The View Of Ghosty History In Waterland

Graham Swift (1949-) is one of the most important writers of contemporary British literature arena. His this very literary sensibility is well highlighted in Waterland. Among the existing research achievements on Waterland, there still lacks a systematic analysis on Postmodern Historical View that have reflected in Waterland. Based on the research of domestic and foreign scholars, therefore, by using Derrida’s Hauntology Theory, this paper attempts to explore the Postmodern Historical View that reflected in Waterland. Through the hero Tom Crick’s digging and narrating about the history of his hometown, his family and he himself, we may see the process of history is a process that differance as ghostly haunting. That means, the origin of history is missing. Tom’s recording and narration about the history are also supplements or even replacements for the history. Narration about history can be incomplete and even unreliable.The paper is divided into five parts. The first part summarizes the existing research achievements of domestic and foreign on Graham Swift’s works including the Waterland. The second part analyzes Tom’s supplements to the personal history that neglected by grand history. In the view of Derrida’s differance, the "supplement" of history is a way to establish Presence in the differance of historical time. The third part analyzes the process that Tom replaced the history by reshaping history/story. In the view of Derrida’s differance, the process of history have been constantly replaced during the process of question, recall and narration. On the basis of the former two chapters’analysis, the fourth part analyzes Tom’s behavior of filling and replacing history, reflecting that during the process of being filled and replaced constantly, history is continuous differance on the road leading to the truth. The pursuing of history is the pursuing of the truth, and the narration of history is also the narration of the truth. The last part summarizes the historical feature of Hauntology theory and the revelation we would get from Waterland. Although it may be difficult to be fully understand and narratived, as a "Ghost", history is a process of differance. Even so, we can not fall into nothingness when we can not catch them. On the other hand we can not regard what we get as the whole history.