Narrative Strategies Towards The Reconstruction Of History

Benedetto Croce has noted that"only an interest in the life of the present can move one to investigate past fact. Therefore this past fact does not answer to a past interest, but to a present interest, in so far as it is unified with an interest of the present life". An interest in the present life prompts us to examine history, or more precisely, to awake and relive history, and to reflect and gain an insight into history. Historical fiction, a time-honored artistic practice which develops with the progress of time, uses history as its subject matter. It also serves as an umbilical cord connecting the past to the present. To narrate history does not merely purport to represent the past, but also to address the present; hence, it is an act of reconstructing history. We need to learn from the past so as to substantiate the present. Literary artists, at all times and all over the world, resort to literature to narrate and reconstruct history. They do so exclusively out of the need to resolve crises of today. A historical novel is like a prism which reflects the distinctive zeitgeist from all aspects. To analyze historical fiction is to return to the past, but at the same time, it is to unfold a picture delineating the present as well.The word"history"has two related but distinct concepts. One refers to the actual happenings of the past, the other the study or the narrative of the past. In other words, there are two senses to history: ontological and epistemological. History, as prior occurrences, is inaccessible to us. What we can get is exclusively the textualized form of history. The developments in language philosophy and modern thoughts reveal that textualized history can hardly represent the past as it was; as a genre, history's function of representing the past is challenged, and the idea that"history is literature"prevails.Nevertheless, literature is different from history. History generally narrates a related sequence of events of profound significance and considerable magnitude from the past with their causes and consequences arranged in a linear, chronological order, for instance, wars, evolutions on social and political institutions. Moreover, history often reduces human participants of history to impersonal considerations of social and economic forces. Hence, history focuses more on the external world of the human society than on the internal world of human beings. Historians give priority to historical events and relegate historical participants to a subordinate position. In contrast, literature reveals the hidden life of human beings at its source; it enters the mind and psyche of the characters so as to explore their inner world. Literature is more concerned about the depiction of individual life, and about the truth of personal psychological sensation. Psychological truth tends to be superior to empirical truth. What is more, history is constituted not just of social, economic, and political components but of every individual who experiences and embodies those components. Historical novels can usually recapture the past era by reconstructing the life of historical personages. And in a certain sense, historical fiction can represent a truer picture of the past, or in other words, fiction is an alternative in reconstructing history.In the sixties of the twentieth century, the United States witnessed fierce racial tensions. The African American civil rights movement, and the nation-wide campaign against the military involvement in Vietnam were the two great catalysts for social protests on American campuses and among the country's liberal intellectuals. As a result, the counter-cultural revolt and New Left and Women's Liberation Movement broke out, which altogether turned into a much larger cultural revolution. The nation experienced drastic social and cultural changes in one generation.Echoing the counter-political and cultural revolt, some writers come to challenge the conventions of fiction writing and renovate the traditional literary techniques. Many other novelists, deeply concerned about the reality, not only participate in political activities, but also address social issues in their works, displaying their belief that art reflects life. They produce some master pieces mirroring the times in which they live with a strong sense of moral and social consciousness.William Styron (1925-2006) is one of the latter. He starts his literary career in the tradition of American Southern literature, and has the moral and historical consciousness which specifically belong to Southern writers. In his works, Styron deals with such subjects as the history of mankind, human goodness and evil in a humane manner. Slavery with a history of nearly three hundred years, and the resultant racial problems have become Americans'collective unconsciousness. Consequently, both blacks and whites are greatly afflicted. Styron holds an enduring concern over the fate of black people. Five of his main works explore or involve the issue of racial problems. He vehemently condemns slavery in his fiction, and takes an active part in the campaign for black people's political and economical equal rights.Styron deeply sympathizes with the nation-wide Civil Rights Movement launched by black people. He points out that the fierce racial conflicts are resulted from white people's chronic neglect and contempt of black people. Blacks are treated as property and subhumans. Styron criticizes this deep-rooted notion about black people, which dominated American society even before the Civil War and still prevails among some white people. He denounces the way white people refuse to regard black people as their equals worthy of their direct contact. At the same time, Styron also rejects overstating black people's rebellion against chattel slavery, and refuses to treat the Negro as fanatic who attempts to start riots and rebellions anytime and in any place. Both attitudes distort the real image of black people. In the face of racial crisis and social turmoil, William Styron, a literary artist with a strong sense of social conscience and responsibility, resorts to art to reflect on history in the hope of finding solutions to the present problems; hence, he composes the historical novel The Confessions of Nat Turner.The novel tells the story of Nat Turner, a black rebel leader in 1831. It is widely acclaimed immediately after its publication by white critics, but severely criticized by black intellectuals and some white people as well. They accuse Styron of wittingly revising history, and distorting the image of the slave rebel leader in his novel; they believe that Styron's Nat is a"clumsy, Hamlet-like, neurasthenic, impotent man"instead of their beloved black hero.Styron, though a realistic novelist who inherits modernistic techniques, is influenced by theories of Deconstruction and post-modern thoughts which dominated American literary criticism and creation of the time. The dissertation believes that Styon adopts revisionist theories of history and historiography with post-modern consciousness to challenge the truthfulness of the historical narratives of Nat Turner. With an interest in the life of the present, and considering the needs of the present, Styron re-creates Nat and reconstructs his era. He portrays Nat Turner's psychological conflicts and aspiration for freedom, his realization that he must fight for all black people's freedom, and his unremitting efforts to pursue self-identity. Styron explores the agony of homelessness the Negroes suffer and the dilemma they are stuck in. Styron subverts the image of Nat Turner held by white people as a religious fanatic who kills excessively; he also revises the image of Nat as an idolized black hero in the eyes of black people. Styron's Nat Turner is, first of all, a slave aspiring for freedom and autonomy, and he is also a black living in white people's world, thus, caught in a dilemma as he desperately tries to reconcile his two worlds: the white one of his aspirations, and the slave world to which he is consigned. Nat then is endowed with a split nature. However, more importantly, Nat eventually comes to the reconciliation with the liberal white people. Reflecting on his past, Nat realizes on the one hand that blacks should fight for their freedom, but on the other hand, he comes to know that there should be love and harmony instead of confrontation between people of different races. Such realization brings Nat Turner redemption and he feels relieved and ready to face death. Styron endows a black slave with integrity, identity and humanity to condemn the evil of slavery, and to repent what white people have committed to black people. This can also be rendered as a significant attempt for white people to understand black people, and so they may gain redemption. It is obvious the novel demonstrates its author's political stance toward racial problems. Styron approves non-violence, advocated by Martin Luther King, and supports black people as they strive for equality, but proposes reciprocal understanding and reconciliation between black and white.Styron does not limit his subject matter to his own country or the region of his home town. He expands the scope of his concerns to other topics. The twentieth century has witnessed two catastrophic world wars. Humanity, rationality, and morality were destroyed, and human society had long been in chaos. Styron maintains that it is the duty of art and literature to reflect and explore the condition of human existence, no matter if it is about a chaotic society, depression and frustrations of people or the degeneration of humanity.In Sophie's Choice, Styron explores the issue of great magnitude in human history by appropriating the Holocaust as its subject matter. There are two separate but related foci in the novel: Sophie's concentration camp experience and the artistic development and maturation of the fiction writer, Stingo, the narrator. The former prompts exploration into and reflection on the absolute evil of humanity, human goodness and evil; and the latter is presented graphically in the juxtaposition of two disparate worlds: Auschwitz and Brooklyn, New York. Through the juxtaposition, the Auschwitz experience is brought to the spotlight, and the brutalities of the Holocaust are underlined and condemned, but the writer also explores the human mystery existing in human society, which is why human beings, as a family, are not supportive of each other, not sympathetic, not loving but filled with hate and revenge and the desire to annihilate our own kind. Philosophers, historians, scholars and critics including Theodor Adorno all contend that the Holocaust is too brutal, too barbaric to comprehend, hence, only silence serves as the best commemoration to the millions of victims. Styron takes the risk of being criticized by re-creating Sophie, the Auschwitz survivor, to reconstruct the history of the Holocaust, and to explore human evil. In so doing, Styron's purpose is to let every individual reflect on his own evil side. The examination of others'evil can make oneself conscious of his own. The realization of the existence of evil offers possibility for human beings to discard evil for goodness, thus we can be saved.The dissertation adopts the historical-biographical approach to study Styron's two historical novels. After close reading of the novels, the analysis focuses on narrative strategies towards the reconstruction of history Styron employs and the importance of reflecting on history, and the significance of reconstructing history. The historiographical theories are used to analyze the writer's views on history and historiography. The related theories of identity, trauma, and narratology are also applied to the analysis of characterization. The introduction of the dissertation, first of all, explicates the background of William Styron's literary creation, and gives a brief account of the stages of his creation. Then the chapter justifies the study of Styron's two historical novels.Chapter II mainly deals with the relevant theoretical justification for Styron's creative efforts, which includes the explication of history and historiography in general. This section also explicates the eligibility of fiction being employed to reconstruct history. Furthermore, Styron's philosophy of history articulated in his fictions is explicated in this part. Styron replaces the traditional"timeline"of history with a"matrix"paradigm of history, and he employs the narrative strategies of return, reconciliation and redemption to reconstruct history, manifesting his new mode of historiography.Chapter III focuses on the reconstruction of a common history for both white and black people in The Confessions of Nat Turner. Styron, with an interest in the life of the present, restates the personal story of the historical personage—Nat Turner—to reexamine chattel slavery, and to reconstruct the history of both white and black people who lived in the society of slavery. This chapter first and foremost analyses how Styron subverts the traditional images of Nat Turner; then, the chapter uses theories of narratology, identity and subjectivity to point out that the writer endows Nat Turner with a complex personality, independent self-identity and humanity instead of characterizing a historical personage in the abstract, stereotypic pattern. Nat Turner has experienced three stages in constructing his self-identity and gains his subjectivity: the stage of personal identity, the stage of political identity and the stage of narrative identity. Eventually Nat realizes only love and brotherhood can resolve conflicts, and brings redemption; violence can only worsen one's religious and existential crisis. This can be understood as Styron's appeal to white-black reconciliation given the special cultural and political context in the 1960s. It can also be understood as his and hence other white people's attempt to understand black people.Chapter IV focuses on Sophie's Choice. This chapter illustrates that Styron attempts to reexamine and reinterpret the Holocaust by constructing Sophie's life stories at Auschwitz and in the United States, and to understand the absolute evil of human being by juxtaposing Auschwitz with the quotidian, and thus he reconstructs the unspeakable history of the Holocaust. The dissertation also examines the process of the narrator's coming to terms with Sophie's tragic past and the paradigmatic human existence of Auschwitz, then undergoing transformations both as a person and as a writer, hence coming to his maturity. And the chapter also analyses how the novel explores the binary opposition and co-existence of goodness and evil by portraying Sophie as both victim and accomplice, and the SS members as non-demonic human beings.The last part of the dissertation concludes the study of William Styron's historical fiction, and summarizes its weaknesses and the direction of further efforts.