Presencing the Writer:
Immanence and Ecstatic Communion in A
Clockwork Orange and Naked
by Torgeir Fjeld
Is there any sense to the claim
that there is an author to whom we are characters in a story that unfolds as we
live our lives? A Clockwork Orange
(Anthony Burgess/Stanley Kubrick) and Naked
(Mike Leigh) examine this issue differently. While Alex (A Clockwork Orange), literally meets the author only to mutilate
and disobey him, Johnny (Naked) gets
intimate with an instance that seemingly represents his father only to reject
and disregard him. In our essay, we examine these works in light of the
narratological instance of the writer, which is considered as immanent to the
work and yet absent from it. The reader's task is to make this instance
present, and in these characters' approach to the writer an ethical world of
responsibility, duty, and virtue is made meaningful. By presencing the writer,
we can experience what playwright Jon Fosse has referred to as an ecstatic
communion with works of art.
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