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Spatio-Temporal Ambiguities in John Richardson’s Wacousta

December 24, 2019

academia, Canada, criticism, Gothic, symbolism, time

Note: the following article on spatio-temporal ambiguities in John Richardson’s Wacousta is a modified excerpt from the article “The ‘New World’ Gothic Monster: Spatio-Temporal Ambiguities, Male Bonding, and Nation in John Richardson’s Wacousta”, co-authored with Matti Savolainen. Savolainen, Matti & Mehtonen, Päivi (ed & intr.). Gothic Topographies – Language, Nation Building and Race. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2013

For a list of my other academic publications, see here.

Scholarly work on Canadian literature has drawn attention to the Canadian landscape, and rightfully so. With the vast icy emptiness of the north and the depressing isolation of its individual settlements, it functions as a peculiar Gothic villain.

Here, nature itself becomes a monster (Atwood 3, 19, 35, 88); an “Other”, that in its sublime characteristics inspires both terror and awe, and at the same time serves the purpose of self-definition by instigating the individual’s assessing their place in this new world. This process occurs on an unconscious level, and it is here that the Gothic, as a mode, can be detected at its greatest uniqueness.

Wacousta — Canadian wilderness achieves character status in John Richardson’s novel

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The Meaning of Dracula’s Castle

October 20, 2019

Criticism

academia, criticism, Dracula, Gothic, reality, Victorian, vision

Note: the following article on the meaning of Dracula’s castle is a modified excerpt from my article “Philosophical Idealism and Vision in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Photographs, Sight, and Remote Viewing as Tools of Reality Rendering”. Word and Image: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches. Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press, 2014.

Feel free to also take a look at my other academic publications.

The importance and meaning of Dracula’s castle in the novel becomes evident for a variety of reasons. In general temporal terms, the castle of Dracula serves as a generic reminder and connects with the Gothic tradition.

Examining the text itself, the novel essentially begins and ends with the castle. In fact, the novel ends in the castle twice: the first time in Mina’s last journal entry, describing the seeming destruction of Count Dracula in his home ground (D, 401) and the second in Jonathan Harker’s note, revealing their pilgrimage of sorts to the very same place seven years later (D, 402).

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Time and Meaning in Only Lovers Left Alive

October 2, 2019

Criticism

academia, criticism, film, Gothic, symbolism, time

Note: the following article on time and meaning in Only Lovers Left Alive is a modified excerpt from my article “Reconfiguring the Garden of Eden: Suspended Temporality in Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive”. The Eternal Return: Myth Updating In Contemporary Literature. Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics. 40.2 (2017): 123-134.

For a list of my other academic publications, see here.

Arguably one of the most pivotal moments of Only Lovers Left Alive comes when Adam, the male vampire protagonist, utters with despaired surrender that he feels as if “all the sand is at the bottom of the hourglass”.

Time and Meaning in Only Lovers Left Alive — The concept of time and meaning in *Only Lovers Left Alive* can be summarized by Adam’s key statement: ” all the sand is at the bottom of the hourglass”

He expresses his misery at the realization that every experience worth having has already been had and, as he believes, the future holds nothing better. Eve, his loyal partner who is much more of an optimist by nature, tells him to simply turn the hourglass over; to reset time.

In effect, the core problem of Only Lovers Left Alive is indeed related to time, particularly in the context of experience and progress: If perfection is already achieved (the archetypal paradise of the Garden of Eden), is the only way forward through loss and suffering? And, perhaps more importantly, to which extent is the human experience intrinsically connected with this grand paradox of time and progress?

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