Gnomon as a Narrative Strategy: Rereading "The Sisters"
Hee-Whan Yun
A "gnomon" is a parallelogram, one of whose corners is cut away in the form similar to the larger parallelogram. Since the term appears, together with "paralysis" and "simony," in the first passage of "The Sisters," readers have been intrigued by the possibility that the words are Joyce's hint in their approach to a notoriously misleading narrative. This paper suggests that "gnomon" can be a geometrical explanation of the narrative strategy Joyce arguably employs in "The Sisters." As a "gnomon" looks like a parallelogram but is not, so Joyce's narrative seems to supply abundant data that nevertheless hinders readers' signification process. Rather, traditional readers of Joyce who try to work out a whole, coherent story of Father Flynn's decline and death frequently feel frustrated by Cotter's, the boy'-narrator's, and Flynn's sisters' versions. Finally, they come to realize, very late, that the search for meaning in a Joycean narrative is impossible because the words are studded all over with highly inconclusive information. Joyce suggests a whole parallelogram in his narrative yet readers are simply left with a "gnomon," a narrative full of gaps, silences, ellipses. If so, we should abandon the traditional way of Joyce reading, i. e. hunting for meaning. Instead, we should welcome the undecidability of his narratives and enjoy Joyce's rich possibility of multiple interpretation. Understood this way, gnomonic imagination hardly blocks the reading process but offers great potential and creative perspectives that, I would argue, enrich the reader's experience.
Gnomon as a Narrative Strategy: Rereading "The Sisters"
Hee-Whan Yun
A "gnomon" is a parallelogram, one of whose corners is cut away in the form similar to the larger parallelogram. Since the term appears, together with "paralysis" and "simony," in the first passage of "The Sisters," readers have been intrigued by the possibility that the words are Joyce's hint in their approach to a notoriously misleading narrative. This paper suggests that "gnomon" can be a geometrical explanation of the narrative strategy Joyce arguably employs in "The Sisters." As a "gnomon" looks like a parallelogram but is not, so Joyce's narrative seems to supply abundant data that nevertheless hinders readers' signification process. Rather, traditional readers of Joyce who try to work out a whole, coherent story of Father Flynn's decline and death frequently feel frustrated by Cotter's, the boy'-narrator's, and Flynn's sisters' versions. Finally, they come to realize, very late, that the search for meaning in a Joycean narrative is impossible because the words are studded all over with highly inconclusive information. Joyce suggests a whole parallelogram in his narrative yet readers are simply left with a "gnomon," a narrative full of gaps, silences, ellipses. If so, we should abandon the traditional way of Joyce reading, i. e. hunting for meaning. Instead, we should welcome the undecidability of his narratives and enjoy Joyce's rich possibility of multiple interpretation. Understood this way, gnomonic imagination hardly blocks the reading process but offers great potential and creative perspectives that, I would argue, enrich the reader's experience.