chaptr 2 til realism

7/28/2019 Chaptr 2 Til Realism

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An existence caught in endless cycles of life and death has compelled humanity

to nurture an ambition for immortality. For an artist the key to immortality lies in art

itself; for true art is true creation, a piece of life, a fragment of space and time.

Consider the pictures on the Grecian urn, the urn which stands for the unravishd

beauty of art, which Keats had observed; they were not mere pictures but immortal

remains of space and time, signifying an artists capability to capture life and to store it

for all of eternity: when old age shall this generation waste/ thou shalt remain, in midst

of other woe/ than ours, a friend to man (Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn). Life is rich

yet it can only be experienced for a fleeting period of time. Whatever was observed,

experienced, and felt was to be thus systematically recorded and preserved. These

became works of art, science which held fragments of spacetime and in capturing them

the writer too achieved longevity. Painting, poetry, prose fiction, and the various genres

of art emerged. But of all the other genres which capture life, the novels flexibility is

one factor that contribute towards its power to manipulate space and time. Observe the

words of D.H.Lawrence which highlights the power of a novelist over others, Being a

novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the

poet. The novel is the one bright book of life (Abraham H. Lass and Brooks Wright,A

Students Guide to 50 European Novels).

Perception of events can only be done by relating them to the space and time

where they occur. A novel records events and projects them in a fictional universe

where the space and time of the real world fuses with that of the world of fiction. Each

novel is a universe in itself, where the writer has formulated her/his own unique space.


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Reading a novel is close to experiencing an event from the point of view of another

person. Yet the novel form is the best to study the domination of time over literature. It

is common knowledge that time is rooted in the phenomenon of change that happens

all around us. What change does is that it brings in a need for order. In literature,

especially in the novel, time has dominated over the general ordering of things; the

content, structure, themes, narration, characterization, and the plot. Thus time and space

bring a kind of restriction. We see an attempt to break free from the restrictions

imposed by time and space in Modernist and Postmodernist novels. But it has to be

acknowledged that while novelists try to dispose off with the conventions established in

the novel form by space and time, they cannot actually disregard the fact that space and

time are inseparable from literature and is of vital importance.

The influence of time can be observed in the linear narration of events which are

uniformly spaced and often happening over a chronological period one after the other.

The spatial aspect too followed a strict order with action taking place in an environment

or setting which never changed much for the particular events happening in the novel.

The setting and space were mostly realistic and were described in detail to enhance the

realistic aspect. The narrator was mostly omniscient and hence the narrative space

included the presence of the author and his ideologies (an ideological space). To add to

all this a single unchanging point of view was promoted in the early novels. Space was

seen as an absolute entity where actions or events took place, these events were

presented realistically and were presented with some order to produce a definite


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meaning. What these early novels did was that they utilized the concept of space and

time to formulate a mould in which later novels could be produced.

Ian Watt in his The Rise of the Novelcomments on the candidates for the first

novelists, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. He points out that

these writers had generated for themselves a unique style completely different from

earlier prose fiction. Even before the novels of Defoe and company, in Spain, a highly

famous work was completed; Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes. Set in sixteenth

century Spain this precursor to the later novels was more than a mere attempt at prose

fiction, it was a highly experimental piece which is today regarded among

postmodernist metafiction. Don Quixote is a mock-chivalric novel where the author

makes fun of earlier chivalric romances. The space of the fantastic gets interwoven with

that of the realistic in the novel. There is linear narration and stress is on absolute time.

The many digressions in the form of stories told by minor characters provides for some

break from the linear narration. The authors ideological space is Christian and highly

moralistic. Don Quixote is an exploration of the nature of the real space and the

imaginary space. Still, the works by Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding are regarded as

works which achieved the stature of the unique form called novel.

Ian Watt is of the opinion that characters in a novel can only be individualized

when they are set in a particular space and time. Uniqueness in space and time was thus

vital in the structuring of early novels. Early novels held a mirror to the times and

mostly dealt with a contemporary time. The precursors to the novel, as it emerged in the

eighteenth-century, distanced themselves from the use of a current spatial or temporal


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setting. These early prose fiction made use of timeless stories. The past experiences

and incidents played a vital role in the incidents that were narrated as events happening

in the present situation in the earlier novels, but the prose romances which were

precursors to the novel relied on circumstantial events. The early novels differed from

prose fiction in their approach where they stressed on the principles of cause and effect.

The novel was thus considered to be mode closer to real life space and time. Watt

claims that time also played a vital role in the characterization of novels. Characters

developed in the course of time. The detailed description of the actions performed by

the various characters in a novel is related to a careful analysis of time and the order

which it brings into the narration of events. Watt says, The attitude to time in early

fiction is very similar; the sequence of events is set in a very abstract continuum of time

and space, and allow very little importance to time as a factor in human relationships

(Watt 24).

Watt is of the opinion that in the late seventeenth century there was a detailed

study of history which generated a sense of the past and the present. It was a

unique and modern sense of time and the importance of the ordering of the novel in the

form of histories thus became deep rooted in the sensibilities of writers and the

reading public. Later, the theories of Newton made it possible to consider time from the

minutest of angles. Thus a large and rich past which stood for the lengthy duration of

events already happened in time was broken up in a way to consider and evaluate even

the minor events, incidents which were avoided as insignificant together with the

thoughts that play inside the minds of persons (characters). What this did was that


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incidents which happened during a short span of time were also represented in novels

which were mostly dealing with a wider historical incident, thus a vast fragment of time

was effectively broken up into smaller fragments to accommodate minute details.

In his novels Daniel Defoe mixed a historical perspective, where he presented

the action as happening on a larger canvas with major events, with the close view

where incidents in the life of a character and their thoughts, however insignificant, were

presented. A passage from hisRobinson Crusoe underlines this statement:

I had also arrived to some little diversions and amusements, which made the

time pass a great deal more pleasantly with me than it did before - first, I had

taught my Poll, as I noted before, to speak; and he did it so familiarly, and talked

so articulately and plain, that it was very pleasant to me; and he lived with me

no less than six-and-twenty years. How long he might have lived afterwards I

know not, though I know they have a notion in the Brazils that they live a

hundred years. My dog was a pleasant and loving companion to me for no less

than sixteen years of my time, and then died of mere old age. As for my cats,

they multiplied, as I have observed, to that degree that I was obliged to shoot

several of them at first

These lines signify the fact that even in a narrative of epic proportions like that in

Robinson Crusoe, Defoe took special care to discuss the minute details in the life of the

character. He also uses such a technique to project events which may seem historically

accurate, events which might have happened in the past. With detailed historical

references, Defoe presents the unique actions and thoughts of his characters to structure


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a narrative which can be placed in relation to some particular space and time and could

thus be regarded as detailed biographies which are recordings of events happened in the

distant past. Observe how Defoe presents his novel as: The Life and Strange Surprising

Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, a mixture of history and biography, objective space

and time combined with the subjective. Defoe never considered his works as novels

but as histories, thus his focus on importance to time is justified. Such novels played

with the concept of histories and with the concept of time as portrayed in histories.

The concept of actual time was broken to an extent by such early novels. Defoe

never kept much sense of exact dates and the exact space where incidents occurred,

he used incidents which had happened in the past and re-created it in his novels. Space

and time were re-molded and evolved into a new form. Yet Robinson Crusoepromoted

a linear perspective towards time, incidents were structured in such a way that they

followed one after the other. Defoe paid much attention to the setting of his novels. He

was particularly adamant about the space where the action took place. Special interest

was thus given to describe it in detail to such an extent that it may seem like real space

itself. The incidents in the novel were presented keeping in mind the factor of the way

in which such events might happen in real life situations. Thus a fictional space was

manipulated to give the feel of a real space. The environment or space thus

complemented the otherwise fictional characters.

Samuel Richardsons novels also adhere to a linear time concept. He presented

the events in his novels in a larger and much detailed timescale. Ian Watt considers his

masterpiecePamela, where Richardson uses an epistolary style of narration. This style


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is highly unconventional and could challenge time constrains in fiction. Yet Richardson

sticks to his detailed timescales. Each letter in the novel is super scribed by the day and

time of its composition. Richardson thus championed an absolute time where events

happened in some order, one after the other. Richardson concentrated on the inner

spaces of mansions and houses and described them in detail. This can be viewed as an

attempt by the author to capture a more restricted subjective space rather than the wider

historical space.

According to Ian Watt, Henry Fielding approaches the problem of time in

his novels from a more external and traditional point of view(Watt 26). A major

innovation which he introduced in the treatment of time was the use of an almanac in

his creation of Tom Jones. Nearly all of the events in the novel are ordered

chronologically which points towards the authors appreciation of linear time. Watt

elaborates on this style by Fielding as used in Tom Jones:

with slight exceptions, nearly all the events of his [Fieldings] novel are

chronologically consistent, not only in relation to each other, and to the time that

each stage of the journey of the various characters from the West Country to

London would actually have taken, but also in relation to such external

considerations as the proper phases of the moon and the time-table of the

Jacobite Rebellion in 1745, the supposed year of the action ( Watt 26).

This proves that time was increasing its dominance over the novel form with its

supposed guarantee that an ordering time with relation to real time would enable an

author to make his work seem more genuine or authentic and to an extent more


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historically accurate. Fielding also paid considerable interest to the setting and spatial

aspects of his novels. Particular interest was taken to demarcate places which stood for

real life spaces.

Richardsons ideological space in novels was dominated by high morality. They

set standards for later novels. When Fielding parodied the works of Richardson it was

actually a clash of ideological spaces. Fielding was critical of Richardsons narrative

technique where he utilized more of the present tense to narrate incidents. While

Richardson was a passive observer of incidents in his narrative space, yet shaping it

according to his moralistic ideology indirectly, Fielding actively passed comments and

manipulated his space in more of a direct manner.

Other important writers during this period included Jane Austen who brought in

a new variety of space with her novels, a female space where the perspective of a

woman dominated. This female space was unique and different. All her novels are

narrated from the perspective of female characters and were dealing with middle class

space and life. But her space was very limited, events were confined to a minimum area,

mainly the middle class circle. They too followed a linear narration which had

traditional endings culminating in marriages of the main characters. Walter Scott was

also a very famous writer of that period who brought in a historical dimension to novels.

But he manipulated with actual historical time and with the events which were

recorded to have happened in the past. Historical characters were misplaced from their

timelines as in the case of his novel Kenilworth, where we find William Shakespeare

appearing far ahead of his times. His novels can be seen as the precursors to modern


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subverted histories including those by Amitav Ghosh and others who played with

historical time sequences.

Thus novels in the early period concentrated on realistic depiction of characters

and events. Contemporary spacetime reflected in these novels and its characterization.

While the past was observed and re-created, there was no such reference as to the

future. Time was linear and space more realistic. A fictional space was hard to find,

except to some extent in the novels of Walter Scott. A gothic space was introduced

during this time by Horace Walpole in his The Castle of Otranto. Here the fantastic

space mingles with that of reality. Experimentation in form and attempts to break free

from the structure of space and time can also be seen during this time in The Life and

Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. The novel was highly ahead of the

times and is today regarded among the postmodern novels for its innovations in

technique. The novel cleverly broke the monotonous linear time based narration. Even

the narrative space is fragmented and broken. The novel is considered as an example of

metafiction and it constantly reminds us of its fictional status, thus confusing the

narrative. Observe the following passage from the novel:

I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people

in it, who are no readers at all,who find themselves ill at ease, unless

they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which

concerns you.It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and

from a backwardness in my nature to disappoint any one soul living, that

I have been so very particular already. As my life and opinions are likely


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to make some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, will take in

all ranks, professions, and denominations of men whatever,be no less

read than the PilgrimsProgress itself - - - and, in the end, prove the

very thing whichMontaigne dreaded his essays should turn out, that is, a

book for a parlour-window;I find it necessary to consult every one a

little in his turn; and therefore must beg pardon for going on a little

further in the same way: Forwhich cause, right glad I am, that I have

begun the history of myself in the way I have done; and that I am able to

go on tracing every thing in it, as Horace says, ab Ovo. ( Laurence

Sterne, Tristram Shandy, Wordsworth Editions, p 5 )

Sterne also uses several time schemes in the novel. The novel effectively uses the

innovations in printing with the presenting of a blank page, a marbled page, a

misplaced chapter, wavy lines which disrupt the flow of the text and thus distorts the

linear time narration. Digressions are numerous and these prove to be an effective

method to disrupt the flow of time. The narrative space merges with the self reflexive

space of the author. The novel itself is structured in such a way as to ridicule the linear

nature of time. The protagonist Tristram Shandy is born only at the end of the novel and

most of the plot narrates the incidents leading to it.

Mid nineteenth-century saw the rise of the Romantic novel and later in the

century a form of novel which would be called the Victorian novel came into the

limelight. Romanticism focused more on an imaginary space and fantasy. Gothic fiction

was also a popular form during this period, Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights (1847)


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had a gothic setting and space. The novel also experimented with the techniques of

narration. Emily Bronte used a frame narrative to combine aspects of first person and

third person narration and point of view. Subtle shifting of the point of view enabled her

to break the constrains of linear time in narration. The novel is mostly told in flashbacks

which also enabled the author to manipulate with time. The possibilities of the

psychological space was made use by writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne in his The

Scarlet Letter, and by Herman Melville, who also brought in the space of the great

abyss into the narrative space of the novel, in hisMoby Dick.

With the Victorian period came novelists like Charles Dickens, William

Makepeace Thackeray, and Thomas Hardy. Novels were mostly serialized and thus

novelists tried to incorporate mini-climaxes in every episode or issue where a part of

the novel would appear. This method unknowingly, yet effectively, stretched time to its

limits; numerous incidents could be narrated with little concern for the duration of time

and the space where they occur. Yet it is also true that Dickens, Hardy, and Thackeray

followed a linear narrative technique. The space and time they depicted was

contemporary and realistic. The space and setting was industrial Britain in the novels of

Dickens. Hardy made some innovations in space by creating an imaginary space called

Wessex. DickenssA Christmas Carolcan be regarded as the first example of a novel

which presents the possibilities of time travel; the episode of the three ghosts who take

the greedy Ebenezer Scrooge to his seemingly probable future, present, and past is an

episode which can be read in relation to the concept of time travel. Lewis Carrolls

Alices Adventures in Wonderlandand Through the Looking Glass made good use of


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a fictional time and setting., it even presents moments frozen in time, or time being

slowed down considerably in the episode where we are presented with Alice the

protagonist returning to the real world only to find that time has not passed one bit.

Gustave Flauberts 1857 novel Madame Bovary was a milestone in the

experimental novel category. It introduced a kind of cinematographic technique in

narration where multiple events are narrated in a single moment of time by juxtaposing

incidents one after the other. The popular country fair scene in the novel

revolutionized the study of space in narration of fiction. Flaubert was successful in

presenting numerous events in one particular space and time, this he achieved by

breaking up the temporal sequence by, cutting back and forth between various levels

of action(Frank 2). Here the author effectively challenges and refutes the linear and

absolute nature of time and supports a relative time, where events always happen

simultaneously. In the agricultural fair scene, according to Joseph Frank, the time

flow of the narrative is halted(Frank 2). Events unfold simultaneously and these are

presented in a single time. The novel thus demonstrates how the flow of time can be

disrupted or fragmented or stretched to its limits to occupy numerous events happening

simultaneously in a single space. The essential realistic setting is kept intact by Flaubert

and this technique is confined to only one chapter, yet it proved as inspiration to later

modernist writers including James Joyce who implemented the technique on a large

scale in his epic masterpiece Ulysses.

Realism and Naturalism still prevailed during the later half of the nineteenth

century. Realistic fiction promoted a realistic space and time which went with the


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contemporary realistic setting of that time. Realism tried to present life as it really is

and hence focus was on ordering events in a linear time. Incidents which were mostly

everyday or commonplace found prominence in such novels. Details of setting,

space, time, or characters were described in minute details to make the work seem more

real. Naturalism was an extreme form of realism. George Eliot and William Dean

Howells are the pioneers associated with the realistic movement in the novel. Emile

Zola is named with relation to naturalism in fiction.

chaptr 2 til realism

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