Filtering, Interlacing, and Withdrawing: Pastiches in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties

• Main Authors: Wei-ching Kuo, 郭威慶
• Other Authors: Pen-shui Liao
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/60921606602428518240

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 97 === Postmodernism has often been mentioned when analyzing Tom Stoppard’s literary works in recent years. It is commonly used because of its loose definition. Often, it refers to a school of thought that regards itself as a force against Modernism or chronologically after Modernism. It becomes the first –ism that is posterior and relies on the existence and definition of a previous ideological trend. To avoid its vagueness, this thesis adopts pastiche as the only criterion in analyzing Stoppard’s third major play, Travesties. Pastiche is a term employed by Fredrick Jameson for describing a type of imitation which is distinguished and transformed from parody. To discuss the imitations in Travesties is to learn its originality and creativity because Travesties is based upon the accumulation of sources Stoppard finds in the disciplines of literature and politics. The study finds that Stoppard’s Travesties includes more than imitation. His work is definitely a “hodgepodge” in that he puts several elements which he collects daily into one reasonable situation. With sources from literature discipline and political discipline, Stoppard uses Oscar Wilde’s sense of humor to ridicule the international situation in 1917. This thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter introduces Tom Stoppard briefly and supplies a summary of Travesties. Chapter Two mainly discusses the concept of pastiche. It starts from Fredric Jameson’s definition of pastiche, goes on to discuss its difference from parody and finally applies pastiches to the analysis of this play. It is necessary to discuss the theories of Linda Hutcheon and Jean Baudrillard because their viewpoints help us clarify the concepts of pastiche. Chapter Three deals with the question as to how elements are filtered and interlaced in the play. The first section is about Stoppard’s techniques of interlacing elements into his tapestry of ideas, especially its main source, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The second section is to examine how he filters ideas for writing this work so that its creativity can be proved. The final section discusses the protagonist’s function in doing the filtering and interlacing job. Chapter Four highlights the structure for withdrawing. After making sufficient use of sources for bringing chaos in the play, Stoppard pulls everyone out and away from chaos, including all the characters. All the devices can be classified into two parts, deletion and repetition. In terms of their function, some structural devices are used to make withdrawing possible and some are to strike a balance among the protagonist and other characters regarding their historical importance on the stage. Chapter Five, Conclusion, summarizes the playwright’s writing techniques employed in this play and the play’s uniqueness and creativity. The idea of pastiche plays an important role in evaluating today’s literary works. Tom Stoppard’s Travesties is appreciated better and more deeply by our enlisting the concept and technique of pastiche.