John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor: A Time-Image Filmic Space, Embodying Henri Bergson's Duree

Exploring literary works based on media theories constitutes a major part of interdisciplinary studies. Gilles Deleuze’s notions on time-image cinema, a trend dominant after the Second World War, have provided a suitable platform for investigating postmodern novels. Using his theories as well as the filmic space of John Barth’s novel The Sot-Weed Factor (۱۹۶۰), the present study seeks to present it as a time-image crystalline narrative. No matter from which dimension we look at a crystal, we will simultaneously see the other dimensions, as well. Therefore, according to Deleuze, crystal displays the indistinguishable continuity and unity of the real and the virtual; that is why what we see in crystal is pure time (durée). Inspired by Henri Bergson, Deleuze considers the nature of time as qualitative, rather than quantitative, and sees durée as real time that is in continuous becoming. Characteristics such as pure heterogeneity, pure quality, the fusion of moments, incompatibility with determination and identification, and innumerability can be attributed to durée, a concept independent of the linear time discussed by Immanuel Kant. Relying on concepts such as crystal-image, the blurring of the boundary between history and fiction, the power of the false, and non-linear flashback, this article considers them as appropriate tools that have already rendered The Sot-Weed Factor a time-image cinematic space, embodying pure time and making its characters and readers (spectators) immediately intuit it.

کلیدواژه ها:

crystal-image ، History ، Flashback ، Power of the false ، Time-image Cinema ، durée