Literary Theory as an Amalgam of Three Works
by Comparing three unrelated works to show the underlying Literary Theory.
Using the Barthesian semiotic concepts of nature and myth, and Althusserian state apparatuses I will link the meta-novels of three thematically unrelated stories, Amis’ Time’s Arrow, Timothy Mason’s Time on Fire, and my own A Lonely Life. The three stories do not contain related events, a common character, or any of the same narrative qualities on the surface, but through literary theory an underlying commonality will be unearthed, and a further insight into these theories will be gained.
The first work, Time’s Arrow is a contemporary novel about an old doctor’s life as told by a narrator living inside the body of this man, and experiencing time backwards. The novel starts with the doctor’s death and ends with his birth. The unique perception the narrator has on reality makes the narrator quite naïve and the more impacting parts of the story are lost on it. Cultural traditions, sex, war, violence, all are seen in reverse to the entity which resides inside this doctor. The story takes place from some time in the 90s to just before the second World War, in a sort of Forest Gump fashion as the main character lives through important events in history, while the chronologically-reversed entity inside him tries to make heads or tails of every situation.
Time on Fire is a play set in the American British colonies in the late 1700s during the beginning of the revolutionary war. The story features several family’s struggles with the war and the cultural and moral implications it has. Most of the characters are in their late teens and live in a farming community, but also involved are a school teacher and the small boy he finds, and a black couple escaping slavery. The play is an 18th century soap opera, with pregnancies, love triangles, and war. The characters vie for each others affections while avoiding suspicion of being “British sympathizers.”
The last story is my own, A Lonely Life, and is about a grumpy old man finding companionship in his neighbor’s young boy. The old man lives every day the same way until a scheduling conflict throws this child into his care and forces a change. The story features no dialogue, but compelling imagery, which thrusts the plot along as the old man’s icy heart thaws through nurturing this young child. Both characters struggle through their own lives until they are paired together and begin to function more as a single unit than as individual, hindered, cells.
Liked it
