Excerpt
Table of Contents
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE Language as Identity and Difference
CHAPTER TWO History in Time and Space
Conclusion
Bibliography
Abstract
Streszczenie
Introduction
The literary output of Julian Barnes (1946- ) defies exact classification. The distinct narrative techniques he uses as well as the multiplicity of themes and richness of vocabulary make him difficult to define. His novels and short stories are widely read not only by scholars and literary critics but also by the general public. Consequently, Barnes is one of the most popular and recognised authors in English literature of the post-war period. He has been awarded several literary prizes in England, France, Italy, and the United States, among which there were the prestigious Maugham Award, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and Prix Medicis- to name just a few[1]. Despite the unquestionable thematic diversity, some reappearing motifs can be enumerated- they are mostly subjects centred on leftist ideas of society, culture, and religion as well as existential issues such as the meaning of art in life and the possibility to perceive truth. The overtone of Barnes’s writings is frequently ironic or even satirical but, still, his criticism of middle-class mentality and master-narratives of culture and religion is fairly moderate. Barnes continues to identify himself with bourgeoisie and he uses the imagery of otherness as well as lower-classes not in order to speak in their defence but to ridicule the arrogance and self-confidence of his own class. Moreover, the formal education he received largely amounts to the treatment of certain issues. So far, he has written as many as fourteen novels, a couple of detective stories, a collection of journalism and he also published many articles in, e.g. ‘The Observer” and ‘The New Yorker’[2]. In my thesis I will concentrate on four novels: Metroland (1980), Flaubert’s Parrot (1984), A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters (1989), and Cross Channel (1995).
The first one, Metroland, is written according to the conventions of Bildungsroman which describes the emotional and intellectual development of young protagonists[3]. The novel is divided into three parts: Metroland, Paris, and Metroland II. Each of them deals with the ensuing stages of development which brings new meanings to the events and situations described and even more possible interpretations. At the beginning, the two main protagonists- Christopher Lloyd and Toni Barbarowski present the same views on life, art, and society. Only in the last passages do they split. Particularly because while, in the course of time, Chris declined in his criticism for the bourgeois district communities, Toni persisted in his rebellious attitude by taking up a job as a University scientist and refusing to ever get married. Despite the simplicity of plot, Metroland introduces a number of complex ideas not only of social structures but also of some theoretical problems like the construction of meaning in language, the loss of individuality and authenticity in the process of constructing history and the confusion around dictionaries (Barnes himself co-edited English Oxford Dictionary[4] ).
Flaubert’s Parrot is fairly different from all the other literary pieces authored by Barnes. Its form oscillates between essay, novel, short story, diary, and an (auto)biography. The narrative complexity and minute research on Flaubert make it probably the most distinctive novel Barnes has ever written and one of the most important literary phenomena in post-war Britain. The predominating part of the novel is narrated by Geoffrey Braithwaite who tries to discover all the intimate details from Flaubert’s life. First and foremost, he wants to examine the authenticity of a parrot considered to have belonged to the author in question. Also, by the end of the novel, Braithwaite realises that through his lifetime he and his wife Ellen have been parroting Flaubertian protagonists- Charles and Emma Bovary. Flaubert’s Parrot is inter- and intratextual as well as interdisciplinary and heterogeneous. In this novel Barnes proves to be a postmodernist writer as he anticipates poststructural readings of his work; hence, the final form of Flaubert’s… is meta-linguistic, meta-narrative and meta-theoretical.
A similar method is also visible in A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters. In this novel, Barnes strives to shift the critical attention from the Biblical and political to the personal and individual. He consciously deconstructs and questions the meaning of historical events. In doing so, he has no qualms about undermining the validity of western values. He writes the history of the world violating both the temporal as well as the spatial order. Even though each of the stories is to be treated separately, the themes and motifs are consistent with the general historical imagery. In this way, Barnes is very provocative in the subtextual sphere of the novel. Even though Barnes privileges freedom and self-reliance over succumbing to power relations, he, nevertheless, depicts stubborn individualism as futile.
The last novel discussed in my thesis is Cross Channel. It is mostly a collection of eight short stories- all of which are focused on the relations between the French and the English. The motifs discussed in Cross… are variable. Barnes writes about the Christian church, cross channel labour force, heterosexual relationships, peasant fables and organising publishing conferences. However, the attitude that Barnes presents in Cross Channel no longer superposes the French over the English as it was the case with his previous novels. Accordingly, Barnes depicts culture in its more universal dimension and treats both entities as integral parts of master-narrative. This subject reappears in other novels too.
My analysis of the four mentioned novels is structured into two chapters: Language as Identity and Difference and History in Time and Space. Since Barnes himself largely draws from literary theory, my analysis includes extensive references to French criticism and theory. The treatment of ideas connected with social domination and ideology is parallel to the works of the thinkers of the New Left such as Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas.
The analysis of language is performed on two levels. First, I scrutinise language as it is spoken and understood. Second, I concentrate on the interrelations between the speaking subjects. My interpretation is based on the writings of philosophers like Derrida, Lacan, Wittgenstein and Kristeva as well as structural linguists like de Saussure and Iser. I make a point of depicting the relations between structural linguistic and phenomenology and the often conflicting solutions theory provides.
The interpretation of history, on the other hand, can be roughly divided into history as such and Christian history. The former is depicted in terms of master-narrative which involves the notions of authority, domination, and circulation of discourse. The latter, illustrated especially in A History… shows the results of respatialisation of temporal order and the ensuing fusion of the sacred with the profane. The analysis of the novels mentioned is not only devoted to strictly Barnesian imageries. Julian Barnes’s literary creativity is only a point of departure to more universal problems of contemporary literary theory and cultural studies.
CHAPTER ONE Language as Identity and Difference
Barnesian conception of language is formulated mainly on the ground of cultural codes transmission. He concentrates on the semiotic and semantic intricacies of everyday language with an emphasis laid on the parallel distinction between French and English. Whereas the former represents the flexible and figurative quality of socio-cultural discourse, the latter stands for culture-referential convention. Having made a comparative depiction of semiotic interactions in respective cultures, Barnes proceeds to the re-evaluation of the condition of language. He challenges the prescriptive notions imposed on language putting forth the idea of rejecting some of the common modes of thinking about it. Throughout his novels, Barnes makes several points as to this subject matter- some of which are of relative frequency. First, he assumes the rejection of translation for the sake of linguistic autonomy which resists conceptual absorption into the target-language. The ensuing acculturation of the translated terms causes the reduction of meaning as well as the conventionalisation of the usage. Second, he suggests the rejection of domestic homogeneity and verbal schematics in favour of hybrid anarchy of speech. Barnes portrays otherness in terms of linguistic subculture. And ultimately, he postulates the rejection of dictionaries and the authority of lexicographer, in exchange of which, Barnes purports the abolition of long-established canons of meaning. He exhibits the linguistic conventions as violating both the rules of pluralism and the logic of language itself. The core components of his discussion oscillate between structural and poststructural literary theory- often taking deconstruction for their point of departure.
First and foremost, Barnes most distinctively reflects upon the problem of the vast variety of meaning and signification as confronted with the common expectation of accuracy within the framework of Bildungsroman. In Metroland, apart from self-monitoring the developing characters also monitor the linguistic operations of culture. The primary notion is that of the English language as embedded in the structural system of signification. Both the syntax and semantics of the English language operate in such a way so as to directly address the cultural interests of middle class or any other socially privileged group(s). Toni and Christopher, trying to escape the limitations of English, find rescue in French. The latter becomes the language of rebellion and freedom:
[…] We cared for its language because it sounds very plosive and precise, and we cared for its literature largely for its combativeness. […][5]
Whereas English language- mirroring the mentality of middle-class people, does not cross the borders of its system, French is here assumed to violate the fundaments of status quo in the act of a deliberate assault on culture. Their expectation toward English is for it to become, just like they assume French is, a literature- one that would not fragmentarily reflect culture but, rather, be open to reflect and being reflected in unnumbered ways. Moreover, the perception of English makes it not so much the language of the English-speaking world as that of the bourgeois community consisting of:” the unidentified legislators, moralists, social luminaries, and parents of outer suburbia”[6]. In consequence, English and French are the languages of adulthood and adolescence, respectively. The first tends to profess completeness and singularity of ideas, while the latter allows both more freedom of expression and comprehension. In other words: the adult simplification of ultimate definition is contrasted with youthful simplicity of undetermined reference:
[…] At that age everything seems to more open to analogy, to metaphor, than it does now. There were more meanings, more interpretations, a greater variety of available truths. There was more symbolism. Things contained more.[…][7]
The act of remembering includes critical instances, yet, looking at the situation retrospectively, it ought to be noted that back then the fluidity of language and its referents was not just a matter of juvenile fancy. The attitude of Toni and Chris was quite competitive as they counterposed the surrounding reality with their own priorities such as :” the purity of language, the perfectibility of self, the function of art, plus a clutch of capitalised intangibles like Love, Truth, Authenticity…”[8] What draws a close attention in the fragment cited above is a sense of loss after the bygone times of language allowed variable signification. The protagonist recalls teenage years when he did not have to follow the well-worn modes of meaning. But there is also a sense of sympathy for the naivety in taking understanding and opinion-forming for a process of undisturbed, individual, part conscious self-orientation. The fact that the linguistic search for manifold structures of reality is a dead-end enterprise and that it must eventually fail seems to be now realised.
Consequently, meanings become unilateral and the multitude of linguistic reference declines. Within the framework of systematic structuring, language-the-signifier has only the neutral quality of denoting particular concepts of culture-the-signified. Language functions more like a science than practice and even when it becomes one- it tends to submit to its scientific implications. In this sense, in order for a semi-mimetic consistency of speech act and reality to be attained, linguistic units must be estranged from their natural environment. To Barnes, after it has ceased to be genuinely creative and dynamic, language has become merely an ideology.
One of the ways of overcoming the trap of English language is the transmission of French lexicon into the mother tongue. This practice does challenge the bourgeois sterility of linguistic culture but the French-English relation is a battlefield for signifiers so long as they remain untranslated. The naturally French terms like ecraser l’infame and epater la bourgeoisie are the foreign-sounding voices of discontent used by Toni and Christopher with the intention to mock the hypocritical rationality of the middle world. If language and culture are placed within the system of a word and the singular reference then the challenging language must be one from outside the system. Otherness of language invites the difference of identity into the play and the rules are not questioned because they are unknown. A foreign expression is not comprehended by the addressee so there is no authority over its meaning except for that of the actual user. Such utterances, despite their unknowingly fixed semantics, when entering an alien system, automatically lose their own variety of reference and the workings of signification are optional.
This assumption amounts to the intentionalisation of meaning which, despite its deconstructive aspirations, operates on the structural level of signification. Such an approach is characteristic of phenomenological critique questioned mostly by New Critics. The usage of French in this particular example can be seen as derived from Husserlian concept of the form. The idea of form is inseparable from metaphysics since it assumes an essential and self-evident presence. This “presence” results from what Husserl calls a finite system of oppositions working within the framework of noetico-noematic structure[9]. Hence, sense is inscribed in the pure possibility of form which only acquires meaning in the act of expression. Derrida refers to the analysis pinpointing the activity of western dualism of soul and body:” this enigmatic unity of informing intention and informed matter”[10] . Similarly, the phenomenological views on the expression of meaning in language are shared by Heidegger. In Language, we read: “ In its essence, language is neither expression nor an activity of man. Language speaks”[11] . Even though Heidegger frees the production of meaning from the intention of man, he, nevertheless, falls back on inherent structures of meaning within language. In this particular respect phenomenology corresponds to structuralism. Mainly, the assumption that every expression is utterly novel has been assimilated by theorists and is to be found in the writings of many structuralists. One of the possible examples is Jonathan Culler whose employment of Chomskian “competence”[12] was supposed to account for the readerly comprehension of linguistic codes- deemed universal in structure and operation of meaning. Accordingly, using phrases like epater l’infame and ecraser la bourgeoisie creates the illusion of self-emancipation from the structural system of signification. First, there is no pre-expressive noema that would, normally, condition the production of meaning. Second, language is spoken and dependant on the speaking subject’s semantic goals. And finally, the rule of “competence” cannot be applied because of the foreignness of these expressions.
However, if such expressions are untranslated and their meaning is virtually reliant on the speaker’s perspective, then they are inclined to get exhausted at certain point. This is because the foreignness of a language cannot guarantee the avoidance of systematic assimilation; especially, when it denotes a concept of a very particular definition. The revolutionary tone in epater… and ecraser… is both subjective and emotive which makes it even more instantaneous. In fact, intentionality is one of the first starting points for New Critical theorists who rejected structuralism. Wimsatt and Beardsley assert that intentional stances of literary works are not a subject to linguistic analysis but to psychological scrutiny[13]. This stems from the fact that language anticipates intentions that can only be expressed afterwards and only with the help of the system which is available. Similarly, they write that the denotation (meaning) is always more powerful than the connotation (suggestion)[14]. Hence, the surplus of intentional meaning is only possible initially and it must inevitably decline.
As a result of the conditions mentioned, preserving linguistic autonomy by means of uttering foreign expressions is not only useless but futile as well. Also the neutrality and mobility of those expressions is merely illusory. Ironically, the ensuing consequences of the assumption implicate the protagonist in a struggle for meaning in the system he had ignored. At first point, Toni and Christopher overestimate system as such. At second point they overestimate their role in the production of meaning:
[…] A simple statement of fact would look ridiculous; the truth would look like a lie. It would have to be slipped casually after all. I practised saying mon amie anglaise to myself, and une amie anglaise and cette amie anglaise. Mentioning nationality would take the sting out of it. […][15]
The protagonist himself realises that there is a discrepancy between the semantic properties of the uttered word and his actual intentions. Language is divorced from both its mimetic quality and individual authorisation. This is one of the primary claims made by deconstructionists :” Since language is pure form and human users have no place “in” language, intention, meaning to say, and validity of interpretation are “outside of It”. Consequently, language, not the users (…), is the final authority on meaning”[16]. By the same token, Derrida criticises the assumptions of differential and diacritical properties of language[17]. Accordingly, the pure form is not a component of the process of meaning production but an inherent constituent of language. The futility of mixing language systems, as described earlier, is attributable to the fact that the protagonists yield to structural notions of linguistics. This is also what Derrida calls prefromism that he discerns in Rousset’s analysis of Proust and Claudel[18]. Derrida’s claim is that ecriture is always preceded by inscription[19]. Hence, even though Toni and Christopher try to deconstruct structuralism using structural tools their aim is accomplished in the earliest stage. In fact, what Derrida calls inscription is the activity of lexical units as well as phrases that they perform in anticipation of being transmitted via speech acts. This problem can be more vividly presented on the following example.
In Metroland, the practice of naming as imprisoned in the context of culture is touched upon with respect to the most confusing word- bourgeois. It is one of the English words that Toni and Christopher stick to. To them it functions as an offensive word with a variety of associations. However, as Christopher discovers, a single word has a wide variety of denotative as well with no respect to his interpretative intentions:
[…] Hey. Christ. You can’t say that. It’s not allowed. Look at yourself. I can call you bourgeois; well, I think I can anyway. You can’t call yourself it. It’s just not… on. I mean it’s against all the known rules. It’s like a master admitting he knows his own nickname. It well, I suppose it can only be answered by a non-conventional response. […][20]
Even though words lean in a specific direction of signification, they can be easily reversed. Still, the procedure of reversal does not cause any turbulence in the system, but simply confirms its order. Bourgeois can be a subjectively offensive word only in the initiating act of will rather than that of a legitimate signification. This time, it is the speaker who is abstracted from the emotive quality of his speech.
Moreover, as Barnes notices in the following fragments, language inevitably slips both the intentions of the speaker and his/her comprehension. It remains a self-governed entity and the speaking subject has only a limited amount of expression possibilities:
[…] When does je t’aime bien become je t’aime? The easy answer is, you know when you’re in love, because there’s no way you can doubt it, any more than you can doubt when you’re house is on fire. That’s the trouble, though: try to describe a phenomenon and you get either a tautology or a metaphor. (…) Hesitancy doesn’t indicate lack of feeling, just uncertainty about terminology (and perhaps, the after-effects of my conversation with Marion). Doesn’t the terminology affect emotion in any case? Shouldn’t I just have said je t’aime (and who’s to say I wouldn’t be telling the truth)? Naming can lead to making. […][21]
The main distinction in the citation is made between the literalness and literariness of language. The former feature is “a tautology” which is a gesture toward the implicit acceptation of linguistic phenomena as described by structuralists. It assumes that the expression of meaning is in itself meaningful as there has been sense beforehand. Barthes writes: “tautology is always aggressive: it signifies a choleric break between the intelligence and its object, the arrogant threat of an order in which we are not to think[22] ”. Hence, while denotation is fixed, the connotation might be more confusing and, by the same token, make room for interpretative speculations. Tautological overtone of an expression brings it back to its own essential semantic qualities and announces that word not necessarily stands for something else than itself. The literary language, “a metaphor”, goes to the other extreme by making an expression mean something virtually different than it is expected to. Saussure perceived literary language as not only symbolic but also free from the illusion that it refers to reality[23]. Consequently, this sort of semantic relativism is useless in everyday language as it cannot be enforced with literary troops. The final result of gradual rebellion against linguistic system is always a failure. The conventionalised link between signifier and signified is irreducible but, simultaneously, the “link” fails to recognise its own complexity.
At first sight, it might appear that the rite from the signifier-signified relation to the sign is a linear one. Derrida’s recognition of the ‘gap’ as well as the antiessetialist notion of supplement and irreversible traces coming about in the process of differ a nce inaugurated the debate over the originality of meaning production. Whether or not the protagonists stick to the structural meaning or invent their own, the “gap” always precedes their utterance. Wittgenstein, in his philosophical scepticism, goes even further claiming that the gaps themselves are multiple which features they acquire in so-called language games[24]. Ultimately, in the relationship between sign and its referent the gap results from the mobility of conventions.
Among Barnes’s most frequent concerns there is also the question of linguistic subcultures. This theme introduces the ideas connected with language’s variety across linguistic communities. This variety is as dependant on the status of a given community as it is on the subject discussed in language. This motif is elaborated on in relation to three linguistic subgroups: adolescents, artists, and racial others. The position of subculture is not depicted in terms of marginalisation but rather as a self-conscious act of rebellion against culture’s hegemony.
The problem of adolescence is illustrated mostly by the figures of Toni and Christopher. The protagonists pay a considerable amount of attention to the dialogic two-sidedness which proves that the predictability of cultural discourse and the unpredictable trap of the linguistic unit’s semantics- are entwined. The former is attributed to adulthood; it is foreseeable structural combination of syntax and semantics whose simultaneous order breeds certainty. The latter is the projection of youngsters as to vocabulary which, as they suppose, can be intentionalised. The parental familiarity and value are envisioned in the language that parents use:
[…] Parenthood, for Toni and me, was a crime of strict liability. There didn’t need to be any mens rea, just the actus reus of birth. The sentence we doled out after giving due consideration to all circumstances of the case and the social background of the offenders, was one of perpetual probation. […][25]
Parents symbolise the hegemonic practises that are subject to counter-ideology. In this sense the youngsters can fulfil their duty- the duty of the young generations. This is not only a theoretical design aiming at heterogenising society but, first and foremost, a sociological fact:” The emergence of such (youth) groups has signalled in a spectacular fashion the breakdown of consensus in the post-war period”[26]. The primary goal of such group is to use a symbolic language confirming disobedience toward socio-parental education:
[…] Adults were boring, with their rationality, their deference, their refusal to punish you as severely as you knew you ought to be punished. Adults were useful because they were boring: they were raw material; they were predictable in their responses. They might be wet and kindly, or sour and vicious; but they were always predictable. […][27]
The predictability of response is linguistic in the first place. Toni and Christopher believe that it is their duty to comply with the ideals of their own generation. The sole act of being disobedient is in itself deconstructive because it introduces chaos into the order of adulthood. With no respect to the falsity of adults, adolescence can be authentic. Hebdige describes this struggle in terms of competing discourses in which the subcultural steals from the cultural and secretly endows the cultural products with new meaning[28]. In this sense subcultures are heterogeneous because they both respect individuality and tend toward inclusiveness. The way to cultural and linguistic independence is through constant deconditioning:
[…] And as for ourselves, the victims, the mal-aimes, we realised that independent existence could only be achieved by strict deconditioning. (…) Deconning, as we called it, savouring the pun, was the duty of every self-respecting adolescent. […][29]
The aspiration to rootlessness is stirred by the historical self-consciousness. The responsibility of the Anger Generation must be shouldered and result in the emergence of a kind of linguistic subculture. Christopher enumerates two ways of ideologically justified behaviour. First, the Scorched Earth is an attitude of an entire anarchy and consciousness of the would-be historical importance of the underground. The second one, Reconstruction, is specifically linguistic: it strives to exchange the static literalness for the energy of metaphor. Despite their challenging character they both fall flat because they bring no tangible effects. The two, revolutionary stages are comparable to the inclusion of French lexicon in English. The application of novel utterances is only initially successful as it is instantaneous too, and their meaning gets exhausted just as the meaning of untranslated foreign expressions. The bourgeois language of married couples and formal institutions absorbs and governs all the sociolects that break ranks with convention.
In separation from strictly social context, Barnes writes about the treatment of taboo in language. The most problematic issue as regards an open discussion is sex. Since such a discussion can only be held with the omission of bourgeois-governed language, it is articulated in the language of French surrealism. It corresponds to the French liberated idea of sexual themes that would, normally, be absent in English or exchanged for a politically correct terminology:
[…] Andre Breton: What is your opinion of love?
‘T.F’: When two people get married…
Andre Breton: No, no, no. The word marriage is antisurrealist. […][30]
Not only does the conversation about women caressing one another take place in French but it is also associated with modernist avant-gardism. The subcultural language, apart from standing in opposition to the bourgeois, occasionally rejects lexical units that it considers to have too much of a hegemonic overtone. Such a conversation is surrealist because it is not real or, at least, it is not allowed to be made so. The use of avant-garde imagery may, however, be elusive:
[…] I was slumped in the oppressive reflection that my uncle was not just an old bore, but a parody of an old bore. […][31]
The surrealist language acts here as a latecomer from the very moment it is allowed to work. It seems like a counter-cultural language neither affects nor is affected by the dispositions of English. Hence, the production of surrealist effect is postponed with respect to convention. Moreover, the word avant-garde with all the associations it carries has fallen into abeyance. The advent of postmodernist critique marks the rejection of modernist assumptions that there are spaces in culture still to be discovered. Lyotard treats avant-garde as: „ the expression of an outdated modernity”[32].
There is one more illustration of the domesticity of English/French as confronted with foreignness which shows the problem in a broadened sense. The French-English linguistic relation is also depicted in terms of racial otherness. Even though the idea carries strong connotations of the dualism of identity, the other is not situated as parallel to the self. In this case, the other is presented as the ‘inbetweenness’ of selfhood. The same holds for self-identification within the framework of linguistics since the master-language is not required to undergo partitions to become a mini-language, as it is in itself already partitioned. In this particular sense, otherness is not an external differential of selfhood but an integral part of it. Accordingly, in Cross Channel: Junction, what stands for the other is selfhood testifying against itself. The linguistic selves- the French and the English are no longer treated as alternative or antagonist, on the contrary, the two languages are comically reconciled:
[...]
[1] Katarzyna Szczepanik, „Julian Barnes”, in: Współczesna powieść brytyjska, K. Stamirowska (ed.), Universitas, (Kraków: 1997), p. 121.
[2] Ibid., pp. 121-122.
[3] Ibid., p. 123.
[4] Ibid., p. 121.
[5] Julian Barnes, Metroland, Picador, (London: 1990), p. 16.
[6] Ibid., p. 14.
[7] Ibid., p. 13.
[8] Ibid., p. 15.
[9] Jacques Derrida, „Form and Meaning. A Note on The Phenomenology of Language”, in: Margins of Philosophy, tr. A. Bass, Chicago UP, (Chicago: 1982), p. 158-159.
[10] Ibid., p. 161.
[11] Martin Heidegger, „Language”, in: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, V. B. Leitch (ed.), (NY-London: 2002), p. 1126.
[12] Christopher Norris, Deconstruction: Theory and Practice, Routledge, (London- NY: 1991), p. 2.
[13] W.K. Wimsatt and M.C. Beardsley, “The Intentional Fallacy”, in: The Norton…, op. cit., p. 1381.
[14] Wimsatt and Beardsley, “The Affective Fallacy”, in: The Norton…, p.1389.
[15] J. Barnes, Metroland, op. cit., p. 15.
[16] John K. Sheriff, The Fate of Meaning, Princeton UP, (New Jersey: 1989), p. 45.
[17] Ch. Norris, Deconstruction…, op. cit., pp. 24-25.
[18] Chritopher Johnson, System and Writing in the Philosophy of Jacques Derrida, Cambridge UP, (Cambridge: 1993), pp. 22-23.
[19] Ibid.
[20] J. Barnes, Metroland, p. 38.
[21] Ibid., p. 125.
[22] Roland Barthes, “Racine is Racine”, in: The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, tr. R. Howard, California UP, (Berkeley: 1979), p. 59.
[23] J. K. Sheriff, The Fate…, op. cit., p. 12.
[24] Ch. Norris, Deconstruction…, p. 130.
[25] Barnes, Metroland, pp. 40-41.
[26] Dick Hebdige, “From Culture to Hegemony”, in: The Cultural Studies Reader, S. During (ed.), Routledge, (London- NY: 1993), pp. 366-367.
[27] Barnes , Metroland, p. 66.
[28] D. Hebdige, “From Culture…”, op. cit., p. 367.
[29] Barnes, Metroland, p. 41.
[30] J. Barnes, Cross Channel, Picador, (London: 1995), p. 49.
[31] Ibid., p. 54.
[32] Jean-Francois Lyotard, “Note on the Meaning of ‘Post-‘”, in: Postmodernism. A Reader, T. Docherty (ed.), Harvester Wheatsheaf, (N-Y: 1993), p. 49.