oreille can be detected in the first scene by Tzara’s seemingly Dadaist poetry, which turns out to be, when phonetically decoded, a French limerick (cf. Zinman 2001: 123). For example, the phrase “Eel ate enormous appletzara” becomes “Il est un homme, s’appelle Tzara”, which can be translated into English as “He is a man called Tzara” (Demastes 2013: 71). Delusions such as these can be found throughout the play, which not only demonstrate the unreliability of memory, but they also blur the boundaries between illusion and reality, which is a typical characteristic of postmodernist drama and fiction. In addition to Stoppard’s Travesties, a number of other postmodernist memory plays were created such as Peter Schaffer’s Amadeus (1979); Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls (1982); Howard Brenton’s Hess is Dead (1989); Brian Friel’s Making History (1989); and Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Grace of Mary Traverse (1989), all of which reflect the notion that

16 memory is a process of construction and selection. In addition, memory plays frequently challenge historical and so-called factual truth, suggesting that historical knowledge is limited and not necessarily reliable (cf. Löschnigg 2013). Numerous other postmodernist literary as well as philosophical works deal with the theme of memory, several of which are concerned with the Second World War and the role of traumatic memory as an individual as well as collective phenomenon. The novels analysed in this thesis deal with the theme of memory in essentially different ways, yet all of them show certain elements that suggest a common ground such as the exploration of the limits of language and the text as media to represent memory. Several narrative techniques and concepts typical of postmodernist fiction can be found in the novels, which not only blur the boundaries between fiction and reality, but also show that memory is a productive process that involves a certain degree of distortion. The postmodernist understanding that original experience cannot be authentically reproduced is very much in line with recent research in the cognitive sciences. Researchers have demonstrated that remembering can be understood as a dynamic, productive process, constructing the past rather than reconstructing it. Due to the fact that the conception of memory has attracted interest in a wide variety of academic disciplines, it is useful to gain some understanding of cognitive processes involved in the act of recollection. The following analysis will provide an introduction to current psychological theories on memory as well as major forms of memory in order to receive a wider picture of available approaches and theories in the field.

2.2. A survey of modern memory theories

Due to the fact that the representation of memory has aroused such great interest in literary studies and other academic disciplines it is useful to gain an insight into research on cognitive processes as well as neuroscientific developments in connection with memory. Psychological research in the field has experienced a revival in recent years, as new findings have led to a novel understanding of memory. First of all, a brief overview of how the understanding of memory has changed over the last few decades will be provided, including some of the latest findings in the field. Second of all, two current theories will be explained in more detail, as they enhance the understanding of the complex processes involved in remembering depicted in the novels discussed, namely the ‘reconsolidation theory’ as well as the theory on memory distortion. Finally, the connection between language and memory will be analysed from a psychological point of view, as language is the medium used in the novels to represent

17 memory and, therefore, an essential aspect to be discussed in this thesis. Some of the theories presented below have been taken from Erll and Nünning’s (2010) A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, which not only provides insight into current approaches to memory studies, but also presents findings in a variety of academic disciplines. Markowitsch (2010: 275-83) presents a concise overview of the scientific development of memory studies and explains in detail the most recent theories in the field. Since the start of contemporary memory research in the 1970s, the understanding of memory has changed drastically. Before that time, researchers assumed that memory is a uniform concept which is represented among humans as well as animals with varying degrees of learning capacity. Following this idea, Gagné (1965 as in Markowitsch 2010: 275) established a hierarchy of learning forms, the lowest in degree being classical conditioning. The latter is based on the well-known experiment with the Pavlovian dog, which is given some meat while, within a short interval, a bell is rung. After a few repetitions of this sequence, the dog salivates as soon as it perceives the noise of a bell. In Gagné’s (1965) hierarchy, classical conditioning is followed by instrumental conditioning, which focuses on the subject’s learning of a response to a stimulus. Next, chaining describes a chain of responses in which each response is induced by the preceding one, which means that the responses are constructed by one another (cf. Gagné 1965 as in Markowitsch 2010: 275). The fourth element in Gagné’s (1965) hierarchy is multiple discrimination, which describes the capacity to distinguish between impulses that share one or more features. The fifth component is referred to as concept learning and defines the ability to respond in like manner to several objects or properties of objects which share certain features. Principle learning, which is the sixth element of the hierarchy, refers to knowing how to manage several problems which share some characteristics. The final element, problem solving, can be understood as accurately utilising acquired principles and drawing meaningful conclusions. While so-called primitive animals were thought to be solely capable of accomplishing classical conditioning, more advanced species such as mammals showed the ability to learn insightfully (cf. Gagné 1965 as in Markowitsch 2010: 275-6). Markowitsch (2010: 276) explains that Gagné’s (1965) understanding of memory as a uniform function based on learning changed radically with the appearance of books such as Endel Tulving’s Elements of Episodic Memory (1983). Prior to this change, memory was solely categorised with respect to short-term and long-term memory (cf. Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968 as in Markowitsch 2010: 276). However, new findings suggest that memory, in fact, consists of systems as well as processes, the latter of which are further divided into implicit

18 and explicit memories.12 Implicit memory, as Markowitsch (2010: 276) illustrates, refers to memories which are encoded without “conscious reflection”, i.e. “anoetically”, whereas explicit memories are encoded with “conscious reflection”, i.e. “noetically”. In addition to the processes involved in the act of remembering, Markowitsch (2010: 276) explains that the systems approach also includes five distinct systems of long-term memory (cf. 2010: 276). Firstly, procedural memory refers to one type of unconscious recollection and describes skills required for motor movements. According to neuroscientific suppositions, children begin to recollect by means of motor activities. Recollection is achieved by realising that moving certain body parts such as arms has an impact on the surroundings. The knowledge acquired through this procedure can, at a later stage, be applied to other activities that involve motor skills; for instance, types of sport and learning to play an instrument. An important feature of the acquisition of motor skills is the fact that this process does not happen consciously but in an automated way. Due to the functions of procedural memory, habitual actions are not actively reflected on but occur automatically (cf. 2010: 277). Secondly, priming refers to another type of unconscious or anoetic remembering and is relevant for various daily situations. The idea behind this system is best explained by means of an example. Markowitsch (2010: 278) points out that priming is frequently used for commercials in that one TV spot is shown by a certain company, which is followed by a spot of another company, and, afterwards, the first company’s spot is repeated in a shorter version. The aim of this technique is that one commercial, although having an impact on the brain, i.e. “provid[ing] a prime”, is not consciously absorbed (2010: 278). Only when reminded of the spot within a short period of time does the brain allow for a conscious perception (cf. 2010: 277-8). Thirdly, perceptual memory belongs to the noetic memory systems and describes the ability to identify an object as a result of being familiar with it. For instance, individuals are able to identify peppers in any colour or shape, even if they are partly eaten. Perceptual memory is also responsible for differentiating between a pepper and a tomato, for example. The fourth as well as the fifth type of long-term memory systems are based on the preceding systems. Semantic memory comprises commonly accepted facts such as the knowledge acquired at school. This system refers to consciously processed information and can be

12 One of the pioneers (starting in the 1950s) to conduct neurological research in order to expand the concepts of short-term and long-term memory by showing that memory was not a function of the whole brain is Brenda Milner. By examining amnesic patients, the neuropsychologist discovered that memory is located in different brain regions. Her research was confirmed when she worked with patients suffering from epileptic seizures caused by brain injuries (her most well-known patient was referred to as H.M.), who had lost their capability of transforming short-term into long-term memory but were still able to perform complex learning tasks involving motor skills (cf. Dreifus 2013, online). 19 identified by its truth conditions; i.e. an individual will decide, based on his or her knowledge, whether a given data is true or false. For instance, it is true that Hawaii is located in the Pacific Ocean but it is false that Cuba is situated in the Pacific (cf. 2010: 278). The fifth long-term memory system, episodic-autobiographical memory, is defined as autonoetic; i.e. the ability to imagine oneself in the past and future. Markowitsch (2010: 278) describes episodic memory as “mental time traveling both retrogradely (backwards) and anterogradely (‘prospective memory’ or ‘proscopia’)”. This time travelling of the mind always refers to the self as well as the self within a social context. The decisive characteristic of autobiographical memories is their emotional component. When remembering an event, individuals extract the emotional value of the respective event and link the factual information of what happened with an emotional evaluation (cf. 2010: 278). In order to grasp the processes and systems involved in memory, it is useful to understand how information is processed in the mind in the first place. Markowitsch (2010: 280) offers a brief summary of Semon’s (1904) categories of how data is processed and stored in the mind. These categories will be relevant in connection with the reconsolidation theory of memory, which will be illustrated in the following part of this chapter. Semon’s (1904 as in Markowitsch 2010: 280) first stage of information intake is perception. As a further step, the perceived data are encoded in the mind, where the process of consolidation begins. The function of the latter is to fix the encoded data in the mind and make a connection to information already in existence and, thus, drawing parallels to memories that have already been stored. Ultimate storage takes place through neuronal networks which consist of factual or affective elements or, possibly, traits of attentiveness. The final stage, recall or ecphory, is triggered by “external (environmental) or internal” stimuli, which set neuronal networks in motion and bring stored information into consciousness in order to be contextualised in the present (2010: 280; cf. Semon 1904 as in Markowitsch 2010: 280). Having briefly outlined the functions involved in processing information, a novel idea related to the stage of consolidation will be analysed, namely the theory of memory reconsolidation.

2.2.1. The reconsolidation theory of (long-term) memory

The five categories of information processing discussed above display a rather static character of memory, particularly, when it comes to memory consolidation. While memory consolidation used to be seen as a uniform concept, i.e. after consolidation a memory was assumed to be stable, more recent research (Alberini 2011, online; Sederberg et al. 2011, online) has found out that memories undergo a further period of instability after consolidation.13 If a consolidated memory is retrieved, it can become labile again and is re- stabilised through the process of memory reconsolidation (cf. Alberini 2011: 1, online). The critical stage of retrieving an already consolidated memory has been subject to recent investigation. According to Alberini (2011: 2, online), two major theories have been proposed that provide different viewpoints to the functions of memory reconsolidation and interpret the stages of retrieval and re-stabilisation in different ways. The first theory proposes that a memory becomes malleable because new information is projected on and incorporated into a past context by means of reconsolidation, thereby updating the memory (cf. eg. Dudai 2004 as in Alberini 2011: 2, online). The second theory suggests that through reconsolidation, a memory is further strengthened and persists for a longer period of time (cf. Sara 2000 as in Alberini 2011: 2, online). Although the first theory produced inconsistent outcomes due to a range of different interpretations, it will be highly relevant to this thesis because a number of experiments provide evidence for the validity of the hypothesis, one of which will be illustrated below (cf. Alberini 2011: 2, online). In addition, the findings are closely connected to Loftus’ (2002, online) theory of memory distortion, which will be relevant in the discussion of John Banville’s novel Birchwood. In order to gain insight into the theory of reconsolidation, it is useful to present an experiment which supports the hypothesis that a memory becomes modified, i.e. updated, once new input is provided during the critical stage of retrieving an already consolidated memory. Prior to outlining the experiment, which was conducted by Hupbach et al. (2007 as in Sederberg et al. 2011, online), Alberini’s (2011: 2, online) definition of memory updating should be taken into account, as it contains the basic idea of how the theory of memory reconsolidation will be understood in this thesis.14

13 The period of consolidation indicates that a memory has already become a long-term memory, which is why the theory of memory reconsolidation is concerned with long-term memory. 14 Alberini’s (2011) analysis supports the second theory of memory reconsolidation, suggesting that the purpose of the process of reconsolidation is to further strengthen a memory. The reason why her definition of memory updating is utilised at this point is the fact that it offers a neutral, adequate and concise understanding of the 21

In general terms, we can define memory updating as all changes that are incorporated into a reactivated memory due to current perceptual input. Thus, every time a memory is retrieved it undergoes changes because, in fact, it is perceived in a different moment and with different current inputs. This implies that both a distinct experience that becomes linked to a first, reactivated memory, as well as a second identical learning experience, can be defined as memory updating (Alberini 2011: 2, online).

According to this definition, every time a consolidated memory reaches a malleable state due to reactivation, new input received in a present context is projected on the older memory and causes the memory to undergo changes. One of the prime examples to support this definition is Hupbach et al.’s (2007) list-learning paradigm, in which participants were given two different lists with items to study. On the first day, the participants were led into a room with a blue basket, out of which they were asked to pull a number of items, one after another, in order to study the extracted objects. This list is referred to as “list A” (Sederberg et al. 2011: 456, online). The participants were then given one day off and met again two days later. This time, the participants were split up into two groups. The first group was led by the same experimenter to the same room as on the first day. However, the blue basket had been removed and the new objects, “list B”, were now spread out across a table (Sederberg et al. 2011: 456, online). The key element that differentiated this group of participants from the other was that the experimenter provided a reminder of list A by showing the blue basket to the group and asking whether they remembered the items studied on day one, without reciting them aloud. Immediately afterwards they were asked to study the items of list B (cf. Hupbach et al. 2007 as in Sederberg et al. 2011: 456, online). The second group was led by a different experimenter to a room different from the one on the first day. The participants were not given any reminder of the first day of the experiment and were immediately allowed to study list B. For the purpose of testing the participants’ acquired knowledge, each group was divided into further two groups. This division was undertaken in order to determine whether time had an influence on the participants’ recollection. One group of the “reminder condition” and another of the “no- reminder condition” were tested after another day off (2011: 456, online). The other participants were tested immediately after studying list B objects. Hupbach et al. (2007 as in 2011: 457, online) found that “an asymmetric intrusion effect in the reminder condition” occurred in the delayed test condition (2011: 457, online). This means that the participants

process of memory updating in a more general way than, for instance, Sederberg et al.’s interpretation (2011, online). 22

(reminder condition, delayed test) mingled a great number of list B objects with list A objects when asked to reproduce list A objects. However, they rarely incorporated list A objects into list B objects when asked to recite list B items. Participants of the ‘no-reminder group’ in the delayed test condition rarely intermingled any of the objects of each list. The same applies to both groups of the immediate test condition. They did not mix a great number of items of list A and list B (cf. Hupbach et al. 2007 as in 2011: 456-7, online). The “asymmetric intrusion effect” found in the experiment was explained in line with the theory of memory updating (2011: 457, online). Reminding the participants of list A right before studying list B causes the memory of list A to become “malleable” (2011: 457, online). The objects of list B are then utilised as a means to update the labile memory of list A. As a result, the participants remember list A objects as well as intruded list B objects. Hupbach et al. (2007 as in 2011: 457, online) also comment on the lack of intermingling list B items with list A items in the immediate test condition. Referring to a fear-conditioning experiment by Nadar et al. (2000), Hupbach et al. (2007 as in 2011: 457, online) illustrate that a reminder of an original situation is only effective after time has passed, as “the molecular changes underlying reconsolidation unfold slowly over time” (2011: 457, online; cf. Hupbach et al. 2007 as in 2011: 457, online). The experiment illustrated above supports the argument that the reconsolidation of long-term memory involves memory updating. The implications of these findings are highly relevant in connection with Loftus’ (2002, online) theory on memory distortion, showing that memories can not only be modified, but that they are also, in fact, to a considerable extent constructed instead of reproduced. Sederberg et al. (2011: 465) point out that memory distortion has actually been referred to as evidence for the process of memory reconsolidation. While the reconsolidation theory of memory leaves room for further investigation, the findings outlined above are the most relevant with respect to establishing understanding of the concept of memory distortion and grasping the arguments in connection with Banville’s novel Birchwood. The following chapter will provide an introduction to Elisabeth Loftus’ theory on memory distortion, which is crucial for understanding why stored experience cannot be authentically reproduced.

2.2.2. The theory of memory distortion

The reconsolidation theory of long-term memory is partially based on key findings within the theory of memory distortion put forward by Elizabeth Loftus. The basic idea behind the theory of memory distortion can be summarised as follows: every time the human mind reproduces events in the past, the account is altered to a greater or lesser extent15. Loftus’s (2002, online) research was primarily conducted in the area of crime investigation, showing that eyewitnesses of a crime tended to provide faulty accounts of their memories when given additional information about the event or when asked specific questions whose choice of words led the eyewitnesses’ memory in a particular direction. Human imagination adds or omits certain details which may be crucial to the outcome of the account of a memory. For instance, Loftus’s (2002, online) research demonstrates that false convictions for a crime can frequently be attributed to a faulty account of eyewitnesses. Several possibilities have been found by Loftus (2002: 43, online) in which memories can be “contaminate[d]”. For instance, once eyewitnesses get access to the media coverage of the witnessed event or if they communicate with other people about the incident, additional information may be integrated into their actual memory. As a result, eyewitnesses are frequently unable to distinguish between their actual memory and certain details that have been added from external sources. This, in turn, may lead to faulty depictions of the respective incident (cf. Loftus 2002, online). Another significant influence on memory distortion can be attributed to language. While the connection between language and memory will be elaborated in detail below, Loftus (2002, online) addresses the influence of language in relation to eyewitness testimony. Loftus (2002, online) has found out that, for instance, the manner in which a question is phrased may have an impact on eyewitnesses’ memory. There is a noticeable difference between the questions “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other” and “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other” (Loftus 2002: 43, online). The former evoked the notion of a greater pace than the latter when, during an experiment, eyewitnesses to a car accident were confronted with these questions. In addition, the first question led participants to the claim of having seen broken glass, which, in fact, was not the case. Loftus (2002, online), therefore, concludes that eyewitnesses’ memory is not necessarily reliable, as various factors contribute to the distortion of their actual memory (cf. Loftus 2002, online). The following analysis will deal in more detail with the impact of language on memory, showing that language shapes memory to a certain degree.

15 The fact that memory is altered when reproduced is also known as ‘False Memory Syndrome’ (FMS, online). 24

2.2.3. The relation between language and memory

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on linguistic relativity, which was widely accepted in the 1950s, opened new ways of thinking about language by showing that language, to a certain extent, influences human cognition. Although the strong version of the hypothesis, namely that language causally determines thinking, has been dismissed, weaker versions are still seen as relevant nowadays, as they promote a “non-deterministic relation between language and cognition” (Echterhoff 2010: 268, cf. 2010: 268). One of the questions that should be asked in connection with memory is whether language also shapes memory to a certain degree (cf. 2010: 264). In addition, a question that will be addressed in the analysis of the novels discussed in this thesis is whether language is a sufficient medium to express memory. Echterhoff (2010: 264-5) provides a psychological approach to the relationship between language and memory and introduces two opposing viewpoints on the impact of language on memory in order to promote a middle way between them16. The first theory advocates a polarised position, according to which memory is exclusively determined by language. This position implies that studying memory can solely be achieved by investigating language. In connection with this view, Echterhoff (2010: 265) quotes Wittgenstein, who expresses the idea that thinking and remembering are determined by language: “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world” (Wittgenstein 1961: 115 as in Echterhoff 2010: 265). In addition, the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis corresponds to this line of argumentation (cf. 2010: 265). The second position introduced by Echterhoff (2010: 265) advocates an opposing view, according to which no connection exists between memory and language. Again, Echterhoff (2010: 265) provides a number of examples to support this idea. Albert Einstein, for instance, claimed that he did not experience thought processes through language, but described his ideas verbally only in retrospect. Additionally, psychoanalysts such as Jacques Lacan advocated the view that language “elud[es] the ‘real,’ prelinguistic basis of the psyche” (2010: 265). This position points to the fact that language is an insufficient means to express certain emotions or thoughts. These two opposing views both contain valuable arguments but represent somewhat too radical positions to be entirely valid. As some truth can be found in both theories, Echterhoff (2010: 265) argues that research conducted in the field of psychology largely points to a middle position between the two views. Language has been shown to have an

16 Although Echterhoff’s (2010) article has been taken from the Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, he points out that his analysis focuses on individual instead of cultural memory, which is also a more adequate approach considering the forms of memory addressed in the novels discussed below (cf. 2010: 264). 25 impact on memory; however, some elements of memory are difficult, if not impossible, to formulate in words. Psychological research has found that “visual, spatial, auditory, olfactory, [and] motor information”, all of which are non-verbal factors, have a significant influence on memory (2010: 266). Taking into account the five long-term memory systems outlined by Markowitsch (2010) above, episodic memory, in particular, is determined by non-verbal factors such as sensory perceptions (cf. Echterhoff 2010: 266). One of the best known literary examples of olfactory and gustatory factors in connection with the act of remembering is Marcel Proust’s episode of the madeleine in his novel À la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Trying a piece of madeleine has such an overwhelming effect on the narrator that he immediately experiences a memory triggered by the familiar smell and taste of the madeleine (Proust. Du côté de chez Swann/ Swann’s Way 53-4). Describing this overpowering feeling by means of language is not likely to adequately capture the sensory elements involved in this experience.17 However, language, without doubt, influences memory to a certain extent, as language may lead the interpretation as well as the memory of an event in a certain direction. As Echterhoff (2010: 263) points out, the verbal depiction of an event is crucial to the way in which it is remembered. For instance, the phrase “someone stepped on my foot at the meeting yesterday” leads to a different memory of the incident than claiming that “someone was aggressive to me at the meeting yesterday” (2010: 263; cf. Semin and Fiedler 1992 as in Echterhoff 2010: 263). With respect to the five systems of long-term memory, semantic memory shows the relevance of language in connection with memory, as it comprises memories grounded on “acquired knowledge and concepts of the world” (Echterhoff 2010: 266). In order to link the verbal and non-verbal influences on memory, Echterhoff (2010: 266), paraphrasing Boroditsky (2001), explains that “the further mental representations are removed from low-level perceptual or motor experiences, the more important linguistic factors become”. In order to sum up how the two positions are intertwined, Echterhoff (2010: 266) points to the saying that “[a] picture may say more than a thousand words”, but adds that only one word is required to lead potential interpretations of a picture in a certain direction. After the role of verbal and non-verbal factors involved in remembering has been outlined, it is useful to consider the lexical and semantic implications of language in relation to memory (cf. 2010: 269). From a lexical and semantic perspective, one can discern that

17 Proust’s distinction between voluntary and involuntary memories, which is the reason why the so-called episode of the madeleine has received such great attention, will be revisited in the analysis of John Banville’s Birchwood. 26 speakers’ choice of words to depict an experience may have an impact on how the event is remembered. On the one hand, putting an experience into words can influence the speaker’s own memory of the respective event (cf. 2010: 270). On the other hand, interlocutors’ memory can also be influenced by the information conveyed by the speaker (cf. Hardin and Banaji 1993 as in 2010: 270). With respect to the impact of language on the speaker’s own memory, research suggests that verbalising an experience can have either a positive or a negative effect. A positive effect of verbalising an event is, for example, the fact that the consolidation of the memory of the event in question is enhanced. By contrast, some experiments have shown that verbalisation can also be counterproductive to the memory of an event. For instance, when participants were asked to describe a criminal’s facial looks, they were consequently less successful in identifying the criminal than those participants who had not described the face beforehand (cf. Rubin 2006 as in 2010: 270). The speaker’s choice of words when describing an experience may also influence the memory of a recipient of the information. Echterhoff (2010: 270) refers to Elisabeth Loftus’s research on eyewitness testimonies, which has demonstrated that giving information or “retrieval cues” about a witnessed incident may influence the witness’ memory of the incident (2010: 270). Having outlined recent psychological theories on the complex process of remembering, I would like to go into more detail about particular forms of memory. Especially Aleida and Jan Assmann put forward theories on certain forms of memory from a cultural point of view. The terms individual, collective, and cultural memory are dealt with in their work, offering various concepts and categories to classify them. The reason why cultural memory is also highly relevant to this thesis is that literature is part of a large framework of documents whose function is not only to illuminate the contemporary frame of mind, but also to store memory for future generations. In addition, while individual memory is immediately relevant for the novels discussed below, it is useful to categorise individual memory within a larger context and determine differences and similarities among various forms of memory. The final part of the chapter will be devoted to traumatic memory, which is relevant in connection with individual as well as cultural memory. The focus, however, will be set on how traumatic experiences are processed by the individual and what role language plays in this context.

3. Major Forms of Memory

3.1. Functional and storage memory

In order to categorise the concept of memory it is, first of all, useful to present and refute long-held views that support a narrow conception of the term. The theory that history, perceived as a neutral collection of historical facts, and memory, regarded as a decisive factor in shaping identity, are opposites has become outdated. A. Assmann (2011: 123) shows that neither the idea that history is opposed to memory nor that they are the same is a useful categorisation but that a correlation between the two concepts is far more plausible. Prior to putting forward her proposition, A. Assmann (2011: 122) presents three distinct theories which advocate a polarised view of history and memory. Thus, one can observe the development of a new awareness which links the two concepts to become “two complementary modes of cultural memory” (A. Assmann 2011: 123). The first of these theories was put forward by Friedrich Nietzsche in his essay “Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben”. His work advocates the value of memory on the one hand, and, on the other hand, points out the triviality of history in relation to life. Nietzsche is concerned about the growing establishment of historical studies in the nineteenth century and criticises the excessive distribution of information on the past that goes beyond its utility for society. Awareness of the past is no longer limited and, thus, loses its purpose to provide a guideline for the future. As a consequence, cultural memory “lost its two central functions: those of affect and identity, that is, as a motivating force and a formative self- image” (2011: 120). Nietzsche brings the terms ‘history’ and ‘memory’ into opposition, suggesting that while history is a burden to the present, memory is highly beneficial (cf. Nietzsche 1876/1983: 77 as in A. Assmann 2011: 120).18 The second theory in question was presented by the empirical sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, whose aim was to find factors that connect groups. He found that joint memories were the decisive element to establish a common ground within communities. According to Halbwachs (1980), the relationship between groups and memories is correlative: the group is sustained by memories and memories are sustained by the group. As a result of this observation, Halbwachs arrives at his concept of “collective memory”, whose properties are

18 The presentation of the three relevant theories is based on A. Assmann’s (2011) interpretation, as the verification of her analysis exceeds the scope of this paper. 28 defined by, in Assman’s words, “social interaction and confirmation” (2011: 121; cf. 2011: 121). As a further step, Halbwachs generates a binary opposition between “collective memory” and “historiography” (2011: 121). A. Assmann (2011: 121) provides a clear outline of parameters identified by Halbwachs (1980) to distinguish between the two concepts. Firstly, collective memory guarantees the continuous existence and individuality of a group, while historiography adopts a neutral position distanced from emotions and identification. Secondly, the existence of groups and their collective memories depends on plurality. Historical memory, on the other hand, is constructed by various histories but its existence depends on singularity. Finally, while collective memory attempts to avert change, historical memory highlights change (cf. Halbwachs 1980: 84 as in A. Assmann 2011: 121). The third theory to bring history and memory into opposition was put forward by the French historian Pierre Nora. Similar to Halbwachs, Nora was interested in the memories of groups and their driving force. His theory suggests that group memory is defined by a shared semiotic system, which leads members of a group to develop a collective identity. Memories of a community, according to Nora (1989), do not presuppose a familiarity among its members. They can be anonymous but need to be aware of the common semiotic system (cf. Nora 1989 as in A. Assmann 2011: 122). A. Assmann (2011: 122) sums up the distinction between Nora’s and Halbwachs’s theory: “Nora took the theoretical step from the interactive group bound in a co-presence in time and space, as analyzed by Halbwachs, to the abstract community that transcends time and space by defining itself through symbols”. The reason why Nora regards history and memory as opposites is his idea that memory represents a link to connect a group in the present, whereas history solely illustrates the past. He adds that history is a phenomenon without a proprietor, while memory is only visible within a particular group (cf. Nora 1989: 8f as in A. Assmann 2011: 122). The common ground of all three theories is described by A. Assmann (2011: 122) as “inhabited” and “uninhabited” memory. The former characterises memory as a subjective property of human beings that produces a biased view of the past and the latter defines history as a neutral depiction of the past (cf. 2011: 122). A. Assmann (2011: 123) argues that regarding history and memory as binary oppositions ignores the potential of the concepts to complement each other. Instead, A. Assmann (2011: 123) suggests defining inhabited memory as “functional” memory and characterises it as “group related, selective, normative, and future-oriented”. The complementary part to functional memory is defined as “storage memory” and corresponds to the concept of uninhabited memory (2011: 124). The latter

29 includes the study of history, which can be described as a reconstructed network of memories of the past that are distanced from the present (cf. 2011: 123-4). Prior to further elaborating on the concepts of functional and storage memory, it is useful to make a short digression on A. Assmann’s (2011: 17) distinction between “ars” and “vis”. These terms provide the basis for her definition of functional and storage memory in that they show how the act of remembering as well as the art of memory in the sense of reciting gained significance (cf. 2011: 18-19). The origin of ars goes back to Roman mnemotechnics, which, according to a legend, was discovered by the poet Simonides of Keos (cf. 2011: 25). Cicero put the story of Simonides down in writing and, thus, created the foundational myth of the ancient method of remembering. The poet Simonides was invited by the boxer Skopas to honour him with a poem at a feast at his home.19 The content of the poem, however, displeased Skopas because his glory was outshined by the lengthy passage in honour to the gods. As a consequence, he sent Simonides outside to collect half of his salary from the gods whom he had paid homage instead of his patron. Immediately afterwards Simonides was called outside because two strangers wanted to speak to him. The moment he went outside, the house broke down with the result that the guests as well as Simonides’ patron were found dead. The life of Simonides was spared by the gods as a reward for his honour to them. The decisive moment when mnemotechnics came into play was when Simonides was required to identify the dead persons in order that they could be buried adequately. The poet was able to identify everyone because he remembered the order in which the guests had been seated (cf. Cicero 55 BCE/ 2001: 86; 352-4 as in A. Assmann 2011: 25- 26). The story of Simonides was recognised as the origin of the art of remembering, which emphasised that memory was even more powerful than death (cf. 2011: 26). As the story of Simonides shows, mnemotechnics served the purpose of reproducing memory as precisely and authentically as possible. This method requires the application of conscious memory, which corresponds to A. Assmann’s (2011: 18) idea of “storage”, as it assumes equality between “recording and retrieving”. Mnemotechnics form the basis of the concept of ars, which combats change by storing information, while vis focuses on the act of remembrance itself, which frequently happens unconsciously and implies some change. Vis is closely linked to identity in that human beings are affected by what they remember within the inevitable interplay of remembering and forgetting. Information may be absorbed without noticing it and only after time has passed does one become aware of it (cf. 2011: 19).

19 The purpose of having a poet create a poem for the sake of a patron’s honour goes back to the idea of fama, which describes the importance of gaining immortality by being remembered for one’s accomplishments in the form of writing (cf. 2011: 23). 30

The distinction between ars and vis serves as a basis for the interrelation of functional and storage memory. Basically, the two concepts describe two different levels of memory. With respect to individual memory, storage memory can be imagined as an “amorphous mass” of memories which are not actively in use and may not be known to exist (2011: 125). However, they should not be seen as entirely lost, as they operate as a complement to functional memory. In contrast to this, functional memory of an individual is described as a selective process of remembering, which merely allows for parts of memory to become the focus of attention (cf. 2011: 125). In order to grasp the complex interplay of functional and storage memory, A. Assmann (2011: 126) suggests imagining an interaction between a pattern of foreground and background information:

This structure of foreground/background can account for the dynamics of change in personal and cultural memory: as soon as the dominant configurations break up, current elements may lose their unquestioned relevance and give place to latent and formerly excluded elements that may resurface and enter into new connections and narratives (2011: 126).

Current structures of memory of an individual or a culture may at any time be replaced by more relevant memories that had already been stored but had not been in use. A. Assmann (2011: 126) provides a useful example which illustrates the cooperation of the two levels of memory, namely the human learning process. The human mind reorganises current knowledge and values once new input of learning material is received. As a reorganisation takes place, stored memory, which had not been part of the current structures of knowledge, complements functional memory by enabling a critical reflection and renewal of the latter (cf. Deutsch 1967: 96 as in A. Assmann 2011: 126). While the interplay of functional and storage memory has primarily been explained in terms of individual memory, the two categories may also be applied on a cultural level. In this context, storage memory refers to parts of memory that are not in use and are not immediately relevant in the present, which means that they do not contribute to forming a collective identity (cf. 2011: 127). In short, storage memory “holds in store a repertoire of missed opportunities, alternative options, and unused material” (2011: 127). Functional memory, by contrast, refers to active remembering, which can be described as a selective process with the purpose of making connections between fragments of memory. Rearranging these fragments into meaningful units is the decisive factor to differentiate functional from storage memory, as the latter lacks meaning entirely (cf. 2011: 127).

Functional memory on a cultural level is generated by particular bearers such as political communities, which form their own identity by composing a model of the past which provides orientation for the present and the future. The information that is excluded from functional memory due to its lack of immediate relevance to the presence is preserved by storage memory in the form of archives, for instance (cf. 2011: 128). Both functions of memory fulfil a number of tasks, which are essential for establishing a balance between the two forms. Cultural functional memory serves as a means of “legitimization, delegitimization, and distinction” (2011: 128). Legitimisation is closely connected to power in that political or official institutions legitimise their function by showing a widespread historical knowledge. Particularly knowledge related to the origin of these institutions in the form of, for instance, genealogies contributes to justifying their existence in the present. Political and official memory is also future-oriented in that leaders are eager to ensure that they are remembered by future generations. The legitimisation of official or political institutions strongly relies on censoring as well as ritualistic acts of remembrance. In order to undermine such institutions, the second task of functional memory comes into play, namely delegitimisation. The latter can be seen as a “counter-memory”, which is represented by people who are not favoured by the prevalent institutions in power (2011: 129). Counter-memory is exclusively future-oriented and serves as a means of replacing current power structures with a new system. The third task cultural functional memory performs is defined as “distinction” and refers to means which help creating a communal identity. For instance, religious congregations preserve and revive their memories in the form of celebrations and rituals, which are based on myths of origin (cf. 2011: 128-9). Cultural storage memory, on the other hand, fulfils exactly those tasks which are neglected by functional memory. A. Assmann (2011: 130) describes storage memory as an “important reservoir for future functional memories” as well as a “corrective to current functional memories”. A very significant characteristic of the two forms of memory is that they do not emerge automatically. Storage memory is generated by filing and preserving documents in places such as museums and libraries. If storage memory is not consciously upheld, severe consequences can follow, which has already been demonstrated in totalitarian regimes such as Stalinist Russia, where storage memory was deliberately eliminated (cf. 2011: 130). The essence of A. Assmann’s (2011: 119) theory of functional and storage memory on an individual as well as cultural level is the idea that they complement each other. One performs exactly those functions which the other neglects. This complementarity serves as a

32 basis for further approaches to memory such as cultural memory, which will be outlined in more detail below. In addition, the connection between individual and collective memory will be shown in order to demonstrate how the two concepts are intertwined and complement each other.

3.2. Cultural memory

In his preliminary remarks J. Assmann (2013: 29-34) introduces a number of concepts which form the basis of his definition of cultural memory. The latter is identified as a subcategory of collective memory, which is divided into communicative and cultural memory (cf. 2013: 48). J. Assmann (2013) arrives at this subdivision by, first of all, drawing a comparison between the art of memory; i.e. “ars memoriae”, and the culture of memory (cf. 2013: 29). The concept of ars has already been introduced in the previous chapter and will not be immediately relevant for the following discussion, as it refers to the mnemotechnical skills of an individual. The culture of memory, on the other hand, is related to a group and can be regarded as a “social obligation” in that it defines what must not be forgotten within a group (2013: 30, my translation). This universal phenomenon shapes a community’s identity and self-conception (cf. 2013: 30). One central feature of the culture of memory (the corresponding term in German is “Erinnerungskultur”) is the fact that it is oriented towards the past (2013: 31). Time plays an essential role in the culture of memory because it enables hoping and planning, which, in turn, forms an understanding of the concepts of time and meaning (cf. 2013: 31). J. Assmann (2013: 31) defines the act of remembering as a process of reconstructing the past. In other words, one refers to the past and in this way becomes conscious of it. However, in order to be able to refer to the past, J. Assmann (2013: 32) identifies two conditions that need to be met. Firstly, an awareness of the past presupposes the availability of evidence such as testimonies. Secondly, the evidence must show a discrepancy between the past and the present. The second condition refers to breaks in tradition or continuity that are followed by a new beginning in the sense of, for instance, a renaissance. One of the examples J. Assmann (2013: 32) mentions in connection with a discrepancy between the past and present is language change. Although changes in language happen constantly, speakers usually do not consciously perceive this process. The point when language change becomes most apparent occurs as soon as there is such a significant discrepancy between traditional texts and spoken language that the two variants can be denoted as different languages (cf. 2013: 32). 33

The most original form of discrepancy between the past and the present is identified by J. Assmann (2013: 33) as death. The break in continuity that is brought about by death forms the basis of cultural memory in that life becomes a past event. As collective memory consists of natural and cultural parts, life reflects natural remembrance because the tendency of individuals to recollect parts of their past is a natural process. Death, on the other hand, sets cultural memory in motion in that a deceased person ‘lives on’ in the memory of the community. This act of revival, as J. Assmann (2013: 33) describes the cultural process of a group to actively remember a deceased person, ensures the continuous existence of the respective individual in the present (cf. 2013: 33). Overcoming the break between the past and the present can be seen as the decisive element to distinguish cultural memory from tradition (cf. 2013: 34). The reason for this is the fact that the concept of tradition excludes a reference beyond the break as well as related elements such as forgetting and suppressing. Cultural memory emerges due to “affective bonds” within a group, “cultural shaping”, and the “conscious reference to the past beyond the break between the past and the present” (2013: 34, my translation; cf. 2013: 34). In order to further define cultural memory, J. Assmann (2013: 34) introduces Maurice Halbwachs’s (1985a) definition of collective memory, which has already been addressed above. The focus of the following analysis of Halbwachs’s (1985a) theory will be on the distinction between individual and collective memory as well as his concept of reference points to the past.

3.2.1. ‘Individual’ and ‘collective’ memory

Halbwachs’s (1985a as in J. Assmann 2013: 35) categories of individual and collective memory are based on the assumption that memory is socially determined. Only if an individual is socialised, he or she can develop a memory. While only individuals are endowed with memory, it is groups which define the memory of their members.20 Interaction and communication within social groups are the decisive factors which generate individual and collective memories. The reason for this is that one remembers one’s experiences in connection with other people and, more significantly, one may recollect what other people narrate and/or consider important. Referring to Halbwachs’s (1985a) introduction of the concept of “cadres sociaux”, i.e. social frameworks, J. Assmann (2013: 36) explains that the human memory is organised by particular frameworks, which are established by an active

20 At this point J. Assmann (2013: 36) refutes Halbwachs’s (1985a) metaphorical understanding of a memory of a group or nation, claiming that even though only individuals have a memory, the memory of an individual is collectively formed. For this reason, collective memory can be understood literally. 34 participation of the individual in communicative processes. In this way, the act of forgetting is also taken into account, as only those memories, which still show frames of reference in the present, can be reconstructed, while other aspects may be forgotten. Individual memory can be imagined as an accumulation of diverse memories of a group. Analogously, collective memory can be explained as a distribution of knowledge amongst the members of a group. J. Assmann (2013: 37 as in Halbwachs 1985b) adds that the individual part of memory should more accurately be understood as sensations, as they are linked to the body. Memories in their totality stem from the manner of thinking of different groups that are joined by individuals (cf. 2013: 36-7). In order to account for the way in which collective ideas are stored in the memory of an individual, J. Assmann (2013: 38) takes up Halbwachs’s (1985a) concept of images of memory and turns them into “Erinnerungsfiguren”; i.e. figures of memory. These perform the function of transforming ideas into meaningful units so that they can be stored as symbolic objects in the mind. Only if concepts and images merge can they gain access to memory. Figures of memory can be defined as the interplay of concepts and experiences, which is manifested in three major characteristics. Figures of memory refer to time and space, they refer to a group, and they can be reconstructed (cf. 2013: 38). With respect to the reference to time, figures of memory draw attention to decisive events in the past and display the cyclical nature of collective memory. For instance, different forms of calendars which are arranged according to particular events in time such as the calendar of the Church reflect collective, actively experienced time (“erlebte Zeit”; 2013: 38). A similar account is true for the reference to space but instead of events, particular spatial points of reference such as a village, a city, or a conspicuous landscape are the focus of attention. Spatial points of reference can also relate to certain items that are relevant to individual persons such as furniture, which Halbwachs defines as “entourage matériel” (1985b: 130 as in J. Assmann 2013: 39). The tendency of a group to relate memories to places contributes to the formation of identity in that space serves as a means of affiliation (cf. 2013: 38-9). Another significant feature of figures of memory is that they refer to a group. Attitudes and characteristics of a group are represented by figures of memory, and they give meaning to the self-image of a community. The function of a self-image is that a group differentiates itself from others while strengthening similarities within the group. This generates a sense of continuity and averts change (cf. 2013: 40 as in Halbwachs 1985a: 209 f.). The third characteristic of figures of memory refers to their potential to be reconstructed. Due to the fact that human memory cannot store the past in its entirety, it is necessary to foreground

35 particular information in a selective process. Collective memory stores only that kind of information of the past which is reconstructed by a group and is relevant in connection with the prevalent frames of reference at a certain period of time (cf. Halbwachs 1985a: 390 as in J. Assmann 2013: 39). The fact that merely selective parts of the past can be (re-)stored within collective memory implies that a reorganisation of memories takes place once current frames of reference change (cf. 2013: 40-42). After Halbwachs’s (1985ab) characterisation of collective memory has been outlined, two subcategories of collective memory will be presented, namely communicative and cultural memory. These categories have been identified by J. Assmann (2013: 45) in order to avoid a too narrow definition of the concept of collective memory. Halbwachs, by contrast, defines collective memory by means of binary oppositions such as history and collective memory as well as tradition and collective memory (cf. 2013: 45). J. Assmann (2013: 48) attempts to overcome these contrasts by differentiating a memory of the recent past and one which describes specific points of reference in the past.

3.2.2. ‘Communicative’ and ‘cultural’ memory

The reason for distinguishing between communicative and cultural memory goes back to what J. Assmann (2013: 49) describes as “the floating gap”. This phenomenon refers to a gap in accounts of a society, which is usually found within a period between recent and ancient past.21 According to J. Assmann (2013: 48), historical consciousness solely functions on the level of recent and foundational past. When speaking of the cultural memory of a group, recent past and foundational past are directly connected, which is why J. Assmann’s (2013: 48-9) concept of the ‘floating gap’ should not be understood as a lack of accounts, but rather as a bridge between recent and foundational past. This is primarily manifested in the genealogy of a community, which not only represents continuity, but also legitimises the existence of a group and connects their foundational with their recent past (cf. 2013: 50). Although these two forms of the past are interlinked, there are still significant differences between them. For this reason, J. Assmann (2013: 50) establishes two forms of collective memory, namely communicative and cultural memory, which directly correspond to the idea of a recent and a foundational past. Communicative memory refers to memories of

21 J. Assmann (2013: 49) remarks that his concept of the “floating gap” differs from Vansina’s (1985: 23 f.) in that Vansina’s is a significant phenomenon for oral tradition and refers to the so-called “dark ages”, i.e. a period of which no accounts can be found. By contrast, J. Assmann’s (2013: 49) concept of the “floating gap” in memory focuses on the inner perspective of societies instead of analysing them from an external point of view, as historiographers do (cf. 2013: 49). 36 the recent past that are shared within an existing group. An example of this concept would be generational memory, which emerges with the bearers of these memories and also disappears when they pass away. Communicative memory comprises personal memories that are transmitted communicatively from generation to generation. The time frame of recent memory can be narrowed down to approximately three to four generations, or, in terms of years, to circa 80 to 100. The limit of approximately 80 years seems to be a decisive value for both, “[o]ral history” as well as historiography (2013: 51). In oral cultures communicative memory is upheld for circa 80 years and is followed by myths of origin. Similarly, the limit of 80 years can be found in written cultures, where the contents of communicative memory are converted into historical facts in history books or other documents after approximately that period of time. Another term that is used for recent past is ‘biographical memory’ (“biographisch[e] Erinnerung”; 2013: 52), as, in oral and written cultures, this form of memory exclusively depends on social interaction (cf. 2013: 50-2; 56). Foundational memory, on the other hand, emerges from the act of objectifying memory in the form of, for instance, rituals, myths, jewellery and dances. These cultural elements serve a mnemotechnical purpose in that they preserve memories that are not part of the communicative memory of a group any longer. Similarly, cultural memory refers to points of reference in the past instead of the past as a whole and transforms them into symbolic figures of memory. These figures are preserved by, for example, rituals such as liturgical celebrations. Myths also fall into the category of figures of memory, as within cultural memory no distinction is made between myth and history. Factual history is only as far part of this concept as it is transformed into myth. Cultural memory focuses on figures of memory that are actually remembered and that link the present with a foundational past. J. Assmann (2013: 52) explains that history is transformed into myth through remembrance and only in this way becomes permanent reality (cf. 2013: 52). One significant difference between communicative and cultural memory is the role of the carriers of the respective form of memory. Every member of a group contributes to communicative memory in a more or less marked way, depending on, for example, the age of the members, as elder participants may have a more distinct memory than younger ones. Cultural memory, by contrast, presupposes particular experts that ensure the preservation of the memory of a group. Poets and bards used to have this function and, nowadays, this purpose is fulfilled by, for instance, priests, teachers, artists, or, in oral cultures such as Native American tribes, storytellers. These experts are in control of communicating and spreading cultural memory, a task which is not required for communicative memory. Another difference

37 between the two forms of memories is the fact that cultural memory is characterised by a high degree of formality, whereas communicative memory is rather informal with an emphasis on the everyday (cf. 2013: 54; 56).

3.3. Traumatic memory

While cultural memory provides insight into how memory is shaped within a community, traumatic memory can be experienced by a community as well as an individual. The exploration of traumatic memory has received great attention in the field of literary studies in recent years, especially concerning the effects of phenomena such as genocide on future generations. The theoretical outline and the literary analyses below, however, are concerned with the subjective experience of trauma, focusing on the possibilities as well as the limitations of language as a medium to represent the experience of trauma. One of the most renowned researchers in the field of trauma is Gabriele Schwab, whose book Haunting legacies: violent histories and transgenerational trauma (2010) explores traumatic memory on various levels. On the one hand, phenomena such as colonial oppression as well as the Holocaust are addressed, but, on the other hand, symptoms of individual experience of trauma are outlined as well. In addition, Schwab (2010) provides insight into literary manifestations of traumatic experience such as the literary exploration of the so-called ‘crypt’ in Samuel Beckett’s work, which will be explained below. Some of the most significant characteristics of traumatic memory outlined by Schwab (2010: 2) are that they are experienced through “flashbacks or nightmares”. Rather than remembering the traumatic event as a whole, a person suffering from trauma typically re- experiences fragments of the traumatic incident involuntarily through flashbacks. In addition, traumatic memory is usually expressed through “the body and its somatic enactments” (2010: 2). As we will see in Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing, for instance, the narrator, Joy, suffers from constant headaches and she develops anorexic behaviour, which is an attempt at gaining control over her body because she has lost control over her memories. Schwab (2010: 2) also points out that “[t]raumatic memories entrap us in the prison house of repetition compulsion”, showing that a person suffering from trauma not only relives the traumatic event over and over again, but he or she also cannot escape this pattern of repetition. Joy, for example, is unable to progress because she is mentally entrapped in her traumatic experience and she repeatedly experiences flashbacks of the same images of the event such as the open mouth of her dead lover. Finally, Schwab (2010: 2) shows that

“[t]rauma disrupts relationality”, meaning that a person suffering from trauma is unable to link his or her recollections and thoughts. As a result, the traumatic event cannot be grasped as a whole because causality is suspended to a large degree. A subcategory of traumatic memory can be identified as what Abraham and Torok (1994 as in Schwab 2010: 1; 45) refer to as ‘the crypt’, which is defined as burying events one is unable to speak of or traumatic losses that are often denied. A crypt emerges when a person is unable to mourn a dead person properly, which means that instead of “introjecting” the deceased person, which “facilitates integration into the psychic fabric”, one “incorporates” the deceased person by denying the loss and, in this way, failing to let go of the lost person (Schwab 2010: 1). This defence mechanism serves as a means to keep “the object [or person] ‘alive’ inside” (2010: 1). Abraham and Torok (1994 as in Schwab 2010: 45) have established a theory of cryptonomy, which shows how a crypt is expressed through language. Performing a crypt in written form is frequently done by using “fragmentation, distortions, gaps, or ellipses” (Abraham and Torok 1994 as in 2010: 45). Language used to express trauma is also frequently characterised by “empty speech”, which can be either “mindless chatter” or “coldly detached” speech (2010: 54). While there are various possibilities of expressing trauma through language, one problem which is difficult, if not impossible to solve entirely is to find a way to say the unsayable, i.e. “deal[ing] with the paradox of telling what cannot be told” (2010: 48). This problem will be revisited in the literary analyses below, as not only those novels that deal with traumatic memory explore the limitations of language to express memory, but all four novels chosen for this thesis address the difficulty of conveying the variety of aspects involved in the act of recollecting. A number of other forms of memory can be found and a plethora of further theories on memory exist; however, the selection above suffices as a theoretical background for the scope and purpose of this thesis, which is to explore current understandings and manifestations of memory in literature. Due to the wide range of theories and concepts introduced above, it is useful to provide a brief summary of the most significant terms relevant for the literary analysis below.

3.4. Summary

With respect to the representation of memory in Birchwood, some of the most important theories to keep in mind are the ‘reconsolidation theory’ of (long-term) memory as well as Elisabeth Loftus’s theory on ‘memory distortion’. Both theories propose that events in the past cannot be authentically reproduced. The reason for this is that remembering inevitably involves a certain degree of distortion, as human beings project their imagination as well as their current states of thinking onto their past experiences. In addition, the act of remembering should be regarded as a dynamic process, i.e. a production instead of a reproduction, because original events cannot be fully reproduced. In connection with The Sound of my Voice, one should be aware of some of the effects of traumatic memory such as the inability to produce a coherent and linear account of the traumatic event. Another significant theme in the novel is the connection between memory and identity, for which it is useful to keep in mind Locke’s theory of relating one’s identity to one’s life span. The most significant terms to consider for the discussion on The Trick is to Keep Breathing have been introduced in the chapter on traumatic memory. On the one hand, one should be aware of a number of characteristics of traumatic memories such as the fact that they commonly appear in the form of flashbacks. Traumatic memories are also characterised by repetition, lack of relationality, and they commonly have a physical impact on a person suffering from trauma in addition to various psychological effects (cf. Schwab 2010: 2). On the other hand, it is useful to be aware of the difficulty of expressing trauma through language. Galloway’s novel explores the options of language and the text to convey the effects of trauma by means of experimenting with typographic form and including the reader in the process of producing the text. In addition, a number of characteristics of Abraham and Torok’s (1994 as in Schwab 2010: 45) concept of the ‘crypt’ can be found in the novel in that, firstly, the narrator is unable to mourn her lover’s death properly and, secondly, the text consists of fragmentation as well as ellipses. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes deals, among other things, with the unreliability of memory as well as personal history, which is why it is useful to keep in mind the basic idea of the theory of memory distortion as well as the reconsolidation theory of memory. More specifically, the concept of memory updating will be referred to, as the narrator acknowledges the fact that his account of his past is influenced by his current state of awareness and emotional status.

After some of the latest findings within the vast body of research on memory have been outlined, the novels analysed in the following chapters will demonstrate various approaches to the topic and explore the limits of language as a medium to convey memories. Especially the use of experimental narrative techniques and unreliable narration highlight the non-linearity and unpredictability of memory, frequently blurring the boundaries between imagination and reality.

4. John Banville’s Birchwood: Memory as a Source of Distortion

4.1. Introduction to Birchwood

The novel Birchwood (1973) by the Irish author John Banville deals with the unreliability of memory by following the narrator’s quest of “making sense of his past by remembering it” (Imhof 1997: 58). In his attempt at reconstructing original events, the narrator gradually realises his own limitations and eventually accepts the fact that an authentic reproduction of past events is not possible. Due to the fact that the exploration of human memory is portrayed in an experimental manner, providing a clear and concise summary of the content of the book poses a challenge. Not only is Birchwood filled with uncertainties, enigmas and suspensions of order and chronology, but also the narrator’s unreliability contributes to the complexity of the story. I will, however, attempt at providing a basic outline of the content in order to be able to get a general idea of the story as well as the functions of memory in the book. Basically, Birchwood is a compilation of the narrator’s memories, which, first of all, are not linear and, second of all, are frequently interrupted by metareferential passages in which the narrator reflects on the process of remembering as well as language as a medium to convey his memories. The novel is split into three parts, all of which deal with different parts of the narrator’s life. The first part entitled ‘The Book of the Dead’ begins with the narrator doing some work on the Birchwood estate, which used to be a wealthy Irish estate but is now in ruins. Gabriel Godkin, the homodiegetic narrator, refers to the house as a “baroque madhouse” (BW 15), which can be interpreted as an allusion to the grotesque happenings at Birchwood that will be illustrated below. First of all, the reader learns about Gabriel’s complex family history as well as his sexual awakening with a character named Rosie, which is described as a rather awkward and clumsy experience (cf. BW 13). With respect to the narrator’s family history, it is important to point out that there are two families, the Lawlesses and the Godkins, who have quarrelled over the position of the squire of the estate. While 41

Birchwood had always been owned by the Lawless family, Gabriel’s great-great-grandfather, also named Gabriel Godkin, married Beatrice, the daughter of the Lawlesses and took over Birchwood some time after the master of the estate, Joseph Lawless, had disappeared for reasons not explained. Although Joseph’s kin are said to have fought for the estate, Gabriel remains the squire and accumulates wealth. As a sign of justice, as the narrator remarks, the Lawlesses have remained sane, whereas the Godkin family have been afflicted by a peculiar madness (cf. BW 15-16). Continuing the account of his family tree, the narrator explains that his father, Joseph Godkin, also married a daughter of the Lawless family named Beatrice, whom he does not love but marries nonetheless because his mother, Granny Godkin, does not approve of the match and he is fond of disobeying her will. When the couple’s son, the narrator Gabriel Godkin, learns that he is to inherit Birchwood, his aunt Martha arrives with her son Michael, who, towards the end of the book, turns out to be Gabriel’s twin brother and Martha their real mother. The reason for their sudden arrival is the fact that Gabriel’s father, who had had an affair with Martha, made a deal with her when their sons were born according to which they would separate their sons and Gabriel would stay with Joseph at Birchwood. Martha, in turn, would move to another mansion financed by the Birchwood estate with Michael, who would eventually inherit Birchwood. Joseph, however, breaks the deal and bequeaths Gabriel the estate. As a result, Martha returns to Birchwood in order to claim her share of the deal. Until the end of the book, though, the reader is unaware of these relations and merely observes mysterious happenings at Birchwood such as the bizarre deaths of his grandparents. Granda Godkin, Gabriel’s grandfather, dies having his teeth stuck in bark and Granny Godkin is described to explode in a room. In the course of the story, Beatrice, Gabriel’s supposed mother, is shown to develop madness and the Birchwood estate is gradually falling apart. Due to these circumstances, Gabriel’s father tells him that he is to go away to school and that his mother is to be sent to a home, i.e. a facility where she can be treated. Soon after, Michael suddenly disappears and, one day, reappears briefly at night only to tell Gabriel that “[t]hey have [Gabriel’s] sister” without any further explanation (BW 95). The next morning, the family finds the hayshed on fire. Martha, who is already worried about her son’s disappearance, is deceived by Beatrice, who has been quarrelling with Martha, in that Beatrice claims that Michael is in the hayshed. As a result, Martha walks into the flames and burns to death. The first part ends with a number of questions posed by the narrator such as “Why had aunt Martha died” and “Where was Michael? And my sister?” (BW 99).

The second part named ‘Air and Angels’ deals with Gabriel joining a circus after leaving Birchwood in search for his supposed twin sister as a result of Michael’s hint and certain insinuations by Martha in the first part according to which Gabriel could have a twin sister. He is told by the circus group about the magician Prospero, who is repeatedly mentioned throughout the book, yet turns out to be non-existent. The second part also includes references to the Irish potato famine, as the country is said to suffer from starvation due to the failure of the potato crop. By the third part of the novel entitled ‘Mercury’, Gabriel has separated from the circus group but the circus finds him again and settles at the Birchwood estate. The narrator goes on to describe the death of the Lawless family who are shot by a group of freedom fighters named Molly Maguires. After the massacre the Molly Maguires are shot dead by Cotter, who has already been introduced in the beginning of the novel as a character who owns a cottage near Birchwood. Towards the end of the book Gabriel reveals the complex relations within his family that explain Martha’s arrival at the estate as well as the deal between Martha and Joseph. Finally, Gabriel reveals that his twin sister has never existed and that he has been tricked by his evil twin brother Michael, who wanted him away from the estate so that he could claim his inheritance. However, Gabriel points out that Michael had to flee as well when the Lawlesses took over Birchwood. As a consequence, Michael joined the Molly Maguires to kill the Lawlesses and then brought the circus group to fight the Molly Maguires. A reason for the great number of deaths is not given, and the narrator’s unreliability is again pointed out at the end of the book when he states “So here then is an ending, of a kind, to my story. It may not have been like that, any of it. I invent, necessarily” (BW 174). The final scene of the novel shows Gabriel working on the house again, where he comes to realise his limitations as a narrator. He accepts his inability to convey his intimations of the past through language because he realises that they can only be felt instead of communicated.

4.2. The workings of memory in Birchwood: general remarks

The illustrations of the workings of memory in John Banville’s Birchwood not only challenge the authenticity of memory, but they also underline the limits of language as a medium to depict and communicate recollections. The novel is to a great extent composed of what Wordsworth defined in his Prelude as “spots of time”; i.e. fragments of memory that are foregrounded due to their subjective significance to the narrator (Wordsworth. Prelude I: 289). As a consequence, the pieces of information the reader receives in Birchwood are highly selective and a number of open questions remain on the level of meaning as well as content of the story; for instance, the lack of clarity concerning the identity of Cotter and Prospero. This leads the reader to challenge the reliability of the narrator and, eventually, the success of the narrator to order and convey his memories. In this chapter, the degree to which the narrator succeeds in reproducing events in the past will be explored, suggesting that the narrator is not entirely in control of his memories, thereby highlighting the difficulty of the human mind to order and reproduce events in the past. In order to understand why it is possible that the narrator’s memories in Birchwood may be doubtful, one should be familiar with Loftus’ theory on memory distortion as well as the reconsolidation theory of long-term memory outlined above. Both theories advocate the idea that every time the human mind reproduces events in the past, the account is altered to a greater or lesser extent. Following Banville’s critic Derek Hand (2002: 44), one can acknowledge that “memory [...] is a necessarily creative act”, which the narrator in Birchwood appears to become aware of in the course of the novel. While attempting to take down an account of his memories on paper in order to gain some understanding of his past as well as his present state in life, the narrator comes to realise that, in fact, his efforts are futile (cf. BW 11). Not only are memories difficult to express in words, but they also overwhelm the narrator to the extent that he seems to lose control of his narrative. Berensmeyer (2000) argues that Gabriel’s memories actually “tell the story”, indicating that Gabriel fails to remain the “master of his narrative” (Berensmeyer 2000: 91, quoting BW 11). The futility of the narrator’s quest is already indicated at the beginning of the novel by the fact that Gabriel begins to tell his narrative four times, which he explicitly admits in the second paragraph of the book where he asks, “Am I mad, starting again, and like this?” (BW 11). In this way, the narrator acknowledges his own limitations, which he repeatedly stresses throughout the novel. He points out the limits of memory reconstruction and the barriers language creates as a medium to express states of mind. In Gabriel’s third attempt to start his

44 narration he demonstrates the problems he encounters when trying to reconstruct his memories: “And since all thinking is in a sense remembering, what, for instance, did I do in the womb, swimming there in those dim red waters with my past time still all before me? Intimations survive” (BW 11). Alluding to Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”, Gabriel addresses a decisive characteristic of human memory; namely distortion over time. He highlights the fact that most knowledge about childhood is merely a product of secondary sources, the narration of one’s parents or relatives, as one cannot remember, for instance, how being in the mother’s womb felt. Some memories can be reproduced to a certain degree because they may have left decisive impressions, but these are only fragments which, when linked together, inevitably divert from the original experience and, as Gabriel observes, “reconstruct a wholly illusory past” (BW 12). In his fourth attempt to begin his narrative, Gabriel sets about doing construction work, both, in a literal and metaphorical sense. On the one hand, he starts doing manual construction work on the Birchwood estate and, on the other hand, he begins reconstructing his memories and recording them on paper (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012a; BW 11). The narrator appears to follow the quest of reproducing events in his past in order to, as Berensmeyer (2000: 90) observes, “regain lost time through acts of remembrance”, which is described by Imhof (1997: 58) as “a very Proustian undertaking” because Gabriel explicitly acknowledges his “search for time misplaced” (BW 13). Indeed, some parallels can be drawn between the narrator in Marcel Proust’s fundamental modernist novel À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (1913-1927) and the narrator in Banville’s Birchwood. Gabriel, for instance, alludes to the famous madeleine episode in À la Recherche by comparing fragments of his past, which he refers to as “madeleines”, to his memories of these events and, thus, trying to recreate his past as accurately as possible: “These things, these madeleines, I gathered anew, compared them to my memories of them, added them to the mosaic, like an archaeologist mapping a buried empire.” (BW 13) Similar to the process of putting a puzzle together, Gabriel intends to put the fragments of his memories together in order to arrive at the "thing- in-itself”, i.e. to produce an authentic account of his memories and derive some meaning from it (BW 13; cf. Imhof 1997: 59). What distinguishes the narrator in À la Recherche from the narrator in Birchwood, however, is the trigger of the memories experienced. Imhof (1997: 58) observes that Gabriel Godkin actively recollects his past, implying that his memories are volontaire, whereas in À la Recherche the past seems to intrude on the present and the narrator only begins recollecting after being overwhelmed by a taste of madeleine, hence he experiences mémoires involontaires (cf. Imhof 1997: 58).

On the surface, Gabriel’s quest of searching for lost time by reproducing an authentic account of his past appears to be of an epistemological nature, however, in the course of the novel ontological concerns become the driving force of the narration. In fact, a close reading of the first page already adumbrates that the narrator will be concerned with ontological issues, as the first line in the novel is a reversal of René Descartes’ cogito ergo sum argument, “I am, therefore I think”, thus emphasising being over consciousness (BW 11; cf. Hand 2002: 14). The initial certainty implied by Descartes’ cogito argument, however, has become a state of uncertainty by the end of the novel, which is summarised in the final line of the novel by the Wittgensteinian argument “whereof I cannot speak, thereof I must be silent” (BW 175; cf. Imhof 1997: 62). Gabriel comes to realise that his initial quest has not been fruitful; leading him to acknowledge his inability to authentically reproduce his past through recollection. The question whether Gabriel’s quest is of epistemological or ontological nature leaves room for further elaboration. McHale’s (1994) work on postmodernist fiction ascribes an emphasis on epistemological concerns to the modernist period and an ontological domain to postmodernism (cf. 1994: 9). It is, perhaps, for this reason that Hand (2002: 3) identifies Banville’s work as “oscillating between a modernist and a postmodernist perspective”. According to Hand (2002: 2), modernist artists were concerned with establishing order and searching for meaning within a chaotic world. The only way writers thought to be able to connect with what is real were new experimental forms of writing which presupposed that reality could be expressed through language (cf. 2002: 2). Postmodernism, on the other hand, implies a lack of order and meaning in the world and questions the concept of reality as such. Hand (2002: 2-3) suggests thinking of postmodern imagination as parodic, if not cynical, challenging so-called facts and certainties. With respect to contemporary Irish literature, Hand (2002: 11) refers to Banville’s claim that “every contemporary Irish writer has to take one of two aesthetic directions: to follow either the path of James Joyce or of Samuel Beckett”, i.e. choosing between a modernist and a postmodernist perspective.22 Banville asserts that he has chosen the path of Samuel Beckett, which is, however, challenged by Hand as being too narrow a categorisation, since elements of both literary traditions can be detected in Banville’s work (cf. 2002: 12). With respect to Birchwood, postmodernist concerns appear to gain the upper hand, though, as not only the authenticity of memory is questioned, but also the power of language to order and

22 Banville’s distinction is undoubtedly a too narrow categorisation of contemporary Irish literature but it is useful in connection with the discussion on Birchwood, since features of both literary traditions can be found in the novel. In addition, one should relativise the claim that Joyce is only a representative of modernism and Beckett of postmodernism, as Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, for instance, has been read as a proto-postmodern novel and Beckett’s oeuvre also contains some modernist works. 46 convey the protagonist’s recollections deteriorates in the course of the novel, reaching its climax with Wittgenstein’s quote on the limits of language at the end of the book. Classifying Birchwood in terms of literary genres, however, is a difficult undertaking. The reasons for this are that the novel plays with a variety of genres, misleading interpretations and posing a challenge to straightforward classification. Firstly, one may be inclined to interpret Birchwood as an Anglo-Irish big house novel23. Various elements in the novel such as the references to the Birchwood estate, the introduction of the family history at the beginning of the novel, the decay of the protestant ascendency as well as the references to the nineteenth century and, specifically, the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, are indicators of the big house genre (cf. BW 15-6; 139-40; Berensmeyer 2000: 93). However, Birchwood can certainly not be interpreted as a traditional big house novel. In fact, Banville subverts the genre by depicting “the fall and rise” of Birchwood instead of the rise and fall of a big house, which would be typical of a big house novel (BW 11; cf. Imhof 1997: 67). Various deviations from the genre can be identified such as the grotesque and carnivalesque elements which are present throughout the novel. In addition, the estate Birchwood is described as a “baroque madhouse”, foreshadowing, as Imhof (1997: 69) observes, the “Dickensian oddities” that appear in the course of the novel (BW 15)24. The initial indication of a temporal setting in the nineteenth century is also disrupted by the appearance of telephones and bicycles (cf. Berensmeyer 2000: 92). As a result, Birchwood does not have a precise temporal setting but a fictional time frame in a fictional Ireland (cf. Imhof 1997: 74; Berensmeyer 2000: 92). Another genre Birchwood plays with is the Gothic novel. By incorporating Gothic settings, images, and characters such as the ruinous Birchwood estate, Beatrice’s growing madness, the mysteries and “uncertain identities” as well as the “scenes of [...] revelation”, the novel clearly alludes to the Gothic genre (Berensmeyer 2000: 93). However, various parts of the novel such as the episode in which Gabriel joins a circus deviate greatly from this genre, which implies that Birchwood can be precluded from a purely Gothic interpretation. Other suggestions in terms of ascribing the novel to a particular genre have been, for instance, the quest romance as well as the picaresque novel (cf. Berensmeyer 2000: 93). Imhof (1997: 71) illustrates that the second part of the novel primarily consists of Gabriel’s quest to find his twin sister, which takes on the form of a “quasi-picaresque series of adventures”. The succession of adventures, which is characteristic of the picaresque novel, however, is

23 One of the best known big house novels is Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent (1800). 24 Referring to “Dickensian oddities” present in Birchwood, Imhof (1997) draws a parallel between Granny Godkin’s odd death by “spontaneous combustion” and Dickens’ Bleak House, in which the same manner of dying is portrayed (BW 80; cf. 1997: 69). 47 suspended by the cyclical form Birchwood adopts; showing that Gabriel’s quest remains in vain (cf. 1997: 72). In addition, it is merely the second part of the novel which could be interpreted as a picaresque novel, which leaves other options to be explored in terms of a classification of the entire novel. One of these options could be that Birchwood is a Bildungsroman. Scenes of the protagonist’s sexual awakening such as Gabriel’s awkward first sexual encounter with Rosie, allusions to his birth and elaborations on his origins when depicting his family history as well as the growing maturity of the narrator are indicators that Birchwood, indeed, incorporates various features of a Bildungsroman (cf. BW 13). However, the novel actually begins at the end, introducing a mature narrator who is about to present an account of his memories. Traditional Bildungsromane, by contrast, begin with the birth of the main character (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012a). Birchwood also exhibits features of a detective novel in that it generates mysteries to be solved such as the identity of Gabriel’s twin sister; however, the novel offers an account of events in retrospect, which is atypical of a detective novel (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012a). Due to the fact that Birchwood does not fully correspond to any of the genres illustrated above, Alcobia-Murphy (2012a) suggests defining Birchwood as a postmodernist metafiction, which accurately reflects the variety of narrative techniques used in the novel. The use of intertextuality as well as the self-questioning passages of the book, including explicit authorial comments, strongly point to the classification of Birchwood as a postmodernist metafiction. One of the numerous instances where explicit authorial comment is utilised in the text is the passage in which Gabriel informs the reader about his family history in a manner that breaks the aesthetic illusion: “My father’s share of the family’s congenital craziness took a novel and desperate form. He set himself to fall in love with Beatrice, daughter of John Michael Lawless and, correct me if I am wrong, the double-great- grandneice [sic] of Joseph, last of the Lawlesses at Birchwood.” (BW 16; my emphasis) By means of directly addressing the reader, the narrator blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality; a technique typically used in postmodernist writing. Other instances of explicit authorial comment generate paradoxes such as Gabriel’s remark after experiencing one of his epiphanies: “If I provide something otherwise than this, be assured that I am inventing” (BW 21). The paradox, which is the fact that the entire story is already an invention, further underlines the artificiality of the text (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012a). Even the author John Banville himself is inscribed in the text, namely in the form of an anagram of his name,

“Johann Livelb”, which is Gabriel Godkin’s “outlandish alias” when performing in circus shows (McMinn 1999: 34, quoting BW 115). The wide range of intertextual allusions, which range from John Milton’s Paradise Lost to Marcel Proust’s À la Recherche du Temps Perdu as well as John Donne’s poem “Air and Angels”, only to name a few, also support the classification of Birchwood as a postmodernist metafiction.25 The numerous allusions to other literary works serve as a means by which Banville, on the one hand, gains credibility for his own work (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012a) but, on the other hand, he also embeds Birchwood into a web of other literary texts, thus underlining the fictionality of his own text. In addition to the high degree of self-reflexivity and intertextuality, the narrative is fragmented, discontinuous and highly parodic, all of which are typical features of postmodernist fiction (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012a). Imhof (1997: 62) provides a valuable explanation for the mixture of genres used in Birchwood, namely the postmodernist technique known as Chinese-box worlds, which describes the literary device of embedding narrative worlds within worlds, i.e. stories within stories, in the manner of “a set of Chinese boxes or Russian babushka dolls” ( McHale 1994: 112). In the case of Birchwood, the stories that are embedded within stories are comprised of different genres, resembling, as Imhof (1997: 62) suggests, a “clockwork device”. Not only does the novel consist of the recollections of the narrator in the form of a frame story, but the narrative appears to gain a dynamic of its own, using different genres to represent different storylines, disrupting chronology as well as order. In addition, the real author’s footprint in the form of an anagram of his name further weakens the boundaries between reality and fiction. Another function of using different genres could be that the narrator seeks an ideal manner in which to convey his memories. The question which remains to be clarified is whether the narrator succeeds in his self-imposed quest and, if not, what insight the narrator and reader may deduce from his (ill) success.

25 References to Milton’s Paradise Lost include, for instance, the names Gabriel and Michael, both of which are names of archangels in the epic poem as well as the two references to “pandemonium”, which is the name of Satan’s palace (BW 51; 114). John Donne’s poem “Air and Angels” is used as the title of part two of the novel and, possibly, a reference to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s poem “Totentanz” is made when the circus group is smitten with the plague: “Silas alone seemed immune, presiding over the Tötentanz [!] with his old wicked gaiety […]” (BW 101; 153). 49

4.3. Memory as controlled recollection of the past versus memory as involuntary chaos

In order to analyse whether the narrator is actually in control of his narrative, it is useful to highlight passages in the text which point to a certain degree of order. First of all, Gabriel explicitly states his gladness about having found some “fixity within continuity” amid the chaos of his thoughts (BW 128). When playing a game at a pub with members of the circus, which involves closing his eyes and, after some seconds have passed, blinking rapidly, Gabriel experiences what seems to be a Joycean epiphany: “[...] it came to me with the clarity and beauty of a mathematical statement that all movement is composed of an infinity of minute stillnesses, not one of which is exactly the same as any other and yet not so different either. It was enormously pleasing, this discovery of fixity within continuity.” (BW 128) Pausing the narrative pace and reflecting on his epiphanies, the narrator frequently gains the upper hand over his recollections at various points throughout the novel. Secondly, the use of tableaux establishes some stagnation within chaos in that Gabriel foregrounds memories that have left a particular impression on him. For instance, capturing a family argument about the ownership of Birchwood, Gabriel freezes a particular moment in his narration in order to reflect on the scene:

Mama said nothing, but let fall an abrupt lugubrious sob and clapped a hand over her mouth, bowing her head. Josie took up the empty tray. My father finished his drink and sauntered away into the shadows. Granda Godkin farted softly. All these, my loved ones. The pale radiance of the candlelight seemed to invest them with a morose yet passionate vividness, to intensify them, and they became for me, suddenly, creatures with a separate life, who would continue to exist even when I was not there to imagine them, and I recognized, perhaps for the first time, the remote, immutable and persistent nature of the love I wasted on them, as if I had love to waste. Granny Godkin, grinding her jaws in a prelude to another sortie, pointed a chicken leg accusingly at my invisible father, Mama lifted her head and blotted out Granda’s glazed staring eye, ah and then, Josie shut the door on them, locking from my sight this new mythology (BW 37).

The memory depicted in this scene can be imagined as a picture captured through a door frame, which causes the narration to stagnate for a moment.26 The recurrent use of tableaux

26 The use of a door in this scene shows parallels to Cathrin Senn’s (2000) analysis of the motif of the window in prose fiction. One of the functions Senn (2000: 95-108) ascribes to the window in her chapter on the window as a visual frame is the capturing of ‘frozen scenes’. Analysing Thomas Hardy’s use of frozen scenes, Senn (2000: 98) observes that “the window serves as a frame to a picture-like view” and that in addition to capturing a scene, the window puts emphasis on the position of the spectator as well. Similarly, the scene taken from Birchwood makes use of a door through which the narrator observes his family, thus generating a pictorial image that sticks to one’s memory more vividly due to its detailed descriptions. The fact that the door is shut at the end of the scene projects a notion of closure, which requires the reader to zoom out of the scene and reflect on it. 50 suggests that Gabriel recollects decisive moments in his past with, perhaps, more clarity than others, pointing to a certain degree of order.27 Further elements of order, which suggest that Gabriel is, to a certain degree, in control of the narrative are represented by structural patterns such as circularity and the doppelgänger motif (cf. Berensmeyer 2000: 94, 96; Imhof 1997: 60; Hand 2002: 29). The theme of circularity is represented by, for instance, the fact that Gabriel’s quest takes on a circular form, as the first and last chapters are set in the same place and in both scenes Gabriel reflects on his quest of recording an account of his past (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012a). In addition, the theme of circularity is represented by the “circular jigsaw puzzle”, which Gabriel put great effort into putting together and which can be interpreted as a mise en abyme of the circular structure of the book (BW 42). However, once Gabriel has put the pieces together, Michael, his twin brother, sets about destroying it, thus disrupting the harmony represented by the circle (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012a). Following this scene, the circle motif returns in the form of juggling. Michael takes three objects and begins to juggle, which Gabriel describes as a “rhythm”, emphasising the regularity of the movement (BW 43). With regard to the doppelgänger motif, one could argue that the various occurrences of doubles in Birchwood suggest a certain degree of structure. The most apparent doppelgänger are the twin brothers, Gabriel and Michael, who are ascribed a positive and negative function, respectively. These functions are emphasised by their respective last names, Godkin and Lawless, in that the names’ literal sense, i.e. God’s kin and without law, have a respective positive and negative connotation. Other character constellations in the form of pairings are represented by, for instance, Ada and Ida as well as Justin and Juliette (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012a). A further indication of order in the novel is provided by the literary device of foreshadowing. The narrator utilises a mise en abyme anticipatrice to foreshadow his quest of finding his twin sister on a micro-level in that Martha, Gabriel’s aunt who turns out to be his mother, reads a book entitled “The Something Twins” to Gabriel (BW 47) . The book contains a story about a boy named Gabriel, who goes out in search for his lost twin sister, thus foreshadowing Gabriel’s actual quest to search for his twin sister (cf. BW 47-48). The scene in which Martha introduces Michael and Gabriel to each other by referring to both as their “father’s boy” further captures the reader’s attention in that the statement is highly ambiguous, showing that the implied fathers could be one and the same person, which, in fact,

27 Another example of Gabriel’s use of tableaux can be found, for instance, in the scene in which Gabriel’s father throws a wine bottle across the room in the presence of other family members: “I was shocked, not by his violence, that was nothing new, but by something odd and humorously sinister which I perceived in that balletic moment between them, a moment frozen forever for me in the precise picture of his smile which I retain to this day.” (BW 62) 51 turns out to be true (BW 38). These pieces of information are subtly used to guide the reader into noticing incongruities about Gabriel’s twin sister, who is later revealed as his twin brother Michael, and indicate that the narrator may not be overwhelmed by spontaneous recollections, but that he intentionally places information at particular points in the story. While various patterns of order can be detected in Birchwood, the novel as a whole seems to elude order, which is supported by the narrator’s ill success at reproducing his memories authentically and, in this way, making sense of his past. In order to determine whether the narrator’s loss of control of his narrative can indeed be seen as the dominant force in the novel, elements that point to a lack of control should be identified. First of all, a lack of control is suggested by the fact that various elements of order and harmony fall apart in the story (cf. Berensmeyer 2000: 97). The pairings and circles presented above break down in the course of the novel, suggesting a disruption of harmony. Justin and Juliette, for instance, become merged into “Justinette” and the twins Ada and Ida are broken apart when Ida is murdered at the end of part two (cf. BW 119, 146; cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012a). Additionally, the notions of circularity are gradually disrupted, as not only Gabriel’s circular jigsaw puzzle is destroyed, but also Michael’s juggling stops when he drops a ball because he is interrupted (cf. BW 43). In addition, the mixture of genres outlined above and the Wittgensteinian quote on the limits of language at the end of the novel also indicate the narrator’s overall lack of control. By means of intermingling literary genres, the novel’s order and chronology are disrupted, showing that the narrative takes on a dynamic of its own. With respect to the Wittgensteinian view on the limits of language, the reader is made aware of the fact that language can only convey certain elements of memories but never the entire experience. Gabriel admits that his self-imposed quest of writing down an account of his past has not been successful because even though a plethora of “[i]ntimations” exist, “they are felt only, and words fail to transfix them” (BW 175). Moreover, memories themselves are distortions of the real experience and communicating them can only be a further distortion, as language cannot accurately convey every aspect involved in the memory of an experience or event such as olfactory elements.28 Although various elements of order can be identified in Birchwood, the overall impression of the book suggests a certain degree of lack of control on the part of the narrator due to the frequent disruptions of harmony and order. The distortive quality of human memory, thus, becomes foregrounded and the narrator’s voluntary recollection is overwhelmed by involuntarily remembered episodes of his past.

28 A detailed discussion on language and memory has been provided in chapter 2.2.3. of this thesis. 52

As a consequence of the narrator’s dysfunctional memory, which becomes evident through absences of order, the narrator is characterised by a high degree of unreliability. Not only does he admit that he “invent[s], necessarily” because the act of remembering is characterised by a certain degree of distortion, but he also mingles elements of his imagination with fragments of real experiences. The fact that Gabriel admits to being an unreliable narrator, in fact, underlines the unreliability of human memory because when reproducing events in the past, human beings necessarily add and omit information. Therefore, the account provided by Gabriel offers a more truthful depiction of the process of remembering than a reliable account could achieve. The following analysis will provide evidence for the narrator’s unreliability, which, in turn, will shed more light on the epistemological questions concerning the workings of human memory raised in Birchwood.

4.4. The unreliability of the narrator in Birchwood

In addition to examining the interplay between order and chaos in the novel, it is useful to comment on the reliability of the narrator because the fact that Gabriel’s account is not trustworthy underlines the unreliability of human memory. As demonstrated by Loftus’s (2002) findings concerning the theory of memory distortion, the narrator adds pieces of information which stem from his imagination to his memories of past events. At some points in the novel the narrator explicitly acknowledges his uncertainty concerning the exact happenings and emotions involved in certain events in his past, thus intermingling his memories with elements of his imagination. Gabriel appears to be unable at times to distinguish between these two poles, which highlights the futility of his entire undertaking because reproducing memories necessarily entails a certain degree of distortion. Gabriel is well aware of the problems that are brought about by providing an account of his past in retrospect, which he makes clear when commenting on the scene when Martha returns to Birchwood: “A silent scream of boredom began to rise within me, but there rose also a vague fear, vague sense of being threatened by the arrival of this virago and her cretin. No, that is not true. Only hindsight has endowed me with such a keen nose for nuance.” (BW 39). The metanarrative comment of the narrator shows that Gabriel is well aware of the fact that he projects his current emotions and knowledge onto his memories of the past, adding imaginary elements to his memories that were not present during the actual event.29 Not only

29 Some elements in the story spring entirely from the narrator’s imagination such as the character Prospero, which Gabriel explains at the end of the novel: “There is no girl. [...] No Prospero either, there never is.” (BW 53 does the narrator incorporate his imagination into his memories, but also the reader’s imagination becomes involved in that, similar to Loftus’s findings concerning the so-called false memory syndrome, the reader undergoes a change of perception at the end of the novel. The reason for this is that the reader views Gabriel’s narrative from an entirely different angle after learning that Michael is Gabriel’s twin brother and Martha his biological mother. Those strands of the plot which are resolved in the end cast a new light on the story, stimulating the reader’s imagination and altering his or her perception of the narrative. This, in turn, further transforms the memories, which have already been distorted by the narrator’s reproduction because the reader adds his or her subjective perception to the narrative. In addition, the high frequency of metareferential comments concerning the futility of the narrator’s attempt at authentically reconstructing his past further points to the narrator’s unreliability, as Gabriel asserts that, for instance, the past cannot be communicated and that he may be inventing the entire time (cf. BW 29; 174). However, the unreliability of the narrator can also be interpreted as a sign of credibility in the sense that he acknowledges the productive quality of the act of remembering and puts emphasis on the fact that memory is subject to fallibility. Perhaps it is exactly the narrator’s ill success at reproducing events in his past which contributes to a more accurate depiction of the act of recollection, as it is a dynamic, non-coherent and non-chronological process. Offering a structured account of the narrator’s past would be a misleading representation of the workings of memory because the tendency of human beings to structure fragments of their memory and fill in missing gaps necessarily generates a distorted depiction of original events. Therefore, one can conclude that Birchwood, in fact, approaches the representation of memory in a manner that is more truthful to the process of remembering than a coherent and chronological account can be. In sum, one could argue that the partial absence of order and chronology as well as the unreliability of the narrator’s memories in Birchwood illustrate the complex process of remembering. Even though elements of order can be identified in the novel, the narrator’s loss of control of his memories appears to gain the upper hand in the course of the story due to the variety of literary genres, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the disruption of elements of order and harmony. The conclusion that can be drawn from this is the fact that the narrator acknowledges the limits of language and, eventually, accepts the fact that his account can only be an approximation to the actual experience in the past. This goes in line with

172) The function of this character in the novel, however, is left to the reader to interpret. Gabriel merely points to certain myths about the character such his “cloven hoof”, which is commonly known as an indication of the devil (BW 41).

54 ontological concerns of postmodernist literature, which raise the question to what extent memory can define human identity if authentic memory as such is acknowledged to be non- existent. Language, however, can be interpreted as failure and triumph at the same time because, on the one hand, expressing memories in words inevitable leads to a certain degree of distortion. On the other hand, it is through language that Gabriel learns to accept his own limitations as a narrator. Gabriel realises that his account of the past can only be an approximation to the real experience because not only does he consider the past “incommunicable”, but he also understands that we only believe to “remember things as they were” instead of acknowledging that “all we carry into the future are fragments which reconstruct a wholly illusory past” (BW 12; 29). However, only through his attempt at putting his memories in words does he realise the futility of his undertaking. The capacity of language plays a crucial role in connection with the representation of memory and will be revisited in the following chapters. The next chapter is devoted to a discussion on the role of trauma and identity in Ron Butlin’s novel The Sound of my Voice. Not only will the effects of trauma be analysed, but also questions concerning the extent to which identity is defined by memory will be addressed. In addition, the narrative situation will be discussed in detail, as the use of second person narration underlines the narrator’s disturbed sense of self and assumes great involvement of the reader in the story.

5. Ron Butlin’s The Sound of my Voice: Trauma and Identity

5.1. Introduction to The Sound of my Voice

The novel The Sound of my Voice (1987) by the Scottish writer Ron Butlin provides insight into the problem of alcoholism, following the narrator’s sliding into addiction and moving towards overcoming the disease towards the end of the book. The novel begins with various memories of the narrator’s childhood and early adulthood, which underline the narrator’s traumatic experience of being neglected by his father. After the second chapter, the novel jumps in time and introduces the middle-aged narrator, Morris Magellan, and his bourgeois lifestyle, including a well-paid job at a biscuit factory and a loving family. However, the reader immediately notices Morris’s dissatisfaction with his life and follows his development of an alcohol addiction. In addition, the novel uses a second person narration, which serves as a means by which the reader becomes immediately involved in the story. The novel frequently blurs the boundaries between the narrator’s imagination and the actual events of the story, as Morris’s hallucinations resulting from his alcohol addiction are intertwined with actual happenings in the story. In addition, a striking characteristic typical of alcoholics applies to the narrator, which is the fact that he, first of all, denies his alcohol problem and, second of all, constantly attempts to justify his actions and behaviour. Towards the end of the book, though, Morris experiences a transformative moment where he realises that he has a problem and that he has no other option but to stop drinking. The representation of memory in The Sound of my Voice is, perhaps, not as immediately apparent as in the other novels discussed, but on closer consideration one can acknowledge that memory adopts a crucial function on various levels in the novel. On the one hand, traumatic memory is depicted by the narrator’s memories of his troubled relationship to his father as well as the later death of his father, which leaves the narrator, Morris Magellan, unable to come to terms with his past. On the other hand, the fact that Morris is a chronic alcoholic deprives him of having any memories of his everyday life, which initiates his gradual loss of identity. The novel vividly depicts what it is like to live without memory, thereby illustrating the implications of being marginalised within society. Similar to the other novels discussed, The Sound of my Voice not only makes use of postmodernist narrative techniques, but it also explores the limits of the text as a medium. However, in contrast to the other novels, The Sound of my Voice, as Irvine Welsh (2002: vii) points out in his foreword to the novel, has been rather neglected by critics in the past. The reason for this is that the book,

56 first of all, does not deal with a localised Scottish subject matter but addresses general issues instead and, second of all, Welsh (2002: ix) suggests that the novel was simply ahead of its time:

Why was The Sound of my Voice not given its due credit when it was first published? Well, […] it went (and goes) against the grain of the times in a quiet but ultimately implacable and uncompromising way. Every age exerts its cultural hegemony and Thatcherite Britain did this more rigorously than most. Butlin’s book was perhaps too ahead of its time for the ‘80s; its unremitting, if implicit, criticism of a spiritually vacuous, socially conformist age are far more unsettling than many of the more celebrated, overtly polemical works of fiction produced at this time. (2002: ix)

After the book’s republication, however, the novel gained a wider recognition despite the fact that, similar to the other novels discussed, the book moves beyond a national level, addressing issues that do not represent any historical or political stance (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012b). In addition, various narrative techniques commonly found in postmodernist fiction are used, which involve the reader in the process of constructing the text. The first and foremost characteristic to include the reader in the process of production is the fact that the novel uses a second person narration. As one of the least common ways to voice a story and largely to be found in modernist and postmodernist literature, second person narration presupposes active engagement of the reader because the story, as Baker (2012a) puts it, is always about the reader to a certain extent as well. Well-known examples of a second person narrative situation such as Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveler (1979) demonstrate that the standard situation of cause and effect is largely suspended. Instead, the text raises various questions to be answered by the reader, thereby empowering the reader and including him or her in the development of the story (cf. Baker 2012a). In addition, the second person narrative situation contributes to blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, as the reader is always somehow involved in the fictional world. Due to the inclusion of the reader in the construction of the text, the novel can be identified as what Belsey (1991: 91) defines as an interrogative text (cf. Baker 2012a). The latter not only prompts the reader to respond to the overt or covert questions raised by the text, but it also avoids closure and rejects a single perspective (cf. Belsey 1991: 91-2). In addition, as opposed to classical realist texts, the reader is not meant to identify with “a unified subject of the enunciation” (1991: 91). All of these features can be identified in The Sound of My Voice in that, on the one hand, second person narration lacks clear boundaries between the fictional world and reality. On the other hand, the reader is meant to produce answers to questions raised in the text concerning, for instance, identity. Additionally, instead 57 of identifying with a unified character, the reader’s response alternates between distance and empathy (cf. Baker 2012a). While distance is especially created during the scenes of rape and sexual harassment, empathy is felt at various points throughout the text, particularly when it comes to Morris’s traumatic childhood experiences as well as his eventual devotion to overcoming his addiction. The reader’s empathy, however, ceases during Morris’s repeated instances of self-justification, where he downplays violence as well as the neglect of his family. Basically, the novel can loosely be divided into two parts, the first of which deals with Morris’s memories of his childhood and, starting in the third chapter, the development of his alcohol addiction. The second part is set in the present, covering his final moment of clarity where he begins to realise, first of all, that he has a problem and, second of all, that he needs to overcome his addiction (cf. Baker 2012a). The representation of memory plays an essential role in both parts of the novel. The first part deals with the illustrations and implications of Morris’s traumatic memories as well as his gradual loss of identity due to his lack of memory and the second part demonstrates his working towards regaining an identity by overcoming his alcohol addiction. The following analysis will be devoted to the depiction of traumatic memory in the novel, demonstrating that The Sound can be interpreted as a trauma narrative.

5.2. The Sound of my Voice as a trauma narrative

With regard to the representation of traumatic memory in the novel, one can observe that Morris’s memories of his damaged relationship to his father, the resulting problem with alcoholism and the narrative techniques used to communicate these experiences certainly show essential characteristics of a trauma narrative. Similar to The Trick is to Keep Breathing, the novel moves forwards and backwards in time, demonstrating the narrator’s inability to construct a linear narrative (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012b). The rendering of different time frames is illustrated, firstly, by the abrupt jumps in time and, secondly, by the use of parallel episodes. For instance, the recollections of Morris’s relationship to his father are intertwined with the narrative of the day his father died, thus two parallel episodes are used to link Morris’s unresolved childhood issues with his lack of closure after his father’s death. The non-linear structure of the novel also highlights certain effects of Morris’s traumatic memories in that it portrays Morris’s unstable personality brought about by his father’s neglect, and his resorting to alcohol as a means of evading to deal with his unhappiness.

The most significant problem Morris develops as a result of his upbringing is his inability to find his identity. The reason for this is the fact that his father never acknowledges Morris’s self in the sense that he ignores his needs and ridicules his actions and conversations. For instance, Morris describes his advances to his father, which remain in vain because his father fails to recognise his individual identity:

[...] [Y]ou spent your entire childhood in the corridor, as it were, knowing full well that if you dared to enter the room and address him or touch the back of his hand – if you dared, that is, to make the slightest demand upon him – he would ignore you. Or, at best, he would turn in your direction without speaking one word, his glance saying quite clearly: ‘Well, and what could you possibly have to say to me?’ Any affection you showed, he withdrew from. Any love you expressed, he crushed utterly. (SV 7-8)

The consequences of the neglect of Morris’s father lead to an impaired perception of Morris’s self as well as a fear of loss, which is demonstrated in the first episode of his childhood memories. The fact that Morris describes his anxiety about losing sight of his house when driving away in a car and a sense of relief when coming back and verifying its existence is a highly unusual behaviour for a child (cf. SV 1-2). What in Sigmund Freud’s Fort-Da game is seen as a means for a child to deal with his or her mother’s short-term absence becomes threatening to Morris, as he gets highly upset unless he is reassured about the existence of his home (cf. Alcobia-Murphy 2012b). Another instance of unusual behaviour, which is a response to his traumatic childhood experiences, is the fact that Morris objectifies the death of his father (cf. 2012b). When he learns about his father’s death at a party he is emotionally distanced and explains to the other people at the party that they should not be worried because his father had “a bad heart” and had been ill for a while (SV 13; cf. SV 12). Morris also comments on the ambiguity of his remark, as he says he only realised the double entendre of having a bad heart in the present while recollecting this scene of his past (cf. SV 13). Later that evening, though, he forces a girl to make love, objectifying her body in the same way he objectifies his father’s death. In between this act he envisions his father sitting dead in his armchair and immediately continues to live out the anger he feels about him at this moment:

You were gathering into one moment all the years of his hatred and cruelty; you longed to push them so far into Sandra that− ‘No, no,’ she pleaded. But what could the sound of her voice matter now? Could anything ever cancel out the suffering you had known? (SV 16)

While this scene is set more than ten years before the present, Morris continues to distance himself from the people in his environment by, for instance, referring to his children as “accusations” throughout the book (SV 20). In fact, he repeats his father’s mistakes of not acknowledging his self by neglecting his own family, blinding out his misbehaviour by his continuous drunkenness and the resulting lack of memory. In addition, the second person narration further generates distance to the traumatic events in Morris’s childhood in that he remembers them as if they had happened to someone else (cf. Baker 2012a). He views himself from an external perspective, which underlines his disturbed sense of self. It is only in the second part of the book where he begins to overcome his addiction that he gradually develops an identity and refers to himself in the first person at times (cf. SV 107). In addition to the non-linear structure of the novel and the distancing effect of the narrator’s behaviour, another characteristic typical of the representation of traumatic memory is the fact that The Sound of my Voice is not a causal narrative (cf. Baker 2012a). Instead, the narration is characterised by repetition, firm breaks, and blurred boundaries between Morris’s hallucinations and reality. Similar to the narrator in The Trick, Morris’s life is marked by routine and repetition. However, while we will see that the narrator in The Trick desperately attempts to establish routines, Morris cannot escape his routines because he has no memory of his everyday life. The consumption of alcohol leads him to go through the same procedures over and over again without being able to remember his actions of the previous day. Time, therefore, is not linear in the novel but takes on a cyclical form (cf. Baker 2012a). With respect to the firm breaks in the novel, one can find an abrupt change in time and location after the second chapter. At the beginning of the third chapter the reader is made familiar with Morris’s life at the age of 34, that is, the time at which his problem with alcoholism develops. While the first two chapters are primarily devoted to illustrating Morris’s troubled relationship to his father, the third chapter introduces Morris’s status in life, which seems rather ordinary and, to some people, even fulfilling. Although being aware of his achievements, Morris feels “that it is not enough” and that he cannot escape the growing emptiness inside him (SV 20). The effects of his unfulfilled childhood and lack of recognition by his father have lead to the fact that he is “thirty-four years old and already two-thirds destroyed” (SV 20). He feels the need to convince himself that his position in life is what it is supposed to be and compares himself to an actor, pretending to fit into the script of his own life (cf. SV 20). While Morris’s alcohol addiction develops, the boundaries between reality and his hallucinations are increasingly blurred. At various points in the novel Morris loses his

60 judgment and, as a result, becomes unable to distinguish between reality and imagination. One prime example of how Morris’ hallucinations are intertwined with reality is the scene in which a snowman appears in the kitchen one Monday morning:

Seven-o-two. Okay: up, up, and away. Up, up− And dressed. Downstairs and into the kitchen. Water on, toast on . . . And into the bathroom. Splash on the face, splash in the pan . . . And back. The toast gets turned, the pot gets filled, mind the snowman. Off with the gas and out with the toast. Snowman? A snowman. In the middle of the kitchen. Standing perfectly still. He’s looking at you. Smiling. [...] He winks. You need a drink. No. Not that. You’re dreaming. Must be. Try a little test. So you taste the toast and try the tea. You pinch yourself – all while the snowman watches. (SV 41-2)

After drinking a bottle of Brandy, the room feels hotter and hotter to Morris, generating a claustrophobic atmosphere in which he desperately longs for the coolness of the snowman. In his imagination, Morris then stabs the snowman with his hand until he is entirely melted and, afterwards, moves on with his daily routine (cf. SV 42-3). Another example of Morris’s lack of judgment is the scene in which the reader follows Morris’s train of thought in a state of drunkenness, when he suddenly regains consciousness and looks at his wife and children who ask him why he is holding a large piece of wood in his hands (cf. SV 61). Apparently Morris has not realised that he was about to threaten his wife, which shows that his alcohol addiction has already gained the upper hand and that he is unable to control his actions. The reader, in turn, only experiences Morris’s limited perspective, thus he or she is immediately involved in the interplay between imagination and reality. Episodes such as these not only underline the narrator’s unreliability, but they also demonstrate the suspension of causality in the novel. Morris’s blurred perception of his environment leaves him without any explanation for his actions because being without memory cancels out any causal relations. While Morris gradually loses his memory, he feels the constant need to verify that he is still in control of his life, telling himself over and over again that “[e]verything [is] fine” and that he does not have a drinking problem (SV 48; cf. 57). In fact, he repeatedly talks himself into existence by generating a profile of himself, which is not only meant to project a notion of power and control, but also to convince himself as well as the reader that he is not an alcoholic. By listening to sophisticated music, drinking 61 exclusively expensive alcohol, eating well, and reading books on the train home Morris desperately attempts to convince others as well as himself that the problems in his private and professional life are non-existent (cf. Baker 2012a). These attempts are facilitated by the fact that Morris does not have any memories of his actions, which helps him to remain in denial for a long period of time. The reader, on the other hand, views Morris’s actions from a different angle in that he or she is able to draw a connection between Morris’s uncontrolled behaviour and his excessive consumption of alcohol. As opposed to Morris the reader is able to interpret other people’s reactions and gestures, realising the gradual downfall of the narrator. Morris’s continuous need of self-affirmation appears to serve as concealment for his disordered sense of self and lack of personality. As a matter of fact, Morris’s identity leaves room for further discussion, as the complex interplay between memory and identity plays a considerable role with respect to the personal growth of the narrator.

5.3. Memory and identity in The Sound of my Voice

Due to the fact that Morris’s self was never acknowledged during his childhood, he has had difficulty developing his own personality. Instead of attempting to overcome his problems, though, he fills the emptiness he feels as a result of his troubled childhood with alcohol. Although he has achieved what many people long for, that is, start a family and get a well- paid job, Morris cannot avert his persistent dissatisfaction. As a result, Morris’s alcohol consumption increases and what is left of his identity is gradually lost because he cannot distinguish between his real self and the person he imagines to be in his state of drunkenness. His continuous consumption of alcohol also brings about a growing loss of memory, leading him not only to forget who he really is, but also to promote a false sense of self by attempting to maintain the façade of his bourgeois life. Morris’s loss of identity in the first part of the novel can also be attributed to Locke’s position that one’s personal history is closely linked to one’s identity. In fact, Morris is explicitly confronted with the implications of losing one’s personal history by overhearing two men speaking about him on the train: “ ‘Doesn’t have a future, doesn’t have a past either – he’s a drunk,’ the man had said. No future, no past – that left only the present, you thought to yourself. But there are two kinds of present, aren’t there: the one with a drink, and the one without. Hardly a difficult choice. For you.” (SV 57). Morris acknowledges that to him only the present exists, as his past is blocked out by his lack of memory and his future is irrelevant because his thoughts do not go beyond the present

62 moment. He fails to see what it is like to live without memory, which not only cancels out his identity, but also leads him to become marginalised within society (cf. Baker 2012a). While the first part of the book is primarily devoted to portraying Morris’s sliding deeper into alcoholism and gradually losing his self, the second part shows the narrator’s growth in that he works towards developing an identity. This step from being in denial to reaching a state of awareness is brought about by a moment of clarity in which Morris undergoes a radical transformation. After seeing a man being hit by a train on his way to work and, later on, realising that his wife’s support and understanding have been exhausted, Morris begins to listen to his inner voice telling him that he cannot move on in this way:

Yesterday you witnessed a stranger’s death and felt it to be your own, in part. Tonight you stand here terrified that wherever you look you will see only yourself staring back. You have reached a moment quiet enough to hear the sound of my voice: so now, as you stare out into the darkness, accept the comfort it can give you – and the love. The love. (SV 103-4; my emphasis).

At this point the second person narration is interrupted by an instance of first person narration, which demonstrates that Morris ceases to view himself from an external perspective and, instead, begins to listen to his inner voice, confronting himself directly with his problems. Thus, Morris gradually works towards regaining an identity, which is indicated by the repeated instances of first person narration towards the end of the novel (cf. SV 106, 107, 108, 114). Struggling with his inner voice, Morris begins to realise that he can never have another drink in his life and that from that moment on, “every day will be the first” (SV 111; cf. 108). Morris’s difficult journey of regaining an identity by overcoming his addiction is also underlined by the colour symbolism in the novel. While in his state of drunkenness the notion of ‘mud’ is omnipresent in Morris’s thoughts, the second part of the novel includes frequent references to the colour white. For instance, in the early stages of his addiction, Morris asserts that he is surrounded by mud in every moment of his daily life: “No matter how clean and fresh the day appears, soon enough mud starts seeping in” (SV 26). In fact, he perceives “mud-streets”, “mud-skies”, his “mud-trap” office and even “mud rising inside [him]”, all images of which reflect Morris’s deeply rooted unhappiness as well as the oppressive effect of his excessive drinking (SV 26, 27, 47). Towards the end of the novel, though, Morris lets “the mud settle where it belongs – on the ocean floor”, as he expresses his moving towards overcoming his addiction, and increasingly perceives the colour white around him (SV 107). For instance, Morris describes his surroundings as “white-road, white-verge, white-sky” accompanied by “snow-silence”, which can be interpreted as metaphors for Morris’s

63 recovery, as the colour white is widely understood as a symbol of hope (SV 112). Having realised that he cannot continue drinking, Morris gradually regains his life by becoming conscious of his environment, his past, and his family. His perception is no longer blurred, which helps him to have better control over his actions and he regains the capability of remembering events in his daily life. In addition, he does not need to talk himself into existence any longer but works on developing an identity by confronting himself with his traumatic memories of the past, finally ceasing to run from the memories of his father. This is demonstrated by the final episode of the book in which Morris has another vision of his father in the car and steps stronger and stronger on the accelerator until the vision disappears. Becoming aware of the fear of his wife, Morris reduces the speed, and starts crying to let out all of his frustration. Despite the danger of this situation the final episode can be seen as a sign of hope in that Morris finally bridges the gap between the distanced self he projected during his addiction and his real self, which is supported by the final statement of the book in which the first person narration is united with the second person narration: “Your tears – and mine.” (SV 114). Similar to The Sound of My Voice, the following analysis of Janice Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing includes the representation of traumatic memory, which is underlined by the use of highly experimental narrative techniques. In the case of Galloway’s novel, the effects of traumatic loss on the narrator are illustrated and the reader also takes part in the process of constructing the text. Especially the typographic representation of memory becomes the focus of attention, as the experimental form of the text underlines the difficulty of putting the experience of trauma in words.

6. Janice Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing: Traumatic Memory

6.1. Introduction to The Trick is to Keep Breathing

The novel The Trick is to Keep Breathing (1999) by the Scottish writer Janice Galloway deals with the effects of trauma, depicting the narrator’s difficult path towards coming to terms with her traumatic experience. Similar to Butlin’s The Sound of my Voice, Galloway’s novel does not address a particularly Scottish subject matter, but, instead, explores a range of issues that are of concern to a wider audience. Although references to Glasgow can be found in the book, the novel’s form and content are less concerned with the representation of place than with domestic issues and the exploration of the human psyche. With respect to the content of the novel, one should be aware of the fact that the reader is involved in assembling parts of the story to a large extent due to the book’s experimental form. For this reason, it is, perhaps, useful to offer a summary of the content by adding the pieces of information together, which presupposes a certain degree of interpretation. The homodiegetic narrator, Joy Stone, suffers from serious depression after her married lover Michael drowns in a swimming pool during their vacation. This incisive event not only causes her to feel guilty because had she noticed Michael’s absence sooner, she could have prevented his death, but she is also unable to come to terms with her loss. As a matter of fact, Joy is not even allowed to mourn properly because she is a married man’s lover and, therefore, does not play an official role in his life. As a result, Joy falls into a deep depression accompanied by symptoms of anorexia and bulimia. Using highly experimental narrative techniques, the novel explores Joy’s coping with her trauma as well as her broken relationship with men. Following the narrator’s everyday life, the reader implicitly learns about Joy’s past, her traumatic loss, her relationship to her mother, her relationship to food and her perception of her own body. Although the implied worldview seems to be rather pessimistic for the main part of the novel, one can detect signs of hope towards the end of the book, as the narrator seems to move towards recovery. The actual ending, though, leaves room for interpretation and it is for the reader to decide whether Joy is capable of coming to terms with her past. With respect to the representation of memory in The Trick is to Keep Breathing, one can state that a particular form of memory becomes the focus of attention, namely traumatic memory. While the novel has been widely read as a feminist text, trauma certainly plays an equally important role in the book. One of the unique characteristics of the novel is the highly 65 experimental form of the typographic representation of traumatic memory. Not only is the reader involved in reconstructing the text, but Galloway also makes use of language to reflect the unsayable, i.e. the chaos resulting from a traumatising event. In this way, Galloway explores the limits of language and the novel as media to represent memory, which is a characteristic that can be found in all four novels discussed in this thesis. The interplay of identity and memory as discussed in Butlin’s novel also plays a role in The Trick, albeit portraying a slightly different approach to the significance of memory for developing an identity. The protagonist, Joy Stone, is gradually losing her identity, desperately trying to find a way to overcome the death of her lover for which she feels responsible (cf. Norquay 1997: 132). Joy, herself, is not only mentally ‘trapped’ in the traumatic moment, thus, losing her identity in her real life, but she also fails to coherently reconstruct her memories of the event. The significance of Joy’s inability to produce a coherent account is illustrated by the typographic representation of her partial memories. Norquay (1997: 131, 133) provides two readings of the narrative techniques used in The Trick, introducing a deconstructive and a reconstructive perspective.

6.2. A deconstructive and a reconstructive reading of The Trick is to Keep Breathing as two possibilities

Interpreting the novel as a deconstructive text, Norquay (1997: 131) argues that the novel “expos[es] and undermin[es] the language, textual practices and discourses we live by.” Indeed, the novel plays with stereotypical conversations and practices, especially challenging patriarchal norms and discourses. The patronising manner in which doctors speak with Joy about her condition are not only unhelpful, but they also require that Joy slip into a predefined, inferior role (cf. Craig 2002: 193). This is typographically represented in that each time Joy converses with a doctor, the narrative switches into a dramatic mode, thus parodying a stereotypical doctor-patient conversation within a patriarchal society in which the (male) doctor condescendingly lectures the (female) patient about her feelings and needs. Subverting discourses such as these, Joy turns from a patient to an “IMPATIENT”, highlighting the fact that doctors within the patriarchal society depicted in the book simply do not seem to understand her problem (TT 52, 53; my emphasis). On the contrary, the discourses surrounding Joy appear to determine “her problems, her solutions, her femininity, her future” and, most significantly, her identity because she is unable to form her own (Norquay 1997: 132).

Reading The Trick as a reconstructive text, Norquay (1997: 133) suggests defining the novel as a “ ‘BRICOLAGE’ ”, highlighting the text’s fragmented form. It is the reader’s responsibility to reconstruct a coherent narrative in order to make sense of Joy’s flashbacks and broken syntax (cf. 1997: 133). However, only the reader is able to reconstruct the text, whereas Joy involuntarily relives broken scenes of her lover’s death over and over again but cannot manage to reconstruct the event as a whole, which is a typical feature of traumatic memory (cf. Schwab 2010: 2). Fragmentation seems to be the most striking characteristic of the novel, which is manifested by the frequent occurrence of fractured syntax such as incomplete sentences, on the one hand, and interruptions of chronology, on the other hand (cf. 1997: 131). The novel itself is split into two different narrative strands, one of which is written in italics, representing bits and pieces of the traumatic event that seem to intrude into the present, and the other of which is typed in regular font, portraying Joy’s life in the present. The fact that the traumatic event is typographically separated from Joy’s present life underlines a typical characteristic of traumatic memory, namely what is defined by Schwab (2010: 2) as the disruption of relationality. Not only is Joy unable to produce a coherent account of her experience, but she also appears to be unable to intertwine her memories of the traumatic event with her present thoughts. The reader merely encounters fragments of the traumatic event of Michael’s death, which, put together, reveal the story of Joy and her married lover, Michael, going on holiday and Michael drowning in a swimming pool, while Joy was not paying attention about his whereabouts. The guilt Joy feels for not paying attention haunts her permanently, as is indicated in her flashbacks by the phrase “My fault.”, and she gradually loses control over her daily life (TT 152). In addition, Joy ‘buries’ the event of Michael’s death by not being able to speak about him, which can be identified as a feature of traumatic memory referred to by Abraham and Torok (1994 as in Schwab 2010: 1; 45) as the ‘crypt’. This phenomenon is also expressed through language by the experimental form of the novel, including the use of, for instance, fragments and gaps (cf. Abraham and Torok 1994 as in 2010: 45). Similar to the narrator in Birchwood, Joy attempts to establish order within her memories, which she cannot manage because, firstly, she has no control over her thoughts and, secondly, she is incapable of producing a coherent memory. Joy admits, herself, that she “can’t remember the last week with any clarity” but, instead, she “remember[s] everything all the time” (TT 6). The traumatic event’s overpowering effect prevents Joy from progressing and escaping the moment in which she is mentally entrapped. A desire for order and control constantly accompanies Joy and manifests itself, in particular, by her need to establish control

67 over her body (cf. Baker 2012b). Although the words anorexia and bulimia never actually occur in the text, the reader observes Joy’s gradual development of symptoms of both diseases. Joy gradually begins to give up eating altogether, treating food as disgusting and something to refrain from. At home she only stores food that does not rot but, ironically, also never gets eaten (cf. Baker 2012b). Additionally, Joy develops an obsession with baking and cooking, merely in order to deny herself the pleasure of eating the food and, in this way, gain control over her body (cf. 1997: 132; TT 40-41). She starves herself to the point where she ceases having her period, thereby losing a major characteristic of her female identity (cf. TT 44). In addition, her empty stomach and the lack of having her period mirror the emptiness Joy feels inside herself, as the discourses she is surrounded by determine Joy’s identity to the extent that she, metaphorically speaking, ceases to exist. Her identity is gradually erased by the magazines or horoscopes she reads, which constantly tell her how to be and what to like. The same applies to her psychiatrists, who tell her what is wrong with her, what is good for her and what she needs to do to overcome her depression. The problem, though, is that none of the pieces of advice Joy receives actually help her overcome her illness but, in fact, prevent her from having autonomy and finding her own ways of dealing with her grief. However, Joy also ceases to exist on another level. Being a married man’s lover, she is not officially allowed to mourn, no matter how close their relationship was. In fact, Joy’s attending Michael’s funeral was initially refused, which upset her because of “[t]he pretence that [her] presence or absence were someone else’s to decide.” (TT 119) At the funeral, then, the reverend ‘erases’ Joy by only referring to Michael’s wife, pretending that Joy “didn’t exist” (TT 79; cf. Craig 2002: 193). As if their relationship had never existed, Joy becomes erased from the official memory of Michael’s life. Left without a voice, Joy seeks to gain empowerment in the domestic sphere in addition to wanting control over her body. She desperately tries to establish a daily routine, despite the fact that every aspect involved in living an ordinary life poses a challenge to her. Conversing with her friend Marianne, Joy compiles lists that are meant to help her fill time during the day such as “THINGS YOU CAN DO IN THE EVENING” (TT 37). Joy also develops ritualistic ways in which to wash herself such as her “Bathing Ritual”, which she performs with great care and precision (TT 46). Every aspect involved in the ritual is taken into consideration, for instance, “[t]he bathwater must be hot” and she needs to take special care when shaving because a cut “would be unsightly” (TT 42; 43). Joy’s descriptions of her body during her bathing ritual sound animalistic, if not deterring, as she refers to the hair on her legs as “animal hair” and, after finishing shaving, she describes herself as “[f]leeced” in the sense of a fleeced sheep (TT 47). The repulsion Joy

68 feels towards her body may be another expression of the guilt she feels for her negligence during Michael’s death. In addition, due to the fact that Joy has never been able to develop an identity of her own, partly also because she slipped into an inferior role in her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Paul, she never learned how to value herself and her body. On the contrary, in her relationship with Paul Joy did not pursue her own interests but “liked what he liked” and felt “vastly inferior [to Paul] in every respect” (TT 42; 43). Instead of telling Paul about her feelings, Joy followed the advice she read in magazines up to the point at which Paul “didn’t need [her] for a thing” (TT 43). Joy had neglected her own preferences to the extent that she was fully dependent on others to tell her how to be and how to live. The memory of Michael’s death further inhibits Joy from determining her own self in that her mind is blocked by the constant flashbacks of the event, as she has not yet managed to come to terms with her loss. Language can be seen as a key element in which Joy’s mental entrapment is manifested because it is her inability to express herself that keeps Joy from progressing. Various narrative techniques are used in the novel not only to explore the limits of language as a medium to express traumatic memory, but also to demonstrate the inability of the narrator to produce a coherent narrative of the traumatic event.

6.3. Typographic manifestations of trauma in The Trick is to Keep Breathing

First of all, Joy experiences involuntary and inconsistent flashbacks of the traumatic event, leaving her without any control over her memories. Similar to the narrator’s memories in Birchwood, the past intrudes into the present, yet instead of trying to gain insight into the past, Joy is confined in one moment without any chance of escape. Merely fractures of the event penetrate into the present, while the present itself, as Norquay (1997: 131) observes, is “broken into lists of mundane details and insignificant moments”. Both, the present as well as the fragments of memories the narrator experiences, contain numerous instances of repetition, which are indicators of Schwab’s (2010: 2) concept of the “prison house of repetition compulsion” in which a person suffering from trauma finds him- or herself confined. One of the most striking instances of repetition due to their frequency in the novel is the insertion of the following words in Joy’s flashbacks: jesus jesus jesus (TT 48; cf. 49, 69, 80, 99, 184, 185)

The term “jesus” is repeated either on its own, in pairs, in sets of three, or even in a broken form such as “jesu”, one of the many instances where sentences or words remain unfinished in the novel (TT 69). The reason why the novel uses repetition and unfinished sentences in the narrator’s flashbacks to such great extent is to show the stasis of the narrator’s thoughts. The same bits and pieces of Joy’s thoughts during the incident of Michael’s death and certain elements involved in the scene are intertwined and frequently interrupted by one another, making it impossible for the narrator to process her memories. Even in the present Joy’s thoughts contain various instances of repetition such as the phrase “The More Something Hurts, the More it can Teach Me” (TT 170; 177; 216; 221). Repeating the phrase in her mind appears to give her some comfort, as she feels she has a guideline to hold on to but, as a matter of fact, the phrase prevents her from realising that instead of teaching her, her anguish causes her to fall deeper into a state of depression. The stasis created through repetition is also linked to Joy’s problematic relationship to time. Time is constantly registered in the text, be it in the present where Joy seems to be obsessed with watching the clock, or in her flashbacks where the period of time Michael was under water, namely “[f]ifteen minutes”, is referred to several times (TT 9; cf. 166; 196; Alcobia-Murphy 2012c). In the present Joy watches the clock on a regular basis. Already on the second page of the book time becomes foregrounded in that Joy informs the reader that “[t]he green numbers on the stereo flash 03.25”, which she continues to do throughout the novel (TT 7; cf. 28; 48). The clock becomes an obsession to her with the effect that time begins to stand still: “12.45. The green display on the stereo says it over and over while I count” (TT 69). Eventually Joy even becomes sensitive to the clock’s noises, repeatedly claiming that “[t]he clock ticks too loud” (TT 81; 84). Her obsession with time not only has a threatening effect on the reader, but it also shows the claustrophobic atmosphere in which she is confined. In fact, the trauma Joy has experienced blurs her perception of time to the extent that she finds herself in a seemingly stagnant environment. In addition to demonstrating Joy’s inability to progress as well as her confinement in time, repetition fulfils another, fairly different function in the novel. As a matter of fact, repetition is also used to subvert the unquestioned authority of doctors who, instead of attempting to understand Joy’s problem, convince her that it is her lack of trying and cooperating that keeps her from getting better. The joke Joy repeats towards the end of the novel reflects exactly the irony of her situation, namely that her psychiatrists continue pressuring her into showing some effort in communicating her problem when, in fact, her problem is her inability to express her traumatic experience in words.

Q. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? A. One. But the lightbulb must really want to change. (TT 173; 200)

The joke, however, also serves another purpose. By triggering laughter, Joy generates a moment of empowerment, as being able to laugh about the irony of her situation puts her in a position of control. Due to the fact that Joy picks up and repeats the joke only towards the end of the novel one can see that she starts distancing herself from the treatment of her psychiatrists. She gradually finds her own ways of dealing with her grief, moving on at her own pace and liberating herself from the pressure that is constantly put on her. Another noteworthy narrative technique explored in the novel is the use of a dramatic form. Craig (2002: 193) suggests that whenever Joy is required to perform a certain role, the dramatic form is used instead of the conventions of the novel:

When Joy, for instance, has to have conversations with people in authority, for whom she has to play a particular role, the conversation becomes ‘speeches’, represented not in the conventions of the novel but in the conventions of a playscript: the text performs the performance in which Joy is entrapped (2002: 193).

The passages in which the text takes on a dramatic form demonstrate that Joy feels required to adopt a persona at times in order to meet other people’s expectations. Being unable to cope with her grief and, at the same time, forced to pretend some kind of improvement, Joy is torn between her own reality and the camouflage she takes on when confronted with people in authority. She constantly feels she is wasting the time of her psychiatrists because even though she takes notes at home of what to say during her appointments, she never actually manages to articulate her feelings and anxieties. The only words she is able to utter refer to her inability to sleep, which induces her psychiatrists merely to modify Joy’s medication. The miscommunication that takes place between Joy and her doctors is best explained by means of an example:

I go to Dr Stead too often and feel bad about it. I always think I’m wasting his time and I hate that so sometimes the visits are acrimonious. So I always go early and make notes. It’s supposed to make me businesslike and brisk. It’s supposed to save his time and my anxiety about it, but it never works out like that. It works out like this:

DOCTOR How are things/what’s new/how’s the week been treating you?

I try to remember the things in the notepad. They get jumbled and I think I’m going to cry. This is terrible so I say anything.

PATIENT I’m not sleeping. I’m still not sleeping. DOCTOR Try taking the yellow things an hour earlier in the evening. And the red things later. There’s nothing left to do to the green things on this scheme. Keep them as they were. [Already writing prescription] Do you need more?

PATIENT Thank-you. I feel terrible. DOCTOR Well, let’s leave it for a while, see how you are next week. One thing at a time, eh? (TT 50-1)

The conversation between Joy and one of her doctors demonstrates not only the ineffectiveness of her treatment, but it also shows Joy’s pretence when confronted with people she feels inferior to. Referring to herself as “PATIENT”, Joy looks at herself from an external perspective and objectifies her condition because she distances herself from her emotions and vulnerability during her visits to the doctor. Her psychiatrists, in turn, do not take the time to help Joy open up and communicate her problems. On the contrary, the best she can expect is a “double appointment” of twenty minutes, which is just enough time to readjust Joy’s medication and put her off until the following week (TT 52). The superficial treatment Joy receives merely relieves her symptoms on a short-term basis, whereas her psychological problems remain omnipresent. Imitating the methods of her doctors, Joy makes a number of attempts at explaining her condition logically and objectively. An objective approach seems to her the most appropriate way to get to the root of her problem, since her psychiatrists, who are the proclaimed experts in treating trauma patients, primarily pursue this strategy. Using the structure and reasoning of a logical argument towards the end of the novel, for instance, Joy tries to find an explanation for her current state of being. Firstly, she establishes five premises, which consist of other people’s attitudes towards the meaning of life:

1. They are just as confused as me but they aren’t letting on. 2. They don’t know they don’t know what the point is. 3. They don’t understand they don’t know what the point is. 4. They don’t mind they don’t know what the point is. 5. They don’t even know there are any questions. (TT 198)

Having analysed each of the premises, Joy decides that the fourth premise is the most accurate. She explains her choice by suggesting that “minding” is the difference between other people and her (TT 198). As opposed to others, Joy minds that she does not understand what the point in life is. She cannot help but constantly ask questions about the meaning of life without the ability to find any answers. The conclusion she deduces from this is that if no answers are available, life must be pointless:

If there are no answers there is no point: a terror of absurdity. Logic will force me to do things where desire hasn’t a chance. Which leads us to There is no point, ergo

It has possibly something to do with families therefore possibly also my mother’s fault. Maybe you could have hereditary minding. (TT 198)

After logically deducing the futility of life and suggesting that she and her family, as opposed to other people, mind not knowing what the point in life is, Joy provides a list of evidence to support her argument. She introduces five instances of suicide of five female members of her family in order to show that the female part of her family tends to fall into a state of serious depression when their search for answers in life remains in vain (cf. TT 199).30 Joy’s argument, therefore, seems to be that due to her family history, she is predisposed to sink into depression and cannot help but accept her futile search for meaning in life. However, Joy soon comes to realise that logic is not a means by which her depression can be explained, let alone relieved. Logical argumentation cannot fill the emptiness and hopelessness Joy constantly feels as a result of her traumatic loss. Instead, the text itself explores Joy’s mental state by incorporating typographic manifestations of emptiness such as the use of blank space. Not only does Galloway utilise blank space when one narrative (in italics) switches to the other (in regular font), but she also leaves entire pages blank with the exception of a word or a phrase. Towards the end of the novel one can find two pages left virtually entirely blank, which may, on the one hand, reflect the emptiness inside Joy but, on the other hand, empty space could also be used to represent the vacuum amid her thoughts, which prevents her from reconstructing a whole narrative of Michael’s death (cf. TT 188; 202). Another expression of emptiness can be found in the treble “o” that is frequently inserted in the book, possibly in order to “separate[...] one moment of Joy’s consciousness from the next” (TT 7; Craig 2002: 195). In addition to the symbol’s dividing function, Craig (2002: 195) acknowledges its relation with other elements of the text to which it has an iconic relationship. For instance, the treble ‘o’ could represent “the zero to which everything has been brought by the fact that she [Joy] has been negated by her partner’s death, and by the

30 The evidence Joy provides also includes explicit feminist criticism in that, for instance, her maternal grandmother carefully “laid out her marriage certificate” prior to committing suicide by setting fire to her own house (TT 199). In addition, her aunt committed suicide wearing only “an underskirt and her wedding ring”, implying that the female part of her family has, for generations, been trapped in unhappy marriages, which they did not annul because they were dependent on their husbands (TT 199). Joy’s argument also demonstrates the fact that Michael’s death is not the only trauma Joy experiences. On the contrary, her mother’s depression and repeated suicide attempts in addition to the cases of suicide in her family have certainly had an enormous impact on Joy’s mental health as well as her relationship to men. 73 miracle which erased her from the funeral” (2002: 195). The treble ‘o’ could also be interpreted as empty holes, which may reflect the emptiness Joy feels inside her as well as the intractability of her inner conflicts. Another interpretation could be that the ‘ooo’ is a visual representation of the moment when Joy realises Michael’s death (cf. 2002: 195). Not only does Joy state that her own “mouth is open” when she spots his body, but also Michael’s mouth is repeatedly described as “a red O” and the crowd surrounding his body is referred to as “[a] group of men standing in a roughO [sic]” (TT 29; 40; 49). The manifold interpretations of the ‘ooo’ demonstrate the significance of typographic representation in the novel with respect to the effects of trauma. The pieces of Joy’s memory of the traumatic event are complemented by symbols whose meaning is open for interpretation, thus involving the reader in constructing the narrative. Further comment should also be made concerning the text in the margins of the book. Initially, the broken phrases or words have been interpreted by Craig (2002: 193) as the narrator’s “loss of self” due to the fact that the text runs over from the page to the margins and, finally, off the page altogether. By the end of the novel, however, the text in the margins adopts a rather different function. In fact, the words become a symbol of the narrator’s progress, as some of the fragments in the margins become integrated in the main text towards the end of the book. For instance, the words “a Dutchma[!] / a German”, which have initially been outside the narrative, subsequently become part of the main text through acts of remembering: “A Dutchman or a German” (TT 192; 196; cf. Baker 2012b). The person in question, i.e. a Dutchman or a German, is referred to by Joy as the man who attempted to reanimate Michael after he had drowned, which demonstrates that Joy gradually manages to speak about the traumatic event in the present. Joy finally transforms some of the bits and pieces of her flashbacks into an overall coherent narrative of the traumatic event (cf. TT 196). Attention should also be devoted to the words in the margins, themselves. While some of the fragmented words such as “presentim” are difficult to make sense of, others are clearly distinguishable (TT 194). The words “sometime / this feelin / deja vu” are repeatedly inserted in the margins in a number of variations, meaning that the words are fragmented to a greater or lesser extent (TT 112). Interestingly, the fragments not only point to moments in the text where Joy has a sense of déjà vu, but the pieces of information in the margins also loosely correspond to one another. Her sense of déjà vu turns into a feeling of “devant vu”, which can be found in the margins a number of lines below the following utterance: “My body knew he was dead before I did” (TT 195). Claiming that her body intuitively knew in advance about Michael’s death, Joy inverts the term déjà vu and turns her feeling of having experienced a

74 certain moment before into the sense that she experiences something that will happen in the future. Correlations such as these can be detected throughout the novel, which serve as a means by which the reader can reconstruct and interpret the narrative Joy exposes. The function of the words in the margins, however, is not clearly deducible. In one of her interviews Galloway explains them as the “little voice inside the head” which every human being experiences at times (Off the Page, online). Although there certainly is some truth in her explanation, the fragments in the margins leave room for further interpretation. Galloway’s account does not explain why some words eventually become incorporated into the main text and why others correspond to one another such as the example mentioned above. As is frequently the case, there is no right or wrong answer as to the purpose of the text in the margins. Instead, the symbolic meaning of the fragments allows for a number of interpretations, all of which contribute to a greater understanding of the text as a whole. The question that remains to be clarified is why such a wide variety of narrative techniques and genres are used in the book. Similar to Birchwood, the novel demonstrates the failure and triumph of language at the same time. On the one hand, language is shown to be an insufficient medium to communicate the complexity of feelings involved in traumatic memory but, on the other hand, it is through language that the narrator finds a way to speak about the traumatic event, which is represented by the union of the two narrative strands at the end of the novel. The experimental layout of the book offers new perspectives on the depiction of memory in literature by demonstrating the problematic nature of the authenticity of memory. Romantics such as William Wordsworth already thematised the subjective quality of memory in their works, showing that formative experiences have a greater chance to be remembered than casual events. Contemporary literature extends the discussion of the Romantics to the extent that the existence of authentic memory is negated; highlighting the fact that memory is produced rather than reproduced. In addition, remembering is not a chronological act but a matter of foregrounding, coincidence and association, which is the reason why The Trick’s experimental quality is essential to grasping the narrator’s problematic experience with memory. Galloway, herself, has attributed the experimental style of her novel to the fact that “memory works in little snapshots” and that “there isn’t a continuous flow of narrative” (Off the Page, online). It is exactly the fragmented form of the novel that brings across the effects of traumatic memory in a way that a narrative in the realistic genre could never achieve. The narrator’s “repetition compulsion” (Schwab 2010: 2) as well as her constant flashbacks of the traumatic event without the ability to link the bits and

75 pieces have gained such a strong effect only because the reader is involved in constructing and reconstructing the narrative throughout the entire novel.

7. Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending: Memory Re-evaluated

7.1. Introduction to The Sense of an Ending

The novel The Sense of an Ending (2011) by the English writer Julian Barnes not only puts emphasis on the unreliability of memory, but it also evokes questions concerning the nature of time and history. Right from the beginning, The Sense of an Ending confronts the reader with philosophical reflections on the act of remembering, the passing of time and the relationship between memory and reality. Although the novel does not apply as many experimental narrative techniques as, for instance, The Trick is to Keep Breathing, one can still detect various parallels in terms of style to the other novels discussed.31 As a matter of fact, The Sense of an Ending’s form can be argued to illustrate the manner in which human beings tend to remember because the reader is engaged in questioning the narrator’s account, thereby alluding to the unreliability of memory, and the narrator, himself, realises in the course of his story that his interpretation of his past is inaccurate. The narrator’s attempt at producing a coherent narrative of certain events in his past does not go according to plan, as he gradually receives more information that requires him to re-evaluate his account of his past. The extensive use of meta-reference, the disruptions of chronology as well as the fact that the narrator continually questions himself and re-evaluates the account of his past which his memory produces can be argued to represent major characteristics of the workings of human memory. Not only do we tend to produce narrative accounts of our past, but we also modify our accounts every time we produce or communicate them anew. This modification can be attributed to factors such as our own uncertainty concerning past events as well as the additional information we receive from documents or witnesses to our lives. Elisabeth Loftus’s findings concerning the theory of memory distortion as well as the concept of memory updating as part of the reconsolidation theory of memory underline the fact that the account one produces of one’s past necessarily deviates from the original events. A central aspect involved in memory updating is the fact that our account of our past is frequently either tested or corroborated by witnesses to our lives. In Tony Webster’s case, who is the

31 Even thoguh The Sense of an Ending is the most recent novel discussed in this thesis, a number of narrative techniques typical of postmodernist fiction are used, which will be explained in more detail below. 76 homodiegetic narrator of the book, memory becomes re-evaluated every time his account of his own past is challenged by witnesses to his life. At a more mature age, the narrator realises that his memory has tricked him in many ways because various recollections of his are overthrown by the sudden appearance of documents and other people’s depiction of past events. The novel is split into two parts, the first of which introduces the reader to the narrator’s youth and adulthood leading up to the formative event of a character’s suicide and the second of which gradually demonstrates the narrator’s re-evaluation of his own past. In the first part the homodiegetic narrator, Tony Webster, takes the reader back to his schooldays because he asserts that “school is where it all began” (SE 4). He begins to outline extracts of his memories of these days, introducing two of his closest friends, Colin and Alex, who have formed a clique with him. This group of friends is soon extended by Adrian Finn, who joins their school and is described as exceptionally intelligent and promising. Tony continues to illustrate a number of episodes where Adrian’s intelligence and special status at school are foregrounded such as a discussion with their teacher Old Joe Hunt on the nature of history. After Tony and his friends have finished school, they grow apart and move to different areas. Adrian starts studying moral philosophy at Cambridge and Tony goes to Bristol to read history. In Bristol Tony meets his girlfriend, Veronica Ford, and describes one particular weekend he spends with her family, where he is introduced to her mother Sarah, her father, and her brother Jack. The significance of that weekend seems to be that Veronica’s mother talks to Tony in private for a moment and tells him not to “let Veronica get away with too much” (SE 28). This scene is to become important in the latter part of the book when Tony re- evaluates certain events in his past that involve Veronica’s mother. After the weekend, Tony reunites with his three school friends in order to introduce Veronica. The meeting, however, does not go according to Tony’s plan because he feels that Veronica is getting along too well with them, making him feel jealous. They soon split up and, after a while, Tony receives a letter from Adrian, asking for his permission to date Veronica. Tony feels rather cynical about their union but in order to save face he sends them a postcard saying that their relationship was fine by him. However, he soon changes his mind and writes them a letter telling them how he really feels, namely that he despises their relationship. After spending some time travelling through America, Tony returns and learns that Adrian has committed suicide. Alex, who informs Tony about the incident, explains that Adrian’s suicide was prepared carefully and that he has left back a suicide note containing philosophical arguments to account for his suicide.

At the end of the first part, the narrative pace is accelerated and the reader receives a precise description of how Tony’s life has continued. Tony refers to himself as a rather average person with the usual ups and downs in life. Not only did he get married and raise a child, but he also got a divorce and is now retired. At the beginning of the second part of the novel, though, Tony receives a letter that is soon to shed more light on the circumstances of Adrian’s suicide. The letter informs Tony that Veronica’s mother, Sarah, has passed away and that she has left Tony 500 pounds as well as Adrian’s diary. Puzzled about the situation, Tony contacts Veronica to send him the diary. She merely sends him a copy of a fragment that contains mysterious equations and arguments and says she has burnt the rest of the diary. Tony gradually realises that his memory has tricked him in various ways because Veronica sends him the letter he originally wrote to them about his thoughts of her relationship with Adrian. The letter turns out to be vulgar and more than insulting, a fact which had been erased from his memory. Later on, Tony repeatedly contacts Veronica and receives hints from her about Adrian’s suicide, which he misinterprets. The reason for Tony’s misinterpretation is that Veronica takes him along with her one night and introduces him to some friends. After that night, Tony firmly believes that one of her friends, whose name is also Adrian is, in fact, Veronica and Adrian’s child. Towards the end of the book, though, after Veronica tells him that he “still [doesn’t] get it” (SE 144), he learns that Adrian is Sarah and Adrian’s child, meaning that Veronica’s mother had an affair with Adrian. Tony also resolves the equations on the fragment of Adrian’s diary towards the end of the novel and begins to understand why Sarah has left him the money and the diary. He realises that it is not out of superior intellect and philosophical conviction that Adrian committed suicide but merely as a result of a family scandal. However, the reader cannot be entirely sure whether Tony’s account at the end of the book is, in fact, the final version of events because his memory is repeatedly re-evaluated and he explicitly refers to the unreliability of his memory throughout the book. The following analysis will shed more light on the representation of memory in the novel and will offer, first of all, a discussion on the novel’s reflections on time and history and their connection to the nature of memory. In the second part of the analysis, the narrator’s unreliability becomes the focus of attention, leading to a similar conclusion as in Birchwood, namely that the narrator’s unreliable account visualises the unreliability of human memory. A significant difference to Birchwood should be pointed out, though, which is the fact that the narrator in The Sense of an Ending is not overwhelmed by fragments of his memories but,

78 instead, he repeatedly re-evaluates his account of his past as a result of receiving new information that challenges the way in which he has depicted his past up to that point.

7.2. The interplay between time, history, and memory in The Sense of an Ending

The representation of memory in The Sense of an Ending is primarily characterised by a sense of uncertainty. The narrator, Tony Webster, repeatedly doubts his own memories and questions his own judgment. At various points in the novel Tony pauses his narration in order to reflect on the nature of memory, fiction, time, and history.32 Through his philosophical reflections and those he attributes to Adrian Finn, Tony establishes a close connection between these components. Referring to “time’s malleability” (SE 3), Tony demonstrates his curiosity about how it takes merely a small emotion to either accelerate time or decelerate it, depending on whether one feels a positive or negative emotion (cf. SE 3). Although he admits that he has never really grasped the concept of time, Tony uses the notion of time in order to account for the process of how certain past events become stored in one’s memory with an indefinable degree of authenticity: “I need to return briefly to a few incidents that have grown into anecdotes, to some approximate memories which time has deformed into certainty. If I can’t be sure of the actual events any more, I can at least be true to the impressions those facts left. That’s the best I can manage.” (SE 4). This quotation, which can be found at the very beginning of the book, foreshadows the way in which Tony’s memory turns out to have tricked him, as it is through the passing of time that certain memories become stored in one’s mind, even though they may be entirely misinterpreted. In the process of remembering fictive elements become intertwined with fragments of the actual event, generating a new version of the original event, which has been demonstrated by Loftus’s research on eyewitness testimonies in the theoretical part of this thesis. When Tony, for instance, thinks back on the letter he wrote in response to Adrian’s asking for permission to date Veronica, he by far underestimates his own reaction at the time. When he reads the letter again after many years he is shocked by the vulgar and cynical tone of his own writing. In addition, the image of Adrian that Tony has stored in his mind until his adulthood, regarding Adrian as superior in many ways, turns out to be an illusion. First of all, Adrian may not have, in fact, committed

32 A. Assmann’s (2011) analysis on ‘functional’ and ‘storage’ memory has demonstrated that the concepts of history and memory are no longer considered opposites. Instead, A. Assmann (2011: 123) proposes that history and memory complement each other in the form of “functional” and “storage” memory (2011: 123; 124). A more detailed explanation can be found in chapter 3.1. of this thesis. 79 suicide on account of philosophical conviction, which he has claimed in his suicide note, but, as the novel implies, due to a banal family scandal. Secondly, Tony’s jealousy of Adrian and Veronica’s relationship because of Adrian’s supposed superior status and his being a ‘better choice’ turns out to be unjustified, as Adrian has apparently failed to live up to Veronica’s expectations. The concept of time, however, also serves as a means for the narrator to challenge common assumptions concerning the nature of memory. One passage, in particular, demonstrates the narrator’s aim at refuting the notion that time stabilises memory. The narrator claims that it is merely out of convenience that people hold on to the believe that time fixates memory because this is what helps them move on:

We live with such easy assumptions, don’t we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it’s all much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what we thought we’d forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn’t act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But it’s not convenient - it’s not useful – to believe this; it doesn’t help us get on with our lives; so we ignore it. (SE 63)

The assertion that time cannot fixate memories as well as the fact that the act of recollection necessarily precipitates the production of a modified account of one’s past induce another discussion in the novel, namely the philosophical search for the nature of history. The assumption behind this search can be summarised in the following way: if memory is malleable and always modified to a certain degree when recalled anew, can there be an authentic depiction of historical events? As we have seen in Wolf’s (1986: 313-14) analysis of Collingwood’s theory on historiography, the historian’s perspective needs to be taken into consideration when reading historical texts, first of all, and, second of all, one needs to be aware that the historian, in his or her attempt at recreating events in the past, tends to fill empty gaps in order to produce a coherent account. The result of this recreation of historical events is that one can only arrive at an approximation to the truth but never at an authentic reconstruction of past events. In The Sense of an Ending the discussion on the nature of history is applied to a school context where Tony and his friends offer different answers to their teacher’s question, “What is History?” (SE 16). Tony spontaneously asserts that “[h]istory is the lies of the victors” (SE 16), thus alluding to the idea that historical accounts are dominated by biased perspectives. His argument is countered by Old Joe Hunt in that he advises Tony to keep in mind that history “is also the self-delusions of the defeated” (SE 16). Although Hunt’s answer is depicted as a spontaneous response to a provocative statement, Hunt’s and Tony’s discussion 80 addresses a key aspect to consider in connection with the accuracy of historical accounts, namely the role of power and the resulting conflict of perspectives. Due to the fact that the account of the victors of a particular event differs from the version provided by the defeated, the historian’s task is to weigh given arguments and make a decision of how the event could have taken place, using other sources to complement his or her depiction of events. The victors’ potentially glorifying memories of an event frequently stand in contrast to the disillusioning memories of the defeated, which, on the one hand, provides a challenge to the historian to find a middle ground but, on the other hand, the more perspectives there are on an event, the more likely one is to come close to how the actual event happened. Tony’s allusion to the subjective nature of historical accounts shows parallels to Collingwood’s understanding of historiography as analysed by Wolf (1986: 314-5), which moves away from the notion of purely objective historical knowledge. Another answer to the question on the nature of history is provided by Colin, who compares history to a “raw onion sandwich” because it supposedly “burps” (SE 16), meaning that history repeats itself over and over again. Colin asserts that history is the “[s]ame old story, same old oscillation between tyranny and rebellion, war and peace, prosperity and impoverishment” (SE 16). While Colin’s simile serves as entertainment for the other pupils and is simply ignored by their teacher, the idea of historic recurrence has been subject to debate within western philosophy for a considerable time. A discussion on Colin’s unusual simile, however, is left aside in the novel. Instead, his suggestion is immediately followed by a more prudential argument brought forward by Adrian. The argument, which Adrian attributes to a fictive philosopher named “Patrick Lagrange” (SE 17) interlinks the flaws of historical documentation with the unreliability of memory: “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation” (SE 17). Adrian refers to an essential aspect to consider when reading historical accounts, namely the fact that both, memory and historical documentation are not fully reliable sources. In his comment Adrian alludes to the fact that even though historical documentation is frequently promoted as fact, there will always be certain unresolved or unnoticed elements. The same applies to personal history, which to a great deal relies on memory and, therefore, inevitably brings about various uncertainties and distortions. Combining these two means in order to reconstruct historical events necessarily produces an account that deviates from the original historical event. Although Adrian’s approach is the only one taken seriously by their teacher Old Joe Hunt, he encourages Adrian to have more faith in historians’ work because, as a matter of

81 fact, historians are used to being confronted with unresolved problems and a lack of documentation and, therefore, have developed ways in which to put the pieces of a puzzle together (cf. SE 18). In order to support his argument, Adrian is encouraged by Old Joe Hunt to provide an example, whereon he names the recent suicide of one fellow pupil named Robson. Adrian asserts that only a few pieces of evidence such as a short suicide note and the fact that Robson had a girlfriend who was pregnant can be found, which leaves the historian with practically no evidence to support any conclusion drawn from the given pieces of information (cf. SE 17). Old Joe Hunt counters Adrian’s argument by suggesting that Robson may have kept letters or a diary and many school friends could still be questioned in, for instance, fifty years’ time (cf. SE 18). Still unsatisfied, Adrian claims that nothing could make up for Robson’s own testimony, whereupon Old Joe Hunt retorts that one should be careful trusting the account of the person under investigation, as it may deviate from the truth for various reasons (cf. SE 18). The scene described above can be interpreted as a mise en abyme anticipatrice in that the story of Robson’s suicide seems to foreshadow Adrian’s suicide and, as a result, Tony’s taking over the part of a historian. Just like in Old Joe Hunt’s argument, Tony comes across historical documents (the extract of Adrian’s diary) and eyewitness testimonies (that of Veronica and her friends) and he subsequently interprets reasons for Adrian’s actions. Old Joe Hunt’s final remark on the unreliability of a participant’s own account of events can also be rediscovered in connection with Adrian’s suicide, namely in that the reasons he provides in his suicide note, that is, philosophical reasons, disguise the significant factor of Sarah’s and Adrian’s child, which may have been the actual reason behind his suicide. Another function of this scene could be to draw attention to the unreliability of one’s personal history. In the course of time not only our memories of past events may increasingly become blurred, but also the witnesses to our lives diminish. The fewer people there are to corroborate our personal history, the less certainty exists whether the story we have created of our lives comes close to the truth. At the very beginning of the second part of the novel, Tony addresses the difficulties that arise when looking back on one’s own life and realising that the uncertainties concerning events in one’s life exceed the certainties:

[W]hen you are young, you think you can predict the likely pains and bleaknesses that age might bring. You imagine yourself being lonely, divorced, widowed; children growing away from you, friends dying. You imagine the loss of status, the loss of desire – and desirability. You may go further and consider your own approaching death, which, despite what company you may muster, can only be faced alone. But all this is looking ahead. What you fail to do is look ahead, and then imagine yourself looking back from that future point. Learning the new

emotions that time brings. Discovering, for example, that as the witnesses to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you are or have been. Even if you assiduously kept records – in words, sound, pictures – you may find that you have attended to the wrong kind of record-keeping. (SE 59)

The narrator suggests that looking back on one’s life from a future point in time leads one to view one’s past from a different angle and with a new set of emotions involved. In addition, determining one’s identity becomes a more and more challenging task over time because the story one has created of one’s life, which in part stems from one’s memories, becomes less certain, as there are fewer people to confirm or complement one’s account. This is what Tony experiences in the course of his story, as he is forced to re-evaluate his own account of his past after various elements of his memories, which he had been certain to remember correctly, are overthrown. The re-evaluation of his personal history leads him to question his identity and the way in which he had perceived others up to that point. The interplay between time, history, and memory in The Sense of an Ending demonstrates the growing uncertainties concerning the authenticity of historical and personal accounts over time, which, to a certain degree, can be attributed to the unreliability of memory. In order to shed more light on the representation of memory and personal history in the novel, the following analysis will be devoted to the unreliability of the narrator, which serves as a means by which the distortive quality of memory is foregrounded in the book. Similar to the narrator in Birchwood, Tony creates awareness of his own limitations as a narrator by reflecting on the unreliability of his memories through metareferential comments.

7.3. The unreliability of the narrator in The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of an Ending is to a large degree composed of the narrator’s metareferential reflections, which foreground his consciousness of his own unreliability and, thus, provide a well-conceived depiction of the distortive nature of memory. Tony is aware of the fact that his memory can trick him and that he may misinterpret some events in his past or project certain emotions he feels at the present moment onto original events. Various passages in the novel point out the difficulty of reinterpreting past events with one’s current state of awareness or, conversely, the problem of trying to recollect one’s emotional status and mode of thinking at a certain time. For instance, Tony raises the reader’s awareness of the fact that his account is merely an interpretation of a past event from a present moment: “Again, I must stress that this is my reading now of what happened then. Or rather, my memory now of my reading then of what was happening at the time.” (SE 41). In scientific terms, Tony’s observation describes 83 the concept of memory updating, which has been introduced in the analysis of the reconsolidation theory of (long-term) memory in chapter 2.2.1. According to Alberini (2011: 2, online), the concept of memory updating refers to changes that occur whenever a memory is retrieved, which are brought about by the fact that a memory “is perceived in a different moment and with different current inputs” (2011: 2, online). Tony’s comment shows that, similar to the narrator in Birchwood, he is well aware of the difficulties involved in trying to retrieve past events and raises the reader’s awareness of the potentially misguided interpretations of his own past. Although the narrator’s aim is not explicitly stated in The Sense of an Ending, some parallels can be found to the narrator’s quest in Birchwood, which is to make sense of his past by rediscovering memories of his past that were thought to be lost. While Tony does not set out to retrieve ‘lost’ time through recollection, he does attempt to make sense of his past after rediscovering various unresolved issues that had been erased from his memory or entirely misinterpreted. Tony’s curiosity about certain events in his past is aroused by his inheritance of Adrian’s diary and 500 pounds from Veronica’s mother. After being convinced that Adrian has committed suicide on account of philosophical reasons, Tony comes to realise that he may have misjudged Adrian, as he finds out other possible reasons for his suicide. As a result, Tony is forced to re-evaluate a great part of what he thought to be his personal history. Similar to the other novels discussed, the use of narrative techniques such as metareference and breaks in chronology also serves as a means by which the narrator explores the limits of the text as a medium to communicate his memories. In addition to his reflections on his own unreliability, Tony generates paradoxes through some of his metareferential comments. For instance, Tony repeatedly outlines what should happen in a novel, if he and his friends were characters in a work of fiction. When describing the weekend he spends with Veronica’s family, he makes the following paradoxical comment: “Had we been in a novel, there might have been some sneaking between floors for a hot cuddle after the paterfamilias had locked up for the night. But we weren’t; [...]” (SE 28). The paradox, which is that they are, of course, in a novel, blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction; a device commonly found in postmodernist fiction.33 A number of other instances where the narrator paradoxically claims not to be part of a novel can be detected in The Sense of an Ending, for example, when Tony claims not be novel-worthy material. To be more specific, the narrator describes what he learned to be real

33 As analysed in chapter 4.2. the use of paradoxes can also be found in Birchwood, as Gabriel, for instance, suggests that he may be inventing the entire time when he is, in fact, inventing as a result of being the narrator in a work of fiction (cf. BW 21). 84 literature, that is, “psychological, emotional and social truth as demonstrated by the actions and reflections of its protagonists”, and goes on to suggest that except for Robson’s life, only Adrian’s “contained anything remotely novel-worthy” (SE 15). Following this scene, Tony goes on to speculate on what should happen in a novel in contrast to what is actually happening in his story: “This was hopeless. In a novel, Adrian wouldn’t just have accepted things as they were put to him. What was the point of having a situation worthy of fiction if the protagonist didn’t behave as he would have done in a book?” (SE 16). Both scenes address the concept of fiction on a meta-level, implying that the narrator’s story is not part of a work of fiction. The contradicting fact that the story is fictional, though, generates a paradox that may challenge commonly held assumptions concerning the conception of fiction. The paradox seems to suggest that life does not always work the way it is frequently portrayed in novels, that is to say, some characters may not necessarily lead an extraordinary life but still have qualities that make them suitable for a work of fiction. Tony indirectly poses the question whether he is not entitled to be part of a novel merely because his life is not spectacular and he does not feel that his personality is developing in the course of time. Tony’s feeling of stagnation is, in fact, explicitly pointed out when he reflects on character development in fiction as well as in real life:

Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that’s something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we’re just stuck with what we’ve got. We’re on our own. (SE 103)

Tony’s reflection on his sense of stagnation further induces a discussion on the nature of fiction in that he suggests that character development is obligatory in novels but not necessarily in real life. However, his comment could be interpreted as another indication of his unreliability as a narrator because, as a matter of fact, his character is shown to develop in the course of the story. Not only does he gain more understanding of his past through gathering new information and comparing it to his memories, but his philosophical reflections concerning the distortive quality of his memories as well as his awareness of his limitations as a narrator can be seen as a sign of growth. In addition to the use of paradoxes, a number of metareferential comments can be found in the book, which break the aesthetic illusion and highlight the narrator’s uncertainty concerning the accuracy of his own memories. For instance, after outlining Adrian’s and Old

Joe Hunt’s debate on the role of historians, Tony makes the following remark: “Was this their exact exchange? Almost certainly not. Still, it is my best memory of their exchange” (SE 19). Another example of a metanarrative comment on the distortive quality of the narrator’s memories can be found at the point where Tony recalls Veronica telling him that she thought their relationship was stagnating: “In my mind, this was the beginning of the end of our relationship. Or have I just remembered it this way to make it seem so, and to apportion blame?” (SE 35). The narrator appears to be conscious of the fact that his present knowledge of the development of their relationship, i.e. that they split up, may have a strong influence on his depiction of the past event. His biased view concerning their relationship in retrospect may produce an entirely different interpretation of their encounter compared to his actual feelings at the time. In addition to the unreliability of his memories, Tony also addresses the limits of language to convey his memories. At one point Tony recollects his experience of observing a river running upstream, which has such an overwhelming effect on him that he admits, “I don’t think I can properly convey the effect that moment had on me” (SE 36). Tony appears to be aware that expressing this scene in words does not suffice to convey the actual emotions he feels at that moment. However, this scene also serves another purpose with respect to the representation of memory in the novel. At the very beginning of his story, Tony introduces the reader to a number of fragments of his memories, one of which describes a river running upstream. Every fragment introduced reappears later in the book with its respective context. In this way, the fact that memory does not appear as a coherent, chronological narrative but as fragments of indefinable order is subtly demonstrated. In sum, The Sense of an Ending portrays the unreliability of memory as well as personal history, utilising an unreliable narrator who gradually comes to realise that the memories of his past are, to a large degree, misinterpretations and false conclusions. This analysis has, on the one hand, been dedicated to outlining the interplay of time, memory, and history in the novel, which has raised questions concerning the authenticity of history as a result of the malleability of memory and the interpretative role of the historian. On the other hand, the unreliability of the narrator, of which he is conscious to a certain extent, has been outlined, demonstrating that the act of recollection is a process that involves re-evaluation, interpretation, and witnesses to corroborate one’s account. In addition, the fact that the end of the book is open, that is, the reader does not know whether Tony’s final version of events is the actual course of events, can be interpreted as visualising the fact that an authentic reconstruction of past events is impossible. A potential conclusion of the novel as a result of

86 the uncertainties involved in the act of remembering is, perhaps, best expressed by the author Julian Barnes, himself, as part of a recent interview: “[The] Sense of an Ending [...] is about what we don’t know, what we can’t know but [...] some of which we find out.” (Barnes, Interview, online: 36:14 - 36:24).

8. Conclusion

The aim of this thesis was to demonstrate novel approaches to the representation of memory in fiction in English and, in this way, illuminate the contemporary frame of mind with respect to the conception of memory. As a result of the plurality of theories available about memory nowadays, the theoretical part of this thesis was dedicated to, first of all, providing an overview of major developments concerning the representation of memory in literature over time and, second of all, offering an introduction to the cognitive processes involved in the act of recollection. In addition, major forms of memory were presented such as traumatic memory, which offer a broader picture of the complex field of memory studies. Among the key insights pointed out in connection with cognitive processes involved in the act of recollection is the fact that events in the past cannot be authentically reconstructed. The reason for this is the dynamic nature of memory, which presupposes changes every time past events are retrieved. The processuality of memory forms a major part of the representation of memory in the novels discussed, along with the difficulty of communicating memories through language. Several other concepts explained in the theoretical part were later revisited in the course of the literary analysis, as various narrative techniques used in the novels discussed illustrate significant characteristics of human memory. Although each of the novels discussed offers a different approach to the representation of memory, a number of parallels have been pointed out such as the use of experimental narrative techniques and the exploration of the limits of the text as a medium to represent memory. John Banville’s Birchwood and Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending put emphasis on the unreliability of memory, showing that the act of recollection is a non- chronological process characterised by a high degree of distortion. The novels also highlight the difficulty of communicating one’s memories through language, as particular emotions and impressions are challenging to formulate in words. Janice Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing and Ron Butlin’s The Sound of my Voice can both be viewed as trauma narratives, illustrating the difficulty of coming to terms with one’s past after experiencing a traumatic incident. In Galloway’s case, the narrator 87 demonstrates her inability to produce a coherent account of the traumatic event, as she remembers only fragments of the incident, which come in the form of sudden flashbacks. These fragments repeat themselves over and over again, leaving the narrator unable to progress. The narrator in The Sound of my Voice, on the other hand, turns into an alcoholic as a result of his traumatic childhood, and, thus, demonstrates what it is like not to be able to remember at all. The complexity of elements involved in the act of recollection is subtly foregrounded in the novels discussed, using experimental narrative devices and techniques typical of postmodernism in order to raise awareness, for instance, of the fact that the act of recollection is a non-chronological, unstructured, and unreliable process. Further research could be done, for example, on the representation of collective memory in recent fiction in English, including the process of coming to terms with the past as a group.

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