Content area
Abstract
Twentieth-century fiction reveals a dimension of latent mythical properties which coexists parallel to demonstrative planes of the narrative. The latent mythical structures contribute an additional organizing principle which, without defaulting the demonstrative aspects of the narrative, elucidates some obscurities of the text and offers a fuller interpretation of the literary work.
The latent mythical patterns require an initial "decoding" from the fabric of the obvious structure. "Unpasting" the external elements of the textual collage, enables the reader to uncover what appears to be a clearly defined monomythic structure of a quest, as well as a particular myth. The fragmented structural and mythic elements function like photographic images which need to be retrieved and developed in the reading process producing negatives/reversals of the mythical models. The reversed movement and/or characteristics of the myth and/or protagonist indicates a departure from the classical models whose extrovert figures are replaced by the introvert modern questers. The phenomenon of reversal--the photographic process of transformation from the "positive" classical model to the "negative" new realization of the myth--reflects the internalization of the quest, withdrawal and turning away from the hero's unsatisfactory reality. The resulting transformation reverses either the structure and/or single elements of the new quest. The fragmentary realization becomes arranged into a new composite picture.
This study focuses on the figures of Orpheus and Odysseus. Death in Venice introduces an Orpheus in a mid-life crisis marked by carnal passion, and the main objective of his quest is to stay in Hades with his Eurydice. In The Master and Margarita Bulgakov constructs an opulent mutation of the Orphic myth whose traits are distributed among three characters which compose a collage of the mythic poet.
Kafka's The Metamorphosis gives a metamorphosed figure of Odysseus whose cunning is no match for Circe's magic spells. J. M. Coetzee's Odysseus in Life & Times of Michael K renews his interrupted travelings with post-modernist cunning and a glimpse of hope. The latent dimension opens in the scrutinized texts mythical content and patterns, which offer a potential for a fuller interpretation of the literary work. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)
