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White Circles/Black Holes: Worlds of Difference in A Passage to India
Author(s) -
Doherty Gerald
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1991.tb01908.x
Subject(s) - narrative , decorum , innocence , white (mutation) , interpretation (philosophy) , meaning (existential) , epistemology , order (exchange) , literature , sociology , philosophy , aesthetics , linguistics , art , psychology , psychoanalysis , biochemistry , chemistry , finance , economics , gene
Between 1950–70, the dominant model that regulated the interpretation of E. M. Forster's A Passage to India was structured around the idea of wholeness or unity. Between 1970–85, it was grounded in the model of choice – between alternatives – whether these involve alternative meanings or interpretations. The present essay puts forward a new model based on difference – the difference that at once articulates the great oppositional chains – infinite/finite, presence/absence, form/formless, innocence/guilt – that structure the narrative at the same time as it takes them apart and dissolves them. The essay explores the effects of this difference on five distinct textual levels – on the order of meaning, knowledge, narrative structure, ethics, and orthographic decorum.