Hatten, dockan, capen, byrån : ting och tinglighet hos Djuna Barnes

• Main Author: Frödin, Ellen
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Stockholms universitet, Avdelningen för litteraturvetenskap 2013
• Subjects: Djuna Barnes; thing; thingliness; fetish; prosthesis; souvenir; collection; ting; fetisch; protes; samling
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-96807

The inhuman element in Djuna Barnes’s works has been widely acknowledged. So far the research has, however, concerned itself primarily with animality, thus neglecting the importance of things and thingliness in her texts. In this essay I outline a new way of approaching Barnes were things are taken into account as a vital element in her literary world, using theories on prostheses, fetishes and souvenirs. In Nightwood and four of the short stories, ”A Night Among the Horses”, ”Aller et Retour”, ”Cassation”, and ”The Grande Malade”, I examine clothing, interiors, collections, statues and dolls as objects that in different ways harbour meaning, dream, riddle, memory, history, longing and desire. The aim is not at translating these objects; my concern is not so much with what they mean, as how they mean; how they are used and thus how they interact with the characters.