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The Pursuit of Fulfilment: Desire in Peter Carey's Illywhacker

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The Pursuit of Fulfilment: Desire in Peter Carey's Illywhacker Edith Cowan University Research Online Theses : Honours Theses 1992 The pursuit of fulfilment: Desire in Peter Carey's Illywhacker Jonas Byford Edith Cowan University Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses_hons Part of the Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons Recommended Citation Byford, J. (1992). The pursuit of fulfilment: Desire in Peter Carey's Illywhacker. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ theses_hons/413 This Thesis is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses_hons/413 Edith Cowan University Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorize you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. Where the reproduction of such material is done without attribution of authorship, with false attribution of authorship or the authorship is treated in a derogatory manner, this may be a breach of the author’s moral rights contained in Part IX of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Courts have the power to impose a wide range of civil and criminal sanctions for infringement of copyright, infringement of moral rights and other offences under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. Tiill PURSUIT OF FULFILMENT: DESIRE IN PETER CAREY'S IUYWHACKER BY Jonas Byford A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of Bachelor of Arts (Honours) at the Faculty of Arts, Edith Cowan University Date of Submission: 22.4.92 USE OF THESIS The Use of Thesis statement is not included in this version of the thesis. "I certify that this thesis does not incorporate without acknowledgement any material previously submitted for a degree or diploma in any institution of higher education; and that to the best of my knowledge and belief it does not contain any material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text." Signature. Date.Hr~tn·~ ,,. .1;1: .......'q ~ 0 •••••••••••••••••••••••••• ii Table Of Contents Part Page Introduction 1 2 Book One 4 3 Book Two 22 4 Book Three 35 5 Conclusion 47 6 Notes 48 7 Bibliography 51 iii Part One: Introduction "All desire springs from a lack, which it strives continually to fill." 1 This paper is a close textual analysis exploring the different levels at which desire is manifest in Peter Carey's lllywhacker. It anempts to show how desire, and the expectation of its fulfilment, have the effect of propelling the narrative and implicating the reader in the text. It is also the aim of the paper to argue that, despite aU Ilfywhacker's gestures to the contrary. and its expectation of fulfilment, at no level is this desire realized in the noVel. It should be stated that this is not an evaluative judgement. The ftrst level at which desire is manifest in I flywhacker is in the realist aspects of the text The discussion of this draws upon Dcrrida's notion of Iogocentrism which is defmed 2 by Raman Selden as "the desire for a centre" • Selden explains: The notion of 'structure' ... has always presupposed a 'centre' of meaning of some sort. This 'centre' governs the structure but is itself not subject to structural analysis (to fmd the structure of the ct~ntre would be to fmd another centre). People desire a centre because it guarantees being as presence ... Western thought has developed innumerable terms which operate as centering principles: being, essence, substance, truth, fonn, beginning, end, purpose, consciousness, man, God and so on. 3 The logocentrism of the realist aspects of the text is evident in a number of elements which include the organization and structure of the novel. its use of traditional genres such as the picaresque, and in the theme of characters desiring stability and order in their lives. The metaflctional elements. with their self-reflexivity and emphasis on the plural nature of 'reality' also enforce the notion of desire in the text. These aspects subvert the logocentric binary oppositions in the novel. Derrida's theory of the supplement is useful here in conveying both the subversion and the subsequent desire. David Buchbinder provides a succinct explanation of the concept of the supplement: This may be defmed as a text or element which is added to or is considered secondary to another, more complete textual Slructure or system. However .• .if the structure can be added to, it cannot be complete, and if the supplement can be added, it cannot be merely secondary. Thus [in theJ opposition nature/culture, we can see that we commonly think of nature as primary and complete, while culture is secondary, because artificial, and, for the same reason destined to incompleteness: culture can be considered a supplement to nature. However, by the logic which Denida articulates his theory of the supplement, nature, despite our post-Romantic attatchment to the concept, cannot be complete ... otherwise culture would necessarily never have been invented. If culture is not supplementary to nature we must look for a third term which includes both "11ature" and" culture" .4 This theory highlights how the metafictional subversion of binary oppositions in 1/lywhacker results in the 'oppositions' existing in a pennanent relation of tension, being defffi.ed by what they are not, what they lack. As Eagleton comments in his discussion of Lacanian theory "All desire springs from a lack". s Desire is manifest in both the realist and metafictional aspects of the text. If Derrida's theory of the supplement is applied to the relation between the logocentric (realist) elements and the metafictional elements then desire can be seen to be operating on another level. This paper will argue that, as in Derrida's theory, the metafictional and realist aspects of lllywhacker exist in an interdependent relation of tension in which neither element is ever able to assert complete dominance over the other. Desire is also manifest in lllywhacker at lbe level of language itself. As Eagleton writes in his discussion of Lacan's theory of language: All desire springs from a lack. Human language works by such a lack: the absence of the real objects which signs designate, the fact lllat words have meaning only by virtue of the absence and exclusion of others. To enter language, Uten, is to become a prey to desire: language, Lacan remarks, is 'what hollows being into desire'.6 2 The paradoxical nature of language and the notions of deferral and difference which are essential to desire are encapsulated in Derrida's notion of dif/irance. As Buchbinder explains: ... if signs - words -have meaning only through difference, 'essential' or 'absolute' meaning does not exist Rather, what we have is the trace of those absent meanings whose differential relationship give meaning to the particular sign before us . ... the more a text reaches to encase meaning within its structure of signs, the more elusive that meaning becomes. This is the second meaning of difflrance, which in French can mean 'deferral'. Derrida argues that meaning is always to be attained, but never is attained. 7 The fmallevel at which desire operates in ll/ywhacker is in readers of the text. The paper lak~~ up the position that meaning is not given to readers but constructed by them. Psychoanalytic theory suggests that readers respond to those aspects of the text which fulfil their desire and represses those aspects which do not. Readers are also implicated in the text by such factors as the generic and structural aspects which generate an expectancy of closure and fulfilment. A similar gesture toward fulfilment is offered by Herben in his perception of the relationship between narrator and reader as being that of a salesman and his customer. A particular focus in Part Three will be the desire which springs from the split between the signifier and the signified. This draws upon the Lacanian theory that the signifier points towards, but can never arrive at, the signified (the meaning it signifies). The impossibility of hannony between the signifier and the signified, the lack implicit in their relation of tension, a "potentially endless movement from one signifier to another is what Lac an means by desire" .s This analysis approximately follows the structure of the novel, with its division into three sections, in order to more effectively trace the sense of development and progression which the novel generates. 3 Part Two: Book One An analysis of lllywhacker reveals the existence in the text of two competing views of reaJity. The metafictional elements of the novel have the effect of emphasizing the plural nature of reality and of undennining the text's own authority, whilst existing alongside, and competing against, a logocentric emphasis on order and authority. The relation of tension in which these elements exist gives rise to a sense of desire which pervades all aspects of Illywhacker. The title itself embodies Utis tension in that it serves both to assert the authority of the text by virtue of being an established convention of literature (like the dedication which follOws it) and to undermine this authority by its implied function ru:; a caveat emptor. This oscillation between the imposing and undcnnining of authority is neatly reflected in Carey's use of definitions from A Dictionary ofAustralian Colloquialisms which attempt to impose a defmitive meaning on the book's title.
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