Post-Modern Victorian: A. S. Byatts Possession Essay examples -- essay

Post-Modern VictorianA. S. Byatts stubbornnessIf I had read A. S. Byatts sassy Possession without having had British Literature, a lot of the novels meaning, analogies, and literary mystery would have been lost to me. The entire volume seems one big reference back to something weve learned or read this May term. The first few lines of chapter one are rime attributed to Randolph Henry Ash, which Byatt wrote herself. Already in those few lines I hear echoes of class, lines written in flowery Pre-Raphaelite tradition. "The serpent at its root, the fruit of gold /At the old worlds rim, /In the Hesperidean grove, the fruit /Glowed golden on eternal boughs, and there /The potassium hydrogen tartrate Ladon crisped his jewelled (sic) crest." Because of class, I was able to pick up on this poetry tradition right away. This story within a story is beef up by Byatts ability to write Victorians accurately. Until I read some of the reviews, I thought Byatts Victorian characters wer e actual historical literary figures, when actually they are fictitious, and their journals, letters, and poetry are written by Byatt.      The action of the book takes place in two periods. The two main characters, Roland and Maud, are literary scholars living in the 1980s. Their get it on story is shared and played out by the diaries, poetry, and correspondence of two poets and lovers from the 1860s-Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte. Although the book is modern fiction, much of it is a Victorian novel as well. Possession is characteristic of Byatts love for intertextuality and imbedded texts. Possession is also an example of several literary genres, all written into one book. At various measure it gives evidence of poetry, mythology, a romance novel, a detective story, a fairy tale, journals and diaries, and scholarly writings.     There are several themes in Possession that tie this book to earlier texts that we have read. Individ ual versus group identity, feminism, sexuality and the link between present and past are themes that Byatt deals with in her novel. Interestingly, Byatt expresses many of these themes using symbolical food colour imagery, a technique that makes her writing reminiscent of Pre-Raphaelite style.      According to Byatt, the "struggle of the individual to discover and then live out her... ...hanged, and romance from one snip to another is not so different as we thought. The characters mix the old and the new Maud wears a brooch once belonging to Christabel, and another Ash scholar, Mortimer Cropper, carries Ashs scoop shovel watch. In the end of the novel, the last love letter written by Christabel enables Maud to finally enjoy the value of love in the present, and give her trust to Roland. The alternating(prenominal) time frame of the novel provides an interesting contrast to the normal, stifling, linear time frame of typical literature and everyday life. T he way Byatt expresses many of these themes through her symbolic use of color is significant. Byatt paints with words, making her reminiscent of the Pre-Raphaelites. She gives color descriptions for her characters, painting the women such as LaMotte and Christabel in gold and green description, while persons whose characters are flat and neer well-developed, such as Paola the secretary, are described in colorless terms. Paola has "long, colourless hair bound in a rubber band" huge mothlike glasses, and " ratty grey pads" for fingertips. Her lack of color sets her off from the beginning as a very flat character.