‘Tangles of What-Might-Have-Been’: Destiny as Shapeshifting Forces in Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under
Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under questions transitions through a rewriting of the Oedipus myth, in a nonlinear structure that mirrors the ontological instability of its characters. Set on Oxford’s Isis River, it uses water’s shifting nature as a metaphor for identity and fate. Gretel, a lexicographe...
Kaydedildi:
| Yayımlandı: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc, |
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| Yazar: | |
| Materyal Türü: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Dil: | Anglais |
| Baskı/Yayın Bilgisi: |
Études britanniques contemporaines
2026
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| Konular: | |
| Online Erişim: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Özet: | Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under questions transitions through a rewriting of the Oedipus myth, in a nonlinear structure that mirrors the ontological instability of its characters. Set on Oxford’s Isis River, it uses water’s shifting nature as a metaphor for identity and fate. Gretel, a lexicographer, is drawn toward Sarah, the abusive mother who abandoned her sixteen years earlier. Besides, the novel explores physical transitions with the story of Marcus, a transgender character who unwittingly fulfills a prophecy by an equally transgender oracle. This paper examines how geographical, ontological and narrative instability paradoxically dramatises destiny as a shapeshifting yet inevitable force: the metamorphic environment draws the characters towards their immutable fates, identity is in constant flux, and the inescapable instability of language as well as the novel’s generic fluidity qualify the illusory desire to fix meaning and to control closure. |
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