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29Lucia Gordeeva 4th Year student Tver State University
The Idea of History in Waterland by Graham Swift
The word History originated from Greek loxopia - historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation» it is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyze the sequence of events, and it sometimes attempts to investigate objectively the patterns of cause and effect that determine events.
In the book “Waterland” by one of the most prominent British authors Graham Swift the reader meets Tom Crick, the protagonist, who is obsessed with exploring the meaning and value of history, but
the view he presents is not a comforting one. He rejects the naive notion that we study history in order to learn from our mistakes and improve the present. He prefers instead a cyclical view of history that denies the idea of progress. Each step forward is followed by a step backward; there is no achievement without loss: "It [history] goes in two directions at once. It goes backwards as it goes forwards. It loops. It takes detours." Similarly, every benefit that has ever been granted to human society has been accompanied by a corresponding regression. The main idea of can be summed up in the following way - history as a subject is an integral part of the history of the whole mankind that is why it is necessary and extremely essential to know more about our past in order to control present and future.
Thanks to the first person narration the reader can feel and understand what the protagonist and the author himself feels. This form of presentation is chosen by Graham Swift not by chance, on the contrary, he wants to reveal the inner world of his character as precise as possible.
On the syntactical level the author resorts to using parallel constructions in combination with asyndeton that go into a perfect cocktail and produce rhythmical effect, for example: “History begins only at the point where things go wrong. History is born only with trouble, with perplexity, with regret”. The author also uses inversion: “Were it not those useless Ifs of history” to make the narration vivid and picturesque. This mixture of stylistic devices helps to determine the theme of continuous merry-go-round of life where history prevails.
Not only on the syntactical but also on the lexical level did the author use the whole store of stylistic devices. Lexically, Graham Swift seems to be throwing upon the reader the great amount of stylistic devices different both in their nature and structure. What bursts into the readers eyes first of all is the abundance of rhetorical questions: “What is the point of History? Why History? How far back?” and etc. that reflect the character’s state of mind and depict his feelings rather convincingly. Personification “Why comes the wistful word If’, capitalization of the words “Explanation”, “Salvation”, “Inquiry” serve to emphasizing the importance of history underlining
the thing that it is everything both for the whole planet and for the one person. It should be also mentioned that the author resorts to several scientific spheres while describing the purpose of history: he adds to the narration a touch of Math: “That Y is a consequence because X is preceded”, Physics “To show that to every action there is a reaction”, Medicine in using the words “corpse”, ‘amnesia”, references to Louis XVI and such historical events as “the French Revolution” and “the Great War”. These stylistic devices are used by Graham Swift in order to underscore that everything is connected with history, to stress the fact that history is the starting point for everyone and everything.
Graphically the author uses the specific punctuation typical of the thought of a person who is exited or worried about something. With the help of the following punctuation: “But why again-? Because...Why?...Because” the sentences and the whole flow of narration seems abrupt as if the protagonist and the author pause to think about something important for them.
It is worth mentioning the role of Price in the book. It is absolutely clear that the author draws this character for the protagonist’s development, on the background of Price he can be evolved quite comfortably and easily. By asking questions, arguing with the teacher not only Price but also the protagonist himself exerts self-evolution, so to say. It has been already stressed in the book that “your demand for explanation provides an explanation”, thus this extract reveals the sense of this phrase and clarifies to the reader the whole complexity of the relationship not only between the teacher and the pupil but also between a person and such difficult and vague thing as History.
As to this I can say that I agree with the author’s idea about the importance of the past and I share his point of view considering history to be one of the main and inalienable parts of our existence. As one of the major English Romantic poets Percy Shelley once said: “History is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man”
