Time in GE Flashcards
Temporal constraints weighing on the genesis of the novel :
All the year round : linked to the success of GE : creation of AYR (1859) linked to the failure of his marriage in 1858. Placed all his hopes in this new publication. When sales flag has the idea of a new novel : In a letter in 1860 “ for a little piece i have been writing such a very fine new and grotesque idea has opened upon me that I begin to doubt whether I HAD NOT BETTER CONCEAL THE LITTLE PAPER and reserve the notion for a new book–
Hence the very structure and shape of the novel are the result of time constraints
: Novel praised by the critics for the conciseness and tightness of its plot.
The author writes at the 60s but the story takes place in
beginning of 19th
Real and diegetic time
Une page à la fin du roman = 11 an
Alors que parfois 15 pages = 1h
Strange discrepancy btw the bulk of the novel (dates missing sparse time references “within a month”, “within 2 months” “within four months” in the same sentence l21-22 p355 and then p 355 “for eleven years..when upon an evening in december an hour or two after dark” LIX : acceleration of time at the very end ; Dickens left the details of chronology unsettled almost to the last moment. As if wake up and at the end says “I need to make things clear
diff aspects
1) Structural aspect of time
Discrepancy between time of the narration and story-time
2) Narratorial aspect
Linear and retrospective account, time seen through the narrator”s conscience, reality controlled and suspense created
3) Psycho-analytical / psychological aspect
Time passing or not
4) Intertextual and Metatextual aspect
Refer to time outside the frame of the novel
Structural aspect of time
About 60 years elapse btw time of the narration and story time. Length and indeterminacy : no precision. Pip born before the Victorian Era starts “we have for three days were long before th days of the photographs” p9
Dickens writes his story more than 60 years after : this allows him to praise all the progress made in the meantime, on a social, commercial and institutional plan
⇒ evoluO of the idea of gentleman as it evolves in victorian era
⇒ idea you can climb up the social ladder
Cf quotation p 129 “We britons had, at that time particularly settled that is was treasonable to doubt our having and our being the best of everything” (chap 20) or p 199 XXXII “at that time, jails were much neglected” at that time= things have changed, give this feeling
Date begin & end novel
Begin 1809-1810
End of the novel 1823-1826
The whole novel is in pre-victorian times = reign of George IIIrd p29 “in the name of the King” ( reigned until 1820?)
Narration time and story time discrepancy remains mysterious
Present of the narration remains unexplained, blurry, absence of the present tense,
- the narrator’s present life as he tells his story remains in the dark. We don’t know how old Phillip Pirrip is when he starts writing his life. Apply also the time when Dickens is writing.
- But it can be linked to the autobiographical aspect because you pretend to rely on events so time of writing is different from time of story so ⇒ Establish the unity of the self despite the discrepancy.
Very few details / adverbs referring to time : the narrator (pirrip) is more like a disincarnated presence than a fully-fledged person. We do not know anything about him, except that he is much older than Pip.
Ages of the characters in the last stage of Pip’s expectations :
Pip, Estella & Herbert : 23
Magwitch 60 / Compeyson 52 or 53
Biddy 24 or 25 / Joe 45, Jaggers 55, Wemmick near 50
Narrator :
external, neutral and independent voice, a spatial emotional and temporal absence rather than a presence. Atemporal instance alin to a realistic omniscient classical 3rd person narrator. Comments on what happened but never gets entangled. A strictly functional narrator, a “non-person”.
Philip Pirrip
occupies a radically different positO from Pip as a character.
autobiographical pact is broken : illusion of coincidence btw narrator and character. In fact constant ironical dissociation btw narrator and character and reification of Pip. Transcending and repressive narrative. Because PIp is often seen in a derogative way.
“I felt that our patroness had chosen us for one another. Wretched boy!” Full dot btw the 2 phrases : change of focalizaO from “I”to “boy”
= Deus ex machina
Time on the clock and time on consciousness are jarring on the clock.
⇒ trying to instaure concordance in a wold of discordance
The autobiographical pact is broken :
: writing = act of independence + act of bondage = you are linked to your past. He acknowledges about his past, pays tribute to his parents but at the same time severe the link with them with an ironic distance.
⇒ At stake = double mvt : you acknowledge time passing but you need to get rid of it in order to develop.
Narrator : contradictory characteristics
want his past to be revealed + he wants to concentrate/ confronter on his present self to show that this latter is his better self.
⇒ btw making the past live through own memory = retrospective instant & acknowledging one’s expectation, looking forward to things in a concrete way
⇒ Pip’s expectations are somehow distorted by Phillip Pirrip’s retrospective glance.
=> self deception : Pip se trompe et pê philip pirrip aussi se trompe lui meme apres + de 60 ans
Phrase qui montre distance entre Phillip Pirrip and Pip :
“I felt that our patroness had chosen us for one another. Wretched boy!” Full dot btw the 2 phrases : change of focalizaO from “I”to “boy”
⇒ Lack of transiO btw the “I” and the “boy”
⇒ Boy = idea that PIp was gullible, too young
// p 14 “She concluded by throwing me - I often served her as a connubial missile - at Joe (…) : comic effect created of this schizophrenic division btw “I” and “me” / These two instances have a very different conception of time.
⇒ retour autobiographique sur soi est superflux, il vient interrompre l’action. Il est ici souligné par la mise en exergue ⇒ création d’un effet comique.
Perception of time
Philip Pirrip’s perception of time : centripetal, retrospective conceO of time VS Pip’s centrifugal and liberating conception. At the end of the first phase of his expectations : “and the world lay spread before me” p 125. The future lies open before him. Proleptic vision (eve, a prophetic one, capable of having an influence on reality : cf his naming himself “and came to be called Pip” (p9) ⇒ Performative speech
Narratorial aspect
In spite of the apparently objective stance of the older narrator : time is in fact a highly subjective notion.
→ Gives a realistic, positivistic image of time as being handled efficiently by the narrator
⇒ creates the suspense necessary to the plot
→ Thanks to this chronological, linear narrative Philip Pirrip gives the impression that he is ordering reality and shaping it so as to make it meaningful. Contrast with Pip who does not necessarily understand what is happening to him. Cf contradictions in terms : cf Ch XXXXII (waiting for Estrellla’s visit in London : time both short and long.)
YET This orderly aspect is in fact superficial, or an illusion
perhaps because deep down the chronology is cleverly manipulated by the narrator. He narrates the story either from a retrospective, all-knowing view point, which gives the reader some kind of superiority to PIp, or from Pip’s viewpoint which is largely debunked as naive and gullible. Coming and going btw the 2 standpoints that deconstructs the chronology.
Use of analepses and prolepses : create a network of clues that do not make sense immediately but encourages us to remain alert readers.
Cf 1st descritpO of Magwitch : “something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock” p 21. His return is announced proleptically by the sentence “all the many church-clocks in the city struck that hour”p 237. Somehow the narration goes back 200 pages to create the reader’s expectations and keep suspense going.
⇒ the reader can guess who is coming
Psycho-analytical : psychological aspect
⇒ leaves rule to the emotions. Sometimes the narrator not distance but feel emotions ex : death of Magwitch p 37. He doesn’t live it through perception of time, through pip. Feeling = through tense.
Present tense can be a clue that the reader is getting phillip prirrip’s point of view
Thematically, time is conceived in a very static way : it does not pass. Perception that goes against our normal perception of time passing by slowly or rapidly but always being on the move. Stasis incarnated by Miss Havisham and by Pip.
Present figé
Chap 29 p 237 : on apprend age de magwitch + labyrinthe + présent + passé “ I mentioned..true labyrinthe” = illustrates the labyrinthine effect : you are trapped here forever, the present moment is going to last and last.
Blurring of category of times ⇒ aporia of time, dead-end, like a labyrinthe.
Past seems to emerge as an unexpected time = retour du refoulé. Sometimes go back to youth, full circle. Idea that time doesn’t pass by = linked to Miss Havisham
→ Miss Havisham = has stopped her clocks at twenty to nine, precisely at the moment she learnt her fiancé had jilted her. 31-33, p50). Sense of suspension of time : candle-lit rooms, a-chronic place of Satis House (u-chronic place too), remains impervious to the cycle of day, night or of seasons, a place characterised by repetiO where everything is supposed to remain the same. Cf 1st encounter of PIp and Miss Havishman (p 50-52, VIII). Stylistic devices used by Dickens to complete this idea of ‘suspension”. Vocabulary of incompleteness.
⇒ Lieu fondateur des illusions de Pip.
⇒ Lieu qui est un non-lieu, lieu qui est une habitation de passage. Espèce de ghost mais aussi lieu de l’origine : origine du mal de Miss Havisham, de rendre estella heartless, début de la genèse des illusions.
Vocab of incompleteness :
“Half-packed trunks” l5 “she had but one shoe on” l6, “her veil was but half-arranged” l6-7), systematic use of the past perfect of a past continuous that freezes things “lay sparkling ‘l4, p 50)
All these elements convey the idea of a woman haunted by the idea of death and putrefacO.
Victorian theme :
gothic incarnation of death within life and of impending decay : sort of spectre that has stopped living but thinks she is alive (“sunken eyes” p 50 l16 “had shrunk to skin and bone” l18, “Now, was-work and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me” l22
⇒ renvoie à temps originel + a idée qu’on a évolué mais qu’on retourne à ses créatures qui rentrent et vont nous bouffer = idée de la mort
Swarm of insects and rats invading the human space : worm-eaten cake, rats, beetles creeping in the rooms.
Satis House
not the only place where this ancestral dread of time passing is witnessed regression to the animal reign : a symptom of this dread to go back to former stages of the evolution.
Pseudo death of Havisham = her own choice
Miss Havisham, by resisting to time-passing as well as she can, also resists against the plight of unmarried women : sociological dimension. Stopping the clocks may be interpreted as a (vain) but brave attempt at changing her destiny. Plight of old maids at the time : dying was indeed better. No other choice for women than to become prostitutes or governesses if they were penniless. Miss Havisham : dispossessed of her money and of her identity by her shameless and unscrupulous suitor. Stopping time : a desperate attempt to keep some kind of control over her life : means of resistance to her subjection to a plight she has not chosen. The only choice left for her = pretending, she is a great pretender.
Here ⇒ resist evolutionism.
Jean-Bertrand Pontalis Ce temps qui ne passe pas, Paris, Gallimard, NRF, 1997
“Ce qui se répète est ce qui n’a pas lieu, n’a pas trouvé son lieu et qui, n’ayant pas réussi à advenir, n’a pas existé comme événement psychique” p23
Miss H experiences a time that does not go by, it is anachronistic time
mixing past and present, the present being a mere repetition of the past and the past an echo of the present. = as if return of the repressed. She is stuck in an “indifferent” time : indifferent to her plight as a woman, and indifferent in day each day is like the previous one. Hence the numerous repetitions which characterise her speech “play play play” p51
+ Her story cannot be told in its entirety : fragmentary aspect of the narration : Pip learns about her past only thanks to disconnected acts of speech (Herbert then Wemmick and finally Jaggers tell her/story)
The very last scene btw Pip and Miss H is an analepsis
Miss H is seen by PIp lying on the very table that she previously designated as her death bed (p299-300) ⇒ Nevertheless able to anticipate the future
→ Pip is (in a slightly different way) also a prisoner of the present.
A present which is always interpreted as a prolepsis of what is going to happen. His own moto = I look forward to ⇒ negating the present.
He never actually lives the present moment per se. Sees it either as foreshadowing his brilliant future or as the actualisation of a past fantasy. He invents a reality for his own self and gauges the present according to this fantasy. Reality comes second, a repetition of what he has foreseen. Cf when Jaggers tells Pip he has great expectations :
p109 “My dream was out ; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality ; Miss H was to going to make my fortune on a grand scale”
He be immediately removed from his present life”
When Jaggers announce to pip that has expectation announces it in 3PS ⇒ schizophrenia in Pip’s Mind : he is PIp of the present mind + had to regain him to get PIp as a gentleman.
⇒ Present = result of Wild fancies he had in the past
illusion oraculaire de Clément Rosset.
Clément Rosset calls “oracular delusion” = “illusion oraculaire”
“L’homme a l’aptitude de résister à toute information extérieure dès lors que celle-ci ne s’accorde pas avec l’ordre de l’attente et du souhait, d’en ignorer au besoin et a sa guise, quitte à s’y opposer, si la réalité s’entête, un refus de perception, aux dépens naturellement du réel. (Le principe de cruauté, p59)
Yet as readers we are not victims of the same illusion
Unlike him the reader is able to see that Pip is irredeemably drawn to this past as a blacksmith’s surrogate son. We are able to read clue PIp remains blind to.
Pip doesn’t want to read the clues, we understand before him that things will not go according to his plans.
For Mr jagger the present is undetermined VS for Pip, Present is already known and sth that doesn’t appartient a sa fancyis marginalised
Intertextual and Metatextual aspect (of time passing)
Linked with the darwinian context : PIp is somehow an aberration, he doesn’t belong to the evolutionary thesis, he is a kind of spontaneous generation cf chap 1 study
Pip is outside of the time : sort of spontaneous generation // in medias res beginning of the text, ex nihilo character ? Pip, like the text is suspended btw a problematic origin and a problematic, unresolved ending
Creates his own time-space depending on the “As if” / “What if” mode : the realist plot is traversed ny this fantastic undercurrent which in the end undermines the realistic aspect of the time.
cyclical pattern of time at the end
This has consequences on the end of the text : cyclical pattern of time at the end. The very idea of progress, of a linear, progressive move from one stage to another is somewhat negated by the return to the beginning enacted by the text. p356. “And there fenced into the corner with Joe’s leg, and sitting on my little stool looking at the fire, was I again.”
VS Buildings Roman = based on a linear dvpt.
“Young Pip is fenced”
= not free ⇒ doesn’t convey idea of a happy future
⇒ as a child you have no choice.
⇒ udea of blacking factory // cirage chaussure et suie de la cheminée
The “end” of the novel remains open (!)
in contrast to the laws of the genre that normally lead to the “happy ever after” ending.
The “end” of the novel remains open (!)
in contrast to the laws of the genre that normally lead to the “happy ever after” ending.
Bulwer Lytton
advised Dickens to change this improbable original ending and Dickens accepted to conform to the clichés and stereotypes of his days. (see second ending, but slight variation on the theme nevertheless.)
Somehow Dickens conforms to the happy ending, you need a happy ending to round the whole story.
VS the original ending, story, was less happy.
Bulwer Lytton
advised Dickens to change this improbable original ending and Dickens accepted to conform to the clichés and stereotypes of his days. (see second ending, but slight variation on the theme nevertheless.)
Somehow Dickens conforms to the happy ending, you need a happy ending to round the whole story.
VS the original ending, story, was less happy.
“She gave me the assurance that suffering— what my heart used to be” = compensation, atonement at the end. Things remained open indeed.
⇒ No occasion when these 2 will meet again
Original ending
= rather contradictory statement : friends and apart : they don’t go together.
BUT idea that will nevertheless.
In all the broad expense of – they showed to me an optimistic “I saw the shadow of no parting from her = strange way of putting things”
Yet at the end sees a shadow.
If you see a shadow : rather negative because it is not as bright
“No parting from her”
Somehow PIp still great expectations of no parting from her & at the same time gains expectation from not parting from her.
