‘We lie best when we lie to ourselves’: Stephen King’s It and the horrors of nostalgia

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Miller Hill
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
Cultural Movements ◽  
Horror Story ◽  
The Town ◽  
Populist Movements

Stephen King’s 1986 novel It follows a traditional horror story arc of restoration of order through defeat of a monster, but the interlude sections of the novel complicate this narrative structure with an alternate story arc in which the people of Derry are also a source of horror within the novel, who enable the monster with their desire to sanitize the past of the town. This arc, in which the townspeople are perpetrators and enablers of horrors, reflects a cultural tendency towards nostalgic views of the past that would have been noticeable in political and cultural movements of the 1980s. As nostalgic currents have returned to prominence in political movements surrounding the election of Donald Trump and other populist movements, re-examining the interlude sections of It reveals commentary about the horrors of nostalgia that, like the cyclical reawakening of the novel’s monster, are relevant once again.

scholarly journals Reconstructing the Past as a Means of Rationalizing the Present: A Study of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of The Day (1989)

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 173
Author(s):  
Mohamed Fathi Helaly Khalaf
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
The Status ◽  
Past Life ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Personal Level ◽  
To Come ◽  
Different Levels

The postwar world period was riddled with rapid changes at the different levels. Many people felt they were not able to come to terms with such ongoing changes and had to find a way to coexist with the status-quo. Postmodernism looks upon man as a social being that should learn how to adapt himself to whatever situation by whatever means available. Ishiguro’s novels are written in an expanded humanistic tradition. They are stories dealing with human relationship. They are narratives centering on the working of consciousness and the unconsciousness of the human mind. Ishiguro is concerned with reworking of the past from a late twentieth century perspective. The purpose of this study is to trace the postmodern aspects in The Remains of The Day through the life and character of Stevens and his relationships with the people that he has lived with. Stevens struggles to come to term with his present through telling stories and anecdotes of his past life. The novel depicts the role that memories can play in reconstructing the past events so that the present can be meaningful in some way from a postmodern standpoint. As a postwar British individual, the protagonist of the novel tries to practice suppression over his emotions at the personal level as well as the professional level to construct a new identity. Stevens appears torn between memories of the past and the representation of the present. He is suffering from an identity crisis and striving to create a meaningful present for himself. As a postmodern man, Stevens has to struggle at different levels. He is leading a life riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. He can’t feel at home with the surrounding world as he is always busy trying to achieve some perfection that is not attainable in a world riddled with conflicts and struggle.

scholarly journals The Genetic Essence of Houses and People: History as Idealization and Appropriation of an Imagined Timelessness

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-116
Author(s):  
Francesca Pierini
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Young Woman ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
Italian Culture ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Urban Territory

Abstract Marina Fiorato’s The Glassblower of Murano (2008) tells the story of Eleonora, a young woman who travels to Venice in search of her genealogical past and existential roots. Coming from London, Eleonora incarnates a “modern” outlook on what she assumes to be the timeless life and culture of Venice. At one point in the novel, admiring the old houses on the Canal Grande, Eleonora is “on fire with enthusiasm for this culture where the houses and the people kept their genetic essence so pure for millennia that they look the same now as in the Renaissance” (2008, 15). This discourse of pure origins and unbroken continuities is a fascinating fantasizing on characteristics that extend from the urban territory to the people who inhabit it. Within narratives centred on this notion, Italian culture, perceived as holding a privileged relation with history and the past, is often contrasted with the displacement and rootlessness that seem to characterize the modern places and people of England and North America. Through a discussion of two Anglo-American popular novels set in Italy, and several relocation narratives, this paper proposes an exploration of the notion according to which history is the force cementing the identities of societies perceived as less modern and frozen in a timeless dimension. From a point in time when the dialectics of history have been allegedly transcended, Anglo-American popular narratives observe Italy as a timeless, pre-modern other.

scholarly journals Fairy tale — myth — logos in the poetics of G. Yakhina`s novel “Children of mine”

2021 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 237-247
Author(s):  
Nadezhda I. Pavlova
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Soviet History ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Levels

The article is to study a mythological subtext of the novel “Children of mine” by G. Yakhina, which appeared at different levels: composition, plot, construction of the system of characters ' images. Main character of the novel, Jacob Bach, and his beloved Clara are reunited into a single whole, not only as lovers, but also as representatives of two interrelated and complementary principles of German culture-folklore and literature. The interaction of this pair of heroes should be considered in this symbolic context. Thus, the novel develops a fundamentally significant for its conception motif of prophecy, which implies a subtext about the creation of the world-Logos, which is further developed in the narrative, when the image of the main character fulfills the function of guardian of the cultural memory of the Volga Germans. At the same time, the act of creativity is synonymous with creation, which allows us to grasp in a complex novel whole the repeatability of components of a closed cycle of “myth-life”, fully realized in its narrative structure. Mythological world surrounding Bach is in opposition to the space of Soviet history, embodied in the image of the agitator Hoffmann. There is an inverted picture of the world: historical world as dead and the world of culture as a living world. Thus, in the novel, the poles of life and death exchange places in relation to the present and the past. In view of this conception, one can read a deep intention of the writer representing the word of culture as giving immortality and life in eternity.

One

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Bruno Maçães
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Breaking Point ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
The Common ◽  
American Society ◽  
Democrats And Republicans ◽  
Intellectual Elites

This chapter discusses the narrative of decline of the American Republic. Many contemporary commentators argue that American elites now regard their own country as spoils to be fought over. Currents over the past four decades express the relentless pursuit of private interest at the expense of the common good, even when that pursuit may bring about the final collapse of the system. Privatization, deregulation, the rise of finance--these are contemporary versions of the old dialectic of decline. The gulf between economic and intellectual elites and the rest of the people seems larger than ever before. In Washington, Democrats and Republicans are no longer capable of reaching compromises on important policies and often regard winning their disputes as the only thing that matters. Donald Trump is only a small part of this narrative of decline. The chapter then provides a fuller picture of all the ways American life is reaching a breaking point, at a moment when disaggregating forces are getting stronger. Ultimately, this book assesses the possibility of the development of a new, indigenous American society, separate from modern Western civilization, rooted in new feelings and thoughts.

scholarly journals Strategies of Cognitive Estrangement in Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-121
Author(s):  
Michał Klata
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
The Past ◽  
Unusual Position

Abstract This paper seeks to analyse the strategies of cognitive estrangement employed by the science fiction writer and literary scholar Kim Stanley Robinson in his New York 2140 (2017). I argue that the novel was written as a call to action to mitigate the effects of climate change, and rather than being merely a description of a particular vision of the future, provides a comment on the current ecological crisis, mechanisms of history, and human agency. Robinson’s unusual position at the intersection of the field of literary production and literature studies allowed him to apply the ideas developed for the analysis of the genre of science fiction in his creative work. The three main thematic areas in the novel are ecology, politics, and history. In each of these, allusions to the present, the past, and literary tradition, characterisation, and narrative structure are used as a means to convey the author’s message and sensitise the reader to issues connected with ecology and social justice, painting a realistic, yet hopeful vision where human civilisation carries on despite the consequences of global warming.

scholarly journals TATA, DURASI, DAN FREKUENSI DALAM NOVEL ORANG-ORANG PROYEK KARYA AHMAD TOHARI: (Analisis Struktur Naratif)

LITERA ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hartono Hartono
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Order ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
First Impression ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Logical Order ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

This research study employs the theory of narrative structure by SeymourChatman. The study aims to describe plot elements comprising kernel and satellite,arrangement, duration, and frequency available in Orang-orang Proyek, a novel byAhmad Tohari.The subject of the study was Orang-orang Proyek (2002, the first impression), anovel by Ahmad Tohari, and the focuses were plot elements covering kernel andsatellite, arrangement, duration, and frequency. The data were collected throughreading and recording. The novel was read and reread and its discourse andsentential and sub-sentential units containing narrative elements were recorded.The data were analyzed using the descriptive qualitative technique.The research findings show that Orang-orang Proyek contains 44 kernels and132 satellites. On the basis of its logical order, it reveals that causality order can beparallel with temporal order. Chronologically, the beginning of the story also results,though not directly, in subsequent events. From the relation between the past and thepresent, the novel shows a tendency that the analeptic occurring before the presentwas almost the same as that occurring after the present. The novel contains 20 externalanachronisms, 18 mixed anachronisms, and 13 internal anachronisms. The durationincludes, from the most to the least, scene, summary, distraction, pause, and ellipsis.The dominance of scene, followed by summary, shows that the narrator’s role in thestory is very small; most parts of the story are expressed through dialogues amongcharacters to make it more interesting. Singular events dominate frequency in thenovel, followed by iterative frequency, multiple-singular frequency, and repetitivefrequency. Dominant singular events make the novel more lively and interesting.Key words: narrative structure, arrangement, duration, and frequency

scholarly journals SEJARAH PERADABAN ISLAM DI CINA DAN NILAI-NILAI PENDIDIKAN ISLAM DALAM NOVEL ASSALAMUALAIKUM BEIJING

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dwi Masdi Widada
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Education ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Education Value ◽  
Islamic Civilization ◽  
Value Of Education

<p><em>The phrase that describes that a science should be pursued even to China. Novel Assalamualaikum Beijing provides an overview of the presence of Islam in the Bamboo Curtain country. Islamic civilization has appeared some time ago in China. The novel is intentionally prove that Islam was, and triumphed in China. Islam not only had triumphed in Europe, especially Andalusia (now Spain). Travelling around the main character of China as a columnist Asma Indonesia provided a glimmer of hope, strength, and love of the teachings of Islam. Islam never lived and interacted with the people of China. Chinese Muslim faces with hoods and eyes sipitnya show relationships and interactions among the Muslims. Islam in China is known as "pure religion of the sky" .In this novel, the reader is also treated to the values </em><em></em><em>of Islamic education, the history of Islam, and the messages of Islam. Building a mosque in China a sign of the existence of Islam. One of the mosques and Muslim villages in China. This shows the triumph of Islam in the past. The value of education and the propagation of Islam seen in self Zhongwen figures. He was fascinated with friends Mus'ab bin Umair handsome and willing to remove the sparkling world for his new love in Islam</em></p><p><strong><em> </em></strong></p><strong><em>Keywords: </em></strong><em>Islamic Civilization, Islamic Education Value, China</em>

scholarly journals Looking across the river

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dariusz Galasiński ◽  
Ulrike H. Meinhof
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
Border Communities ◽  
Funded Project ◽  
The Town ◽  
East West

The paper reports results of an ongoing ESRC-funded project into constructions of identity in German and Polish border communities. We are interested here in how our informants from different generations position themselves and their communities with regard to those on the other side of the river. The data come from a set of semi-structured interviews conducted in the towns of Guben (Germany) and Gubin (Poland) separated by the river Neisse, with some reference to the data elicited in the similarly split communities on the former East West German border on the Saale. For the people living in our target communities, the official narratives of the nation were re-written not just once, but in the case of the older generation at least three times. This meant a challenge of how to construct their own cultural identity in response to official changes and in relation to oppositional constructions of the nation on the other side of the border literally by ‘looking across’ at the Other in their every-day lives. In this paper we discuss how members of the oldest generation living on both sides of the river Neisse in the respective German and Polish towns of Guben and Gubin construct each other in their discourses. We show that the discourses of the Other are ridden by a mismatch in the constructions of the ownership of the past and the present. While the Polish narratives construct the German neighbours in terms of threat to the present status quo of the town, the German narratives position Gubin mostly in terms of the nostalgic past.

“Both close and distant”: Experiments of form and the medieval in contemporary literature

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-303
Author(s):  
Eva von Contzen
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Experimental Plot ◽  
Renaissance Art ◽  
Narrative Design ◽  
The Past ◽  
Postmodern Novel

AbstractThis paper argues that some postmodern experimental forms of plot and narrative structure can be thrown into sharper relief by delineating them with medieval narrative practices of plot development. Ali Smith’s 2014 novel How to be both offers an experimental plot that is shaped by the alterity and modernity of medieval and Renaissance art. Drawing on the technique of fresco painting, the novel narrativizes the experience of simultaneity created by recollections of the past in the present. The novel’s two narrative strands – one set in contemporary England, the other in fifteenth-century Italy – are linked in associative and cross-temporal ways and highlight individual experience. Bearing similarities to medieval episodic narratives, the novel maximizes an a-centric narrative design that capitalizes on the reader’s input in motivating the story. Subsequently, Tokyo cancelled (2005) by Rana Dasgupta is briefly discussed as another example of a postmodern novel reminiscent of medieval narrative practices: in this tale collection held together by a very loose framework, plot itself becomes the protagonist as an epitome of modern society’s loss of identity.

scholarly journals We will be great again: Historical victimhood in populist discourse

2021 ◽  
pp. 136754942098585
Author(s):  
Omar Al-Ghazzi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Case Study Approach ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People

This article explores historical victimhood as a feature of contemporary populist discourse. It is about how populist leaders invoke meta-history to make self-victimising claims as a means for consolidating power. I argue that historical victimhood propagates a forked historical consciousness – a view of history as a series of junctures where good fought evil – that enables the projection of alleged victimhood into the past and the future, while the present is portrayed as a regenerating fateful choice between humiliation and a promised golden age. I focus on the cases of the United States and Turkey and examine two key speeches delivered by presidents Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2017. My case-study approach aims to show how the same narrative form of historical victimhood, with its temporal logic and imaginary, latches on widely different contexts and political cultures with the effect of conflating the leader with the people, solidifying divisions in society, and threatening opponents.

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