IN THE SEARCHES FOR THE NATIONAL IDENTITY: VISION OF J. BARNES

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IN THE SEARCHES FOR THE NATIONAL IDENTITY: VISION OF J. BARNES

Journal Title: Проблеми сучасного літературознавства - Year 2018, Vol 0, Issue 26

Abstract

In this article J. Barnes’s novel «England, England» is analyzed in the aspect of problematization and artistic representation of the individual and national identity question; the originality of author’s interpretation of the identity problem through the metaphor «the invention of tradition» is emphasized; humanistic nature of English writer’s artistic reflection is stressed. National identity problems, national history and memory, national traditions and heritage became «a significant trend» of the modern British artistic literature, and J. Barnes’s art is one of many bright proofs of this, because of the serious intention to understanding of what we call «Englishness» is demonstrated in his works. Novel «England, England» (1988) is the concentration of author’s reflections on the question about national identity. He decided to share these questions with his nationals and not only, proclaiming that «England, England is a letter to my own country at the turn of the millennium». Due to Barnes, he focuses on what can be called «the invention of tradition» in this novel, and he admires the idea of expanding of this metaphor in the context of E. Renan’s thesis «getting its history wrong is part of becoming a nation». Testing the power of national historical memory and national past and heritage, consequently ruining national consciousness stereotypes and demythologizing important «Englishness» significators, Barnes points out the crisis state of the modern world, which is able to find neither its real history nor identity. Metaphor, that was given in the beginning of the novel and that tells us about the attempt of the protagonist to find herself through memories of her own childhood, when she was doing puzzles with English counties, is the analogy to finding by country the national identity, which is also lost in the blurred reminiscences. This way Barnеs con vinces, that the past of a human being is strongly correlated with country’s existence history. In the novel individual and common memory are deeply interconnected together with each other. Forming our imagination about identity as unreachable utopia by text’s logic, the author also doubts about certainty commonly used «Englishness» signs, underlining impossibility of reproduction of authentic version of national or individual identity. Barnes insists on objective «uncertainty of being» (D. Zatonskij) and talks to readers with the help of steady humanistic values. Person and country live through the similar processes during their life, the loss of faith in reality of normal life basis equals to the loss of sense of being, people and nation, that do not know their history are doomed to wandering in the stormy life ocean. However, they find sense of being, if they have a strong rod and if they dive into wide contexts of truly existing life, when their faith in something more serious and meaningful is only one thing that is left, instead of intermediate modern state and personal ’ego’. Terms of reference, that the protagonist Marta reaches, saturate writer’s prose with universal, humanistic reflections. They one more time point out versatility and philosophical complexity of the modern British novel.

Authors and Affiliations

Elena Annenkova

Keywords

memory reminiscences history identity authenticity simulacrum

EP ID EP632457
DOI 10.18524/2312-6809.2018.26.129467
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