CCLA01: Strangers to Ourselves: the Critical Study of Narrative

Week 5 (2): Time

Read the following texts:

Genette, "Order and Duration."

Gunesekara, "Batik."

Lodge, "Duration" and "Time Shift."

Reading Strategies and Preparation

First read "Batik" and note down your response. The two Lodge articles are approachable, and will provide you with useful basic terminology and insights. The Genette article is more challenging, but make sure you are at least familiar with the terms prolepsis and analepsis. Again, bring or post questions needing clarification.

Preparatory Writing

Write a one or two paragraph answer (100-200 words or so) to any one of the five questions below, and post it to the bulletin board.

1. Most readers will find that "Batik" ends very suddenly:

She crouched down; she could feel him fumbling, coming up behind her. She wanted him to pick up all the pieces and stick them together with a lick of glue or spittle. She wanted to tell him that together they could somehow recreate it with a web of hairline cracks, like a real batik pattern. She felt a hand on her. It was warm. She knew he could feel her pulse. He pressed her hand to her and kept it there.

Write an extra paragraph to add to the story. In a further paragraph of analysis, indicate why Gunesekara chose to end the short story so abruptly. How does your addition change the meaning of the story?

2. In "Duration," Lodge notes that time in a short story may be compressed or expanded: in the quoted extract from Donald Barthelme, a series of events occurs in two paragraphs which might occupy the whole subject matter of many novels. In "Batik," the opposite effect occurs in a scene towards the end of the story, which seems almost to happen in slow motion:

"Have some water?" Tiru suggested quietly. He got a bottle of carbonated spring water and twisted open the cap; it hissed. He poured the water into a cup that was by the bottle. The cup was decorated with a maroon pattern and flecked with gold-leaf. "Here," he offered it to Nalini. He held it in the palm of his hand.

She took it carefully from him, not letting her fingers touch his. She didn't want him to hate her. She saw nothing but the cup and his hand, an arm in a denim sleeve. She lifted the cup to her lips; her fingers ached, the water smelled of metal polish. She felt a thin hard fork comb through her hair pricking her scalp and coming down towards her spine pushing her belly out more. She could feel him looking at her again. She knew he was standing there with his hands shoved back in his pockets; not moving. Suddenly she twisted from him and flung the cup away. She had never thrown anything so hard in her life. Although it took only a second to explode she could see the cup turn as it flew. The gold paint glittered sparking in the light and the water sprayed out in a wide slow arc splattering the floor and ceiling with silver drops: a chain of small pearls, tracer balls, needle markings trailing lines of dissolving perforations. Inside it was milk white, the bone stem curved up, cocked high, the rim finely modulated to a pair of pressed lips. When it hit the hard glazed wall the cup burst into a hundred tiny pieces of shrapnel. One larger piece, the crested base, dropped straight down and shattered on the green floor tiles. Water dripped down the wall making a puddle by the skirting board. Nalini's ears were ringing as if the air in the room had been decompressed. She watched the curved hulls of broken china rocking on the floor.

What, do you think, is the effect created by the slowing down of the action here, and how does it relate to the overall effect of the story?

3. Choose a brief passage from anywhere in "Batik". Use Genette's letters and numbering format to describe the time changes that occur. What effect does this manipulation of time have?

4. Taking the story as a whole, identify the significant analepses and prolepses that occur, and the time periods with which they are associated. Why do you think Gunesekara did not use what Lodge calls "the simplest way to tell a story," in which the writer proceeds to "begin at the beginning, and go on until . . . the end?"

5. What overall effect do you think "Batik" has on its audience (what issues does it raise and invite thought about)? How is this effect related to the story's title?