New Critical Thinking: Criticism to Come by Julian Wolfreys

Author:Julian Wolfreys [Wolfreys, Julian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary Criticism, General, European, English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, Semiotics & Theory
ISBN: 9780748699667
Google: O2u8oQEACAAJ
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 2017-01-15T01:10:08.773000+00:00

TECHNIQUES OF ‘BEING THERE’

One of the most important techniques used in creating an effect of ‘being there’ is rather obvious actually, a story of ‘how I got there’. This is quite common in anthropology. For example:

In the cool of the early morning, just before sunrise, the bow of the Southern Crow headed towards the eastern horizon, on which a tiny dark blue outline was faintly visible. Slowly it grew into a rugged mountain mass, standing up sheer from the ocean; then as we approached within a few miles it revealed around its base a narrow ring of low, flat land, thick with vegetation. [. . .] In an hour or so we were close inshore and could see canoes coming round from the south, outside the reef, on which the tide was low. [. . .] The ship anchored on a short cable in the open bay off the coral reef. [. . .] For the first time, perhaps, he began to doubt of having left what was to him the civilization of Tulagi [. . .] Feeling none too certain myself of the reception that awaited us – though I knew it would stop short of cannibalism – I reassured him, and we began to get out the stores. Later we went ashore in one of the canoes. [. . .] We were surrounded by crowds of naked chattering youngsters, with their pleasant light-brown velvet skins and straight hair, so different from the Melanesians we left behind. They darted about splashing like a shoal of fish, some of them falling bodily into pools in their enthusiasm. At last the long wade ended, we climbed up the steeply shelving beach, crossed the soft, dry sand strewn with the brown needles of the Casuarina trees – a home-like touch; it was like a pine avenue – and were led to an old chief, clad with great dignity in a white coat and loin-cloth, who awaited us on his stool under a large shady tree.34

‘Arrival stories’, as they are called,35 are somewhat of a typical feature of interpretative anthropology. They allow the reader to identify with the author and empathise with his or her feelings in order to get a taste of ‘how it really was to be there’. Of course, writers of microhistories do not have time machines, so a literal (and truthful) adoption of this technique is not an option. But there are ways to adapt. A first one is using a historical character to introduce us to the lost world of the past. The historian will introduce a character, will try to get us to sympathise with him or her, and then lets the character take us on an introduction to the historical world in which the events the microhistorian will describe take place. Once we are sufficiently at our ease in the historical world the author wants us to be in, we can be left on our own and we can turn our attention to other matters, be it characters, events or situations. Patricia Cohen’s The Murder of Helen Jewett is a clear example.

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