A Study On Heterotopia In Evelyn Waugh’s Novels

Evelyn Waugh（1903-1966）is a modern British man confronted with the drastic changes in the world pattern and social reforms in the first half of the 20th century.He experienced various unprecedented social problems that occurred to British society during the process of modernization,and had reflected about them profoundly and comprehensively in his creation,the novels which are rich in historical and philosophical connotations.The research on his literary creation of more than half a century has concluded that Waugh has been constantly regarded as a writer with a strong sense of social responsibility.His novels generally take a unique perspective in exploring the life materials that are of artistic value and rich in inspiration.He extracted the nature of life by means of sober observation,personal experience and speculation,and developed a unique narrative style.Meanwhile his life experience composed subtle and sharp description of the significant social events on different occasions and in certain locations.His writings reflect upon the ideological turmoil and historical changes in Britain,and also convey considerable speculation on social and historical problems.As a traditional British man who cherished and yet criticized a lot about the Victorian values,Waugh had a clear and in-depth understanding of the changes in social structure and power relations in modern Britain.Consequently,confronting the drastic modernization,urbanization and industrialization in British in the first half of the 20th century,and realizing the various social problems brought about by the social changes,he valued and advocated traditional culture and traditional social order.This recognition made him aware of the destructiveness of modernization.Therefore,in his works,he constantly revealed the contradiction between tradition and modernity,depicted the contrasts and comparison between the present and the past,and discussed about the cultural confrontation between ancient and modern spaces.Description of distinct tendency shows his unique criticism in cultural consciousness.What is especially valuable about his description of aristocratic society is that he did more than eulogizing and praising it whatsoever,and he had criticism toward it.At the same time,he welcomed his readers to criticize the cultural and aesthetic value of his works.It is true that he paid special attention to cultural conflicts and he made efforts to arouse readers’consciousness in cultural criticism.In contrast,his style and ideological preferences have distinguished him from other writers of the same era.Waugh’s novels characterize modernity criticism,showing a distinct personal style,and through diversified,multi-angle and multi-level research and discussion,literary critics conclude that his writing was rich in interpretation and tackle extremely complex ideological themes.Accordingly,this paper starts with discussion about the characteristic narration in Waugh’s novels,i.e.various spatial descriptions are used to convey purport and theme,and then cites the research results of domestic and foreign academic circles on spatial philosophy and literary spatial narration.Among everything else,spatial heterogeneity is used in the analysis of Waugh’s novels so as to reveal the unique artistic implications,the consciousness in social criticism,and the relations between these heterogeneous spaces.To sum up,some questions are to be answered in this paper.What heterogeneous spaces have been constructed by Waugh in his novels,while portraying the subjects and distributing power in modern society?What situations and destinies do modern people,as social subjects,encounter in heterogeneous spaces?What contributions did Waugh’s novels make to the artistic expression of these social issues that had been absent from the literary works before his?In China,the research on Waugh’s creation so far has yielded few comprehensive studies.Most of the existing achievements focus on the following features of Waugh’s novels,such as satirical style,social concerns,autobiographical writing and religion.Clearly it needs to be systematized and integrated.Since all artistic factors in Waugh’s novel creation are well coordinated and interrelated,and to a great extent interdependent on and defending each other and integrated into a whole,it is sensible to make an overall and comprehensive research about his writing,especially the in-depth analysis of those representative works.Waugh’s preference towards certain cultural values is to be identified,such as his critical point of view on the modern British society,his nostalgia for the aristocratic society in the past,and his pursuit of Catholic faith all his life.Undoubtedly,all these have long been the clear expression of Waugh’s social demands and artistic practice.They exemplify his analyses of the British social structure and its power relationship,as well as his reflection on how to restore the glory of the Empire.In a nutshell,this dissertation targets at figuring out a practical approach to develop an profound interpretation of these holistic,complex and diverse discourses and expressions,and to correctly understand this goal.With this in mind,we find that both the modern British lifestyle of Waugh’s time and the social setting described in his novels undoubtedly coincide with social space theory that emerged in Europe at the end of the 19th century.Space theory grew to be a comprehensive,systematic theory in philosophy and literary criticism with the interpretations made by Martin Heidegger,Walter Benjamin,Mikhail Bakht in,Michel Foucault and Henri Lefebvre etc.,among whom,the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s contribution to this space theory is of primary significance.According to Foucault’s interpretation,the spatial form of modern society is essentially different from that of traditional society.He believes that the 20th century is a particular era of spatial features,especially characterizing in synchrony,juxtaposition and discreteness in its forms,and is closely related to power,knowledge and its subjects.In modern society,space is no longer the extension of one and one object’s simple movement in the traditional sense,but has become a heterogeneous"place"composed of specific people,human behaviors and social relations.In addition,limited by the mechanization and fragmentation of modern society,different spaces are enclosed by themselves and independent from each other,while they are generally interrelated and permeation is common.This specific,particular and non-universal logical form of space is what Foucault calls heterogeneous space,or in other word“heterotopia”.This“heterogeneity”is essential to the development of human in nature,referring to a direction opposite to the basic interest of human being.Therefore,this theory of Foucault’s actually demonstrates the humanitarianism that is valued in this new era.This paper holds that what modern novelist describes is the scenes in life,which contains something logical,a law that can probe into real life（be it spiritual life or visible behaviors）.It also contains a certain form of power distribution mechanism,which guarantees that a novel featuring social life scenes can arouse readers’social consciousness and specific ethical inclination.It is the core of aesthetic evaluation in which non-utilitarian pleasures literature brings about are well represented but hidden out of sight.In this sense,the analysis and demonstration of the heterogeneous space depicted in Waugh’s novels constitute an important basis for understanding and appreciating his literary experience and achievements in literature.Although Foucault’s theory of heterogeneous space didn’t come out before Evelyn Waugh passed away,its core concepts and characteristics stem from a reflection of the European society at the beginning of the 20th century.It can also be said that the heterogeneous space theory is tantamount to a metaphysical summary of the major changes experienced by modern European society,especially in the 20th century.The various heterogeneous social phenomena and conflicting thoughts prevailing British society depicted in Evelyn Waugh’s novels are precisely a concrete manifestation of Foucault’s concept of heterogeneous space,generated by the combined forces of development/stagnation of society,accumulation/crisis,materialization/spontaneity,alienation/class consciousness,and many others.Thus,this dissertation will take Foucault’s heterogeneous space as a basic theory to have a feasible and necessary study of the interpretations of the essence of modern British society in Waugh’s writing,and to analyze the character relations and cultural order described in his novels.In order to reveal the basic features of heterogeneous spatial narration in his novels,this study looks into a series of representative works of Evelyn Waugh’s,including Decline and Fall（1928）,Vile Bodies（1930）,Black Mischief（1932）,A Handful of Dust（1934）,Brideshead Revisited（1945）,Helena（1950）and the“Sword of Honor”trilogy（1961）.All these important texts are interpreted in accordance with heterogeneous space theory.These writings are expounded in response to the historical backgrounds of his age,so as to explore the influence of Waugh’s personal life experience and social environment on his heterogeneous space description,and to explain the heterogeneity of various narrative spaces that are engraved on his"printing plate",i.e.the social life in Britain even across the world in his novels in the first half of the 20th century.The first chapter discusses the organic relationship between macro social and historical background and micro personal creation,focuses on the social events and environmental changes that have an important impact on Waugh’s creation.His personal life experience and his thoughts developed under its influence are studied to demonstrate the antagonistic conflict between Waugh’s personality and the heterogeneous space in social reality,unfolding the enormous tension between them.These arguments will not only provide objective evidence to highlight the subjectivity in Waugh’s novels,or his characteristic autobiographical writing,but also foreground the inclination of the writer and his works in opposition to spatial heterogeneity.The second chapter focuses on the heterogeneous space within family in Evelyn Waugh’s novels.An analysis of man-woman relationship and intergenerational power relations in a family reveals in an artistic way the great changes in family relations in the twentieth-century Britain,and demonstrates the significance of poetic criticism.The third chapter probes the heterogeneous space in social relations in Evelyn Waugh’s novels.It illustrates the multi-faceted conflicts between countryside and city,traditional morality and new thoughts,chivalry and islanders’ideology,etc.and the consequent changes in the social relations.Evelyn Waugh’s novels specify the heterogeneous characteristics of the British social space and explains his artistic demands of intervening in social life.The fourth chapter reveals the heterogeneous space in religion in Evelyn Waugh’s fictions.In his most representative works,the religious structure in England in the20^thcentury and his pursuit of Catholic faith offer clear clue for us to analyzes the aesthetic value and social impact of his writing about religious issues,and to summarize the social values that Waugh contrived for his eternal belief.The fifth chapter is the conclusion and extension of the above ones,summarizing the common characteristics and artistic inclination analyzed in those chapters.This part focuses on the criticism of cultural order shown in Waugh’s novels and strives to maintain an objective attitude in the analysis and evaluation of Waugh,without flattering or belittling him,so as to make appropriate comments on the role Waugh played in criticizing and correcting the development direction of modern civilization.He is an inspiring novelist with strong sense of responsibility in his artistic career,and his talents have been well demonstrated in revealing the heterogeneous spaces in his creative writings.Evelyn Waugh’s writings are most fascinating in demonstrating the transformation of British society throughout the first half of the 20th century.Complex as Waugh’s outlooks for the real world and arts are,nothing can be separable from his description of heterogeneous space---his thoughts on traditional aristocratic era and modern capitalist society,his portrayal of modern urban people,his concerns for civilization and barbarism,his ideas on wars and his quest in religion,especially his disclosure of how modernization has stopped being the desirable welfare and becomes an irresistible crisis.He raised questions about encountering heterogeneous spaces and destiny of human beings,and sounded alarm to help mankind find the correct position in the process of modernization.It’s reasonable to conclude that the exploration in Waugh’s heterogeneous space description would lead to an overall interpretation of his novels,which plays a positive role in inheriting and promoting Waugh’s literary contributions.