Seeing Together: Shared Attention in A. S. Byatt’s Short Stories
The stories of A. S. Byatt often stage two recognition scenes held in tension with one another in order to portray the difficulty of perceptual truthfulness. These moments of insight contrast with characters’ established habits of self-protectiveness. Drawing upon the idea of the “good” from the phi...
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| Publicat a: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse, |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
| Publicat: |
Journal of the Short Story in English
2022
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| Accés en línia: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sumari: | The stories of A. S. Byatt often stage two recognition scenes held in tension with one another in order to portray the difficulty of perceptual truthfulness. These moments of insight contrast with characters’ established habits of self-protectiveness. Drawing upon the idea of the “good” from the philosophy of Iris Murdoch, Byatt shows that new understanding occurs in rare, accidental moments that align multiple subjects in joint attention. Byatt locates these instances of “seeing together” in the uncanny qualities of beginnings and endings (“Body Art” and “The Thing in the Forest”) and through the refracted imagery of the visual arts and dreams (“The Chinese Lobster” and “Crocodile Tears”), which channel attention away from the self, in loving acceptance of the contingency of life. |
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