Bakhtin and the Rhetoric of the Modern Western Novel

This thesis uses examples of temporal and spatial intersections (chronotope) provided by noted rhetorician, Mikhail Bakhtin, applying them to a modem Western novel. Bakhtin identifies three primary types of historical chronotope: Ancient Greek Romance, Chivalric Romance, and Rabelasian. The Ancient Greek Romance has three basic types: the adventure novel of ordeal, the adventure novel of everyday life, and ancient biography and autobiography. Certain elements of these three basic types are distinct characteristics that are readily identifiable and, according to Mikhail Bakhtin, "have a direct and unmediated relationship to time,'* (86) which is the dominant principle in the chronotope. The Chivalric Romance is another distinct type of chronotope I will explore with application to The Great Gatsby, the modem Western novel I have chosen for this exercise. The protagonist of the novel, Jay Gatsby, is an anachronism, better suited to another time, and that period is the era of the knights and chivalry and romance. The normalizing of miraculous events of the chivalric romance bears some striking similarities to the events of the Gatsby narrative. I am also devoting a chapter of this study to determining if the masks of the Rabelasian type (the rogue, clown and fool) are found in a modem novel like The Great Gatsby. These masks are not identified so much by their appearance as by their functions. This is of extreme importance to this exercise because it is so helpful in determining the issue of authorial position in the novel. Although the wild exaggerations of the Rabelasian novel are not likely to be found in the modern novel, what might be found are descriptions of specific objects or actions that cause them to be heightened and stand apart from the normal. Mikhail Bakhtin cites a construction of series in the writings of Rabelais surrounding the appearance and functions of the human body. These are the body itself, clothing, food, drunkenness, sex, and death. I will apply these series to The Great Gatsby and determine the extent of their functions.