Juxtaposition Of Spaces, Similarity Of Faces: A Spatial Study On Possession

The1991year Booker Prize winner A. S. Byatt elaborates in her best known novelPossession: A Romance a story of love, detective and the lives of literary critics. Sinceits publication, Possession has gained much attention from various scholars whoanalyze the themes or narratological techniques from feminist, archetypal andintertextual perspectives.As a new method for literary critics to analyze the texts, spatial theory overthrowsthe dominance of time in narratology. It attaches great importance to space’s role inlaying out the story. Possession involves three interwoven yet distinctive spaces, namely,the mystic mythical space, the indistinct Victorian space and the depressed modernspace. Meanwhile, as social spaces distinct with each other, women living in thosespaces tend to differ those in the other spaces in psychological phase. As a result, whenfacing love, they show different attitudes.This thesis, drawing on the spatial theory and cultural geography, analyzes thethree spaces. The second chapter offers a brief introduction to space theory. The space isalways the object that contains the deployment of time, and at the same time is shapedby society and culture. The space in turn influences people’s lives. Chapter threeanalyzes the mythological space by paying great attention to the images of “castle” and“moor”. Leaving the moor or the castle means that women give up their originality andautonomy to the patriarchal society. Living in this social space, women have to reservethemselves if they intend to preserve their independence. As a result, when faced withlove, women are not brave enough to make the decision. Chapter four presents theinfluence of the Victorian social space’s great impact on women’s psychological space.In order to protect their talents from being intimidated by the patriarchal society, womenare either conservative or radical when they are facing love. Chapter five focuses on thedepressed modern social space and women’s psychological space in response to thesocial environment. Though they may be successful in their career, women still tend tohide their personality and talents as they are afraid of the outside world. However,compared with women in the other two spaces, modern world women are braver.Chapter six summarizes the features of the attitudes of women’s towards love indifferent spaces and historical tendency in the changes of their attitudes. Though womenare conserved at the very beginning of the human history, they are definitely able to be more confident and make progress in controlling their fates.This thesis offers a new perspective for readers and literary critics to interpret thethemes of this novel—spatial reading, therefore will encourage the application of spacetheory in critical reading of literary texts.