En undersøgelse af tomme pladser og læserens rolle i Ernest Hemingways ”Cat in the Rain”, Raymond Carvers ”A Serious Talk”, Helle Helles ”En stol for lidt” og Simon Fruelunds ”Sommer”

摘要

The thesis takes Ernest Hemingway’s (1899-1961) famous narrative technique as its starting point. Hemingway wrote on the principle of the iceberg, as he himself put it, implying that a large part of the content of his stories is implicit. In a stripped-down prose he wrote little on the page, but created much between the lines. Thus, the expression ‘less is more’ is a common description of Hemingway’s stories. His technique has been copied by many writers, and this thesis is concerned with three such heirs. The American writer Raymond Carver (1938-1988) and the two Danish writers Helle Helle (1965) and Simon Fruelund (1966) are clearly inspired by Hemingway. Though none of the three writers care for the description, their short stories are categorized as literary minimalism. As the term suggests, their short stories apply a minimal mode of expression and they are often both short and elliptical. The short stories seem relatively plot-less, concerning themselves with people who lead stagnant lives, incapable of communicating their desires or hurts. While Carver, Helle and Fruelund write little on the page like Hemingway, many critics question whether they manage or even intend to create meaning between the lines. Minimalist short stories are criticized for being disjointed, indeterminate and, worst of all, for not offering their reader anything but repeated stories of disappointed lives. In other words, critics suggest that the minimalist short stories are tips of icebergs with no body under the surface. In order to establish if minimalist short stories are in fact more indeterminate than Hemingway’s stories, this thesis compares the blanks in Hemingway’s short story ”Cat in the Rain” (1925) to those in Carver’s ”A Serious Talk” (1981), Helle’s ”En stol for lidt” (1996) and Fruelund’s ”Sommer” (1997). The term “blanks” derives from the German literary theorist Wolfgang Iser (1926-1007) and is by definition the suspension of connectability between textual segments - the indeterminate places in the stories which leave the reader puzzled when unexpected changes occur in the plot or in the structure of the textual perspectives. By comparing the blanks of three minimalist short stories to those in Hemingway’s “Cat in the Rain” the thesis can conclude if a change has taken place, and if in fact the minimalist short stories are disconnected and indeterminate.Furthermore, the thesis discusses the role of the reader. What are the consequences for the role of the reader if the minimalist short stories are more indeterminate than Hemingway’s? In Iser’s two major works Der implizite Leser - Kommunikationsformen des Romans von Bunyan bis Beckett (1972) and Der Akt des Lesens - Theorie ästhetischer Wirkung (1976) he seeks to explain the interaction that takes place between the text and the reader in the production of the meaning of a literary work (or in his words the aesthetic object). An important factor in this communicative process is the blanks. Such places initiate the reader’s interpretation, because he must combine the disjointed textual segments or perspectives himself. The blanks must be viewed in connection with the text, which functions as a guide for the reader’s activity. Iser’s text internal reader, “Der implizite Leser” (the implied reader), is another important factor in the communicative process between the text and the reader. The implied reader is, by definition, the way in which the text presupposes an active reader and thus is a guide to the text external reader’s realization of the aesthetic object. Based on Iser’s implied reader and the Italian theorist Umberto Eco’s “Model Reader” this thesis analyses the role that the four short stories ask their readers to play as a necessary foundation for the discussion of the role of the reader in relation to minimalism. This thesis also makes use of Eco’s distinction between open and closed texts. As a counterpart to both Iser and Eco’s view of the role of the reader the American literary theorist Stanley Fish is introduced. Whereas Iser and Eco agree that the readers interpretation is guided by the text, Fish suggests that the text holds no such control over the reader whose interpretation is determined by interpretative communities instead.The analysis shows that the minimalist short stories do apply a different use of the blanks, though there are also similarities in the basic functions of the blanks. The thesis concludes that the indeterminacy in the three minimalist short stories is greater than in Hemingway’s “Cat in the Rain”, but it is however not as extensive as critics suggest. The minimalist short stories operate with a mixture of textual determinacy and reliance on the participation of an active reader (due to blanks that are textually indeterminate). Minimalist short stories ascribe a role to their reader which involves both traditional interpretation and interpretation based on the reader’s experience of the text. If either of the two parts of such a role is ignored the short stories will be subject to mistaken criticism. If they are approached solely through a traditional analysis the interpretation process will be frustrated, and claims of a disconnected literature will seem a fair judgment. If, on the other hand, they are approached considering only the readers experience, any interpretation will be as good as any other, but this largely ignores the short stories’ textual determinacy. The minimalist short stories’ reliance on the reader’s experience of the text allows diversity in the realization of the aesthetic object, while at the same time, the short stories’ textual determinacy provides a framework for this activity.