The Deflected Subject: ethics, objects and writing

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Author(s)
Green, Stephanie
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2012
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This discussion explores deflection as a narrative tactic for memoir writing, based on using material objects as sites of subjectivity. As a way of grounding this discussion, I employ the example of my own brief memoir 'Antidote', a fictionalised account of a collector and his collection, which provides the foundation for the story. In 'Antidote' I approach my account obliquely, as a restorative inventory. As I argue, however, it is not only the process of writing and remembering that provides a source of renewal. Rather, the objects themselves offer a mechanism of restoration. While imbued with ambiguity, they are an anchor ...
View more >This discussion explores deflection as a narrative tactic for memoir writing, based on using material objects as sites of subjectivity. As a way of grounding this discussion, I employ the example of my own brief memoir 'Antidote', a fictionalised account of a collector and his collection, which provides the foundation for the story. In 'Antidote' I approach my account obliquely, as a restorative inventory. As I argue, however, it is not only the process of writing and remembering that provides a source of renewal. Rather, the objects themselves offer a mechanism of restoration. While imbued with ambiguity, they are an anchor against the constant slippage between the old world and the new. Roland Barthes has argued that the material details of a story can never denote the real: 'all that they do 堩s to signify it' (1989: 148) In 'Antidote' the assembled objects, the place that holds them and the collector who gathered them all exist. Even so, arguably, it is the selection and provenance of these objects, whether known or unknown, and their framing in language, that bring them into the realm of fabula and give narrative life to their form.
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View more >This discussion explores deflection as a narrative tactic for memoir writing, based on using material objects as sites of subjectivity. As a way of grounding this discussion, I employ the example of my own brief memoir 'Antidote', a fictionalised account of a collector and his collection, which provides the foundation for the story. In 'Antidote' I approach my account obliquely, as a restorative inventory. As I argue, however, it is not only the process of writing and remembering that provides a source of renewal. Rather, the objects themselves offer a mechanism of restoration. While imbued with ambiguity, they are an anchor against the constant slippage between the old world and the new. Roland Barthes has argued that the material details of a story can never denote the real: 'all that they do 堩s to signify it' (1989: 148) In 'Antidote' the assembled objects, the place that holds them and the collector who gathered them all exist. Even so, arguably, it is the selection and provenance of these objects, whether known or unknown, and their framing in language, that bring them into the realm of fabula and give narrative life to their form.
View less >
Journal Title
Axon Journal
Volume
1
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2012. The attached file is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. For information about this journal please refer to the journal’s website or contact the author.
Subject
Creative Writing (incl. Playwriting)
Art Theory and Criticism
Performing Arts and Creative Writing