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Introduction

A unique proposition of travelling back in time, without a time machine or any

futuristic contraption, to be offered the possibility of swimming twenty-four hours

into the past (Eco 310); such a prospect, to manipulate and rework the very linear

flow of time, and space is presented with ease by Umberto Eco in his The Island of

the Day Before. The novel thus immediately strikes a cord with the philosophies of

time and space with not just this idea of time travel, but also with numerous

discussions on the very concept of time-space. But these ideas gradually develop into

an oppressive form with the protagonist, and representative of the postmodern hero-

Roberto, being thrown into a state of paranoia by his, simultaneous, excessive

obsession and constant terror of this time-space predicament. The novel thus focuses

on how time and space proved to be oppressive and restrictive, both in real life and

in the narrative fiction. Observe the world around and one can easily detect the

looming presence of space and time. The ticking of numerous clocks, calendars being

updated, birthdays and anniversaries being celebrated, schedules being set, numerous

scientific debates on the structure of the universe, personal spaces, living spaces,

narrative spaces all these are testimonies to the hegemony of spacetime. The very

medium of time-space is becoming a controlling entity over human existence.

Compared to the early periods when time and space were a scale to assess the universe

and it diverse phenomenas, today these have evolved into the very standard for

order in life and in fiction. This resulted in the imposing of several restrictions

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generated by the standards of space and time. This study attempts at unearthing how

space and time prove as oppressive, restrictive entities and how Eco through his novel

The Island of the Day Before attempts to break free from time-space constrains.

The novel challenges the absolute nature of time-space. But it would prove to

be insufficient to use it as the only referent to study the oppressive nature of time and

space and the subsequent protests against it. Thus a need arose to scrutinize the author

and his mentality towards space and time standards. Umberto Eco is a world

renowned semiotician and a bestselling novelist of fictional works including The

Name of the Rose (1983),Foucaults Pendulum (1989), The Island of the Day Before

(1995), Baudolino (2001), The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005), and The

Prague Cemetery (2011). His specialization in medieval history and semiotics also

resulted in his production of several non fiction works like A Theory of Semiotics

(1976) played a vital role in popularizing not just the branch called Semiotics but

also established Eco as a world renowned authority over the topic. A close inspection

of his methodology and style, in his novels, points to the fact that he can be included

among postmodern writers of fiction.

His fictional works, including the focus of this project The Island of the Day

Before, fit perfectly into the category of postmodern fiction with their fragmented

narrative, intertextuality, pastiche and radical critique of linear and absolute time-

space. The Island of the Day Before proves more than compatible to the literary

anthology of postmodern fiction. Its association with time-space demolition is also

very explicit; we can find numerous discussions and debates relating to the ideas of

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fiction. Such a scientific discussion aided to formulate the idea of a Spacetime

Continuum. It is the combination of space and time into a single continuum. Herman

Minkowski, a mathematician and former tutor to Albert Einstein proposed this

concept, Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into

mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent

reality (Petkov 81). This proposal of combining space and time into a single concept

of spacetime would enable this study to carefully analyze the dominant presence of

time and space in fiction. The study would be deficient without the use of this unique

proposition which would in no way hinder the analysis of works of fiction, but would

make it more fruitful venture.

The dissertation thus focuses on how Eco effectively Zaps the spacetime

grand narrative and reduces its dictatorship over human sensibilities. Through the

process of Zapping, which is a typical postmodern act of breaking up the linear

narrative and its oppressive influence, Eco challenges the various ideologies

associated with spacetime. This thesis is also an attempt to unearth the various

methodologies utilized by Eco to demystify spacetime.

Chapter One: Spacetime Inception: A Historical Analysis deals with the

numerous scientific, philosophical, and cultural studies related to spacetime. These are

essential to understand the various ideologies related to spacetime; which would in

turn enable an analysis of the gradual ascendance into the role of an absolute entity,

an oppressor, by spacetime. The focus of this chapter will be on the various debates

surrounding the Absolute or Linear nature of spacetime, headed by Isaac Newton, and

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of spacetime. Special focus is laid on Ecos use of postmodern techniques, semiotics,

and his own unique style of presentation to disrupt and destabilize spacetime. It relates

how Eco adds to the postmodern contempt for spacetime and its disregard for the

various spacetime constrains. The chapter discusses how spacetime ideologies and

their subsequent restrictions are hurled into oblivion by Eco. The concluding chapter

outlines the basic ideas discussed in the study. It tries to tackle the text and to use its

subtle references to formulate an answer to why Eco, in particular, and postmodern

writers, in general, have total disregard for order which spacetime can bring into a

narrative.

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Chapter 1

Spacetime Inception: A Historical Analysis

Science and philosophy are inseparable from the analysis of spacetime in Ecos The

Island of the Day Before. Spacetime and its ideas of linearity, absolutism has roots in

the concepts of science. Science and philosophy were one and the same for a

considerable period of time. The preoccupation of early philosophers (scientists) was

to find answers by observing the world all around; a world which was constantly in a

state of flux. By careful examining of this phenomenon of change, the seeds of

spacetime ideas began to sprout. It was thus observed that with change there was

also something that seemed to be passing, an entity that was behind all this change, the

phenomenon of spacetime.

Our everyday perception of the universe comes from looking up at the

sky to see the Sun in the daytime and, more profoundly, to see

thousands of stars in the night sky.some of the oldest questions since

the beginnings of human thought are: How large is the universe? Did it

ever begin? What are the principal constituents of the present universe?

Will (space) time ever end? (Frampton 1).

From the time when man started to radically question the world around him and its

numerous mysteries, he observed that nature was in a constant state of flux. The

space which he inhabited was continuously forming, demolishing, and re-forming

itself through a certain period of time. This prompted him to ponder over the very

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center of these magical transformations in nature. This culminated in the discovery

of the phenomenon called change which was constantly happening around in nature.

With the idea of change came the concept of spacetime. Change has always been a

consistent phenomenon. It is an obvious fact that spacetime and its presence can only

be perceived through observing this change that is happening all around the world,

up in the cosmos, and in the universe beyond. But it is highly essential that change

and spacetime both are to be observed, analyzed, and judged. Only through the

careful scrutiny using the senses and reason, we can determine the presence of

change and the passing of something, that something called spacetime.

Spacetime, as we know it today, was not so dominant before. Philosophers and

Scientists may debate on the question of when spacetime began. But that is a

completely different and complex question with a number of answers, each

contradicting or supporting the other. Spacetime needs to be perceived and observed

and the whole question of its origin can be set aside for the more important one of how

it was considered by human beings, how it became a dominant phenomenon, how it

governed human thinking and consciousness, and how it became a powerful entity that

controlled our very existence, our life, our death, and our history.

Scientists agree that civilization actually began with the end of the ice age,

some 12,000 years ago. Progress from a prehistoric state was made possible because

man was inquisitive; philosophy was always in the blood of man. He perceived the

changes happening in nature, the change from light to darkness, the movement of the

heavenly bodies, and the endless yet periodic cycles of life and death. Living in a

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social setup generated a sense of order and this need for order further gave strength

to studying the changes happening around and especially the influence of spacetime.

Aristotle was highly concerned with the changes that happened in nature. This

change seemed to prompt us to believe in the presence of spacetime. Aristotle said:

Whether, if soul did not exist, time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be

asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be

counted (Aristotle 29). Thus he proposes that when we are ready to observe,

perceive and record change, we can easily understand the passing of spacetime. But

when we disregard change and quit observing the passage of spacetime, it ceases to

exist. Human reason and intellect thus plays a vital role in our understanding of

spacetime. Aristotle claimed that time is the measure of change but also that time is

not change because a change may be faster or slower, but not time (Aristotle

32). He advocates the notion that there is no time apart from change (41).

Aristotle considered spacetime as a natural entity similar to matter itself, something

which is hard to divide and something which is continuous. He said, In respect of size

there is no minimum; for every line is divided ad infinitum. Hence it is so with time

(Aristotle 36).

Aristotle also propagated the notion of absolute spacetime. He believed that

events determine the passage of spacetime, the period between two events which when

measured gives you the exact spacetime for these events to happen. Aristotle might

have been considering the natural events that took place all around nature. The

seasonal cycles and other such natural phenomenon could have been predicted thus

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with some accuracy (Gaarder 107). Thus with the ideas of Aristotle, who dominated

world thinking and philosophy for a considerable amount of time, the notion of

spacetime being absolute got a firm foundation. Aristotle also considered time to be

a separate entity from space. Later on his ideas were widely challenged; it became

clear that there was no such thing as absolute spacetime because it cannot be perceived

directly. We evaluate and understand spacetime differently, spacetime is different for

different people, even when two people are observing the same event their evaluation

of spacetime would be different.

Christian Theologians who had their deep faith in divine power of God behind

the creation of the universe, believed spacetime also as an entity created by god. St.

Augustine was of the opinion that spacetime never existed before our universe was

created. But he does not hesitate to share his confusion with the philosophers of his

time regarding the definition of spacetime when he says: What then is time? If no one

asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know

(Augustine 18). St. Augustine had a very subjective view of spacetime. His ideas on

spacetime can be related with those of Aristotle. He firmly believed that spacetime is

nothing in reality but exists only in the minds apprehension of that reality.

Spacetime gradually started to dominate over our consciousness and thus a

need arose to generate methods to measure it, to contain it, to dominate it. Not all

human beings who lived in societies at that time felt the need to record spacetime.

Some were quite happy with observing the single most powerful entity that was seen

producing change- the sun. It was the giver of life, the destroyer, and the perpetuator

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(and the space beyond) were numerous. Cosmology thus played a vital part in forming

the concept of spacetime. The stars and their different constellations were considered

to signal some incident that might happen later in spacetime. The eclipse of the moon

also helped in determining days, months, and years. Religion too started to take root,

with its faith grounded in the human perception of change and the passing of

spacetime, spacetime which was just one among the entities which served the all

powerful perpetuator of this change- God.

With the onset of the 17th century, discourses on spacetime started to expand

considerably. Much of the debates were confined to Europe. Notable contributions to

this behalf were made by Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, and Gottfried Leibniz. Rene

Descartes had a unique explanation of why spacetime produces changes or why time

continuously changes while space remains more or less intact. He was of the opinion

that God continuously re-creates everything after a certain period of spacetime and

hence everything is seen to change with spacetime. Material bodies have the property

of spatial extension but no temporal endurance, according to him. He thus concluded

that time was a kind of sustenance or re-creation. A continuous process of change

which was carried out by the divine will of God. But 17 th century physicists Isaac

Barrow and his famous student Isaac Newton rejected this connection between

spacetime and change. Barrow was of the opinion that spacetime was beyond and

independent of change, an entity which had existed even before the creation of the

universe. Newton further proposed that spacetime was not a material substance. This

theory of Newton and Barrow is called as the Substantival theory of spacetime.

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Isaac Newton and his theories proved to be vital in the understanding of

spacetime. His three laws of motion revolutionized the scientific way of observing

spacetime. Newton believed in the concept of absolute time but refused to accept the

possibility of an absolute space. Newton said Absolute space, in its own nature,

without relation to anything external, remains always similar and immovable

(Newton 128). His theory on absolute time is called as Absolutism. Timelines were

based on the concept of absolute time. Until the twentieth century this concept of

absolute time, as propagated by Newton and Galileo, prevailed.

Galileo used the pendulum cock and a water clock to measure spacetime.

These clocks helped him to further propagate his theories on absolute spacetime. The

precise motion of a pendulum was calculated in proportion with his own pulse rate in

an experiment which he conducted in 1583. The workings of the water clock are

recorded in his workTwo New Sciences (1638). These experiments and their apparent

success prompted Galileo to believe that spacetime is the same for all reference frames

(absolute spacetime) (Galileo 64). Later with the laws of motion by Isaac Newton in

the late seventeenth century, scientific ways to calculate spacetime was conceived.

The laws of Newton were used in physics to calculate linear spacetime. Linear

spacetime is similar to absolute spacetime and hence is considered universally

applicable to everything dealing with spacetime. In Newtons words:

Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own

nature flows equably without regard to anything external and by

another name called duration: relative, apparent, and common time, is

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some sensible and external measure of duration by the means of

motion, which is commonly used instead of true time; such as an hour,

a day, a month, a year (Newton 156).

With this new parameters of linear spacetime established, science now had a

novel way of observing and calculating the duration between events. It was a highly

influential finding by Newton and it received appreciation from the scientific circle.

Clocks thus began to be recognized as devices capable of measuring spacetime, linear

spacetime. This was a period of a whole new scientific revolution of experimentation

and analysis. Proof of every hypothesis was provided and hence science became more

accurate and popularly acceptable. This influence of science dominated over the

masses and their ideas on spacetime. Newtons laws were even used to study the

motion of celestial bodies. His ground breaking laws on gravity and motion hence

opened a new chapter in the study of spacetime.

Newtons absolutism was refuted by Gottfried Leibniz. His studies were also

based on change. Leibniz proposed his theories on spacetime which he considered to

be relative; he said I hold space to be something merely relativeas an order of

coexistences, as time is an order of successions (Jolley 39).Newton challenged the

theories of Leibniz with his remarks on spacetime: Absolute space, in its own nature,

without relation to anything external, always remains similar and immovable (Jolley

39). Leibniz objected to Newtons views and proposed his relational theory of

spacetime. His argument again was that spacetime was not an entity which had an

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independent existence. It too depended on the happening of events no matter how

irregular they were. Leibniz considered the overall ordering of events as time.

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant considered spacetime as a form of

human intuition. He considered the relationship of spacetime with the human mind, a

unique concept at that time. Spacetime, for him, was more how the mind of a person

perceived it. Kant felt that human senses could only perceive the world through

spacetime. In his Critique of Pure Reason he says that the representation of space

cannot be obtained from the relations of appearance through experience, but this outer

experience is itself first possible only through this representation (Kant 45).Kants

idea was that we can never observe the presence of spacetime but can experience

change, and the events that happen in spacetime. He was of the opinion that spacetime

was more in the psyche rather than in the physique. There is no actual physical

perception of spacetime but we experience the world as a series of processes in

spacetime. This was a whole new idea on the way of observing spacetime. The

conscious mind was vital here and spacetime became a meta-physical entity. Change

happened not when the physical object actually changed but when the mind

perceives the fact that an object now different from its former state and has changed.

While the theories on the concept of spacetime advanced, instruments to

measure spacetime were also evolving simultaneously. Mechanical clocks, which

made use of weights and springs, began to appear in the late 1300s. The first clocks

did not have hour or minute hands, but later clocks included these also. In 1656,

Christian Huggens invented the pendulum clock for popular use. These clocks were

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much accurate compared to earlier varieties. Clocks were vital for navigation purposes

also. The knowledge of spacetime and that too accurate spacetime helped sailors to

reach their destinations safely and on time. In 1761, John Harrison succeeded in

inventing a small clock accurate enough to use for navigation at sea. This added a

whole new dimension to spacetime and spacetime keeping. Accuracy was vital at sea

where there were no actual landmarks to determine ones position. The only true

companion to the sailors being the pole star, but it was not enough. Thousands of

ships were lost at sea or were destroyed because of the inability to calculate precise

spacetime. With the invention of the chronometer by Harrison, navigation became

easier. Thus the quest for spacetime, in a way, assisted sea explorations. Such

explorations would later assist in colonization and imperialism is another aspect of this

altogether.

By the early 1800s mechanical parts identical to each other were produced

which facilitated the mass production of clocks. Clocks became cheaper and popular.

Families could now afford for them, spacetime started to become more personal, in a

sense a consumer item. From here begins the steps which would lead to todays lack

of regard for spacetime. The concept of linear spacetime, as promoted by Barrow,

Newton, Kant and other philosophers and scientists was still strong during this period.

This strengthened the place of the concept of linear spacetime in the mentality of

nineteenth century European science and philosophy.

Up until the beginning of the 20 th century, people continued to believe in

absolute spacetime. With Albert Einstein science found new ways to challenge the

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notions of absolute spacetime. Albert Einstein was a German physicist whose path

breaking findings on the general and special relativity paved way to a fresh

understanding of spacetime in science. He demonstrated spacetime as not being an

absolute entity which flowed at a fixed rate (Parsons 113). He proved that spacetime,

is relative to the degree of motion of the observer (depending on the position of the

observer, distances either seem to compress or stretch, and clocks to run faster or more

slowly) (Parsons 113). Spacetime measurements thus could never have absolute,

universal meaning. This groundbreaking theory in science put an end to absolute

spacetime. Spacetime became more personal, each person who experienced an event

in spacetime must perceive it differently. Stephen Hawking in his A Brief History of

Time says The theory of relativity, however, forces us to change fundamentally our

ideas of space and time. We must accept that time is not completely separate from and

independent of space (Hawking 52) To quote Hawking again:

the discovery that the speed of light appeared the same to every

observer, no matter how he was moving, led to the theory of relativity

and in that one had to abandon the idea that there was a unique absolute

time. Instead, each observer would have his own measure of time as

recorded by a clock that he carried: clocks carried by different

observers would not necessarily agree. Thus time became a more

personal concept, relative to the observer who measured it (Hawking

60).

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Relative spacetime is considered with regard to some motion. This is similar

to the measuring of spacetime using the rhythmical motion of a pendulum, a clock or

the motion of the heavenly bodies. Relative spacetime is against the notion of absolute

spacetime and hence it may not be accurate. It will vary from person to person. The

theory of relativity is grounded in the study of light and its speed. The speed of light is

now used to measure spacetime.

Henri Bergson was of the opinion that spacetime as it is experienced by the

consciousness is entirely different from the spacetime which we have come to take for

granted through the configurations of clocks and calendars. Subjective consciousness

is vital to understand spacetime and to actually experience it. Bergson supported the

claims for the union of space and time into one entity called spacetime. He was of

the opinion that through our subjective perception of spacetime we can experience

spacetime as it really is: a continuum in which past, and present interpenetrate or

melt into each other (Parsons 111). Bergson calls this duration.

Another development was in the concept of relationship between space and

time, a unique concept of space time was formulated. In the very words of

Hermann Minkowski who played a vital role in promoting this concept of the union of

space and time: Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade

away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an

independent reality (Petkov 81). Minkowski was Einsteins former tutor and his ideas

helped Einstein in formulating his theory of Relativity which demonstrated and further

expanded on the claims that space and time are inseparable: time and space

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needed to be understood as inseparable: as a combination of three-dimensional space

plus a fourth dimension of time (Parsons 112). Scientific discoveries in the field of

astronomy aided in the understanding of the universe and through it the concept of

spacetime. Edwin Hubbles observations suggested the possibility of a Big Bang as

the reason behind the origin of the universe and with it the birth of spacetime.

In this period heated debates were also held on whether spacetime is real or

just an imaginary construct. The philosopher John Ellis Mc Taggart was foremost in

this debate. He joined the long line of early philosophers including Zeno, Plato,

Spinoza, and Hegel by claiming that spacetime did not exist. Philosophers including

Mc Taggart claimed that the passage of spacetime was mere illusion and the only real

entity was the present. He argues that the relationship between the past, present, and

the future is continuously changing, but spacetime is based upon this relationship

between past, present, and the future. A concept which keeps on changing and has no

firm base to stand upon is a false concept; hence spacetime is merely an illusion. In the

words of Mc Taggart from his The Unreality of Time,

Position in time, as time appears to usare distinguished in two ways.

Each position is earlier than some, and later than some, of the other

positions. And each position is either past, present, or future. The

distinctions of the former class are permanent, while those of the latter

are not. But an event, which is now present, was future and will be

past (Sherover 282).

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Mc Taggart further asserts his claims by saying, it because the distinctions of

past, present and future seem to be essential for time, time is unreal. Mc Taggart

implements his theories on spacetime to study the concept of history. He observes

that historical events have same spacetime characteristics as made up stories.

Stories and histories are based upon the past, present, and the future; concepts which

he proved as ever changing, hence histories, which rely on the memory of the past,

which varies from person to person is no better than made up stories (Sherover 278-

285).

The advancement in science has facilitated the better understanding of our

universe. The quest for understanding our origins thus becomes a quest to crack the

confusion surrounding spacetime. Stephen Hawking and his revelations regarding the

Big Bang have proved to be vital. He considers the logical possibility that spacetime

might have had its beginning with the Big Bang since an earlier time simply would

not be defined (Hawking 64). According to him, the laws of science do not

distinguish between the past and the future. Events are described as things that happen

at a particular point in spacetime. While spacetime is unique for all events, it too is

affected by the events that happen in the universe. Thus Hawking makes it clear that

our views of the nature of time have changed over the years.

Hawking uses the second law of thermodynamics, which says that in a closed

system disorder, or entropy, always increases with spacetime, to put forward his

unique concept of the Arrow of Time. He says that, The increase of disorder or

entropy with time is one example of what is called an arrow of time, something that

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distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time (Hawking 187). His

view on the Psychological Arrow of Time is very insightful, according to him the

psychological arrow of time, is the direction in which we feel time passes, the

direction in which we remember the past but not the future (Hawking 188).

Recent debates have been held on discussing whether the universe really had a

beginning and with it did spacetime too began, and also whether with the end of this

universe spacetime too would end. Scientists have put forward the concept of the Big

Rip a phenomenon to happen some trillion years in the future. But these scientific

theories indirectly give strength to our notions regarding the ever continuing presence

of spacetime. Their assumptions that spacetime might have begun with the Big Bang

prompts many to place spacetime besides the question of our origins and the concept

of change. The general theory of relativity supports this claim; it says that spacetime,

and the universe began with the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago. Before the Big

Bang there was no spacetime.

Kari Enqvist is of the opinion that in the theory of relativity, the concept of

time begins with the Big Bang the same way as parallels of latitude begin at the

North Pole. In the twentieth century scientists have found solutions to Einsteins

general theory of relativity that helped in propagating the concept of closed loops of

spacetime. These loops or closed curves in spacetime allows a person to go forward

continuously in spacetime until one arrives in ones own past. Gdel argues for the

unreality of spacetime. Physicists of the twenty first century are more inclined

towards the belief of spacetime being unreal. They consider it as not a fundamental

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part of nature. Debates are held on this issue and most philosophers seem to agree on

the presence of spacetime, but like St. Augustine they too are unable to define what

spacetime is.

Thus a gradual ascendance of spacetime into the state of a grand narrative can

be observed. From science, which is in itself an influential discourse over human lives,

spacetime ideologies shifted their attention to the social structure and the human

psyche. Such ideas started to govern the very functioning of the society and hence

became embedded in our sensibilities. The probability of such ideas and studies

getting due representation and reflection in fiction was high. While the fictional

universe tried to portray the world around as truthfully as possible (initially),

spacetime was utilized as a mode to order events and perceptions in a narrative. A

symbiosis was the vision behind such a cooperation, but unfortunately it did not take

effect due to numerous reasons.

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Chapter 2

Spacetime Dissection: A Generic Excursus

While science and philosophy formulated numerous theories on spacetime and

formulated its status as a grand narrative, the fictional universe was catching up

simultaneously with its faithful representation of scientific theories on spacetime. This

too was a gradual process and a process which followed the gradual decline of

spacetime ideologies in fiction. The careful analysis of spacetime in fictional writing

would be fruitful if a careful analysis of the novel form is to be done. A novel too like

any other genre in literature got influenced by the various ideologies associated with

spacetime. Yet realization would dawn later on in fiction and the protest would be

radical and ruthless against the linear and absolute nature of spacetime.

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

Spacetime. 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

fragments 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 34). 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

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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 contributes towards its power to manipulate spacetime. 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 (Lawrence 197).

Events are perceived by relating them to the spacetime where they occur. A

novel records events and projects them in a fictional universe where the spacetime 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 spacetime. Reading a novel is

close to experiencing an event from the point of view of another person. The novel

genre can be scrutinized to study the dominance of spacetime over literature.

Spacetime relies on the phenomenon of change; change brings in a need for order.

In fiction, spacetime has dominated over the general ordering of things; the content,

structure, themes, narration, characterization, and the plot, infusing a kind of

restriction. A struggle to break free from the restrictions imposed by spacetime can

be observed in Modernist and Postmodernist fiction. But while novelists try to dispose

off with the conventions by spacetime, they rarely disregard the inseparable state of

spacetime in literature.

Space and time were viewed as separate entities and treated separately by

early novelists. The influence of time can be observed in the linear narration of

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events which are uniformly spaced and often chronologically presented. Narrative

space also had a strict order, with action taking place in a setting which never

changed much for particular events being presented. The setting was mostly realistic

and was described in detail to enhance the realistic aspect. The narrator remained

mostly omniscient and the narrative space held the presence of the author and his

ideologies (an ideological space). A single unchanging point of view was promoted

in the early novels. Spacetime was presented as an absolute entity where the action

unfolded; events were described realistically with some order to produce a definite

meaning. These early novels utilized the concept of spacetime to structure a mould

in which later novels could be produced.

Ian Watt in his The Rise of the Novel lists candidates for the title of first

novelist, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. He explains that

these writers had generated a unique style radically different from early prose fiction.

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes was also a visionary attempt at novel writing.

Set in sixteenth-century Spain, this precursor to the later novels was more than a

mere attempt at prose fiction. It is a highly experimental piece which is rated today

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

author makes fun of earlier chivalric romances. The spacetime of the fantastic gets

interwoven with that of the realistic in the novel. Yet emphasis is on linear narration

and absolute spacetime. The many digressions in the form of stories told by minor

characters provide a break from linear narration. The authors ideological space is

Christian and highly moralistic.Don Quixote explores the nature of real and imaginary

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spacetime. Still, the works by Defoe, and his contemporaries are considered works

which achieved the stature of the unique form called novel.

Ian Watt is expounds that characters in a novel can only be individualized

when they are set in a particular spacetime. A unique spacetime was emphasized in

the structuring of early novels, which held a mirror to the times and dealt with a

contemporary spacetime. The precursors to the novel, as it emerged in the eighteenth

century, discarded the use of a current spatio-temporal setting. The early prose

fiction utilized timeless stories; thus past experiences and events influenced the

incidents which were narrated as events happening in the present, while prose

romances which were precursors to the novel relied on circumstantial events. These

differed from prose fiction in approach by stressing on the principles of cause and

effect. The novel became closer to real life spacetime. Watt describes spacetime

playing a vital role in the characterization of novels. Characters developed in the

course of spacetime. Detailed descriptions of actions performed by various characters

in a novel were related to a careful analysis of spacetime and the order which it

brought into the narrative. 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 proposes that in the late seventeenth-century there was a detailed study of

history, generating a sense of the past and the present. This was a unique

ideology of spacetime. The need to order novels in the form of historical texts thus

deep rooted in the sensibilities of writers and the reading public. Later, the theories of

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Newton aided to scrutinize spacetime from the minutest of angles. A large and rich

past which stood for the lengthy duration of events, already happened in spacetime,

was dissected to consider and evaluate even the minor incidents which were avoided

as insignificant along with thoughts which played inside the minds of people

(characters). This facilitated the representation of incidents which happened during a

short span of spacetime in novels which mostly dealt with wider historical incidents.

Thus a vast space time was effectively dismantled into smaller fragments to

accommodate minute packets of spacetime.

In his novels Daniel Defoe fused a historical perspective, with its larger

canvas, with the close view where incidents in the life of a character and their

thoughts, however insignificant, were presented. A passage from his Robinson Crusoe

underlines this statement:

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

made the time pass a great deal more pleasantlyI 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.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

(Defoe 287).

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Thus even in a narrative of epic proportions like Robinson Crusoe; Defoe took special

care to discuss the minute details in the life of the character. With detailed historical

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

structure a narrative which can be placed in relation to some particular spacetime and

thus attain status of detailed biographies, recordings of events happened in the past.

Observe how Defoe presents his novel as: The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures

of Robinson Crusoe, a mixture of history and biography, objective spacetime

combined with subjective spacetime. He never regarded his works as novels but as

histories. Such novels played with the concept of histories and with spacetime

being portrayed in them (Goring 56).

Absolute spacetime was challenged to an extent by such early novels. Defoe

never kept much sense of exact dates and the exact spacetime where incidents

occurred, he used incidents which had happened in the past and re-created it in his

novels. Spacetime was re-molded into a new form. Yet Robinson Crusoe promoted

linear spacetime, incidents followed a chronological order. Defoe was particular about

the spacetime where the action unfolded. Emphasis was given to describe it in detail to

such an extent that it might mimic real spacetime. Incidents were presented

considering carefully ways in which such events happened in real life situations. A

fictional space was manipulated to generate the feeling of real space.

Richardsons novels also adhered to linear spacetime concepts. He presented

events in his novels on a larger and much detailed timescale. According to Ian Watt

Richardsons Pamela uses an epistolary style of narration which is highly

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unconventional and could challenge spacetime constrains in fiction. Yet Richardson

sticks to his detailed timescales. Each letter in the novel contains the day and time of

its composition. Richardson thus championed an absolute spacetime where events

happened chronologically. He concentrated on the inner spaces of mansions and

houses and described them in detail. This can be considered as an attempt by the

author to capture a more restricted subjective spacetime rather than the wider

historical spacetime.

Fielding approached, 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 ofTom

Jones. Nearly all of the events in the novel are ordered chronologically which points

towards the authors appreciation of linear spacetime. Spacetime increased its

dominance over the novel form providing a pseudo guarantee that an ordering in

spacetime with relation to real spacetime would enable the author to exhibit his work

as more genuine or authentic and, to an extent, historically accurate. Fielding delivered

considerable interest to the setting and spatial aspects of his novels. Interest was taken

to demarcate places which replicated real life spaces.

Popular writers of this period included Jane Austen who introduced a female

spacetime where the perspectives of a woman dominated. All her novels are narrated

from the perspective of female characters and dealt with middle class space and life.

But her spacetime was congested; events were confined to a minimum area, the

middle class circle. Her works followed a linear narration with traditional endings

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culminating in marriages of the main characters. Walter Scott brought in a historical

dimension to novels. He manipulated with actual historical spacetime and with the

events recorded to have occurred in the past. Historical characters were misplaced

from their timelines as in the case of his Kenilworth, where we find William

Shakespeare appearing far ahead of his times. His novels are the precursors to modern

subverted histories which played with the idea of historical spacetime.

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

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

The past was observed and re-created, the idea of the future being ignored.

Spacetime was linear and more realistic. A fictional spacetime was rarely represented,

except to an extent in the novels of Walter Scott. Experimentation in form and

attempts to break free from the structure of spacetime is seen during this period in The

Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. The novel was miles ahead

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

technique. The novel cleverly broke the monotonous linear spacetime based narration.

The narrative is fragmented and broken. An excellent example of metafiction, the

novel constantly reminds us of its fictional status, thus confusing the narrative.

Tristram Shandy, the protagonist reflects:

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

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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 to make some noise in the worldI 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(Sterne 5).

Sterne uses several spacetime schemes in the novel. It uses the innovations in printing

by presenting a blank page, a marbled page, a misplaced chapter, wavy lines which

disrupt the flow of the text and thus distorts the linear spacetime narration. Digressions

are numerous and these disrupt the flow of spacetime. Narrative spacetime merges

with the self reflexive spacetime of the author. The novel is structured thus so as to

ridicule the linear nature of spacetime. The protagonist Tristram Shandy is born only

as the novel concludes, while most of the plot narrates the incidents leading to it.

Mid nineteenth-century witnessed the rise of the Romantic novel and, later, the

Victorian novel. Romanticism concentrated on an imaginary spacetime. Gothic fiction

produced popular interest; Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights had a gothic setting and

spacetime. The novel also experimented with the techniques of narration. Emily

Bronte used a frame narrative which combined aspects of first person and third person

point of view. Subtle shifting of the point of view broke the numerous constrains of

linear spacetime. The novel is mostly narrated in flashbacks which enabled the author

to manipulate with spacetime. The possibilities of the psychological spacetime was

explored by Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter, and by Herman Melville, who

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also brought in the spacetime of the great abyss into the narrative of the novel, in

Moby Dick.

Victorian period produced novelists like Charles Dickens, William Makepeace

Thackeray, and Thomas Hardy. Novels were serialized and this prompted novelists to

incorporate mini-climaxes in every episode or issue where a part of the novel

appeared. This method indirectly, yet effectively, stretched spacetime to its limits;

numerous incidents could be narrated with little concern for the spacetime where they

occur. Unfortunately Dickens, Hardy, and Thackeray followed a linear narrative

technique. The spacetime they depicted was contemporary and realistic. The

spacetime was industrial Britain in the novels of Dickens. Hardy made some

innovations by creating an imaginary spacetime called Wessex. Dickenss A

Christmas Carolcan be considered as the first novel which presented possibilities of

time travel; the episode of the three ghosts who take Ebenezer Scrooge to his

seemingly probable future, present, and past is an episode to be read in relation to the

concept of time travel. Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland and

Through the Looking Glass made good use of a fictional spacetime setting; it

contained moments frozen in spacetime, or spacetime being slowed down

considerably in the episode where Alice the protagonist returns to the real world only

to find spacetime unaltered .

Gustave Flauberts 1857 novel Madame Bovary was a milestone in the

experimental novel category. It introduced a cinematographic technique in narration

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

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

revolutionized the study of spacetime in fiction. Flaubert was successful in presenting

numerous events in one particular spacetime, 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 linear and absolute

spacetime and supports a relative spacetime, where events happen simultaneously. In

the agricultural fair scene, according to Joseph Frank, the time flow of the

narrative is halted (Frank 2). Events are made to unfold simultaneously and these

are presented in a single spacetime. The novel thus demonstrated how the flow of

spacetime can be disrupted or fragmented or stretched to its limits to accommodate

numerous events happening simultaneously. The basic realistic setting is kept intact by

Flaubert and this technique is confined to only one chapter, yet it proved inspirational

to later modernist writers including James Joyce, who implemented the technique on a

larger scale in his epic masterpiece Ulysses.

Realism and Naturalism continued to prevail during the later half of the

nineteenth-century. Realistic fiction promoted a spacetime which was compatible with

the contemporary realistic setting of that period. Realism attempted to present life as

it really was and hence focus was on ordering events in linear spacetime. Incidents

which were mostly everyday or commonplace found prominence in such novels.

Details of setting, spacetime, or character were described in minute details to make the

work seem more real and authentic. Naturalism was an extreme form of realism.

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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.

With the rise of the 20th

century the seeds of modernism had started to sprout.

The modernist moment would grow stronger until the 1950s when it would be

dethroned by postmodernism. Yet we cannot completely separate a particular

movement in fiction from another. There is no complete breaking up or separation but

only an evolution into a newer and better form which would reflect the tides of the

times. Modernist authors tried to dislodge the various constrains imposed by

spacetime on the narration of a text. They mostly ignored chronological ordering. The

events and incidents in the lives of the characters were presented in a fragmented

form. Most of these novels did not have a particular beginning or ending. The

traditional heroes or protagonists were absent from the narrative space and in their

place was introduced the anti hero. Modernist writers were also against the

absolute representation of reality using detailed setting, props, environment in order to

give a sense of the actual spacetime. The essential belief in the goodness of man, the

order of things, and other such humanitarian concepts were shaken with the terrible

outcome of the two world wars.

Philosophers, thinkers and scientists including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx,

Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Max Plank, Albert Einstein, and Jean

Paul Sartre played a major role in shaping a modernist sensibility, especially in fiction.

There was massive disillusionment during this time which affected the novelists also.

There was a general disregard for order of any kind. The human conscious and

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unconscious mind with its unique spacetime was observed and represented in the

novels. Authors mostly concerned themselves with fragmentation of experience and

thought. Streams Of Consciousness became popular in the writings of fiction. A term

first used by William James to describe the perceptions and feelings of the active mind

in a person, which are like the waters of the river, in a state of motion or flow.

Novelists like Henry James, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, William Faulkner,

Gertrude Stein, and Marcel Proust experimented with form using the technique of

stream of consciousness. Through this method there was a shift from the description of

the physical reality of spacetime as perceived by the senses to the psychological

spacetime which the mind perceived. With the focus shifting to the observations of a

single mind, spacetime was becoming more subjective. The very order of things which

time and space brought into a novel was being disrupted by the illogical, yet vivid,

descriptions of perceptions of characters in novels of such kind. This highlights that

spacetime was more in the observations of the mind, and that it differed from person

to person. Virginia Woolf supports this view in her essay Modern Fiction. She

expounds her interest in the inner reality of the characters and the importance of the

mind and its perception of spacetime through the senses:

Life is not a series of gig-lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a

luminous halo, a semi- transparent envelope surrounding us from the

beginning of consciousness to the end. Is not the task of the novelist to

convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit,

whatever aberration or complexity it may display, with as little mixture

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of the alien and external as possible? [ ] Let us record the atoms as

they fall upon the mind in order in which they fall, let us trace the

pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which

each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness (Woolf 106-7).

The modernist novel also tried to comprehend and evaluate spacetime. They

were concerned with the artificiality imposed by linear spacetime in narration. As Ford

Madox Ford noted, what was wrong with the novel, and with the British novel in

particular, was that it went straight forward (Ford 192). Events seem to happen in a

linear way but we never identify them so. Experiences and memories of the past

intervene with the present experiences in most cases; the mind can also take us to a

supposed future outcome or event and thus blend our present with images of the

future. Thus, modern novelists often tried to break the sequence, to put things out

of order, to work from the present back into the past, to dissolve linear time (Matz

62). Modernist novels were thus a kind of rebellion against the order imposed on form

and narration by spacetime; they were thus highly experimental yet did not completely

disregard spacetime. The protest was against the notions of linear and absolute

spacetime.

During the late nineteenth-century spacetime achieved popular and mass

attention. In the 1880s spacetime became standardized; this was done in order to

synchronize the running of trains, to enhance the working of factories, and thus, to

order life itself. Clocks around the world were synchronized, spacetime was

standardized. This resulted in people seeing spacetime as a powerful entity that

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controlled their activities thus there was a general sense of resentment towards it.

People started to equate freedom to a break from the monotony and linearity of

spacetime. What also happened was that, People came to feel that they had within

themselves a private time that was different from public time. Public time was lived by

the clock; private time was idiosyncratic, and free (Matz 62). Writers of modernist

fiction mostly concerned themselves with the realm of private time. The attitude

towards spacetime was changing with the theories of Albert Einstein, who proclaimed

spacetime to be relative and not linear.

Jesse Matz observes this new attitude towards spacetime in fiction in the

episode where Quentin Compson smashes the watch given to him by his father in

William Faulkners The Sound and the Fury:

When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven

and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was

Grandfathers and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum

of all hope and desireI went to the dresser and took up the watch, with the

face still down. I tapped the crystal on the corner of the dresser and caught the

fragments of glass in my hand and put them into the ashtray and twisted the

hands off and put them in the tray. The watch ticked on. I turned the face up,

the blank dial with little wheels clicking and clicking behind it, not knowing

any better (Matz 63).

According to Matz, when Quentin smashes the clock-time, William Faulkner was

establishing norms for modernist writers and imploring them to do the same by

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defying chronological and linear spacetime. In her work Orlando (1928), Virginia

Woolf also expresses her desire to break free from the bondage of linear temporality

and to explore a whole new spacetime as perceived by the consciousness. Writers thus

focused on building up a new spatio-temporality, stress was laid on the examination of

the present moment which could only be read in association with the past. Memories

associated with the past may be flawed because the human consciousness does not

have the capacity to retrieve past events from the memory in its exactness. We are

reminded of Marcel Proust and his workIn Search of Lost Time.

Marcel Proust is a pioneer in the study of the working of time in novels. He

himself claimed that his novels always carried an invisible form of time in them. As

Joseph Frank observed: He [Proust] has, almost invariably, been considered the

novelist of time par excellence (Frank 6). According to Joseph Frank Proust was

highly obsessed with the study of time and his obsession is said to have led to his

encountering of certain quasi-mystical experiences which provided him with a

spiritual technique to transcend the effects of time and thus to escape from the

domination of time. Further, By writing a novel, by translating the transcendent,

extra-temporal quality of these experiences to the level of esthetic form, Proust hoped

to reveal their nature to the world (Frank 7).

Proust and his experiments with spacetime were indeed revolutionary. His

novels literally taught his readers about the importance of the past in perceiving and

understanding the present. He observed that it was only when a certain event, which

was experienced in some past spacetime returned to combine with an experience in the

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present moment did we actually comprehend reality. Edmund Wilson says that the

workRemembrance of Things Past was not just a mere novel on time but was

Prousts invention to conquer spacetime, a work of art which would remain untouched

by the ravages of spacetime.

Proust aimed at creating a work which would stand closer to real spacetime

as experienced by people in their daily lives. To make his work more real, he paid

special attention to characterization where Proust brought in some revolutionary

experiments in spacetime. Proust never presented one character as appearing

throughout the narrative of the novel, instead a character is made to appear after a long

gap in narration. This indirectly generates a sense of spacetime having passed with

relation to the characters. As Joseph Frank clearly describes in his Spatial Form in

Modern Literature,

To experience the passage of time, Proust learned, it was

necessary to rise above it, and to grasp both past and present

simultaneously in a moment of what he called pure time. But

pure time, obviously, is not time at all it is perception in a

moment of time, that is to say, space (Frank 10).

This question of remembering the past correctly destroys the idea of linear

spacetime, modernist fiction proves that the past can never be truly and exactly

recollected. When incidents and events which happened in the past cannot be

recollected as it is in the present, the narration of incidents one after the other in an

orderly fashion in fiction would seem too artificial.

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The catching hold of the present is a tricky predicament. Spacetime cannot be

easily distinguished from the present, the past, and the future. What is the present

now has already become the past within the spacetime we contemplate about it and

what is to be the future is already becoming the present within the spacetime that

we are using to perceive the present. Writers have always faced the dilemma of

generating the impression of the present in the readers. Some tried to achieve this by

the detailed description of events and incidents, and thus to capture the exact shape of

these moments; while others focused on the portrayal of intense moments in their

works of fiction, these were presented in such a way that they defied change for a

certain period of spacetime which could then be identified as a prolonged incident

happening in the present. Pioneers of modernist fiction like James Joyce and Virginia

Woolf implemented the concept of epiphanies in their novels. Woolf described these

epiphanies as moments of being. In such moments time was made to stand still and

characters were able to distinguish these moments from the continuous flow of

incidents in spacetime and thus to experience them to the fullest (Parsons 37-38).

Writers of modernist fiction thus toyed with spacetime by making it stop

abruptly or by projecting it quickly into the past or the future. In most modernist

novels linear spacetime sequence is broken by including short scenes which included

long descriptions of events. In such scenes a number of events occur. Modernist

writers thus try to defy the temporality of modernity. It was a protest against the

mechanization of life during that period as a result of modernity. Human life was

being restricted to the ticking of clocks; spacetime was becoming more relevant than

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life itself. Thus the aim was to get unshackled from the dry rut created by a linear

spacetime and to explore the possibilities of a more vibrant and free spacetime where

human capacities, ideas would achieve free expression. As Jesse Matz observed:

The hope was that breaking linear sequences could help people toward

a fuller sense of open possibilities toward a sense of the way things

could have been otherwise, and yet might change; or a truer sense of

the past, in all the ambiguity memory contributes to it: or, finally, a

keener sense of the richness of the present, and how one might even

make time seem to stop by appreciating all of the being in any single

moment (Matz 67).

Modernist novels tried to explain small packets of spacetime. The modernized city

life provided with the idea of a fast changing, rapid paced life where spacetime is also

simultaneously changing at a rapid pace. To project a piece of life, true to reality,

writers of modernist fiction had to describe an array of people and places

simultaneously. For such a description spatial form was necessary. Through this,

spacetime was effectively stopped and the urban spaces were described in vivid detail.

The readers had to connect these descriptions and to understand them by juxtaposing

them, not in time, but in space. James Joyces Ulyssespresents such a predicament.

In one of the chapters the author presents a panoramic view of Dublins

inhabitants and the daily routine life of Dublin. The chapter lays a maze-like narrative

of incidents which are to be analyzed as a single picture. The incidents are not ordered

or sequenced in time. Unlike normal narratives with an ordered plot. Ulysses takes

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a fresh non linear approach towards describing events in spacetime. In Ulysses James

Joyce discarded the possibilities of an ordered time sequence in narration by placing a

number of events which, while relating to one another, are devoid of any particular

ordering in spacetime. He leaves it to the readers to put into pieces all these references

and cross-references in order to acquire any sort of meaning. Joyce puts an end to a

linear narrative style and can be seen continuously breaking up the narration

throughout the work. This seems to be his method of protest towards the monotony

established by absolute or linear spacetime which promoted a chronological

ordering of events in fiction. Joyce is also successful in informing the fact that in real

life, events do not happen one after the other in an orderly fashion. But incidents do

happen simultaneously in spacetime.

The tendency of alienation slowly crept into modernist fiction; where a person

or character found itself terribly alone in a spacetime of their own construct. The

Kafkaesque settings of the novels of Franz Kafka, where there is no rational

explanation to events that happen in a particular spacetime and which might seem

familiar or contemporary, are good examples for this. His novels The Trial, The

Castle are filled with spaces where strange incidents happen which are beyond any

logical explanation. Absurd fiction of Albert Camus, including novels like The

Outsider, The Plague and others, contributed to the whole idea of the meaninglessness

of life and subsequently of that of spacetime. In such fiction, spacetime got personified

into something threatening. Meursault, Joseph K. and a whole lot of other characters

who struggled against a universe which was indifferent to human existence were in a

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way protesting against the meaninglessness in the blind following of the authority of

spacetime. Spacetime was, wholly remade in the mind- to become but projects of

the alienated human consciousness (Matz 70).

What modern fiction does through such experimentation and protest is that it

helps the readers to understand and discard the complacency that had set in. This kind

of complacency made readers of fiction take everything for granted, even the idea of

the linear nature of spacetime. Modernist novels paved the way for postmodernist

fiction by setting itself, for the first time by any method of fiction, against literary

norms and conventions. Modern novelists tried to make the readers observe the

changes as they happened inside the text itself. Through the perception of the

changes a reader became aware of the presence of spacetime, it was not linear or

absolute spacetime but relative and fluctuating spacetime. The one real advantage

of viewing objects in space is that it brings a certain level of order into things. With

modern novels this tendency was challenged. In a world where there was no order at

all the prospect of an ordered form in literature would seem out of place. Thus with

modernism the hierarchy of absolute spacetime began to decline.

It is highly reasonable that contemporary issues, ideologies, theories, popular

culture do get represented partially or fully in fiction. The novel with its flexibility and

wide space can always afford for the inclusion of such topics. While we observe

postmodern novels sparring with form, structure, style, order and such boundaries,

we can still observe the fact that these novels too have space to include life- either

partially or fully; life with all its vibrant issues, personalities, and ideas. With life

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comes the concept of change and with change comes the idea of spacetime. It is

true that in postmodern fiction there is a more radical rejection of the cultural

certainties on which western life had been structured. The certainties of reason, order,

humanism, science, and religion were disowned extensively during the period of

postmodernism. The influence of spacetime had already begun to erode with the

writings of modernist fiction. Spacetime had brought in a kind of form and order

into the realm of fiction. While they rejected it or ridiculed it, writers could never fully

disregard its presence. The concept of linearity in spacetime was disowned yet

writers could use spacetime as a concept for experimentation in postmodern fiction

with its lack of temporal sequencing, intermingling of spaces, and fragmentation. A

study of spacetime in postmodern fiction can be achieved only by concentrating on

these techniques styles.

Linda Hutcheon is of the opinion that postmodernism is a contradictory

enterprise. It is contradictory because postmodern art, including fiction, repeatedly

make use of, and later discard, conventional methods and ideas. She calls it a re-

reading of several works of art which had already been written in the past. Thus

postmodern fiction brings back events which had happened in a spacetime in the past

to a period which is in a different spacetime. An ironic effect is generated from such

presentations. Hutcheon considers the majority of works in the postmodern tradition to

be historiographic metafiction which self-consciously distorts historical events,

personalities and so on. According to Brian Mc Hale this kind of distortion or

manipulation of history (which relies on spacetime and events happening in

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spacetime) can be achieved through Apocryphal history, anachronism, and also by

Magic Realism in which history and fantasy mingle with each other (McHale 16-25).

In an Apocryphal history, spacetime of events in the past are distorted or

subverted to produce a reading from a new perspective. Here the certainty of events

happening in spacetime is challenged. What we have always regarded as events are

the highly debated, reported, and important historical incidents which a

majority had perceived in spacetime; this is a kind of blind following of an

absolute spacetime. But in an Apocryphal history multiple perspectives are utilized.

A plot (very familiar) will be narrated, based on a spacetime in the past, from the

point of view of a narrator who observes it from a different angle in spacetime.

Consider The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. In this novel, which is a

historical account of incidents set in the period of the Second World War, the

narration is made from the point of view of a butler named Stevens. He narrates

incidents which had happened in the mansion of his master, where he too had played a

small, but significant, role in the matters which were related to Britains policies

during the Second World War. What we get is a new history, a new account of

events, a new spacetime being projected on our senses; a manipulated version of

spacetime, the past, and history.

Magic Realism too can be observed to present us with a spacetime

where the familiar is seen flowing with the fantastic. Notable figures in this genre

include Gunter Grass, Italo Calvino, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, J.G.

Ballard, Thomas Bernhard and others. Magic Realism originated from South America

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where novels were written which projected a spacetime in which there were surrealist

elements. Salman Rushdie considered Magic Realism to be a product of third world

consciousness. A marginalised space was coming up to the fore with a completely

distorted narration of history, which many had regarded as true, and some had

considered elitist. Magic Realism, as the name suggests, also contained realistic

elements, yet these were molded differently using postmodern techniques of the

unreliable, yet, self-conscious narrator and by the abandoning of linear narration in

spacetime. In characterization also there is a genuine methodology followed by magic

realist writers. Characters are mostly empowered with magical powers which helped

them to distort the space and time of their narrative. The narratives of such

characters are mostly fragmented and jumbled up with a shifting and contradictory

point of view, circular and repetitive time scales, labyrinthine plots, the doubling of

events (Travers 219).

Salman Rushdies Midnights Children is to be considered a seminal work in

Magic Realism and postmodern fiction. It deals with the story of 1001 children born

at midnight of August 15, 1947, the day India received independence. The incidents in

the novel are not narrated in a realistic fashion and disregard the chronological

ordering of spacetime. There are often sudden jumps made into the future and the

past; the novel even ends in an ambiguous fashion with the narrator Saleem Sinai

predicting his future. Saleem is an unreliable narrator; hence the events that he has

narrated are not to be taken as events which had actually happened in spacetime. He

narrates the history of his family which spreads out to around 70 years. This is another

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example of how history can be fiction and fiction history. A spacetime of 70 years is

used to narrate events happening in three countries India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Questions can be asked on the reliability of the events in spacetime which have

happened over a long period and a wide space. This also points towards the

unreliability of grand narratives.

Magic is in itself a term that signifies something extraordinary. In fiction,

supernatural events, characters, fantastic creatures are all considered alongside the

term magical. Magic realism is dominant when observing fiction where reality is

questioned, a fantastic interpretation of reality is done. Whatever considered to be

natural is made to seem quite super-natural. Magic realism seems to question the

very credibility of the use of language to portray the world in a realistic framework.

No matter how perfectly suitable language is for communicating ideas or representing

reality, it is still unable to capture life to the fullest. The artistic possibilities of this

limitation are exploited by magic realism. Events are presented in a spacetime where

the very authenticity of absolute spacetime or linear spacetime is questioned. In magic

realist works spacetime is presented as both historical as well as fantastic (immortal,

timeless). Spacetime is presented as cyclic and not linear. Incidents recur and the

characters seem to be caught in a spacetime which offers not much possibility for

redemption. Consider the structure of Gabriel Garcia Marquezs novel One Hundred

Years of Solitude; the novel has an abrupt beginning, with the incident of the firing

squad, and this is followed by a very long flashback. This testifies to the fact that

spacetime is not ordered or linear, in the magic realist world spacetime moves, yet the

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pattern of its movement is irregular and labyrinthine. The past seems to be ever

present and, occasionally, the future seems to have already happened. In Marquezs

novel, certain events keep returning to the framework of the present, even as we

observe spacetime turning the leaves of generations. The constant shifting in narrative

as presented in a chaotic spacetime points towards a reality which is outside the realm

of spacetime.

The repetition of events already happened in a particular spacetime can be seen

in Ben Okris The Famished Road. Azaro, the spirit child, his father and his mother all

have similar experiences of fighting with spirits of the other world. The recurring

image of the novel seems to be his fathers boxing matches with mortal and

supernatural beings. The novel expertly amalgamates the fantastic and the real

spacetime. Steppenwolfby Herman Hesse also presents elements of magic realism.

Hesses presentation of the Magic theatre, where the fantastic mingles with the

seemingly real, can be cited as a forerunner for magic realist novels which would be

written later in the era. Magic realism points towards abolishing this world view of a

limiting spacetime where boundaries dominate. Magic realism is a critique of the

possibility of representation in that it blurs the boundaries between what is magical

and what is real and thus calls into question accepted definitions of either (Marshall

180).

Magic realist writers never fully disregarded history, but they paced their

preoccupation not just with the past but also with the present hence a new hybrid

spacetime evolved where events actually happened in no- spacetime, a spacetime

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which is familiar yet fantastic, a different universe where a different spacetime

worked. Such efforts by writers of postmodern fiction can be seen as attempts to

reduce the authority of spacetime, an entity which was master to all is now made a

slave in the hands of writers who show us how easy it is to dethrone spacetime from

its position of power. The dreadful state of a society governed by order which has

been imposed by spacetime can be seen in Anthony BurgesssA Clockwork Orange.

In the novel, which is dystopian, there is a severe criticism upon the ordering of the

society and how the people might become violent, soulless occupants if an authority

tries to radically order things in spacetime. This kind of excessive ordering reduces

humanity to mere machinery and hence was disregarded by postmodern novelists.

There is also a corruption of the present in postmodern fiction. It disorders

the linear coherence of narrative by warping the sense of significant time, kairos, or

the dull passing of ordinary time, chronos(Sim 124).Kairos is associated with novels

like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, which relies a lot on

epiphany and disclosure. Chronos is associated with realist writing which follows a

linear narrative pattern. This also undermines the fact that postmodern writing is

characterized by temporal and spatial disorder. Postmodernist writers also use the

technique of fragmentation in order to reduce the significance of ordering events in

spacetime. Plot, character, setting and theme are all mashed-up into a form which

challenges the very notion of ordering, linearity and absolutism. Postmodernist writers

have disregarded the wholeness and completion associated with traditional stories

and prefers to deal with other ways of structuring narrative (Sim 127). They do this

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using several techniques, one is the use of multiple endings where the novelist

challenges the very notion of linearity; postmodern novels never really end. There

are also other methods to make a novel open ended, inconclusive and free of the

domain of linear spacetime. This is done by, breaking up the text into short

fragments or sections, separated by space, titles, numbers or symbols (Sim 127).

What this does is that it confuses the reader on the reality of the space where events

are unfolding, a questioning of the very nature of order and spacetime is generated and

this leads to further disregard of the authority of spacetime. Take Donald Bathelmes

Snow White. Barthelme uses the fragmented narration which includes methods like

collage. He includes various discourses including advertisement boards in the

narrative space of the novel.

Metafiction, a postmodern construct, expertly reminds the reader of the

fictional status of a work. It reminds the reader time and again of its own conception.

In metafiction the writer gets directly involved in the narration, can be seen often

interacting with the reader seeking their opinions or giving advices. The narration

hence loses its flow, spacetime gets disrupted. An attempt is made by the writer, who

had scripted the work during a certain period of spacetime, to communicate and to

participate in a spacetime which would comparatively be in the future. The writer

interacts with the reader while s/he reads the work, hence at a moment in the now or

present. This expertly disrupts our notions of past, present, and future in the

domain of spacetime. Thus spacetime in terms of hours, days, years is replaced by

durations which can be contracted into an eternity or dilated into a moments

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epiphany. A work which utilizes metafiction also attempts to fuse a real spacetime

with the imaginary reality of the text. This can also be regarded as an attempt to

include the humanistic concerns of traditional narratives with the completely

contrasting narrative of postmodernism a fusion of spacetimes. Italo Calvinos If on

a Winters Night a Travelercame towards the end of a body of writing which had

been largely devoted to exploring the relationship between text world (Travers 210).

The novel by Calvino is cited as one of the best examples regarding the meta-narration

or metafiction. The novel:

Playswith all the conventions of the discourse of fiction:

psychological characterization, linear narratives, the assumption of a

real world that is being transcribed. All are abandoned in favour of pure

playfulness, which is manifested through the novels fusion of real

and imagined scenes, its false correspondences, its microscopic

depiction of objects and bodily gesture, and its leitmotific, almost

musical narrative structure. (Travers 211).

Relativity triumphs here, where the text as such is not just a mere island, a self

contained space, but a multiple universe of spacetimes.

An intriguing feature of postmodernism is the desire for theorists to practice

what they preach and for artists to preach what they practice (Sim 235). This is

highly relevant when read in relation to Umberto Eco. His semiotic space with its

universe of signs gets due representation in his novels. There is a blurring of

boundaries between academic and fictional writing. Umberto Eco has always

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fascinated his readers with his versions of subverted histories, he can be regarded as a

modern day potter who moulds and remoulds the clay of history and plays with the

realm of spacetime. Eco has always shown interest in pursuing matters or topics

related to the Middle Ages. This tendency to represent the middle ages in works of

fiction postmodern fiction is highly popular. Ecos The Name of the Rose expertly

fuses the medieval, the semiotic, and the postmodern realm into a single work. It pays

homage to traditional plots by using

numbered pages

Documents