Narrative Structures and the Language of the Self

by Matthew Clark

Narrative Structures and the Language of the Self by Matthew Clark offers a new way of thinking about the interrelation of character and plot. Clark investigates the characters brought together in a narrative, considering them not as random collections but as structured sets that correspond to various manifestations of the self. The shape and structure of these sets can be thought of as narrative geometry, and various geometries imply various theories of the self. Part One, “Philosophical Fables of the Self,” examines narratives such as The Talented Mr. Ripley, A Farewell to Arms, A Separate Peace, and The Master of Ballantrae in order to show successively more complex versions of the self as modeled by Descartes, Hegel, Freud, and Mead. Part Two, “The Case of the Subject,” uses Case Grammar to extend the discussion to additional roles of the self in narratives such as The Waves, The Great Gatsby, Fifth Business, and Howards End as examples of the self as experiencer, the self as observer, the instrumental self, and the locative self. The book ends with an extended analysis of the subject in Hartley’s The Go-Between. Throughout, the discussion is concerned with practical analysis of specific narratives and with the development of an understanding of the self that moves beyond the simple dichotomy of the self and the other, the subject and the object.
 

209 pages, Hardcover

First published November 10, 2010

Reviews

[Andrew Yerkes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fascinating Topic, Unsuccessfully Addressed
This book explores how models of selfhood appear in literature, but after a brief introduction mostly discusses the plot and themes of various works of fiction, which the author slots into various categories of types of treatments of the self (Hegelian, Aristophanic, dyadic,) and while these books seem sensibly organized, the larger implications of the presence of these patterns of selfhood is inadequately considered. The book is thin in terms of cultural theory, historical context, cognitive science . . . any larger framing, really. The author fails to answer the crucial question of “so what?”