JOANNA KLARA TESKE

Contra
dictions
in Art The Case of
Postmodern
Fiction
The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
Faculty of Humanities JOANNA KLARA TESKE

Contra
Institute of English Studies

dictions
Studies in L iterature and Culture
in Art The Case of
Volume 13
Postmodern
Fiction
E ditorial B oard
Eugeniusz Cyran
Barbara Klonowska
Zofia Kolbuszewska
Grzegorz Maziarczyk
Sławomir Wącior

Wydawnictwo KUL • Lublin 2016

reviewers

Dr Judit Friedrich C.Sc.

Dr hab. Monika Walczak

P roofreader :
Dr Robert Looby

cover design

Dagmara Liwińska / Mateusz Liwiński

gr aphic design & typesetting

Dagmara Liwińska / Mateusz Liwiński

C over A rt
Caer (fragment) by Aleksander Bednarski

An earlier version of Chapter Eight (The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques
Derrida and deconstruction) appeared on-line in Language Under Discussion 3.1 (2015): 1-23, under
the title “Contradictions in Fiction: Structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction.” It is
reprinted here, with revisions, by kind permission of the Editors of the Journal.

© Copyright by Joanna Klara Teske, Lublin 2016

ISBN 978-83-8061-279-2

Wydawnictwo KUL
ul. Konstantynów 1H 20-708 Lublin
tel. 81 740-93-40, fax 81 740-93-50
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tel. 91 812 09 08, e-mail: druk@volumina.pl
 Contents

Introduction 11
Pa rt o n e: c o ntr a d i cti o ns in a rt
C h a p t e r O n e : C o n t r a d ic t i o n s in art – t h e s tat e o f r e s e a r c h 25
1.1 Contradiction-oriented theories of art and literature
(Vygotsky, Caraher, Balcerzan) 26
1.2 Interpretations of contradiction offered by two approaches
in literary studies: New Criticism and Marxist studies 31
1.3 Contradictions in narratology – classical and unnatural 35
1.4 Case studies of contradiction in various kinds of artefacts 40
1.5 Two anthologies of essays on literary contradictions:
Literature and Contradiction and Intimate Conflict:
Contradiction in Literary and Philosophical Discourse 45
C h a p t e r Tw o : Th e cognitive theory of art 53
2.1 Art as a mode of cognition 55
2.2 The logical value of artistic statements 79
C h a p t e r Th r e e : Th e t h e o r y o f c o n t r a d ic t i o n i n a r t 93
3.1 Contradictions in philosophy and logic (classical and paraconsistent) 93
3.2 Contemporary philosophers on contradiction in art
10 0
6— Contents 7—

3.3. The colloquial notion of contradiction and C h a p t e r E i g h t : Th e u s e s o f c o n t r a d ic t i o n s i n f ic t i o n :

its application in the studies of art 103 structur a lism vs. Jac ques D errida and deconstruction 229
3.4 Various categories of artistic contradictions and their characteristics 114 8.1 Uses of contradiction in postmodern fiction 23 0
C h a p t e r F o u r : A r t i s t ic c o n t r a d ic t i o n s a n d t h e i r 8.2 The epistemic significance of contradictions for
i m p l ic a t i o n s f o r s c h o l a r s h i p 135 deconstruction & Jacques Derrida 246
4.1 Contradictory interpretations 135 8.3 Implications of Derrida’s view of contradictions for the structuralist
treatment of artefacts and their cognitive potential 254
4.2 The interpretive principle of coherence and its justification 144
C h a p t e r N i n e : C o n t r a d ic t i o n s in va rious t h e m at ic c o n t e x t s 259
4.3 Artistic contradictions and the procedure of falsification 152
9.1 Albert Angelo by B. S. Johnson: contradictions
PART TWO: C ONTRAD I CTI ONS IN POSTMODERN FI CT I ON and the truth of storytelling 259
C h a p t e r F i v e : C r i t ic a l a p p r o a c h es to p o st m o d er n i s m 9.2 Emotionally Weird: A Comic Novel by Kate Atkinson:
a n d p o s t m o d e r n c o n t r a d ic t i o n s – a review 161 contradictions and the realm of the imagination 264
5.1. Classical studies of postmodernism and postmodern contradictions 162 9.3 The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter:
5.2 Recent accounts of postmodernism and postmodern contradictions
contradictions and critique of the social world 276
175
9.4 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie: contradictions and history 283
C h a p t e r S i x : C o n t r a d ic t i o n s i n n a r r at i v e f ic t i o n –
h o u s e o f leaves by m a r k z. da n i el e w s k i 179 9.5 Watt by Samuel Beckett: contradictions and the theme of God 29 0
6.1 Narrative contradictions – some categories and distinctions 181 Conclusion 299
6.2 A typology of narrative contradictions based on Wo rks C ited 311
art’s three modes of expressing ideas 186
Index 331
6.3 Narrative contradictions in the narrative structure 199
C h a p t e r S e v e n : C o n t r a d ic t i o n s i n r e a l i s t,
m o d e r n i s t a n d p o s t m o d e r n f ic t i o n 203
7.1 Brief presentation of realism, modernism and postmodernism
in the context of the cognitive theory of art 20 4
7.2 The realist, modernist and postmodern novels – analyses 211
7.3 A comparative study of contradiction in the three conventions 224
8— Contents
 acknowledgments

The present book would not be possible without generous help of many people.
I would like to thank Professor Monika Walczak and Doctor Judit Friedrich C.Sc.
for their pre-publication reviews, which by their insightful comments and questions
helped me revise the book. To Professor Monika Walczak I am grateful as well for
her comments on my previous publications on related subjects and her recommen-
dations of many helpful books. Professor Piotr Gutowski, who helped me formulate
the questions I explore in the book and critically re-consider my initial intuitions,
also deserves my gratitude. Since my primary academic subject is literature, the help
of philosophers in this project was to me indispensable and so my thanks go also to
Professor Adam Chmielewski, Doctor Marcin Iwanicki, Doctor Sabina Magierska,
and Sylwia Wilczewska. But I benefited as well from scholars specializing in literary
studies, in particular, Professor Grzegorz Maziarczyk, who read an early version of
the book and some passages from a later version, helping me clarify the presentation
of many narratological issues. I am also grateful to Professor Zofia Kolbuszewska for
confronting me with the poststructuralist view of literature and for asking difficult
questions; Doctor Iwona Filipczak, Professor Barbara Klonowska, and Professor
Petruta
. Spânu for offering their advice and sharing with me their books; Professor
Robert Looby for his meticulous proofreading of the text; Dagmara and Mateusz
Liwiński for the typesetting, and Doctor Aleksander Bednarski for his permission
to use his painting Caer on the book cover. My special thanks go to the editors of
Language Under Discussion, Doctor Marla Perkins and Doctor Sergeiy Sandler, and to
the anonymous reviewers of the pre-publication version of the paper on contradic-
tions I published in the LUD Journal for their detailed and helpful suggestions. For
his interest in my project, advice and encouragement I would like to thank Professor
Hubert Łaszkiewicz, the Dean of the Humanities. As an academic teacher, I had a
great opportunity to talk about literature and philosophy to students of the English
Philology. It is obviously impossible to list them all, but I would like to acknowl-
edge this debt and name at least Dominika Bugno-Narecka, Ewa Fiutka and Robert
Mirski, who took much interest in the project and helped me clarify my ideas. My
parents, Elżbieta and Andrzej Teske, and friends who in various ways assisted me
in my work on the book − Professor Krzysztof Jaskuła, Doctor Wojciech Malec,
Magdalena Słomska – as well as my brother, Armin Teske − all have my deepest
thanks. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to the authors of the
eleven novels I analyze in the book, each of which is a beautiful work of art and
has enriched my life. Well aware that I have not been able to list all the people who
helped me in this project, I would like to thank them all.
 Introduction

The present book attempts to examine the phenomenon of contradiction in art and,
above all, in the postmodern English-language novel. It is a formalist-structuralist
study (below I explain how I understand this framework) conducted in the context
of the cognitive theory of art (the theory which perceives art as a mode of cognition).
The study tries to define artistic contradictions, and name their essential features,
types, uses, cognitive value and criteria of aesthetic significance. Special attention
is paid to contradictions which (seem to) violate the principle of non-contradiction.
It is commonly assumed that such violation is undesirable in discourse and impos-
sible in reality but can apparently take place and be welcome in artificial constructs,
especially those which operate in the mode of fiction.
Though the subject, as far as I know, has not been given this kind of system-
atic treatment as yet, contradictions in art have been noticed by various authors
and examined in various respects, with reference both to specific artefacts and in
general terms, within various paradigms of aesthetic and literary theory. The pres-
ent book is very much indebted to these works, especially Patricia Waugh’s and
Brian McHale’s studies on postmodernism, Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-
Conscious Fiction (1984) and Postmodernist Fiction (1987), respectively. It also owes much
to Robert Poczobut’s monograph on the non-contradiction principle, Spór o zasadę
niesprzeczności (2000). Philosophy is the area in which the notion of contradiction and
its epistemic implications were first identified and most thoroughly explored. This is
why the treatment that contradiction has received in the classical and paraconsistent
logics constitutes a basic point of reference in the present book. Finally, also Karl
R. Popper’s theory of science and art should be recognized as the book’s crucial
inspiration and another major point of reference.
12— Introduction
The choice of postmodern art as the main object of analysis is not meant
to imply that artistic contradictions are a postmodern invention. Art, being in
principle free, has always been open to contradictions, even when harmony
was in vogue. Various constraints may be and have been laid upon art by
political censorship, the artist’s sense of decorum, the limits of the genre or
convention and the like, but the logical principle of non-contradiction does
not seem to have ever been one of them.1 On the contrary, one might venture
the hypothesis that contradictions have always been an essential part of art.
Though they may be encountered in various realms of social life and psy-
chological experience, in art they may be introduced deliberately and under
relatively safe conditions. Admittedly, even if contradictions have always been
part of art, they appear to have now become its major aesthetic category.
Just as contradictions appear in conventions other than the postmodern, so too
do they appear in literary genres other than the novel. Indeed, they can be found
beyond the realm of literature, in music and visual arts, or so many authors claim.
For this reason, in the theoretical chapters, I try to take into account various kinds
of art. The choice of the postmodern novel for the analytical chapters of the book
is dictated by the privileged position that contradictions occupy there, after a rela-
tive absence of contradiction in the pre-postmodern novel. Notably, contradictions
offered by the postmodern prose narrative are among the most spectacular and
thought-provoking. Some forms that artistic contradictions adopt in narrative fic-
tion and some of their uses may be literary-narrative specific (though no less worthy
of attention for that reason), but some findings of the study might also apply to
contradictions found in other kinds of art.
The term postmodern denotes here the convention which after World War II
replaced modernism in Western (esp. English-language) fiction and dominated ar-
tistically at least till the end of the 20th century. According to some critics, Linda
Hutcheon for example, the convention has been “dead” since at least 2002 (qtd.
in Brînzeu 39). Pia Brînzeu believes that the subsequent style should be called
1   As a matter of fact, the scepticism and disapproval with which some contem-
porary authors (Eco, Marciszewski or David Lewis) view ontological contradic-
tions of the form ( p ∧ ~ p) to be found in fictional worlds might perhaps be tak-
en as a kind of such constraint (see the discussion in Chapters One and Three).
13—
post-postmodernism, a term preferable to transmodernism, digimodernism, post-humanism,
postmodernism 2.0 and many others (39-40). As she claims, “the superabundance
of information generated by the multimedia practices […] reconfigures the new
super-modern subjectivity […]”; also in terms of economy, culture, or politics the
world today does not resemble the postmodern world (41). That the new (digital
and other technological) phenomena have considerably changed the cultural scene
is unquestionable; nonetheless, the postmodern convention, its formal features and
corresponding view of life (cf. Chapter Seven), appear to remain highly influential
in the realm of fiction. This is Bran Nicol’s response, dated 2009, to Hutcheon’s
announcement that postmodernism is over: “the conditions of ‘postmodernity’ […]
still seem to shape the contemporary world, and much aesthetic and cultural pro-
duction (novels, film, TV, etc.) still clearly deploys strategies and generates effects
which have been defined as postmodern” (xv). This of course is not to deny the
presence of the realist and modernist conventions also after World War II, 2 as well
as the new literary phenomena related, for example, to the recently available multi-
modal forms of literary expression.
Apart from the recurring opinion of scholars investigating contemporary art
that contradictions are essential to postmodern aesthetics, there are other circum-
stances which have made the issue of artistic contradictions an important and ur-
gent one. The following seem most relevant: (1) cognitive theories of art, whose
main tenet about art’s cognitive capacity might appear doubtful after the admission
that art features contradictions, (2) the hard predicament of the humanities, for
which the potential contradiction in the object under investigation might produce
further methodological complications, with reference in particular to the procedure
of falsification, (3) Jacques Derrida and his followers, who on the basis of contradic-
tions to be found in discourse advocate (radical) scepticism. These are the primary
cultural contexts of the present discussion of artistic contradictions.
To assess the meaning of artistic contradictions within the cognitive theory of
art − the theory which views art as inter alia a mode of cognition whose primary ob-
ject is human psychological experience − one needs to identify the relevant cognitive
2   These two conventions together with the postmodern one appear to have made
the greatest impact on the history of 20th-century English-language narrative
(cf. also Chapter Seven).
14— Introduction
mechanisms. These might best be considered in the dual context of discovery and
justification. Within the former the most significant seems the opportunity of self-
exploration offered by art: recipients of art may gain insight into themselves in the
process of their experience of the artefact; further, they have a chance to compare
their beliefs and experience of life with those of the author (more or less indirectly
revealed in the artefact) and of other recipients. The context of justification, more
controversial in art, consists primarily in the recipients’ critical reflection on their
aesthetic experience and the artefact, in the light of their prior knowledge of life and
art, but includes also art criticism (for details, see Chapter Two). The question is how
artistic contradictions might enhance or disable art’s cognitive potential.3
Further, the phenomenon of artistic contradiction may occasion serious com-
plications in the humanities, at least within the Popperian model of science (which
for all its weaknesses seems a fairly adequate model of science, the humanities
included).4 Lack of contradiction in nature (i.e. in material reality) is in this model
one of two basic assumptions of research conducted in natural science (the other
assumption concerns the cognitive value of rationality). If art, or other products
of man’s creative activity, may entail contradictions, then it follows that a similar
assumption – i.e. that the object under examination is free of contradictions – made
in the humanities (and especially the disciplines concerned with art, or with any
other area of culture which may display contradictions) will sometimes prove erro-
neous. This complicates the process of falsification (i.e. the fundamental procedure
of eliminating mistaken theses/theories) since a contradiction found in a thesis/
theory may no longer be taken as an unequivocal indication that the thesis/theory is
wrong: namely, the contradiction may be derivative of the investigated object. The
issue of the scientific status and the methodology of the humanities, controversial
3   It is reasonable to construe the two processes – of art creation and art reception
– as part of art. However, they cannot easily be studied (at least within literary
studies), the scholar having no direct insight into the minds of the artist and art
recipients. Conveniently available for examination is, above all, the artefact. For
this reason the following considerations focus on artefacts rather than speculat-
ing about the artists’ intentions or the recipients’ response, though presumably
contradictions might also be found there.
4   I present an outline of this interpretation of the humanities in “The Methodology
of the Humanities and Karl Popper’s Philosophy of Science and Art.”
15—
anyway, has become particularly salient nowadays, with ideologically-oriented ap-
proaches and poststructuralist scepticism dominating the scene. This makes the
study of contradictions in art even more worthwhile.
Finally, there is Derrida who challenged in the mid-twentieth century the tra-
ditional method of interpretation, based on the principle of coherence and aiming
to find such an interpretation of the text which does not conflict with any of its
elements. Derrida and his followers believe that contradictions in discourse arise as
a result of the faulty metaphysics inscribed in language. As Gary Gutting explains,
language in their opinion fails to represent reality, imposing upon it an artificial
dichotomous structure. Reality as such is not contradictory but when one attempts
to define it by means of language – a deficient tool – one ends up speaking in contra-
dictions. This is why when dealing with a text, one should expose its contradictions,
rather than attempt idly and against the text to construct some unified message that
the text might purportedly convey (291-97, 304-08). Alternatively, one might enjoy
the text’s multiple but fragmentary meanings, appreciating the previously marginal-
ized contradictions.
A simplified presentation of the deconstructionist practice can be found in Peter
Barry’s Beginning Theory. Barry identifies three stages in the deconstructionist work
on the text, each focused on a different kind of contradiction: (1) the verbal stage:
examination of verbal contradictions and paradoxes, (2) the textual stage: examina-
tion of all kinds of formal inconsistencies in the text, which “show paradox and
contradiction on a larger scale” (75), and (3) the linguistic stage: examination of the
paradoxical linguistic expression of linguistic scepticism. These Barry illustrates,
respectively, by such examples as the phrase from Dylan Thomas’s poem: “After the
first death, there is no other,” which “contradicts and refutes itself” (74); the poet’s
failure to explain why, against his declaration, he mourns the death of the child
(75); and the fact that he mourns the death of the child, in the elegiac convention,
though he has declared he will not do that because the convention is, to cite Barry,
“compromised” (76). In short, deconstructionists strive to disclose “internal contra-
dictions or inconsistencies in the text, aiming to show the disunity which underlies
16— Introduction
its apparent unity” (72). They consider language an unreliable means of inquiry and
communication (61-80).5
The radically sceptical conclusions that deconstructionists reach on the basis of
omnipresent (as they maintain) textual contradictions may appear consistent with the
ill fame contradictions enjoy in logic. To cite Graham Priest, “in the standard logic
of our day, any contradiction entails everything. Thus, from ‘it is and it isn’t raining,’
it follows (quite counter-intuitively) that you are a frog” (“Logically Speaking”).
Clearly, contradictions threaten the rationality of discourse. And yet despite this
apparently common opinion about the epistemic harmfulness of contradictions,
deconstructionists might be mistaken as regards artistic texts. The meaning of con-
tradictions might be different in logical or scholarly discourse and in works of art.
The above cursory survey of the contemporary cultural contexts for the issue of
artistic contradictions shows why they deserve attention. It is because contradictions
in art provoke very important questions about (1) the postmodern aesthetics: can
it be defined in terms of contradictions? Is the postmodern use of contradictions
different from their use in other artistic styles? What is the reason for the con-
temporary prevalence of contradictions? (2) the interpretive principle of coherence:
can it be justified if artefacts may display contradictions? How does it relate to the
Derridean search for contradictions? Can the two approaches be combined? (3) the
cognitive theory of art: what is the impact of contradictions on art’s ability to create,
formulate, examine, and justify ideas? How do they contribute to other cognitive
strategies of art? and (4) the scientificity of the humanities: does the possibility that
artefacts contain contradictions affect the procedure of falsification in studies on
art? How do possible complications in the procedure affect the scientific status of
these disciplines? The present work does not presume to offer conclusive answers to
all these questions, but they lie at its very centre.
If the present research project belongs to any methodological paradigm/frame-
work, it is a combination of structuralism and formalism. The term structuralism
5   Cf. also the defiant affirmation of contradictions in the opening lines of Roland
Barthes’ poststructuralist The Pleasure of the Text. Barthes praises there the reader
who, pleased with the experience of reading, shamelessly accepts any logical
contradictions the text contains. The reader’s refusal to stigmatize contradic-
tions seems to be an act of revolt undertaken in the name of freedom and pleas-
ure against all kinds of social constraints (7-8).
17—
needs some clarification. It is first of all a methodological approach initiated by
Ferdinand de Saussure and Claude Lévi-Strauss, which, as Robert Scholes explains,
assuming the objective reality and intelligibility of the world, analyzes it in terms of
structures and relations among their elements, searching for general laws, trying to
integrate scientific knowledge about nature and culture (1–12). In the humanities,
structuralism is thus an approach which assumes epistemic realism, adopts the sci-
entific method (which in its most fundamental form and with reference to empirical
sciences amounts to respecting empirical data and rules of logic, as well as relating
the value of any statement to its justification and/or resistance to falsification), and
investigates cultural phenomena.6 This interpretation of the structuralist approach
is exemplified by Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan’s study of narrative poetics in Narrative
Fiction (cf. also her discussion of the formalist-structuralist approach, 136–37) and
should be distinguished from an interpretation that highlights the element of epis-
temic scepticism allegedly inherent in the structuralist theory of language.7
Obviously, Derrida and his followers question the structuralist approach, argu-
ing that the notion of structure lacks justification, language falsifies human experi-
ence of reality, and so the only reasonable attitude available to a scholar is basically
that of an epistemic sceptic disclosing the limits of human cognition. As stated
above, deconstruction is one of the reasons for undertaking the present study: a dis-
cussion of contradictions in artefacts which make extensive use of language, i.e. of
fiction, might help decide whether structuralism has indeed been naively mistaken
6   Unlike the majority of currently available approaches, structuralism thus con-
strued does not place political objectives on its agenda and makes practically no
ideological assumptions, other than those involved in the choice of rationalism.
7   It is often argued nowadays that the sceptical view of human cognition, related
to the recognition of the auto-referential nature of language, though not fully
recognized by structuralists, has its origin in the thought of Saussure and might
be seen as part of structuralism. Norris, for example, discussing the linguist’s
contribution to epistemology, points out that his “insistence on the ‘arbitrary’
nature of the sign led to his undoing of the natural link that common sense as-
sumes to exist between word and thing. Meanings are bound up, according to
Saussure, in a system of relationship and difference that effectively determines
our habits of thought and perception. Far from providing a ‘window’ on real-
ity […] language brings along with it a whole intricate network of established
significations.” For Norris, “[t]his basic relativity of thought and meaning […] is
the starting-point of structuralist theory” (Deconstruction 4-5).
18— Introduction
about human ability to explore reality. Of course adopting the structuralist frame-
work and proving that it works – that the specific research results are compatible
with the assumptions of the framework − cannot prove that the interpretation of
reality that underlies the framework is true. But outside structuralism (interpreted
as above), rational exploration of culture does not seem possible; hence there seems
to be no other way of legitimizing the framework than applying it in research and
assessing the results. Also, more moderately, the present research project, in so far
as it is successful, may be taken as demonstrating that the deconstructionist view of
contradictions is not the only one available.
As regards the framework-related assumptions, the present project holds that (1)
the aim of scholarly research is cognition of reality; though truth may be difficult
to find, the attempt to do so is the raison d’être of science (the humanities included),
(2) reality (culture included) is not amorphous – it is possible to identify in reality
(also reality autonomous with reference to the human mind) various structures (this
is not to deny that human cognitive faculties may shape human perception of these
structures, or that products of the human mind, which together constitute culture,
are not reducible to formal structures, being rich in meanings and values), (3) the
method of science – basically, the critical or rational method – though it has been
developed in the natural sciences, seems the most effective way of exploring reality
(possibly with the exception of the contents of the human mind) and is applicable
also in studies on art.
The book opens with a discussion of various books, essays and research pa-
pers concerned with the subject of artistic contradictions. I have tried to collect
opinions of theoreticians of art, literature and narrative fiction representing diverse
approaches, illustrating various aspects of the phenomenon. The opinions of phi-
losophers have been postponed and placed in Chapter Two – as a kind of interlude
between the theory of contradictions offered in philosophy and its application in the
sphere of aesthetics. Also the analyses of contradiction in the postmodern novel are
missing from the state-of-research review and serve as an introduction to the ana-
lytical part of the book. The theoretical part also includes a chapter presenting the
cognitive theory of art, which introduces assumptions necessary for the discussion
of artistic contradictions, such as the assumption that artefacts contain meanings,
some of which either have the form of or can be translated into propositions bearing
19—
truth value. Apart from that, the chapter discusses major cognitive strategies avail-
able in art, which may help understand how contradictions might hinder or assist
art in this venture. The cognitive significance of artistic contradictions is one of
the central issues examined in the book. The next theoretical chapter is devoted
to the philosophical theory of contradiction, and its relevance to art. Opting for
the liberal (colloquial) notion of contradiction and positing that conjoined mutually
exclusive propositions do not have to be expressed explicite in the work of art allows
one to engage in a collective discussion of various verbal and non-verbal statements
that impress the recipient as (potentially) transgressing basic rules of logic, such
as the non-contradiction principle or the law of the excluded middle. Sometimes,
indeed, the rules are transgressed, but sometimes the mutually exclusive meanings
are not conjoined or not asserted (as true). If precision were most valuable here, one
should abide by the logical definition and limit the discussion to conjunctions of
a statement (of a well-defined kind) and its negation. The subject, however, seems
to demand a flexible approach. In this way the phenomenon of art, its use as a
mode of cognition and its perplexing postmodern forms can better be approached.
Apart from defining artistic contradictions, the chapter tries to identify major types
of contradictions, justify the need for the concepts of logical strength and artistic
significance of such contradictions, and discuss other issues such as the application
of the non-contradiction principle in art or ways of resolving contradictions. The
last theoretical chapter examines the impact of artistic contradictions on scholarly
examination and interpretation of artefacts.
Chapter Five precedes the analytical part of the book focused on postmodern
narratives. Various studies of postmodernism in so far as they concern contradic-
tions – above all the highly recognized Metafiction by Waugh, Postmodernist Fiction
by McHale and Poetics of Postmodernism by Hutcheon – are presented by way of in-
troduction. The next chapter offers a classification of contradictions most relevant
to narrative fiction and specifies their location in narrative structure. The chapter
is illustrated with examples taken from House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.
Though the chapter is concerned with contradictions that could in theory be found
in any narrative work, in practice it is the postmodern narrative (which the novel by
Danielewski represents) that has so far apparently made the fullest use of the avail-
able possibilities (thus a realist or modernist novel could hardly serve the purpose
20— Introduction
of illustrating them). To highlight this exuberance of postmodern contradictions
Chapter Seven contrasts the three most popular narrative conventions of the mod-
ern novel – realism, modernism and postmodernism (exemplified by J. K. Rowling’s
The Casual Vacancy, Eva Figes’ Ghosts and Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot, respec-
tively) – as regards their use of contradictions. The study of The Unconsoled by Kazuo
Ishiguro, Life of Pi by Yann Martel and, once again, House of Leaves illustrates in the
eighth, crucial, chapter various functions that contradictions may perform in art
and the postmodern novel in particular. This is also where the structuralist view of
the cognitive value of contradictions is carefully examined and juxtaposed with the
deconstructionist standpoint. The remaining analyses of five postmodern novels by
B. S. Johnson, Kate Atkinson, Angela Carter, Salman Rushdie and Samuel Beckett,
organized thematically and collected in Chapter Nine, illustrate various aspects
of artistic contradictions and thereby expand the argument about their cognitive
potential.
Taken as a whole the book tries to defend the following theses: (1) works of art
exhibit contradictions, (2) contradictions, which can be found in various kinds of
art, have become a basic aesthetic category in the postmodern convention, (3) they
do not deprive artefacts of meaning, but serve important cognitive functions, (4)
undermining the assumption that the object under investigation is not self-contra-
dictory, artistic contradictions complicate the falsification procedure and thereby
also the methodological situation of the humanities, (5) inherent in an artefact, they
may result in its contradictory interpretations, (6) even though artefacts exhibit con-
tradictions, their recipients are not irrational when searching for the work’s coherent
meaning.
***
Some of these issues I have already discussed in some of my essays. The problem
that artistic contradictions might generate in the humanities modelled on the natu-
ral sciences I mentioned first, very briefly, in “Filozofia nauki i sztuki z perspektywy
metodologii Karla R. Poppera” (36-37; published originally in 2009 and then in
2012 in English as “The Methodology of the Humanities and Karl R. Popper’s
Philosophy of Science and Art”). “Poznawcza koncepcja sztuki i metodologia nauk
humanistycznych wobec sprzeczności w dziele sztuki” ([Contradiction in the Work
of Art and its Implications for the Cognitive Theory of Art and the Methodology
21—
of the Humanities] 2012) concerns problems that contradictions in art might gen-
erate for the cognitive theory of art and the methodology of the humanities; the
present book (Chapter Four) offers a revised and extended study of these issues,
but in its main tenets follows the previous text. Finally, “Contradiction in Fiction:
Structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction” (2015) analyzes the uses
of artistic contradictions in an attempt to refute Derrida’s epistemic scepticism. A
slightly revised version of this text constitutes Chapter Eight of the present book.
The analysis of Life of Pi included in this chapter summarizes the results of a detailed
case study published as “Life of Pi by Yann Martel: The Use of Contradictions in
an Experimental Novel on the Epistemological Status of Theistic Belief” (2014).
As regards art’s cognitive theory, the present book incorporates some ideas whose
first, tentative formulation can be found in the final section titled “Art as a Mode of
Cognition – Closing Remarks” from “The Methodology of Art (Critical/Rationalist
Aesthetics): Project of a New Philosophical Discipline” (2013), and some passages
(concerning both the theory and the introductory descriptions of the three novels
under analysis) from “Cognitive Strategies of Realist, Modernist and Postmodern
Fiction” (a text awaiting publication).
All the quotations from critical sources whose editions listed in the works-cited
list are not English have been translated by myself. As regards in-text references and
the works-cited list, the book follows the basic rules of the MLA stylesheet.
22— Introduction
 Part One
Contradictions in Art
 Chapter One
Contradictions in art
– the state of research

Since the subject of contradiction in art is very broad, the following presentation
is out of necessity highly selective. Much effort has been taken to ensure that the
works discussed in the survey are important and exemplary. The opening section
consists of a detailed discussion of three authors who believe that contradictions are
crucial either in art (Vygotsky, Caraher) or, more specifically, literature (Balcerzan).
As regards literary studies, two approaches, apart from Deconstruction (discussed
in the introduction and Chapter Eight), have taken much interest in contradictions:
New Criticism and Marxist studies. A brief characterisation of their contribution
and examples of relevant studies come next. The following section is devoted to,
first, classical narratological treatment of contradictions and, then, unnatural narra-
tology. This part is supplemented by a review of three case studies of contradictions
in specific narrative works, and a brief side note on similar studies whose subject
is either a work of music, visual arts or drama. The last section contains a brief
synopsis of two anthologies of texts investigating literary contradictions – Literature
and Contradiction (1974) and Intimate Conflict: Contradiction in Literary and Philosophical
Discourse, A Collection of Essays by Diverse Hands (1992). Their presence testifies to the
interest that contradictions have recently aroused in the field of literary studies.
The discussion of the treatment that contradictions have received in the studies of
postmodern fiction, exemplified by the works of Waugh, McHale and Hutcheon, is
postponed till Chapter Five, where it serves as an introduction to the analyses of
postmodern fiction. A brief presentation of select opinions of contemporary phi-
losophers on artistic contradictions is included in Chapter Three.
26— Contradictions in art - the state of research
1.1 C o n t r a d i c t i o n - o r i e n t e d t h e o r i e s o f a r t and
l iter at u r e ( V yg ots k y, Ca r a h er, Ba lc er z a n)
Contradiction occupies the central position in Lev Vygotsky’s aesthetic theory. The
Russian psychologist and psycholinguist, in his Psycholog y of Art (written in 1915-
1922 and published many years later, in 1965, after the author’s death, Balbus 8),
argues that contradiction is the basic structural element of both the artefact and
the recipient’s affective experience – the two correspond to each other very close-
ly.1 Vygotsky reaches this conclusion when trying to lay the groundwork for a psy-
chological theory that would capture art’s social dimension, while doing justice to
artistic form and its emotional impact. Materialistic dialectic (with its perception of
reality in terms of conflicting forces that in strife, together transform reality) pro-
vides the framework for this project; the artefact is defined after Emile Hennequin
as the “entirety of aesthetic means employed to elicit an emotional reaction” (44),
and Vygotsky’s method consists in reconstructing the basic structure of art and the
general laws of art’s reception by analyzing in the first place the form of artefacts.
On the basis of formal analyses of Ivan Krylov’s fairy-tales, Ivan Bunin’s short
story “Light Breathing” and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as well as the reactions
they presumably elicit from recipients, Vygotsky argues that in each work of art
(also in music and visual arts) the element of contradiction is inevitably present and
responsible for the contradictory affective response of the recipient. Eventually the
conflicting emotions find their resolution in the cathartic experience that cleanses
the recipients’ psyche, releases their energy, and inspires them to innovative actions.
As Stanisław Balbus explains in the introduction to the book, art’s structural an-
tinomy has here a dynamic character and social significance: the fight (between the
source material and artistic form, as well as between various elements of the latter)
that takes place within the artefact’s structure starts a fight within the recipient’s
affective life, in the process of which individual emotions related to the recipient’s
life are transformed into aesthetic emotions grounded in culture (36-37).
Vygotsky does not define artistic contradiction, and often replaces the term with
others such as opposition, contrast, duality, antithesis, incompatibility, antinomy, dissonance,
antagonism, or fight, which apparently he treats as synonyms. Also, the examples he
1   Balbus speaks of their structural homology (31).
27—
provides attest to a liberal use of the term: in “Titmouse” the meaning of the tale is
not compatible with the moral lesson which closes it (186-88); in “The Grasshopper
and the Ant” the past images of the playful and carefree grasshopper are contrasted
with the images of its present misfortune (190-91); in “The Plague among the Beasts”
some animals want to save their lives, while others think of heroically sacrificing
theirs (197-200). In “Light Breathing” the sophisticated form “overcomes” the dis-
mal subject-matter, i.e. the futile life and death of Ola Mieszczerska, the very “filth
of life,” and the reader is invited to enjoy the feeling of sublime lightness (222-36).
In Hamlet, there are many contradictions, including the self-contradictory character
of the protagonist, who both wants to take revenge on Claudius for his father’s
death and does not take it (237-74). Other examples include saintly women who sell
their bodies in Dostoevsky’s novels (321); human figures, full of life, sculpted in mo-
tionless stone in Laocoön (330); and monstrous gargoyles decorating cathedrals (330).
The vagueness with which Vygotsky treats the crucial notion of contradiction is
not the only drawback of his theory. According to Balbus, other drawbacks include
the deliberate selection for analysis of untypical artefacts that confirm the author’s
ideas; huge overgeneralizations (only a few paragraphs are devoted to artefacts other
than works of literature); imprecise use of terms such as form and material (33-38).
Sceptical of the cognitive theory of art, which in his opinion reduces the artefact to
ideas about reality that art may be taken to convey, Vygotsky seems to treat contrast-
ing or incompatible meanings explicitly present in the work ­– though these most
closely correspond to contradictions proper (i.e. logical or colloquial contradictions)
– as merely a specific (and not particularly interesting) instance of the antithetical
structure of art, part of the large-scale phenomenon of art’s antinomical character.
All the same, Vygotsky’s intuition that art involves contradictions and that con-
tradictions do not detract from its value, but, on the contrary, help constitute it,
is definitely worth noting. So is the emphasis the author places on the impact of
contradictions on the recipient’s emotions (i.e. affective contradictions).
Sometimes the name of another great Russian scholar is mentioned in the con-
text of contradictions. But although contradictions often come to the foreground
in Mikhail Bakhtin’s study of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s polyphonic novel, Problems of
Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1963, revised edition of a 1929 text), it is important to note that
in the dialogue of various ideas, utterances, worldviews, voices and consciousnesses
28— Contradictions in art - the state of research
all kinds of relations are possible. In dialogue all these elements can contradict, but
also confirm, complete or interrogate each other (cf. 188-89). Within monologic
literature, subordinate to one consciousness, contradiction may well be perceived as
a flaw (83); not so in polyphonic art, whose dialogic form respects the individuality
of each human being. Polyphony, invented by Dostoevsky (incidentally, Bakhtin re-
lates this fact also to the contradictory character of capitalist society, i.e. to objective
contradictions of the social world that Dostoevsky witnessed, 27-28), has become
typical of the novel and initiated a new tradition of polyphonic artistic thought. In
brief, in Bakhtin’s theory of polyphonic art, contradictions should best be viewed as
one kind of relationship between elements of this art.
In the introduction to the collection Intimate Conflict: Contradiction in Literary and
Philosophical Discourse (1992), the editor, Brian G. Caraher, outlines his interpreta-
tion of contradictions. His main thesis is that “contradiction should be taken as
a basic literary and philosophical concept and as such it indicates the conflicted
and conflictual nature of philosophical thinking, aesthetic experience, and literary
language” (1). As he explains, contradiction does not prevent art from performing
its cognitive function. On the contrary, conflicts and contradictions are strategies of
thought that generate creativity and reveal truth:
With regard to various forms of discourse – artistic, literary, and philo-
sophical – contradictions allow models or “pictures of reality” to speak
against themselves in a manner that does not necessarily render them
truth-functionally impossible, silent, or nonsensical. Contradictions can
speak the possibility, even the truth, of things in ways that our models of
austere representations cannot completely repress. (5)
To support his viewpoint Caraher refers to Derrida’s conviction that contradictions
are the “speculative, teleological, and eschatological horizon” as well as “the re-
pressed” of philosophy (5), and Martin Heidegger’s belief that art involves a conflict
of intimate opponents – the world and the earth – striving to conceal and unconceal
the Being (5-9). Finally, Caraher tries to systematize the senses (uses) of contradiction
and distinguishes five (the fifth is not well-established yet but it is promoted by
Caraher’s essay): (1) two statements/utterances with opposite truth claims, one ne-
gating the other, (2) a sentence/utterance that contradicts itself, speaks against itself
29—
(paradox); this kind of contradiction, when used in earnest, often implies that “op-
posites coincide, that contraries belong together in ineffable unity,” (3) “inconsisten-
cies and discrepancies within complex acts and historical and psychological events,”
reducible to “inconsistencies and discrepancies in human motivation and activity”
in, for example, the social structures studied by Marxists or the human subconscious
studied by Sigmund Freud, (4) contradiction inherent in human nature, (5) intimate
conflict – “a conflicted yet generative principle of artistic, literary, and philosophical
discourse” (14-18).
Caraher’s enthusiastic approach to contradictions has met with criticism.
Wendell V. Harris’s “Complexities of Contradiction” (1993), his review of Intimate
Conflict, refers primarily to the editorial essay. Harris discounts as merely apparent
some of the contradictions listed in Caraher’s introduction since they can be resolved
(Escher’s lithographs are clever “tricks,” Eliot’s phrase “In the end is my beginning”
is based on equivocation­ – its contradiction is “artificial (and resolvable),” the ef-
fect of Klee’s picture depends on “the unconventional use of certain conventions”
335-36). He does not accept Caraher’s classification of contradictions and suggests
that the following categories should be taken into consideration: (1) contradictions
involving incompatible truth claims, (1.a) factual (in theory resolvable by an appeal
to empirical data) and (1.b) metaphysical (in principle unresolvable), usually depend-
ent upon a philosophical system (e.g. the contradiction between Heidegger’s earth
and world); (2) statements that contradict themselves, (2.a) apparent contradictions
based on equivocation etc. and (2.b) paradoxes occurring in statements defining
their own truth value as in the liar’s paradox; (3) opposing tendencies/beliefs in
social life or individual experience if they truly exclude each other.2 Harris takes for
granted that contradictions are cultural: “no one really believes there are contradic-
tions in extralinguistic reality ( pace nonscientists’ misunderstanding of the principle
of indeterminacy in the calculation of the speed and direction of small particles)”
(340). As for linguistic contradictions, they are rare, mostly apparent, and created
in the main when “language is used equivocally, vaguely […] or in the interest of
2   Cf. “a person’s desire for social approval and simultaneous desire to do some-
thing disapproved by society are opposed but not really contradictory whereas
to wish both to leave and to stay in a given place is contradictory (even though
quite possible and psychologically explicable)” (Harris 338).
30— Contradictions in art - the state of research
producing a purely logical contradiction […]” (340). Contradictories, as he points
out, should be differentiated from contraries (illustrated by the sentences: “Every
unicorn has a golden corn” and “No unicorn has a golden corn,” 337). Critical
of the contemporary fascination with contradiction, Harris believes it stems from
a misinterpretation of language as structurally antinomical. While he appreciates
some kinds of contradictions (e.g. apparent contradictions based on equivocation
can be thought-provoking in unusual combinations of different perspectives and
apparent factual contradictions are essential in detective fiction), he believes that it
is not “logical or factual contradiction” that constitutes the contents of human life.
Life is rich, complex, multifaceted, and “most of the contradictions in literary texts
espied by eager poststructuralists reflect the impossibility of simplistic reductions
which such texts can – may in fact be intended to – help us see” (342). Harris may
be cited as an author who adopts a very sober, precise approach to contradictions,
but who at the same time might belittle their significance.
Among Polish authors, Edward Balcerzan has recently in his Literackość.
Modele, gradacje, eksperymenty (2013) proposed a contradictory theory of literariness
(sprzecznościowa koncepcja literackości). Literariness cannot be defined by naming any
substantial property of the text (all such definitions might easily be questioned by
reference to the property’s opposite). Literariness is definable only in terms of (a net
of) relations of contradiction between textual elements (e.g. fiction vs. authentic-
ity, figurative vs. literal language, image vs. concept, open texts vs. texts closed to
contexts, art for art’s sake vs. socially committed art). Contradictory elements (an
element and its negation) can be found both within individual literary texts and
within literary conventions. This is why searching for the dominant seems less rea-
sonable than recognizing contrasts, incompatibilities, and tensions. Lex contraditionis
(which Balcerzan defines as a rule according to which “two contradictory proposi-
tions concerning one and the same object construed at the same time and in the
same respect cannot both be accepted as true,”) is thereby in literature emphasized
and suspended (57). Unlike in everyday communicative situations, in literary com-
munication contradictions are very common and necessary (57). In some cases they
adopt the form of contradictory words and sentences such as paradoxes, aporias,
antithetical statements, oxymorons (cf. mowa zaprzeczna, 58) but they can adopt vari-
ous forms (for example that of enjambment, where the metrical rhythm contradicts
31—
the rhythm of the sentence). Balcerzan suggests further that contradictions in litera-
ture are gradable in strength (some might be resolvable, some irresolvable, 60). They
may be located within one area of a literary work (e.g. imagery) but may also engage
various areas (e.g. the work’s construction of space and style). Contradictions may
be intratextual but may also go beyond the text, i.e. an element of the text may con-
tradict non-verbal reality. Finally, Balcerzan recognizes contradictions which arise
between an explicit element of the text and its opposite that is absent from the text
(discarded and thereby recalled): the chaos of Dadaism and the thus negated order,
or turpism (the poetics of ugliness) and the thus negated beauty (45-134). This last
point seems risky3 as does the thesis that different artistic forms always contradict
each other, but the necessity and gradability of artistic contradictions, as well as the
possibility of contradictions involving extra-textual reality are all worth noting.
1. 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n s of contradiction offered
by two a pp r o a c h e s in literary studies :
New Criticism and Marxist studies
New Criticism
New Criticism is famous for its meticulous readings of poetry whose aim was to
demonstrate the organic unity of the text (cf. Barry 72, 77). This meant paying
much attention also to those elements of the text that might appear to threaten its
unity (cf. de Man’s critique of the “unitarian criticism” that became “a criticism of
ambiguity, an ironic reflection on the absence of the unity it has postulated,” qtd.
in Norris, Deconstruction 22). Two works of new critics, which pay much attention to
contradictions – Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity and Brooks’ “The Language of
Paradox” – are discussed below.
In his study of poetry and drama, Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), William
Empson distinguishes seven kinds of ambiguities, two of which involve contradic-
tions. Empson defines ambiguities as “any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives
room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language” (1). The sixth type of
3   It is perhaps not the absence of an expected item (i.e. an antinomical counter-
part of an element present in the work) that generates the sense of contradic-
tion, but the violation of an established convention.
32— Contradictions in art - the state of research
ambiguity “occurs when a statement says nothing, by tautology, by contradiction, or
by irrelevant statements; so that the reader is forced to invent statements of his own
and they are liable to conflict with one another” (176). Though it probably is not
meant as a definition of contradiction, the following passage shows that Empson
understands the term rather loosely: “One may call those statements contradictions
which make the reader reflect that they are untrue, or that they conflict with the
implications of the passage” (182). Apparently questions “whose answer is both
yes and no” also belong to that category (182). The contradictions discussed within
the sixth type of ambiguity are resolvable, of marginal importance in the work,
often related to the author’s strategy of evasion. Among many examples discussed
by Empson there is the word “gold” in the phrase “Saturnian days of lead and gold,”
from Alexander Pope’s Dunciad, which means in the context of the poem both “glit-
tering, strong, lifegiving” etc. and “mercenary,” and which can be taken as a joke
(this is how the contradiction is resolved), as well as Othello’s speech (“Yet I’ll not
shed her blood”), which speaks of the resolution he has already made to kill his wife.
The seventh (most ambiguous) type of ambiguity appears when “the two mean-
ings of the word, the two values of the ambiguity, are the two opposite meanings
defined by the context, so that the total effect is to show a fundamental division in
the writer’s mind” (192). “Ode to Melancholy” by John Keats illustrates it. The first
stanza, taken as a parody of good advice, is based on contradiction. This is how
Empson reads it: “Of course, pain is what we all desire, and I am sure I hope you
will be very unhappy. But if you go snatching at it before your time […], you must
expect the consequences; you will hardly get hurt at all.” The poem develops in
terms of opposites, such as “death and the sexual act […]; pain and pleasure,” the
central of which is the antinomy between melancholy and joy (215). All kinds of mu-
tually exclusive meanings can also be read in the poem’s imagery. George Herbert’s
“Sacrifice” provides another example, though, as Empson notes, in this case the
contradictions related to the doctrine of Christ’s sacrifice (such as Christ’s death and
eternal life) are not perceived as contradictory by Herbert. Empson’s discussion of
the line “Never was grief like mine” spoken by Christ, which allegedly may be taken
to express Christ’s wish that no one should suffer as much as he has suffered or,
alternatively, that “there be a retribution” that “my torturers say never was grief like
33—
theirs, in the day when my agony shall be exceeded” (228-29), well epitomizes the
liberties that Empson sometimes takes in his interpretations.
Discussing contradictions, Empson mentions Freudians and their interest in op-
posites (e.g. desiring what one has not got), which are often related to inner conflicts
and which may find expression in the form of contradictions. He also makes some
comments on languages and how their unexpected use of opposites might affect
and reflect the speakers’ mode of thinking. But ultimately contradictions seem to be
related to the human condition:
indeed, human life is so much a matter of juggling with contradictory im-
pulses (Christian-worldly, sociable-independent, and suchlike) that one is
accustomed to thinking people are probably sensible if they follow first
one, then the other, of two such courses; any inconsistency that it seems
possible to act upon shows that they are in possession of the right number
of principles, and have a fair title to humanity. Thus any contradiction is
likely to have some sensible interpretations; and if you think of interpreta-
tions which are not sensible, it puts the blame on you. (197)
Earlier, speaking of the third type of ambiguity, Empson also mentions a version
of the “‘conflict’ theory of poetry” which says that poetry must be occupied with
different opinions, styles of life, modes of thinking, and that a poet, who interiorizes
them, must have many different selves (112). Perhaps the theory within Empson’s
approach might be taken to account not only for the third type of ambiguity but
also, to some extent, for poetic contradictions.
In general, the contradictions discussed by Empson, occasioned by various kinds
of textual ambiguities, appear above all on the level of interpretation and take the
form of two (or more) somehow incompatible or mutually exclusive meanings (in
the sixth and seventh types of ambiguities respectively). Among their functions the
most important seem to be building the poem’s tension and reflecting the author’s
conflicted state of mind; but contradictions also work like all ambiguities: as art’s
response to the complexity of life, ambivalence of human feelings and thoughts, and
34— Contradictions in art - the state of research
as an expression of art’s respect for the readers’ right to choose the meaning that
suits them best.4
Cleanth Brooks in “The Language of Paradox” (1947) describes paradox as the
distinctive feature of poetic language – what the poet wishes to convey cannot be
expressed otherwise. Analyzing various poems, Brooks emphasizes the poets’ deci-
sion to combine “contradictory” elements in metaphors that attract the reader’s at-
tention by their original and shocking quality, also when describing common things.
As the poet creates the language that he needs, often against dictionaries, contra-
dictions are inevitable. In William Wordsworth’s “Composed Upon Westminster
Bridge” the paradox consists in the town described metaphorically as if it were or-
ganic, natural, alive, though in the early morning it is dead still; in John Donne’s
“Canonization” contradictions involve treating “profane” love as “divine,” life won
through its renunciation, or death which is life. Operating on contradictions, imagi-
nation achieves the unity of experience (3-20).
The two studies show much interest in contradictions interpreted in terms of
mutually exclusive or incompatible meanings, either present in the poem or the
poem’s reception. Brooks shows that metaphors often involve contradictions, which
the recipients can resolve using their imagination. Empson demonstrates that ambi-
guities inherent in the poem may generate contradictory interpretations, and notes
how contradictions reflect the complexity of the human mind and life experience as
well as how they secure the reader’s right to choose his/her meaning. The analyses
of the problem of contradiction offered by New Criticism are most valuable, though
they focus on specific issues relevant in the first place to the poetic use of language.
Marxist critics
Characteristically, Marxist authors introduce to their analyses of artistic contra-
dictions a political dimension. Often they are concerned not with contradictions
inherent in artefacts but with the position of the artist and the critic who in the
neoliberal consumerist or capitalist West are manipulated, as the authors claim, into
a self-defeating position, in which in spite of their efforts to use art to contest the
system, they legitimize it by being part of it. This situation is presented in terms
4   Incidentally, as Empson notes, disorderly contact with all kinds of poetry may
result in contradictions in the readers’ sets of beliefs (243).
35—
of contradiction, for example, in the essays of Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen (“Scattered
(Western Marxist-Style) Remarks about Contemporary Art, Its Contradictions and
Difficulties,” 2011) or Abigail Solomon-Godeau (“Living with Contradictions:
Critical Practices in the Age of Supply-Side Aesthetics,” 1989). Also Terry Eagleton
in his “Contradictions of Postmodernism” (1997) adopts the politically-committed
approach to postmodern contradictions when he claims that they are derivative
of the contradiction inherent in advanced capitalism, which consists in “market
forces” proclaiming the relativity and randomness of all identities and values, while
the “ideological superstructures” defend them as absolute, universal and eternal.
Postmodern culture, which, being commercialized, depends on the ideology of
the market, and which is implicated in current political struggles (cf. nationalist,
ethnic movements), contradictorily strives at the same time to replace religion in
tending capitalist society’s need for metaphysical security. Contradiction, inscribed
this time in the artefact, seems undesirable. Roger Howard, on the other hand, in
his mid-seventies text “Contradiction and the Poetic Image” exemplifies a more
old-fashioned Marxist artist and theorist who believes that contradictions of social
life (which to some extent he finds to be inevitable) should find reflection in art (in
particular, in poetic imagery) as only in this way can art help improve the situation
of the working class. Nota bene, the examples offered by Howard (the suffering of
the rich vs. the suffering of the poor, and the like) suggest that also here the term
contradiction is used in a relatively loose sense. Either way, artistic contradictions are
by Marxist authors related to the social, economic and political situation of the artist
and art, and their value is estimated first of all in terms of art’s capacity to initiate
social change or express social critique.
1. 3 C o n t r a d i c t i o n s i n n a r r a t o l o g y
– classical and unnatural
Classical narratology
It is important to note that contradictions have for some time now attracted also
the attention of classical narratologists. The recent Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative
Theory (2005), edited by David Herman, Manfred Jahn and Marie-Laure Ryan, de-
votes much space to contradiction in the entries on irony and unreliable narration
36— Contradictions in art - the state of research 37—

– two standard contexts for narrative contradictions – as well as in the entries on contradicts himself or herself […]. Denarration is different, and involves
anti-narratives and possible-worlds theory – two other narratological contexts in the alteration of the fictional world. (“Denarration”)5
which contradictions have recently come to feature prominently.
Significantly, both anti-narratives and denarration are typical of the postmodern
Verbal irony was already in antiquity defined as “saying the opposite of what
convention.
one means” (Liesbeth Korthals Altes, “Irony”). The explicit and the intended
Possible-worlds theory concerns contradictions as, to cite Marie-Laure Ryan,
meanings of an ironic statement (whether in art or elsewhere) contradict each other.
the worlds’ possibility is often conceived in terms of their obeying the principles
The recipient is supposed to detect irony and classify the explicit meaning as false.
of non-contradiction and the excluded middle (“Possible-Worlds Theory”).6 This
Contradictions entailed in unreliable narration are also, on the whole, resolvable.
is, for instance, Umberto Eco’s stance (in McHale’s paraphrase): “every proposi-
An unreliable narrator, as Ansgar Nünnig reports, is one whose opinions and val-
tion must be either true or false of a possible world, it cannot be both true and false”;
ues the implied author does not share. Indicators of unreliability include “internal
fictional worlds which ignore this rule (worlds constituted by sentences entailing
inconsistencies” and “conflicts between story and discourse.” Contradictions may
contradictions) are not “self-sustaining” fictional worlds, but “subversive critiques
appear in two areas: “within a text and between the fictional world-model of the text
of worlds and world-building, anti-worlds” (McHale, Postmodernist Fiction 33).
and empirical world models of readers” (“Reliability”). To resolve them the reader
According to Lubomir Doležel, however, fiction (unlike historical writings) permits
needs to assume that some of the narrator’s statements are false on account of the
possible worlds which violate the laws of nature and logic (qtd. in Suzanne Keen
narrator’s lack of adequate knowledge or dishonest intentions.
121-22). Thus, the possibility of contradiction in the models of the fictional (pos-
The situation is different in the case of anti-narratives. As Brian Richardson
sible) but not the real (actual) worlds, denied by some authors, is by others perceived
explains, anti-narratives are “narratives that ignore or defy the conventions of
as a distinctive feature of fiction. On the whole, classical narratology recognizes the
natural narrative.” They often entail “a contradictory chronology in the story world,
presence of contradictions in works of fiction, but does not pay them much atten-
ontological framebreaking, and multiple, irreducibly incompatible versions of basic
tion. Significantly, The Routledge Encyclopedia lacks an entry on contradiction as such.
events.” This means that anti-narratives contain “obvious, sustained, and irreconcil-
able contradictions at more than one major point in the narrative, and it will not
Unnatural narratology
be possible to explain these contradictions away by appeal to the unreliability or
In comparison with the classical approach, unnatural narratology, a recent develop-
incompetence of any narrator or an unusual feature of the fictional world” (“Anti-
ment in literary studies, is very much interested in contradictions, though the term
Narrative”). Denarration, one of the techniques of anti-narratives, consists in the
rarely appears in its texts. Scholars who represent this approach (Jan Alber, Stefan
narrator telling the story and then denying his/her words. Once again Richardson
Iversen, Henrik Skov Nielsen and Brian Richardson among others) investigate ei-
contrasts the ensuing contradictions with the usual ones:
ther narratives which break “the conventions of nonfictional ‘natural’ narratives
Contradictory statements are common in fiction, but most of the time (stories told by individuals to each other in a social setting) or other realistic or
they can be attributed to conventional causes like an unreliable narrator,
different accounts of the same events made by different perceivers, an
5   Both entries (on anti-narratives and denarration) come from the Routledge
author-character assaying different possibilities before determining on a Encyclopedia and the two concepts are used in classical narratology, but it should
particular depiction, or even the rare case in which an author inadvertently be noted that Richardson, the author of the entries, is an unnatural narratologist.
6   Unnatural narratologists believe that this is an unnecessary restriction originat-
ing in the late 17th-century thought of Leibniz, who saw “possible things” as
“those which do not imply a contradiction” (qtd. in Alber et al. 119).
38— Contradictions in art - the state of research
mimetic conventions” or narratives whose fictional worlds feature “physical or logi-
cal impossibilities,” 7 to cite the Dictionary of Unnatural Narratolog y from the project’s
website (“Narrative, Unnatural”). A corkscrew able to speak exemplifies physical
impossibility; events which mutually exclude each other illustrate logical impos-
sibility (Alber 80). Sceptical about classical narratology − they claim the classical
(mimetic) theory of narrative is reductive when applied to unnatural texts (Alber
et al. 115, 129-30) − they are more open to cognitivist narratology (Richardson,
“Unnatural Narratology: Basic Concepts and Recent Work” 101-02), but most of all
they are intent on developing a new framework.
In “Unnatural Narratives, Unnatural Narratology: Beyond Mimetic Models”
(2010), which Richardson calls the “seminal exposition of the unnatural position”
(“Unnatural Narratology” 98), the authors specify the basic unnatural elements –
these are unnatural storyworlds, such as a world whose temporal structure allows a
single event to take place more than once; unnatural minds, which might, for exam-
ple, have direct access to other minds or combine the narrating with the narrated
selves in spite of the time distance between them; and unnatural acts of narration,8
such as those performed by machines or first-person omniscient narrators (Alber et
al. 116-29). As an example of a logically impossible storyworld, in their manifesto
the unnatural narratologists choose the storyworld of Robert Coover’s “Babysitter.”
Its conflicting “scenarios violate the principle of non-contradiction because they are
mutually exclusive: either Mr. Tucker came home to have sex with the babysitter, or
he did not. In the case of ‘The Babysitter,’ all of the projected scenarios are true at
the same time” (Alber et al. 132, note 7, cf. the analysis 117-19).9 Commenting on
the text, the authors claim that “worlds that include or imply contradictions” need
not be “unthinkable or empty” (Alber et al. 119), and that contradiction might be a
7   These are also called “deviations” from real-world frames (Alber et al. 116).
8   Nielsen defines them as “physically, logically, mnemonically, or psychologically
impossible enunciations” (276, note 3).
9   In “Unnatural Narratives” this story’s interpretation illustrates the reading strat-
egy called “frame enrichment.” Using this strategy the reader can “conceptual-
ize an impossible scenario in which internal processes such as dreams, wishes,
and fantasies become as real as external reality.” The purpose of Coover’s story
is to make the reader more aware of the various possibilities and plot lines avail-
able in fiction and life (Alber et al. 118-19).
39—
poetic device, whose presence need not endanger the coherence of a fictional world
(Ruth Ronen, qtd. in Alber et al. 119).
However, readers confronted with the unnatural may well feel estranged and
confused. As Jan Alber puts it, unnatural texts “aggressively challenge the mind’s
fundamental sense-making capabilities,” and this applies above all to the texts which
violate the accepted rules of logic (“Impossible Storyworlds – and What to Do with
Them” 80). The strategies to which readers resort constitute another research area
of unnatural narratology. Cognitive frames developed with reference to real-world
experience, Alber explains, may prove ineffective in such circumstances. Generally
speaking, the reader needs to understand that the rules of the natural world do
not apply, while bearing in mind that the unnatural is part of “a purposeful com-
municative act,” which implies, among other things, that the unnatural narrative
is concerned with human life experience (80-82). Among the “unnatural” reader’s
specific strategies, Alber lists the following: interpretation of the strange reality as
representing someone’s internal states, e.g. hallucinations; focusing on the thematic
content of the unnatural elements; allegorical interpretation; use of diverse cogni-
tive frames whose combination makes the text comprehensible; and “frame enrich-
ment.” He also mentions “the Zen way of reading,” which apparently amounts to ac-
cepting the unnaturalness of the narrative and one’s confused reaction (“Impossible
Storyworlds” 82-93).10 Though Alber does not employ the word contradiction, all ex-
amples of postmodern narratives he discusses entail them: in Time’s Arrow by Martin
Amis the direction of time is reversed (85); in “The Aleph” by Jorge Luis Borges
the eponymous Aleph is infinite (contains all space), while having a diameter of one
inch (86-87); in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones the narrator introduces herself as a
victim of murder (89-90); in Traps, a play by Caryl Churchill, a woman, Syl, who has
a baby wishes she could ever become pregnant, Albert, having committed suicide,
re-appears on the stage, and a husband and wife, Jack and Syl, are having an affair
with each other (92-93). (Interestingly, Alber calls the contradictions inherent in the
last work, and analyzed by Richardson, “logical impossibilities,” but notes that the
play is “playing around with the principle of noncontradiction,” 92, cf. 83).
10  Elsewhere Alber extends the list so that it includes also the use of historically
established literary conventions (qtd. in Bartosz Lutostański 186).
40— Contradictions in art - the state of research
Unnatural narratologists believe that unnaturalness is typical of literary narra-
tives, in contrast with everyday-life narratives (Alber et al. 129). Accordingly, they
find unnatural elements in realist and modernist texts (cf. narratorial omniscience,
definitive closure or the internal focalizer), as well as in nonfictional texts (Alber
et al. 130). Richardson also notes their presence in, among other things, theatre of
the absurd, literature for children and many works of popular culture (“Unnatural
Narratology” 95). Even so, judging by their analyses, unnatural narratologists pay
most attention to contemporary experimental fiction.
Most important is also the emphasis unnatural narratologists place on the cogni-
tive benefits of the unnatural. In conclusion to “Impossible Storyworlds – and What
to Do with Them,” Alber states that “Narratives often widen our mental universe
beyond the actual and the familiar, and provide playfields for interesting thought
experiments”; he then cites Jerome Bruner, who believes that the new cognitive
frames developed in contact with “innovative” fiction affect the reader’s everyday-
life narratives (qtd. in Alber 93). The manifesto also insists that unnatural narratives
help explore “conceptual possibilities” (Alber et al. 114), that they “move beyond,
extend, or challenge our knowledge of the world” (Alber et al. 115).
While sharing many tenets with the unnatural narratology, most of all about the
significance and possible cognitive benefits of “physical and logical impossibilities”
in fiction, the present work tries to analyze those which qualify as contradictions
within the framework of classical narratology, which even if developed to deal in the
first place with conventional narratives, does not really seem helpless when it comes
to more experimental forms.
1. 4 C a s e studies of contradiction in
various kinds of artefacts
In literature concerned with artistic contradictions, one can find studies devoted
to specific artefacts. In many of these the term contradiction is used interchangeably
with such terms as opposition, contrast, clash, disparity, incompatibility and conflict. The first
example presented below is a study of Renaissance narratives, in which Françoise
Lavocat attempts to demonstrate that contradictions have long served meaningful
purposes. Kathleen Wall’s essay on A Room of One’s Own, analyzes how this nonfic-
tion work combines various contradictory narratives (two frames and one framed
41—
text), without perhaps fully justifying the conclusion that the author, Virginia Woolf,
espoused a “Weltanschauung of contradiction.” Finally, Andre Furlani offers a study of
contradictions omnipresent in Beckett’s literary output in the light of Wittgenstein’s
theory of language games. Reading his text, the reader may well come to believe that
Beckett is indeed a master of literary contradiction, and that somehow, pace Furlani,
this predilection has metaphysical implications.
In “Mimesis, Fiction, Paradoxes” (2010) Françoise Lavocat examines three
Renaissance narratives in terms of strategies (such as paradox or contradiction) by
means of which the narratives depart from the model of fiction intent on imitat-
ing reality, in order to create impossible worlds. Lavocat argues that the impossible
(incidents that violate the laws of nature or logic11) serves, among other things,
the purpose of introducing into the text theological (metaphysical) reflection (God
might stand behind the impossible) and an element of auto-referentiality (the status
of fiction is problematized). This, as Lavocat points out, seems to disprove Doležel’s
claim that contradictions weaken the performative power of fiction and are indica-
tive of its decline and exhaustion.
As indicated by her article’s title − “Frame Narratives and Unresolved
Contradictions in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own” (1999) − Wall traces con-
tradictions in Woolf’s collection of lectures. As Wall explains, they are introduced
into the text by means of frame narratives. To be precise, the nonfiction narrator
who appears at the beginning and end of the book and the fictional narrator belong-
ing to the fictional narrative featuring in some chapters contradict the main text
− the lecture on women‘s writing presented in the middle chapters. Content-wise,
the main contradictions (which Wall sometimes calls “conflicts”) are constituted by
the imperative to search for truth and the awareness of truth being problematic; the
11  Lavocat’s examples include Les Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d’Amour (1538) al-
legedly by Helisenne de Crenne, and Alector, ou le coq, histoire fabuleuse by Barthélémy
Aneau (1560). In the former, the protagonist-narrator, bearing the same name as
the author, dies before the end of the story. This does not prevent the publica-
tion of the subsequent works by Helisenne de Crenne in 1539 and 1540. In the
latter, the reader finds the story of Desalethès (i.e. “non-true”), about whom it
was prophesied at his birth that he would die once he had told the truth. When
as an adult man he is condemned to death, Desalethès mounts the scaffold light-
heartedly, determined as usual to lie. Making fun, he addresses the spectators
with the words, “Good-bye, I am about to die,” and has his head cut off.
42— Contradictions in art - the state of research
imperative to forget one’s own hurt feelings and sexual identity (or gender) so as to
focus in creative activity on things in themselves, and the awareness that material
circumstances have considerable impact on one’s creative possibilities, while the
thing in itself that the artist examines is basically him/herself. At one point Wall
goes as far as to argue that in A Room of One’s Own (as in To the Lighthouse), Woolf
presents a “Weltanschauung of contradiction”: the contradiction between the narrators
of the frame and the framed text as well as the latter’s self-contradictions create the
feeling that they “live in a universe of contradiction, one in which there are multiple,
and often contradictory truths.” These seem to consist in a co-presence of pain and
joy, civilization and violence, and derive from complex human nature, whose ele-
ments – “heart, body and brain” – quarrel with each other (194). All these, strictly
speaking, are contrastive aspects and paradoxes of life, rather than contradictions
in either the strict logical or even the colloquial sense. The author (like the vast
majority of the authors discussed here) does not define contradiction and seems to
use the term in a vague way. However, Wall’s reading of A Room of One’s Own is very
insightful. On the whole, Wall suggests that the reader should enjoy the variety of
opinions presented in the playful tone, rather than analyze the text in terms of its
consistency with the rules of logic.
Andre Furlani’s article “The Contradictions of Samuel Beckett” (2015) analyzes
contradictions introduced by Beckett into his short stories, novels and dramas and
finds in their treatment essential analogies between the writer and Wittgenstein. A
passage from Beckett’s Texts for Nothing, cited by Furlani, shows clearly the promi-
nence of contradictions in his writings: “It’s not true, yes, it’s true, it’s true and it’s
not true, there is silence and there is not silence, there is no one and there is someone,
nothing prevents anything. And were the voice to cease quite at last, the old ceasing
voice, it would not be true, as it is not true that it speaks, it can’t speak, it can’t cease”
(qtd. in Furlani 455). The “presiding contradiction of Beckett’s poetics” is, Furlani
suggests, expressed in another passage taken this time from “Three Dialogues”:
“The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express,
nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together
with the obligation to express” (459). Furlani interprets Beckett’s contradictions in
terms of language games, not as a means of expression to be used in desperation.
As he states, contradictions in Beckett “need be neither an absurdist or existential
43—
device, nor an instance of aporia and infinite undecidability […]” (449); they are “in-
stances less of a chronic instability of language than of a common yet scarcely cred-
ited suppleness inherent in our language games, which are grounded not in rational
justification but in the interactions constituting a particular ‘form of life’ (Lebensform)
[…]” (451). The most important reason why Beckett introduces contradictions is that
they allow him to express vagueness (which is also the basic use of contradictions
for Wittgenstein – Furlani provides a relevant quotation from Bemerkungen über die
Grundlagen der Mathematik, 454). This vagueness, in the final account, is a result of
“the absence of ontological guarantees” (466).12 Furlani notes also other meanings
and uses of Beckett’s contradiction: they give some form to disorder and confu-
sion, introduce elasticity into the text and bring liberation from semantic conven-
tions. Commenting on the phrase “I can’t go on, I’ll go on,” Furlani also notes the
“affective force” of contradiction (456). Finally, Furlani contrasts this treatment of
contradiction with poststructuralism: “Whereas poststructuralism treats contradic-
tion as evidence of an inherent inadequacy in language, Wittgenstein and Beckett ex-
plore the degree to which, however ungrounded, the language of contradiction may
confirm the more than merely fortuitous coherence of our language games” (466).
The study shows that Beckett might be among those writers who make the great-
est use of contradictions. It draws very interesting parallels between Wittgenstein’s
and Beckett’s interpretations of the device and names some very important uses of
contradictions. Whether indeed Beckett’s contradictions can be reduced to language
games and expression of vagueness needs perhaps to be further investigated.
C o n t r a d i c t i o n s i n m u s i c , vi s u a l a r t s a n d d r a m a
It is worth noting that studies devoted to artistic contradiction in specific works are
not limited to literature. In his study of Gabriel Fauré’s songs, “Smoke, Mirrors and
Prisms: Tonal Contradiction in Fauré” (1993), Edward R. Phillips finds contradic-
tions related to the transition from tonal to post-tonal music at the end of the 19th and
beginning of the 20th centuries. More precisely one should perhaps in this context
12  Beckett’s contradictions, as Furlani suggests, are not meant to obliquely evoke
the idea of God who might resolve them (454). The phrase “Never nought be
nulled” – which Furlani interprets as the idea that “the void cannot negate it-
self” – is in his opinion “the closest Beckett comes to a transcendent contradic-
tion” (456).
44— Contradictions in art - the state of research
speak of conflicting systems of organizing sounds in music compositions. Marianne
Kielian-Gilbert in turn analyzes Igor Stravinsky’s Concertino for String Quartet (1920),
Octet for Winds (1923) and Symphony in C (1940). In her text, “Stravinsky’s Contrasts:
Contradiction and Discontinuity in His Neoclassic Music” (1991), Kielian-Gilbert
uses the term contradiction, sometimes preceded by “apparent,” sometimes taken in
quotation marks, interchangeably with vaguely synonymous terms such as opposi-
tion, contrast, and disjunction. Explaining that contradictions in this music “concern
either apparently contradictory elements, designs or methods,” she lists their three
basic kinds: “1) when musical elements simultaneously serve both constructive and
nonconstructive roles within a composition […], 2) when musical designs are si-
multaneously projected linearly through the principle of restatement and spatially
through the principle of symmetry […], and 3) when historical forms of the past
are presented through modes of continuation of the present […]” (450). Apparently
the term contradiction denotes here a fairly indefinite quality of the composer’s music,
which might better perhaps be called incompatibility or incongruence.
Analyses of contradictions in visual arts can be found in Caraher’s editorial es-
say and in Hutcheon’s monograph on postmodernism, Poetics of Postmodernism: History,
Theory, Fiction. Caraher’s examples include M. C. Escher’s lithographs Waterfall and
Ascending and Descending with their “visual loops” (2-4, 10-12), whose effect is pro-
duced by combining “two different and mutually contradictory visual perspectives”
(two-dimensional and semi three-dimensional representations of reality) in one
picture (11-12), as well as Paul Klee’s Child Consecrated to Suffering, which involves a
“visual contradiction between the fine specificity of the representational image of
the child’s face” and the “highly stylized iconic elements,” i.e. the hieroglyphs, used
for the purpose (12-14). Hutcheon discusses, among other things, Mark Tansey’s
Achilles and the Tortoise. In the painting, featuring a rocket and a pine tree, which
allegorically represents the competition between culture and nature, as well as sci-
ence (portraits of some scientists are included in the picture) and the universe, she
finds a clear reference to one of Zeno of Elea’s paradoxes. Further, the painting,
she explains, combines “photographic realism, pictorial and painterly conventions,
illustrational techniques” and thereby “both inscribes the authority of realistic rep-
resentation and ironically contradicts it” (227-28).
45—
The studies show that at least some theorists of art do not confine the area
in which contradictions may appear to literature. Admittedly, except for Tansey’s
painting, the artefacts in question entail some kind of formal inconsistency or ex-
perimental innovation that may strike the recipient as odd, but do not entail con-
tradictions sensu stricto. The artwork analyzed by Hutcheon is different because in
this case contradiction appears on the level of meanings which she decodes in the
represented objects as well as the techniques used by the painter (the realist conven-
tion, for example, implies that realism can represent reality, while the illustrational
techniques deny this).
Finally, one might note briefly the special case of drama. In “Didaskalia w
Kartotece Tadeusza Różewicza” (2011), Robert Looby analyzes stage directions in
Card Index by Tadeusz Różewicz. Some of them, as he explains, are nonsensical (cf.
the instruction which says that silence is to be followed by silence, 205), but some
are clearly undoable as they entail contradiction (cf. the instruction that the chorus
should re-enter the stage without leaving it: one cannot both be on the stage and
re-enter the stage, 203). In the play contradictions can also be found between the
stage directions and the text proper of the drama (cf. the case of the moustache of
the hero’s uncle: the stage directions exclude the possibility that the moustache is
authentic since the actor cast as the uncle is also cast as the teacher, who has no
moustache, but the text of the play includes the hero’s words expressing his admira-
tion for the authenticity of the uncle’s moustache, 204-05). As Looby points out,
contradictions located in the area of instructions concerning the performance of
the play constitute a great challenge to the director; the audience watching the play
may well be unaware of their existence – they cannot be performed.
1. 5 Tw o anthologies of essays on literary
contradictions : Literature and Contradiction
and Intimate C onflict: C ontradiction in
Literary and Philosophical Discourse
Literature and Contradiction, edited by Brian C. Caraher and Irving Massey in 1974,
collects papers written by participants of the course on contradiction in metaphor
and aesthetic experience offered at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
In the introduction to the volume, “Metaphor as Contradiction,” Massey presents
46— Contradictions in art - the state of research
the philosophical background of the project. It is constituted by Johann Gottlieb
Fichte, for whom the self remains in a state of contradiction between self and non-
self (i.e. the part of the self which separated from it and is now perceived as part
of the objective world); Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who changes the status
of contradiction from a feature of the human condition to the principle of thought
and being; and Friedrich Nietzsche, who claims that contradiction is “the father of
all things.” As regards scholars who pay much attention to contradictions, Massey
lists Stanley Fish, William Empson, Geoffrey Hartman and Roland Barthes.
Massey’s own position is clear: “the work of art is always self-contradictory,” and
so is the experience of beauty (1-2). Caraher applies Hegel’s philosophy to art and
in this way receives the hypothesis expressed in the essay’s title: “Intimate Conflict:
Contradiction as Origin and Mode of Existence of the Work of Art” (the notion of
intimacy in the title is owed to Heidegger). Though Hegel’s contradiction is not the
contradiction of logic, it is the most appropriate when it comes to art. Caraher sup-
ports this idea with four readings of the passage about the Boy of Winander from
Wordsworth’s Prelude. All the readings detect contradictions either in the poem or
the reader’s experience, but only the Hegelian one (in which other passages from The
Prelude and The Excursion are also taken into consideration) is not self-consuming; on
the contrary, it shows the originating power of the contradiction (in the poem the
contradiction can be paraphrased as an opposition or conflict between, first of all,
man and nature, the possible and the actual). Also Henry W. Johnstone’s theory of
the self and Heidegger’s theory of art, help Caraher defend his initial hypothesis (5-
20). In “Poetic Contradiction in ‘Resolution and Independence,’” James R. Siemon
adopts the theory of textual contradiction proposed by Per Aage Brandt in “The
White-Haired Generator” to analyze Wordsworth’s poem.13 Brandt, who studies
13  Brandt in his essay focuses on the surrealist poetry of André Breton (especially
The White-Haired Revolver). His text aims to defend contradiction, which – simi-
larly to move and counter-move in chess – is “the text’s motivating underlying
reason (sense)” (72). To spot a contradiction is to realize that there is some hid-
den meaning in the text. In particular, the contradiction of surrealist poetry is
“a kind of political contrast between the three layers or registers of text,” which
“perform as replies in a built-up dialogue or maintained moments in a dialectic
[…]” (73). In Breton’s poetry, the main conflict, between the aesthetic text and
the political text, involves the forces of repression and liberation, which are
both visible in the mediating oneiric text. Admittedly, the details of Brandt’s
47—
surrealist poetry, argues that it consists of many levels which dialectically contra-
dict each other. Paraphrasing Brandt’s theory, Siemon focuses on the aesthetic,
median and political levels. The aesthetic level, which is governed by perceptions
and subordinate to the literary market, and the political level, governed by the de-
sire to transform reality, contradict each other. Siemon finds three such levels in
“Resolution and Independence.” The aesthetic level tells of the narrator’s memory;
the median level contains the story of the man whom the narrator remembers, his
suffering and his moral dignity; and the political level reveals the deep meaning of
the memory: the narrator’s desire to attain the state of inanimate nature – a stone or
a cloud (this level is expressed in the poem’s figurative language). The desire to be
relieved of humanity contradicts the poem’s intended message, which optimistically
proclaims human greatness – this conflict is central to the poem (21-34). Charles
L. Bannig’s text “Narration and Contradiction” is concerned, among other things,
with textual contradictions and anomalies that may be resolved if the text’s the-
matic paradigms are taken as flexible and autonomous, rather than pre-established
by the writer. Though human thought and the field of perception are continuous,
as argued by William James, they are structured when information is processed.
The structuring is done by means of changeable paradigms: Bannig borrows this
concept from Thomas Kuhn’s theory of the development of science and applies it
to literature. According to Bannig, in some works, no single thematic paradigm ac-
counts for the work’s contents; but either one paradigm is at some point replaced by
another, or several paradigms are simultaneously at work. Bannig illustrates these
ideas with his analyses of the works of John Barth, Vladimir Nabokov and Mark
Twain (35-53).
As for the collection titled Intimate Conflict (1992),14 it opens with the work of
Henry W. Johnstone, Jr, who in “Strife and Contradiction in Hesiod” (35-38), ana-
lyzes a passage from Hesiod’s Theogony, and argues that it contains a reference to
“strife” that can be interpreted as a contradiction, since there are two competing
truth-claims involved and it is not known which one is true. The term contradiction,
analysis are difficult to follow.
14  The introductory essay of the editor (Caraher) has already been discussed in the
section devoted to authors who consider contradictoriness a central character-
istic of either art or literature.
48— Contradictions in art - the state of research
the author explains, is used “logically” to denote “the conjunction of a sentence
and its negation […] Not both conjuncts can be true, and not both can be false. In
a more extended sense, a contradiction is the conjunction of a sentence with one of
its contraries […]. In this case, one conjunct must be false, but both may be” (35).
Johnstone also comments on the anxiety that contradictions provoke in Western
culture and names some strategies of solving contradictions, such as greater preci-
sion in the use of language, identification of the false claim, and dialectical synthesis
(35-38). Though the essay is only two and a half pages long (plus notes), it deserves
attention. Johnstone introduces the distinction into strict logical and “extended”
definitions of contradiction, considers human natural resistance to contradictions
and strategies of dealing with them – all this is very valuable.
In his essay, “Metaphor as Contradiction: A Grammar and Epistemology of
Poetic Metaphor,” Caraher explores the contradictory character of poetic metaphor.
With reference to I. A. Richards’ idea that metaphors are contextual and involve
“two thoughts of different things active together” (qtd. in Caraher 160), Caraher
suggests that the two “areas of experience” (162) are nature and humanity, and
that they interact with, and contradict each other. He illustrates this thesis with
some examples, such as human beings – the Cumberland Beggar and the Leech-
Gatherer from Wordsworth’s poems – presented figuratively as part of nature (165-
69). Caraher claims that the contradiction (perceiving nature as human, and human
beings as part of nature) is classifiable not as a logical but as an “experiential or
existential” contradiction, which consists in “a person, a thing, or a situation that
contains or is composed of contrary or contradictory elements” (167). He further
explains that this contradiction inscribed in poetic metaphor reflects the human
mode of apprehension, which combines the human with the natural (155-80).
Finally, in “Contradiction and Repression: Paradox in Fictional Narration,”
Richard Kuhns analyzes Herman Melville’s Confidence Man with reference to
Bertrand Russell’s idea that the truth of a sentence can be discussed only on the level
of a meta-language, and Sigmund Freud’s theory of repression – hidden meanings
whose articulation is prevented. As Kuhns argues, contradiction (a property of sen-
tences) and repression (a property of psychological experience) interactively shape
the sentences in the story. Kuhns presents also Russell’s (and Saul Kripke’s) as well
as Freud’s comments on negation. Russell argues that the negative sentence is made
49—
on a higher level than the affirmative; Freud claims that negation “is a way of taking
cognizance of what is repressed […]” (qtd. in Kuhns 187). For Kuhns this means
that a sentence expressing a repressed idea is both true and false, thus violating the
principle of non-contradiction. To escape the uneasiness that such violation may
incur, one may opt for fictional narrative. “Fictional narration observes the logical
commandments it uses as a disguise for the primary process it represents” (188-89).
Comparing the meaning of contradictions in logic and psychology, Kuhns states:
“Logically, contradictions result from confusion about how ‘is true’ and ‘is false’
function in sentences; psychologically, contradiction results from saying something
that for a variety of reasons cannot be said and therefore substituting a negation
for an affirmation” (190). Not only logicians and therapists, but also story-tellers
are interested in contradictions. Kuhns’s discussion of Melville’s novel, however, is
difficult to follow. The conclusions he ultimately reaches, tracing logical paradoxes
and repressed contents of the novel, amount to finding contradictions (truth and
falsehood, love and hate) not only in texts (sentences, characters and plots), but also
persons, who, as texts hide other texts, hide other persons. For Kuhns this applies
also to the Bible and Christ (181-98). While Kuhns’s suggestion that contradictions
may originate in the need to repress difficult experiences and that paradoxes (or
apparent contradictions) may be generated not only by sentences (if one fails to iden-
tify various linguistic levels) but also by narratives (if one fails to identify various
narrative levels) seem most interesting; the extension of the latter notion to humans
seems much more risky, like the author’s suggestion that radical scepticism is ir-
refutable. The remaining three texts included in the collection: “Plato’s Masterplot:
Idealization, Contradiction and the Transformation of Rhetorical Ethos” by Charles
Altieri, Mili N. Clark’s text “The Mechanics of Creation: Non-Contradiction and
Natural Necessity in Paradise Lost,” and “Money of the Mind: Dialectic and Monetary
Form in Kant and Hegel” by Marc Shell are not concerned with contradictions in art
and hence will not be discussed here.
To sum up, most authors from both collections seem to adopt the Hegelian way
of thinking about contradictions (this inspiration is clearly identified in the intro-
ductory essays). In terms of the logically-oriented approach, Johnstone’s essay (with
its definition of contradictions and list of strategies to resolve them) is the most
valuable. Also worth noting are the “thematic paradigms” mentioned by Bannig
50— Contradictions in art - the state of research
and how some contradictions may be resolved by a change of these “paradigms,”
as well as Kuhns’s attempt to connect the notion of contradiction (negation of the
statement) with the psychological mechanism of repression and his discussion of
contradictions generated by the failure to properly take into account the hierarchy
of narrative levels.
***
The most important conclusions from the above survey are the following. Many
authors recognize the presence of contradictions in art – music and visual arts in-
cluded (Caraher, Hutcheon) – and note their prominence in postmodern art (Alber,
Richardson). However, they are not interested in giving contradictions a systematic
treatment and often do not even define the concept; Caraher, Johnstone and Harris
are exceptional in this respect. Caraher tries to promote the notion of contradic-
tion as intimate conflict, an idea borrowed from Heidegger, but he recognizes also
existential contradictions, and contradictions consisting of a sentence and its nega-
tion; Johnstone differentiates between the strict logical and colloquial contradic-
tions; Harris, among other things, notes the difference between contradictions and
contraries. Still, most of the time the reader may have the feeling that the notion
of contradiction is most vague and synonymous with such terms as incompatibility,
conflict, opposition, or paradox. Further, many authors appear to follow in the foot-
steps of Hegel and Heidegger and interpret contradiction ontologically (rather than
logically), in dialectical terms (Vygotsky, Caraher or Eagleton), sometimes almost
forsaking rational discourse (Kuhns, Brandt).
As regards types of contradictions, the following are recognized: real and appar-
ent (Harris), resolvable and unresolvable (Harris, Balcerzan), self-contradictions and
contradictions involving two statements (Harris), intra- and extra-textual contradic-
tions (Balcerzan). Some types of contradictions introduced by Caraher (e.g. conflict-
ing social or psychological forces) go far beyond the standard use of the term.
There is no agreement as to the cognitive value of contradictions, though
many authors (New Critics, unnatural narratologists, Caraher) clearly recognize it.
Contradictions help represent the complexity of human life experience (Empson,
Harris) and encourage people to conduct thought experiments and develop new cog-
nitive frames (unnatural narratologists, Harris). Further, they help undermine the
accepted models of reality (Caraher), stimulate the imagination (Caraher, Brooks),
51—
and extend the recipient’s knowledge (unnatural narratologists). This is visible in
the case studies offered by Lavocat, Wall and Furlani, in which the authors show
various meanings that contradictions may carry and various functions they may per-
form. Finally, the following issues raised by the authors are also worth mentioning:
strategies of resolving contradictions ( Johnstone, Alber, Brooks), the gradability
of literary contradictions (Balcerzan), the psychological mechanism of repression
as one of the sources of contradictions (Empson, Kuhns), and the location of con-
tradiction in the artefact but also in the artefact’s interpretations resulting from its
ambiguity (Empson).
As suggested at the beginning of the chapter, the state of research presented here
is incomplete. Partly this is so because the subject is so broad that some selection
is inevitable; partly because the presentation of some authors – philosophers and
theoreticians of postmodernism – has been postponed till Chapters Three and Five,
respectively. The standpoint of deconstructionists (outlined in the introduction) is
analyzed thoroughly in the context of the effect that artistic contradictions may
have on the artwork’s intelligibility in Chapter Eight. This is one reason why their
presentation is missing from the above review. The other reason is that Derrida and
his followers declined to articulate their beliefs concerning contradictions. This,
they claim, is not doable in language, which is self-referential and self-contradictory.
Indeed, trying to accomplish the task might be self-defeating for their theory. To
cite Christopher Norris:
Deconstruction is […] an activity of reading which remains closely tied
to the texts it interrogates, and which can never set up independently as
a method or system of operative concepts. Derrida maintains an extreme
and exemplary scepticism when it comes to defining his own methodology.
The deconstructive leverage supplied by a term like writing depends on its
resistance to any kind of settled or definitive meaning. (Deconstruction 31)
In order to reconstruct the deconstructionists’ stance on the subject one can take
advantage of other frameworks and examine the deconstructionist practice (as do
Barry, Norris and Gutting). This, however, goes beyond the format of the present
review.
52— Contradictions in art - the state of research

All in all, much work on contradictions has already been done within various
frameworks, and much remains to be done. The present book aims to contribute
to this research by taking advantage of the resources of classical and paraconsistent
logics, cognitive theory of art (in the theoretical part of the book) and classical nar-
ratology (in the analyses of postmodern novels).
 Ch apter Two
The c o g n i t iv e theory of art

Cognition, which provides here the primary context for the understanding of art,
is itself an object of philosophical and psychological inquiry. Both disciplines have
offered various definitions of this activity and its results. In philosophy cognition has
been defined as, among other things, “the action of contact with something which
one tries to apprehend, with which one becomes acquainted, about which one gains
information.” The aim of this action is knowledge, which “manifests […] in the
ability to formulate and state propositions […] which are true or aspire to be true,
and one way or another justified” (Stępień 21).1 The narrow meaning of the word, by
some authors identified with scientific cognition, adds two constraints: the person
engaging in the cognitive activity should be aware of the action and its result should
have a legitimate claim to truth2 (Stępień 25). Modern psychology uses the term in
a more comprehensive way to denote “the entirety of processes and psychological
structures involved in information processing”3 (Edward Nęcka et al. 22).

1   In the classical model, knowledge is construed as true and justified beliefs, and
truth is the top cognitive value (Andrzej Bronk, “Nauki humanistyczne” 25).
However, it seems advisable to weaken the first constraint (i.e. true) on beliefs
that constitute knowledge since, as many philosophers claim, the criterion of
truth is unavailable (cf. e.g. Popper, Myth of the Framework 143).
2   Both in the case of the standard and narrow meanings, cognition is also used with
reference to the results of cognitive activity (Stępień 22, 25).
3   These include elementary cognitive processes/structures: perception, attention,
memory, and complex cognitive processes/structures: thinking (i.e. “combin-
ing elements of the cognitive representation of the world – images, concepts
and propositions – in longer units,” 420), reasoning (i.e. drawing conclusions
based on premises), solving problems, taking decisions, making judgements and
language processing (Nęcka et al.).
54— The cognitive theory of art
In the light of the psychological definition almost any activity of a living or-
ganism (artistic activity included) has a cognitive aspect. But even in the light of
the less liberal philosophical definition cited above, art (literature included) can be
taken as cognitive endeavour. Indeed, it has been taken as such by many artists
and theoreticians of art. Władysław Tatarkiewicz enumerates among others Homer,
Socrates, Plato, Luca Pacioli, Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci, Albecht
Dűrer, Alexander Baumgarten, Friedrich Novalis, Jean Paul, William Wordsworth,
Stanisław Witkiewicz, Benedetto Croce, and Konrad Fiedler (Dzieje sześciu pojęć 53,
256-57, 336, 359-69, 383, 388). Assigning a cognitive role to art is not to deny that art
performs various functions: decorative, therapeutic, communicative, entertaining
(ludic), political, commercial and many others.4 Further, most authors agree that in
its mode of cognition art, unlike science, is unlimited by any methodological prin-
ciples such as the principle of adequate justification or compliance with the rules of
logic (cf. e.g. Borowiecka 102-06); the main object investigated by art is the human
being or, more precisely, the human psyche (cf. e.g. Borowiecka 62, 109), while art’s
basic means of cognition is the artefact. These basic assumptions concerning art’s
cognitive potential are relatively uncontroversial.
The controversies focus on the specific ways in which art might perform its cog-
nitive function and on how this function relates to art’s aesthetic character. In her
monograph Poznawcza wartość sztuki, Ewa Borowiecka demonstrates that while the
literature on the subject is immense, no consensus has been reached. In their analy-
ses of art, philosophers have claimed that art can delude people (Plato), that art’s
engagement with reality might detract from its aesthetic value (Roman Ingarden),
that one cannot ascribe logical value to propositions found in art (Aristotle) and that
reconstructing ideas from an artefact inevitably falsifies them (Ingarden, cf. also
Susanne K. Langer, Hans-Georg Gadamer). But they have also claimed that logical
values might be ascribed to art’s interpretations (Władysław Stróżewski), that good
art approximates science (Nikolay Chernyshevsky), that it provides people with
4   Dutton claims that art’s origin is related to the mechanisms of natural and sex-
ual selection, and explains that already then, at its birth, art increased human
chances of survival inter alia by helping them develop their cognitive abilities
(Art Instinct). Strangely enough, for a long time people were more aware of art’s
usefulness as regards decorating their lives or integrating their communities
than they were of its cognitive potential.
55—
insight into other people’s minds hardly available otherwise (Stanisław Ossowski),
that in making sense of art one learns to make sense of life (Ossowski), that art gives
direct and certain knowledge of the essences of things (Plotinus) and that it can
solve the mystery of being (Arthur Schopenhauer).
Repeatedly Borowiecka confronts these, often mutually exclusive, opinions with
the common belief of artists and art recipients that art is very much concerned with
reality, truth and cognition, and that this engagement is part of art’s aesthetic value
(73, 144, 186, 200). However, the popularity of a belief, as she notes, does not prove
its truth (201). Even if since the publication of Borowiecka’s book, with the recent
development of cognitive sciences and the growth in art’s self-awareness, the idea
that art performs a cognitive role has become more fashionable among philosophers
and scholars exploring culture, this does not mean that all specific disputes have
been settled. One’s view of art, as Borowiecka points out, depends on various philo-
sophical, methodological and aesthetic assumptions, which cannot easily be either
proved or refuted (201-02).
What follows is an outline of the cognitive theory of art adopted in the present
study. Taking advantage of the work of various authors, the outline tries to iden-
tify the basic mechanisms by means of which art helps people explore themselves.
Because the present publication is concerned with contradiction in art, and con-
tradiction is above all a relation between propositions, much attention will be paid
to meanings formulated and conveyed by means of artefacts. This is not to imply
that propositional (or conceptual), abstract, objective knowledge constitutes art’s
greatest contribution to human cognition. Also, the presentation does not entail
details (the reader will find them in relevant publications), excepting the issue of the
logical value of statements that can be found in, or in the process of interpretation
reconstructed from, artefacts, as this issue has direct bearing on the question of
artistic contradiction.
2 .1 A r t a s a m o d e o f c o g n i t i o n
A work of art can be defined as a man-made original material object equipped by
its creator with meanings and/or values, if its primary function is to embody (for
56— The cognitive theory of art
the artist) and evoke (for the recipient) psychological experience.5 The same basic
intuition of creative effort combined with psychological experience is captured in a
most concise definition given by Hennequin, quoted in the previous chapter. Art,
in turn, is a wider phenomenon covering, apart from artefacts, the processes of
their creation and reception, art criticism included. Accordingly, art performs its
cognitive function first of all by providing the artist and the art recipient with a
chance of gaining new insights into their own psyche. It might be said to extend the
technique of introspection by introducing the element of the artefact, which gives
rise to original experience.
Traditionally, creation and reception of art have been perceived as separate.
However, many authors question this division, indicating the creative element
inherent in the process of art’s reception. Some go as far as to claim, like John
Dewey, that interpretations and evaluations of an artefact become part of it (qtd.
in Shusterman 26). This would mean that the work of the artist, who initially in
the act of creation equips the artefact with meanings and values, is continued by its
recipients, who should properly be called co-creators. Most often the results of such
co-creation remain personal. Glenn Gould and his recordings of Johann Sebastian
Bach’s Goldberg’s Variations or Bruno Bettelheim and his interpretations of folk fairy-
tales might serve as model examples of the rare situation in which the recipient’s
transformation of the artefact becomes public property. Though it definitely de-
serves attention, to avoid complicating the present outline, this aspect of the artefact
will be omitted in the following discussion.
For the sake of clarity, it should also be noted that it is possible to differentiate
within art’s cognitive function a more specific educational function. Art is most
clearly involved in cognition when probing new ideas and experiences; when art
disseminates knowledge (i.e. beliefs that are justified and presumed to approximate
truth), as in the first chapter of Levels of Life (2013) by Julian Barnes, which in-
troduces the reader to the history of ballooning, it should rather be said to serve
the purposes of education. An artefact whose function is cognitive operates as a
5   Though this definition is more open as regards both the formation of the ar-
tefact and its effects on the recipient, it is a remote version of that offered by
Tatarkiewicz: an artefact, as he states, is “a representation of things, or con-
struction of forms, or expression of experiences if its result can touch or shock
or elicit delight” (52).
57—
mode of (self-)exploration; an artefact performing an educational function serves as
a store of knowledge usually about external, social reality. Though this knowledge
may concern various areas of life, it is morality that is most often mentioned in this
context. Special note should also be taken of personal testimony: artists disclosing
their real-life or imaginative experience, as in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) by
Jeanette Winterson, which documents her discovery of her lesbian orientation in a
conservative religious milieu. Significantly art can provide people with experience
and/or ideas falsifying the beliefs that they previously accepted as true. Barnes calls
this a “corrective,” as opposed to “didactic,” function of literature. The reader might
learn for example that: “Life is not like that, it’s like this. Those things you’ve been
told about life, they’re not true. Old age isn’t a time of serenity, sex can be boring,
and so on” (“Interview with Julian Barnes” 146). Also Marian Przełęcki notes that
by telling the recipients of individual events or situations or even of their possibility,
literature can help them identify rash, stereotypical, erroneous beliefs they have pre-
viously accepted as true (86). By contrast, the use of art to manipulate the recipient
into uncritically accepting ideas may, in the light of art’s cognitive interpretation, be
seen as abusive.
T h e b a s i c c o g n i t iv e m e c h a n i s m o f a r t
In most general terms, art contributes to human (self-)awareness by extending the
artists’ and art recipients’ life experience.6 By supplying recipients with an artefact,
art furnishes them with entirely exceptional stimuli and provokes a sensual, emo-
tional, and/or intellectual reaction7 they may reflect upon. This was in the past and
6   The concept of art as experience, valuable in itself, famously advocated by
Dewey, is nowadays voiced e.g. by Richard Shusterman: “As experience, art is
obviously part of our lives, a particularly vivid form of our experienced reality,
rather than a mere fictional imitation of it” (53). Cf. also Ossowski: “Due to
their content, reproducing works open completely new perspectives to the spec-
tator or reader, multiply the fund of experiences, increase the richness of life,
satisfy the hunger for impressions, making it possible – at least passively – to
participate in events and milieux which are in reality inaccessible” (182).
7   If one believes that in an act of interpretation the recipient endows the artefact
with meanings and values, one might prefer to speak here of interaction (rather
than reaction). Cf. Dewey: “experience is a matter of the interaction of the artis-
tic product with the self” (qtd. in Shusterman 31).
58— The cognitive theory of art
is often at present facilitated by aesthetic experience being isolated from life (inter
alia by the mode of fiction or the convention of framing; cf. e.g. Ossowski 182-838).
In so far as an artefact is open and ambiguous, it works like a Rorschach test: by
inviting the recipients’ imaginative response the artefact reveals to them their inner
world9; in so far as it is complete and definite, it confronts them with another human
being’s experience of life. “This is how I feel, think and perceive the world, this is
how people might feel, think and perceive the world” is the form of conclusion that
cognition gained by means of art takes most of the time. As can be seen, artistic
exploration is typically individual: a person examines him/herself by means of an
artefact in an aesthetic experience occasioned by the artefact. Yet its results are
not in principle subjective or otherwise relative; the aim is to find or approximate
objective truth about oneself, though this truth need not apply, or be of interest, to
other people.10
This basic cognitive mechanism is supplemented for the recipient with the insight
into the artist’s mind that each artefact provides, regardless of the artist’s intention; as
Denis Dutton puts it, “the work of art is another human mind incarnate […]” (235).11
8   Similar theories of the “isolation of the object and detachment of the subject”
or “psychical distance” were earlier proposed by Hugo Műnsterberg, Richard
Hamann and Edward Bullough (qtd. in Tatarkiewicz 393-94). This detachment
and distance do not prevent art from having a potentially considerable impact
on human life; the fictional case of Emma Bovary shows the risk involved.
9   The comparison is used by Richard A. Posner in an essay about ethical criticism.
Posner, however, compares an artefact to a Rorschach test ironically, to suggest
that great works of literature, which are open-ended, let critics find in them
whatever suits them best (409). Vygotsky also makes a reference to Rorschach
to explain the effect of artistic form (89).
10  The interpretation of the basic cognitive mechanism of art presented in these
paragraphs is very simple and may seem obvious. I was first acquainted with this
approach by my father, Andrzej Teske. Subsequently in various works I have
come across its fragments but no systematic presentation.
11  Strangely enough, earlier in his work, Dutton might be taken to questions this
idea, cf. “We find beautiful artefacts […] captivating because at a profound level
we sense that they take us into the minds that made them. This sense of com-
munion, even of intimacy, with other personalities may be erroneous – even
systematically delusional […]” (163). Throughout his book, however, Dutton
very clearly notes that art, by offering a representation of other people’s inner
experience, gives one insight into their minds and helps one understand oneself,
especially as regards emotions (e.g. 109-26, 226-29, 232-35).
59—
This matters because people’s access to each other’s mind is limited. “In real life,” as
Stanisław Ossowski explains, “it is only exceptionally that moments occur in which
it is possible to look into some’s soul as deeply as it happens in relation to persons
represented in works of art” (370).12 Each recipient may further compare his/her
reaction to an artefact with those of other recipients. Of utmost importance is also
the artist’s act of self-cognition via the creative process: artists gain insight into their
own mind in the process of interacting with the artefact they are creating. The words
of John Fowles, a postmodern novelist, well capture this effect: “All artefacts please
and teach the artist first, and other people later. The pleasing and teaching come from
the explanation of self by the expression of self; by seeing the self, and all the selves
of the whole self, in the mirror of what the self has created” (132). This interaction
between the mind and the artefact (which may embody human psychological experi-
ence and thus, objectifying it, make it approachable as if from the outside) is, Karl R.
Popper argued, crucial for the act of creation (Knowledge 43-44; see also 7, 114-1513).
The artist may also profit from considering other people’s reactions to the product
of his/her work. All in all, in the process of aesthetic experience (the term means
here the experience occasioned by the artefact), people collect new information and
gain better awareness and understanding of themselves and other people. This basic
cognitive mechanism is thus located not in the artefact itself but in the aesthetic ex-
perience prompted by the artefact. Apparently the cognitive function thus construed
may be performed, in varying degree, by all artefacts, though some (e.g. kitsch) may
be less effective.
The kind of controlled exposure to new sensual, emotional and intellectual
stimuli occasioned by the artefact, which goes beyond the natural course of life,
might be called experiment, though the meaning of the term will be different from
12  Though the experience might be most stupendous when by means of artefacts
“we enter into contact with the spirits of Dante, Michelangelo or Beethoven
[…],” also with lesser artists, Ossowski argues, one feels “aesthetic satisfaction
which empathy with an alien psyche provides” (218, cf. also 261). This is what
happens when “we commune in a work of art with its creator. We seek to guess
his intentions, we delve into his creative thought, seek to feel empathy with his
emotions and his efforts. It makes little difference whether he be a poet, musi-
cian, sculptor or architect” (370).
13  Popper speaks here both about art and products of the human mind in general,
i.e. world 3, an essential part of which are works of art (cf. Knowledge 25).
60— The cognitive theory of art
its standard usage in science (cf. manipulation of variables in a laboratory, e.g. ob-
servation of how the behaviour of photons passing through a double slit changes if
detectors are placed in front of it, in the so called double-slit experiment), philosophy
(cf. thought experiments − hypothetical and counterfactual thinking, as in Thomas
Nagel’s considerations of what it is like to be a bat, designed to help people conceive
of the subjectivity of consciousness14) and art (cf. innovative forms, e.g. Ludwig van
Beethoven’s introduction of the vocal part in his Ninth Symphony, 1824).
In general, experiment, to cite Antoni B. Stępień, is “perception (observation) of
an event or process caused by the cognizing subject in a controlled situation” (32). If
art is interpreted as a cognitive activity and if aesthetic experience is taken as a con-
trolled situation, then the experience of the artists – their perception/observation of
how the artefact affects themselves and other people – seems to fit the definition.
The recipients are engaged in an experiment in so far as by selecting a given artefact
as the object of their attention, they first provoke and then observe their reaction
(again, on the two assumptions mentioned above). In other words, the recipients
may be taken to conduct the experiment on themselves, using for the purpose the
artefact supplied by the artist. It stands to reason that the whole process will be
most effective when the artist and the recipient communicate with each other. It is,
in particular, important that the artist should know the results of the recipient’s ex-
perience15 and that the recipient (possibly post factum) should understand the artist’s
design. In practice, both artists and recipients seem to receive most feedback from
critics, who act as mediators.16
14  Peter Swirski believes that it is by means of such thought experiments that fic-
tion operates as an instrument of inquiry into external reality (Of Literature and
Knowledge, ch. 4), but his theoretical considerations do not seem to be supported
with a sufficient number of examples to prove that the thought experiments one
finds in narrative literature do not only incidentally extend our empirical know-
ledge of external reality.
15  Cf. E. H. Gombrich, who in Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psycholog y of Pictorial
Representation (a study of the techniques by means of which the painter achieves
the life-likeness effect, considered with reference to mechanisms of perception)
stresses this need for “partnership” between the artist and the beholder “be-
cause we cannot speak of experiments without some standard by which to judge
their success and failure” (326).
16  Interestingly, works of art have also been perceived as theories (cf. Gombrich’s
belief that for the Renaissance artists their works were “experimental solutions
61—
Thus understood, artistic experiments may adopt an infinite variety of forms:
ranging from artefacts exposing the recipient to novel formal techniques (such as
the metafictional disclosure of the fictional convention in Albert Angelo, 1964, by
B. S. Johnson) to works offering original thematic content (like the argument that
the clones’ ability to love makes them human, in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go,
2005). Each artefact gives rise to a sui generis experiment offering the recipient unique
experience under otherwise unavailable conditions. It seems that the term experiment
is not abused when used in this way, although the differences between this kind of
artistic experiment and the scientific one are quite pronounced.
Artistic experiment sensu stricto
In the case of some artefacts, however, the experiment appears to go beyond con-
fronting the recipient with an original object (sometimes reducible to sensual and
emotional stimulation, as in the case of, e.g. Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, 1888),
and entails a sophisticated design: the recipient is invited to test a specific hypothesis
inscribed in the work of art, without being aware of the fact, in a situation whose
development the artist to some extent controls. During the experiment the recipients,
as previously, observe the results, i.e. their perceptual, emotional and intellectual
reaction, but once the experiment is over, they should come to know the hypothesis
and be able to interpret their experience in its context.
In science, a research hypothesis is part of a theory which the experiment is
meant to test. The results either verify (corroborate) or falsify the theory. In art, the
hypothesis stands on its own (its theoretical basis, if it exists, is usually the author’s
private knowledge), and the results of the experiment provide the recipient with
some new insight into him/herself. The hypothesis is crucial, but what is tested in the
experiment is not its universal validity but its application in the life of the recipient.17
to their problems,” “trial demonstrations of their scientific theories,” or simply
“scientific theories,” qtd. in Sheldon Richmond 56).
17  One can imagine art cooperating with psychology and testing psychological
theories in experiments which by means of works of art examine the human
psyche in such a way that the results, by either confirming or falsifying the
tested hypothesis, might help assess the value of the theories in question. But
this kind of procedure should be classified as a scientific experiment in the field
of the social sciences. Art works differently.
62— The cognitive theory of art
It is not often that art stages an experiment thus construed. The Sleeping Beauty
performance (2012) by Taras Polataiko might serve as one example, though in its case
the hypothesis behind the project cannot be easily determined. It could be equally
well People in the 21st century believe in fairy tales or They don’t. The participants (both the
models acting as Sleeping Beauties and the visitors to the gallery) were offered a
chance to test their belief in the fairy-tale scenario and consider how it relates to their
concept of marriage (if the visitor chose to kiss the sleeping beauty and she chose to
open her eyes, they were obliged by the contract both the models and the visitors had
previously signed to get married).18 But the work’s cognitive intention need not be
overt and the hypothesis may be formulated more conclusively. In Life of Pi (2001) by
Yann Martel readers, unaware of the fact, can first test their credulity (the main story,
allegedly authentic, becomes more and more fantastic, but the alternative version is
unbearably cruel) and reconsider the criteria (epistemic and pragmatic) which they
apply when adopting a belief (eventually the readers are asked to choose the story they
will believe). The novel’s hypothesis might be reconstructed as follows: in the absence
of epistemic reasons in favour or against a belief, one should consider pragmatic rea-
sons or, more precisely, one should choose theistic belief because it increases one’s
ability to love, and in epistemic terms is as plausible as atheism (cf. the discussion of
the novel in Chapter Eight).
Admittedly, the use of art in this experimental mode places considerable de-
mands on the artist and the recipient, who should both be highly aware of art’s
cognitive function. Otherwise the recipient may well fail to notice the experiment,
identify the hypothesis or interpret the results. But some contemporary artefacts
seem willing to take the risk. One might consider reserving the term experiment for
these cases.
Semantic content of the work of art
Within the basic cognitive mechanism of art, one might further differentiate (as art’s
specific cognitive strategy) art’s ability to formulate or present meanings and values.
Art may convey them by (1) representing reality/constructing its model (the serial
drama Twin Peaks, 1990-1991, by Mark Frost and David Lynch, suggesting by means
18  Performances are usually recognized as part of art, but in the light of the defini-
tion of art accepted here their status is in fact unclear.
63—
of characters, such as Bob, and incidents, such as the possession of agent Dale
Cooper, that there are supernatural forces of evil whose power no human being can
oppose, might illustrate this method); as well as (2) by means of form (aleatoric music
which expresses the idea that life is a matter of random chance – an example given
by Borowiecka (63) – might be cited here);19 or (3) by means of an explicit statement
in natural language (as in the case of the opening passage of Graham Swift’s novel,
Waterland 1983 (the words once spoken by Henry Crick, are recalled by his son,
Tom): “And don’t forget […] whatever you learn about people, however bad they
turn out, each one of them has a heart, and each one of them was once a tiny baby
sucking his mother’s milk…”). Such verbal statements in art may also take the form
of fragmentary utterances, densely metaphorical lines or typographic designs. This
threefold model of art’s capacity to convey ideas is based on Borowiecka’s proposal
(177-90). In Philosophy in Fiction I have modified her scheme, replacing metaphysical
qualities related to the meaning of life and to values in general, which Borowiecka
takes over from Ingarden, with any ideas expressed by means of form (22). This
modified scheme is presented here. The same three ways of conveying ideas in litera-
ture are also enumerated by Henryk Markiewicz in “Ideologia a dzieło literackie”;
he, however, claims that form may only express epistemological ideas (257-62).
Naturally, these are by no means separate methods of presenting ideas in art; a
lot of overlapping takes place. For example, in the novel, the technique of multiple
subjective focalizers may serve to show human isolation (i.e. ideas can be expressed
by means of the formal shape given to the fictional reality), while a statement that
serves to develop a fictional character may at the same time contribute to the novel’s
nonfictional thematic content (i.e. one statement may perform two functions – par-
ticipate in the fictional model and communicate more or less directly the novel’s
meaning).
Of these three, the formal expression of meanings and values seems most char-
acteristic of art (and obviously available to any kind of art, unlike verbal expression,
which is limited to arts that use language). Eco is perhaps a bit too radical when
19  Naturally, if form conveys ideas, then it is meaningful and no longer purely
formal (cf. Eco, “Form” 144). The division of a work of art into content and
form is simplistic, but it may be useful and need not be erroneous if one remains
conscious of the simplification.
64— The cognitive theory of art
stating that form is art’s only means of cognition and communication: “In other
words – and this amounts to an aesthetic principle – the only meaningful way in which
art can speak of man and his world is by organizing its forms in a particular way and
not by making pronouncements with them. Form must not be a vehicle for thought; it
must be a way of thinking” (142), and “The real content of a work is the vision of the
world expressed in its way of forming (modo di formare). […] Art knows the world
through its formal structures (which, therefore, can no longer be considered from a
purely formalist point of view but must be seen as its true content)” (“Form as Social
Commitment” 144). Quite rightly the semiotician emphasizes here the moment of
insight which art’s form offers, but perhaps wrongly negates the cognitive aspect of
the artistic use of language and modelling.20 Of the three modes of expressing ideas,
it is the formal mode, which often remains beyond the recipient’s awareness, that is
the most difficult to interpret.
The modelling (or representing) of reality demands that in the creative process
the artist should identify the important elements (of an aspect or fragment) of reality
as well as the relations obtaining between them, their features, possibly their mean-
ing and value. As Borowiecka points out, the cognitive value of this strategy in art
consists not in a faithful copying of reality, but in the artists’ transformation of this
reality, which reveals how they understand it (178-79).21 Inherent in the model is thus
another person’s interpretation of reality; having reconstructed it, the recipient can
compare it with his/her own. As noted by Przełęcki, ideas conveyed in this way may
be intended as universal, “existential,” or “modal,” where “existential” truths speak
of individual cases, and “modal” truths refer to possibilities (86; cf. Borowiecka 180).
Before discussing the modelling/representational capacity of art, a comment
on terminology seems in order. The term representational was in the past used for art
20  Cf. Bakhtin’s claim that “Artistic form, correctly understood, does not shape
already prepared and found content, but rather permits content to be found and
seen for the first time” (43). Cf. also Clive Bell’s famous definition of works of
art as “‘significant’ […] forms” (40).
21  This is also Katarzyna Rosner’s standpoint: “for a cognitive interpretation of
a work of art as important as its analogical properties are the properties that
have been deformed or that have not been presented at all […]” (163); Rosner
repeatedly states that artistic representation involves interpretation and evalu-
ation (165-66, 187).
65—
aiming to imitate external reality in its appearances. But representation need not be
limited in this way. In particular, art, as convincingly argued by Piotr Gutowski, can
also aim to represent forms of cognition or the act of creation (cf. the discussion
below). If so, the term representational art should be used in a correspondingly broader
sense. In the following considerations, the term denotes all art which aims to cap-
ture any aspect of reality, regardless of whether the attempt is successful or abortive,
focused on iconic similarity or isomorphy, executed in detail or merely sketched.
Under this interpretation representing means roughly the same as modelling, a term
more often encountered in scientific contexts, emphasizing the cognitive function
of representation. As Kara Rogers explains, a scientific model is “a physical, con-
ceptual, or mathematical representation of a real phenomenon that is difficult to ob-
serve directly” (“Scientific Modeling”). One learns from models when constructing
and manipulating them, which in the case of fictional models means doing thought
experiments; the knowledge of the model is then transferred to the world (Roman
Frigg and Stephan Hartmann). Since the present discussion concentrates on art’s
cognitive potential, the two terms will be used interchangeably. Representation/model-
ling will at the same time be differentiated from the more comprehensive reference,
which includes also all kinds of casual, unintended traces of extra-artefactual reality
inherent in works that do not aspire to represent reality.
Artefacts as models of reality
As stated above, artistic models of reality can serve as a way of conveying ideas; 22
but their cognitive capacity is by no means confined to their semantic content. Next
to the previously mentioned staging of artistic experiments or expression of ideas,
modelling/representation can be treated as yet another cognitive strategy available
to art within the basic cognitive mechanism. This is so because artistic models may
offer the recipient a vicarious23 experience in an artefactual (often fictional) real-
22  The significance of this strategy has been recognized by among others Claude
Lévi-Strauss and Yuri Lotman (qtd. in Borowiecka 128-29). Cf. Markiewicz,
who referring in particular to literary models, notes that they “suggest or imply
some general explanatory and evaluative meanings, with reference to extraliter-
ary reality” (“Ideologia a dzieło literackie” 259).
23  As the Sleeping Beauty project shows, the recipient’s experience need not be
merely vicarious. It is possible to construct the aesthetic situation so that the
66— The cognitive theory of art
ity. This usually happens when the recipient identifies with (fictional or quasi-real)
figures (characters, the lyrical subject, narrator, film director, etc.). In such artefacts
models both communicate meanings and/or values and invite the recipient to vicari-
ous experience via his/her imaginative participation in the model.
It might seem that representation as a cognitive strategy is limited to the so-
called representational arts. However, as Gutowski argues in his essay “Prawda –
rzeczywistość – sztuka,” representation in art as its intended object might have:
external reality; internal reality, i.e. the content of consciousness; forms of cognition
(cf. Gutowski’s interpretation of formalist art, 24 199); and the creative process/act
itself (cf. Gutowski’s interpretation of pure expressionism, 200). The kinds of art
intent on representing selected areas of experience might be illustrated with the fol-
lowing works: Rembrandt’s Self Portraits (17th century) – the external world, Frédéric
Chopin’s Nocturnes (1827-1846) – the realm of consciousness, Paul Klee’s Zeichen in
Gelb (1937) – forms of cognition, or Marcel Duchamp’s Readymades (1914-1921) – art
itself. Nota bene, the examples clearly demonstrate that the represented object is never
only the inner or outer experience, the form of mental experience or art/creative
act; in most cases they are all involved in various proportions (i.e. Rembrandt’s Self
Portraits represent not only the painter’s appearance but also his emotions; Chopin’s
Nocturnes reflect certain emotions as well as the human mind’s use of structures, to
which the use of the tonal system of music well testifies).
Gutowski argues further that when exploring reality, art combines mimesis, i.e.
representation of reality, with free creation (196-205), which shall here be called
poiesis.25 In so far as art is engaged in representing reality, it offers the recipients an
analysis and interpretation of (an aspect of) reality for their consideration. In so far
recipient’s real life will be directly involved.
24  This kind of art might also be said to represent structures of external reality, in
contrast to its ever changing appearances.
25  In the field of narrative studies, the terms would be mimetic and, introduced by
James Phelan, synthetic (qtd. in Alber et al. 114). As regards the term poiesis, it
goes back to ancient Greece. In modern times Heidegger used it to denote the
process of bringing-forth both in nature and art, i.e. in the relevant meaning, in his
1954 work whose English title reads “The Question Concerning Technology”
(qtd. in John Mingers 1, 13).
67—
as art consists in invention, it confronts them with the hitherto unknown, probing
their responsiveness as well as giving insight into human creative potential.
Although in the case of art concerned with artefacts and creative processes one
might wish to replace the notion of representation with that of self-reference,26 this
does not seem necessary as the two categories do not exclude each other; in par-
ticular, auto-referential art may be interpreted as art which represents the creative
process and its results. This – the representation of the act of creation – as Gutowski
suggests (using different terms) is also creation as such; it is the moment at which
mimesis and poiesis unite (200, cf. 205). This basically means that all art is to some
extent referential (all art is a creative manifestation of the mind, hence inevitably
contains references to the mind, its forms of cognition and the creative process,
regardless of the artist’s intentions) and thus concerned with some aspect of reality,
and able to shed on it some light. The complementary tenet, that all art, by contrast
with crafts, introduces an element of creative invention, i.e. that all art is to some
extent poietic, follows directly from its definition.
Interpretation
The above discussion tacitly assumes that it is possible to say about J. K. Rowling’s The
Casual Vacancy (2012) that it conveys, among other things, the idea that lack of authen-
ticity in human behaviour may give rise to major social problems. In general terms, the
discussion assumes that it is possible for the recipient to identify the semantic content
of the artefact, intentio operis, to use Eco’s term. The more traditional approach focused
on establishing the author’s intentions, or intentio auctoris, is more difficult to defend
within scholarship. Though not irrelevant, the artist’s intentions are hardly available
to the scholar, as argued by Andrzej Zgorzelski (235-36). Also, one should allow
for situations in which the artist has failed to endow the artefact with the intended
meaning (Zgorzelski 235, note 10) or is unaware of the meanings that s/he has
created.27
26  Cf. Jeremy Hawthorn’s suggestion that postmodernism, if interpreted as a radi-
cal version of modernism, might involve “the rejection of representation in fa-
vour of self-reference – especially of a ‘playful’ and non-serious, non-construc-
tive sort […]” (64).
27  Unavailable to scholars, the artist’s intention may well arouse the interest of
the recipient. In his naturalistic study of art, Dutton insists that to dismiss the
68— The cognitive theory of art
However, the possibility of establishing the meaning inherent in the artefact has
also been questioned by some authors and negated by others. It has been argued
that the artefact’s meaning is created by the recipient, dependent on the context,
established by the rules of interpretive game currently adopted by academia, or de-
termined by the intended use of the work. Within literary studies these approaches
are represented by Wolfgang Iser, Jonathan Culler, Stanley Fish and Richard Rorty,
respectively. They all decouple interpretation from the meaning of the artefact and
thereby extensively modify the concept of interpretation, without negating the idea
that coherent meaning occasioned by the artefact is part of aesthetic experience.
Pragmatist scholars, however, tend to claim that the aim of interpretation is cre-
ative enrichment of the recipient’s experience, rather than a search for truth about
the meaning of the work of art, however construed. Derrida stands apart from all
these authors. He perceives conventional interpretation as “doubling commentary”
– preliminary in any critical reading but highly limited in its cognitive value. It is
impossible to identify the true meaning of a text conceived of as detachable from
the text – a kind of signified. Derridean reading aims to show that no linguistic
representation can ever capture extra-linguistic reality as such. Deconstructionist
reading offers exposure of the logocentric metaphysics inscribed in language and
its inevitable impact on both the author and the reader (Of Grammatolog y 157-64).28
Derrida’s method consists in bringing out the text’s multiple, often mutually exclu-
sive, meanings (cf. the discussion in Chapter Four and Eight).
author’s intentions in the act of art’s interpretation is to deny art’s fitness indica-
tor function, which is all-important in terms of sexual selection. In other words,
it is to deny art’s basic biological role: “it is from an evolutionary standpoint
psychologically impossible to ignore the potential skill, craft, talent, or genius
revealed in speech and writing. This in turn cannot be achieved without having
some idea of authorial intention” (176). Dutton’s other arguments in favour of
intentionalism are non-naturalistic and concern, among other things, the tech-
nique of irony and anachronistic interpretations (167-77).
28  The deconstructionist rejection of interpretation may also be interpreted dif-
ferently. Shusterman relates it to their concept of the structure of “linguistic
meaning” based not on language’s relation to “extra-linguistic reality” but on
“differential relations […] between the various elements of the language system,
which is ever open to new elements and continually transforming itself […]”
(89). Since language is a play of differences, its meanings cannot stabilize a co-
herent reading of any text, independent of the context (88-90).
69—
The decision to abide in the present work by the traditional model of interpreta-
tion, taken as reconstruction of the artefact’s semantic content,29 is dictated by the
choice of the traditional model of the humanities – the model within which the
humanities, examining culture and human beings as its creators, adopt a rational, i.e.
critical approach, typical of science in general. This choice excludes deconstruction-
ist scepticism,30 Fish’s conventionalism and Dewey and Rorty’s pragmatism. The
subject of the present work, i.e. contradictions inherent in artefacts, excludes in turn
the author- and reader-oriented approaches (if the book were devoted to them – the
artist and the art recipient – their experience of art, including subjective interpre-
tations of artefacts, would naturally deserve more attention). As regards Culler’s
approach, the impact of contexts on any interpretation of the artefact is undeniable;
but while in principle all meanings resulting from the choice of a specific context are
worth exploring, interpretations which aim to reconstruct the meaning which the
work possessed in the cultural context in which it was created and first appreciated
seems in scholarship to be primary.
That it is possible (though usually very difficult) and for scholarly reasons impor-
tant to identify the semantic content of artefacts is basically the position of liberal
humanism within English literary studies and of analytic interpretive theory within
philosophy. In Poland this approach has recently been defended by Zgorzelski: “the
literary text is a coherent message and it signals its meanings and sense through a num-
ber of literary devices […]” (236). Its scholarly interpretation ideally consists in “an
explanation revealing the full semantic potential of the text” (237). Thus, though
not excessively popular these days, this approach has some advocates. More impor-
tantly, it has good justification in the cognitive theory of art (meanings and values
29  In classical philosophy, interpretation is defined as a cognitive activity (or its
result) consisting in finding the covert meaning of a text. The text may but need
not be verbal; it may also be, for instance, an element of nature or a human ac-
tion (Bronk, “Interpretacja” 302-03).
30  The present research project is undertaken partly in order to check whether
contradictions that can be found in an artefact may truly preclude the possibility
of its interpretation. Without excluding at this stage the possibility that (some)
works may contradict themselves to the point of negating their own message,
it seems rational to postulate that, when examining them, one should be sensi-
tive to all kinds of relations obtaining between the statements they contain (cf.
Chapter Four).
70— The cognitive theory of art
with which artists equip the works they create participate in the recipient’s aesthetic
experience) and the traditional model of the humanities.
The objective meanings of the work do not exhaust the content of the aesthetic
experience, which depends to a large extent on recipients: their current needs, life
experience, experience with art, outlook upon life, sensitivity, imagination and the
like. This is so because most artefacts are partly indefinite in their semantic content,
and recipients, by no means passive in the aesthetic experience, are capable not only
of reconstructing but also inventing meanings. As Ossowski puts it,
in the domain of art it is not easy to show where creativeness ends. […] At
times, a spectator, listener and reader is also impelled to a certain degree
to co-creativeness with the artist at the time when he must interpret the
work independently or delve into its difficult construction. He may even
discover something in this work which the author had not himself contrib-
uted to it. (373)31
Each recipient being unique, their reception of the work, also as regards its inter-
pretation, will be unique. This appears to be at present the standard view of the act
of reception. It seems therefore reasonable to distinguish between the stable “core
meaning(s)” of an artefact and the no less important meanings which arise in the
process of individual contact with an artefact of an art recipient (possibly becoming
then its co-creator). Scholarship should focus on the former because the latter are
private and subjective (i.e. objectively true only of one person), hence by and large
inaccessible to a scholar; the core meanings, by contrast, are accessible as well as
relevant in most personal encounters with the artefact.32
31  Ossowski speaks of degrees of creativity: “Thus, for example, between someone
who submits passively to the influence of a musical work listened to and the
creator-composer, we may place, as intermediate stages, first the listener who
listens to music in an active way, seeking to grasp the structure of the work,
subsequently a musician, who performs a work which is not his own” (311).
32  Incidentally, every individual recipient may ascribe to artefacts whatever mean-
ings they choose, irrespective of the work’s objective and subjective meanings;
however, this activity in terms of the definition adopted here does not qualify
as interpretation.
71—
To sum up, the present project assumes that it is possible with reference to many
contemporary artefacts to reconstruct their basic objective meanings and translate
them into propositions. Reconstructing the basic meanings they possessed in the
context of their origin, with reference to artefacts created in a different culture (re-
mote in time and/or space) is a much bigger challenge. The same applies to works
whose core meanings are mutiple or indefinite. In any case the resulting interpretive
statements have the status of hypotheses; their strength depends above all on the
strength of artefactual evidence used to support them. In each case, articulating the
meaning of the artefact in a propositional form will reduce the semantic content of
the artefact; nonetheless the operation may help to understand the work.33
Justification as a property of
artistic cognition/knowledge
If, as a result of the creative process, for the artist, and the encounter with the
artefact, for the recipient, they gain some new life experience or become acquainted
with new ideas (whether or not they are conscious of the change in their state of
awareness), one can speak of cognition (cf. the definition cited at the beginning of
the chapter).34 It is, however, debatable whether and in what way art might supple-
ment the context of discovery with the context of justification, i.e. whether artefacts,
providing people with new ideas or experiences, supply them also with their critical
assessment, commonly required if one wants to speak of knowledge.35 Much is at
33  As in other areas of human cognition, also here there is no guarantee of infal-
libility but, as Renata Ziemińska suggests, anti-sceptical fallibilism seems at pre-
sent the default option: aware that human knowledge is uncertain, philosophers
do not claim that it is impossible (“Epistemologia: Sceptycyzm”).
34  Cf. John, who speaks of the need to discriminate between a simple change in
the state of awareness and one that may count as cognitive: “learning from art
requires some degree of awareness of what the new knowledge is” (330). This
requirement of awareness seems more justified with reference to art’s epistemic
than cognitive dimension, though psychologists claim that people are to a large
extent unaware even of their knowledge (cf. the discussion of implicit learning and
tacit knowledge in Nęcka et al., 140-48).
35  The distinction between the two contexts is nowadays interpreted as “a dis-
tinction between the process of conceiving a theory and the validation of that
theory, that is, the determination of the theory’s epistemic support” ( Jutta
Schickore).
72— The cognitive theory of art
stake for, as Jan Woleński argues, for philosophers who introduced the distinction
or recognize it nowadays,36 it is the context of justification which is crucial for sci-
ence, which ensures its rationality (78-79, 85).
Some authors are doubtful. Popper, for example, claims that the critical ele-
ment concerned with truth, not aesthetic qualities, is absent from art except for the
process of artistic creation, in which artists examine critically the work they create
with reference to the original project (“Schöpferische Selbstkritik in Wissenschaft
und Kunst” 369-76, Knowledge 21-22, 31-32; cf. Teske, “The Methodology of the
Humanities” 292-93). Przełęcki, speaking of literature, finds justification outside the
work of art in the recipient’s experience and alternative sources of beliefs (89-90).37
Borowiecka, too, speaks of ideas found in art being confirmed in the life experience
of recipients, and intimates that this kind of verification conducted by some people
might be valid for others (121).
Some authors, however, are more positive, especially as regards experiential know-
ledge. As Eileen John explains, experiential knowledge concerns mainly emotions,
and is “knowledge of what it is like to experience something” (333). Experiential
beliefs need “experiential justification” (333-34). For David Novitz, an encounter
with an artefact may provide this kind of justification because the recipient imagi-
natively participates in the tale, but to be valid, it must be supplemented with his/
her prior or subsequent life experience (qtd. in John 334). John in turn claims that
the recipient’s encounter with the artefact has “justificatory force,” because, among
other reasons, his/her prior or contemporary experiential knowledge is involved in
this act. However, with reference to moral knowledge acquired through art, John
recommends that it be supplemented in the course of public discussion about the
work (333-38). Without focusing on experiential beliefs, some authors seem to
locate justification in the artefact itself. Waugh, for example, convincingly argues
that the critical element is present in the contemporary metafictional novel, which
36  Some authors (Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Stefan Amsterdamski) ques-
tion the possibility of separating the moment of discovery from the moment of
justification, and the autonomy of the context of justification (Woleński 79-80).
37  Cf. “Allowing us to grasp some truths about the world, which together consti-
tute its evaluative vision, fiction as such does not supply any reasons in favour
of this vision’s truthfulness. Such reasons lie out of reach of the literary work”
(Przełęcki 90).
73—
is self-aware and concerned with its own artefactual character (Metafiction).38 The
critical element can also be found in some literary genres (e.g. the novel of ideas) or
techniques (e.g. irony), of much longer tradition.39
It seems advisable to recognize all these kinds of justification: the aesthetic expe-
rience (i.e. the acts of the reception and creation of art), the reflection following the
encounter with art, art criticism (which also might be perceived as an integral part
of art), and in some cases the artefact itself, as well as the artist’s authority. Though
of diverse origin and character, all this justification should be taken as inconclusive,
tentative at best. That all human knowledge is hypothetical, and absolute epistemic
certainty remains beyond human reach is not much of a consolation. The weakness
of artistic justification in artefacts is a serious flaw in art’s cognitive theory, the
context of justification, as stated above, being crucial for the rationality of cognition.
Indeed, the strength of a belief’s justification (or its ability to resist falsification) by
and large defines this belief’s epistemic value.
But though artistic justification is problematic (the whole procedure is much less
clear than in the case of science) and though this weakens art’s epistemic claim, it
does not entirely negate art’s cognitive potential. Of the two contexts – the context
of discovery and the context of justification – only the latter demands criticism
and high logical standards; the former allows considerable freedom, also in science.
Popper’s admission is quite instructive: “there is no such thing as a logical method
of having new ideas, or a logical reconstruction of this process. My view may be
expressed by saying that every discovery contains ‘an irrational element,’ or ‘a crea-
tive intuition,’ in Bergson’s sense” (The Logic of Scientific Discovery 8). Confronting the
recipient with new ideas and experiences, art operates by and large in the context
of discovery; the context of justification, though not totally missing, is located in
the main not in the artefacts as such but in the aesthetic experience (criticism and
scholarship included).
38  For Waugh, the critique focuses on political and social issues (Metafiction), but
in this way she seems to unduly narrow down the broad interests of the meta-
fictional novel.
39  For a more extensive discussion of the issue of justification in art, see John
(333-35). John explains, among other things, why the artist’s authority may be
perceived as problematic in this respect.
74— The cognitive theory of art
Art may acquaint its recipients with true ideas (whether justified or not) but, as
Morris Weitz points out, it may also serve the cognitive function when confronting
them with false ideas or what they consider as such:
That ours is a divinely ordained, moral universe or that reality is a realm of
timeless essences to be grasped only by artistic intuition is false or, at any
rate, regarded as false by many. Nevertheless, […] they constitute exciting
possibilities in our thinking about the world. We would not be wiser with-
out them, for they help build imaginative pictures of how things should or
might be, which serve as perpetual challenges to our scientific and philo-
sophical efforts to state exactly how things are. (106)40
Erroneous ideas may indeed challenge or extend one’s view of life, so long as one is
not manipulated into accepting them as true.
With reference to ideas whose epistemic status is vague or which are simply false,
it seems important that the recipient should be aware of the fact. Knowing the artist’s
assessment of this status might also in some situations be helpful. The two interpreta-
tions of American Psycho (1991) by Bret Easton Ellis discussed in Bran Nicol’s intro-
duction to postmodern fiction provide an instructive case in point. The novel tells
of a sadistic serial killer and contains shocking descriptions of how he tortures his
victims. The book was criticized as a work of pornography promoting moral relativ-
ism, whose author is apparently undisturbed by the horrors the book depicts, whereas
in fact, Nicol argues, the author is a moralist and in the book reveals the corruptive
impact of the consumerist, “disaffected” culture on contemporary society (197-204).
Apparently the source of the confusion is some readers’ failure to note that the author
disapproves of the protagonist, his behaviour and the world in which he lives. The
novel might cause epistemic harm to the reader who, failing to note the element of
40  Cf. also Catherine Z. Elgin, who, concluding her discussion of parallels in the
cognitive function of exemplification in science and art, claims that truth of
verbal exemplars is not “crucial” for their epistemic efficacy, since “a telling
falsehood may be as revealing as a truth” (207). Some authors, however, disa-
gree. Georgi Plekhanov, for example, argues that an erroneous idea, if it is cen-
tral to the work, generates internal contradictions and detracts from the work’s
aesthetic value (qtd. in Borowiecka 181).
75—
critique, chose to adopt the protagonist’s view of reality on the assumption that it is
recommended by the author. That the protagonist is immoral and his view of reality
is false does not in itself constitute an epistemic problem. The problem appears if the
reader fails to see their immorality (and the implied author’s critical attitude). In other
words, the problem consists in the possibility of the novel’s misreading.
Speaking of literature and its philosophical themes, Weitz claims that “although
the truth of a theme is not necessary or sufficient for the aesthetic merit of a literary
work, it is relevant” (104). This seems true about art and its meanings in general.
One should, however, bear in mind that (1) works presenting false ideas may have
cognitive (and aesthetic) value (cf. Weitz 103-09); (2) art is often concerned with
individual or possible experiences rather than universal facts (cf. Przełęcki), which
may complicate or even preclude assessment of the truth value of some statements;
(3) modern art seems to favour the non-assertive mode: it often leaves the task of
identifying the truth value of a belief to the recipient. By providing the recipient
with experiences or ideas, art can help name problems and pose questions. Some
artefacts may, further, offer some considerations on possible solutions and answers,
but rarely recommend any of them as definitively right. The cognitive process initi-
ated by the artefact continues in the experience of the recipient. All in all, in so far as
art is a mode of cognition, truth is for art, as for science in Popper’s model, a major
regulative idea; even so, contrary to what one might expect, the cognitive value of
an artefact does not hang solely upon the truth value of statements that it contains.
Pros and cons of art as a mode of cognition
Art’s value as a means of cognition is questioned also on account of defects other
than the alleged lack of critical assessment of new ideas or experience gained in
the process of aesthetic experience, discussed above. Borowiecka enumerates the
following: absence of a clearly delineated object of examination, absence of the sci-
entific method, and the negligible value of often trivial knowledge gained in art
(49, 102-06). However, the proper object of artistic investigation is quite precisely
human beings with their consciousness, in relation with reality. As argued by David
Lodge, so far science with its method has been unable to replace art in its explora-
tion of the mind (“Consciousness and the Novel” 6-32). Also the objection that art
lacks the scientific method seems misconceived: if art were to adopt the method of
76— The cognitive theory of art
science, it would become science and that would spell a substantial loss of a liberal
mode of investigating the realm of subjective experience.41 As for assessing the value
of knowledge gained via art, this is a formidable task. Unlike knowledge offered
by science (or philosophy), artistic knowledge is in principle personal: related in
the first place to one’s individual awareness of oneself, other people and existential
challenges one might face in the course of one’s life. Being confronted, when read-
ing Graham Swift’s Waterland, with the idea that life is a fairy tale à rebours or that to
understand another person one needs to know their history/story, may result in an
individual reader’s growth in consciousness, whether s/he accepts these ideas or not.
This is why its accumulation in the artistic heritage of mankind, stored in museums,
art galleries or libraries, which in theory might be measurable, can hardly do justice
to art’s significance and value.
Art, taken as a mode of cognition, is also said to have its advantages. Maria
Gołaszewska notes that knowledge gained through art is very deeply internalized
(qtd. in Borowiecka 118). This might be related to the fact that art appeals not only
to the recipients’ intellect but also their senses, imagination, or emotions, so that
the knowledge they gain, is not, as argued by Langer and Dorothy Walsh, abstract
theory but “knowledge by acquaintance” or “experience by living through it” (qtd.
in Borowiecka 117-18). John, cited above, sees artistic knowledge as both proposi-
tional and experiential (333-35).42 Furthermore, in the process of aesthetic experi-
ence one can practise various cognitive faculties: imagination, perception, sensibility
(Borowiecka 122); one can learn to be creative (cf. Ossowski)43; sometimes one can
41  Cf. Dutton, who insists that the imaginative character is one of art’s most impor-
tant features and explains that in art, imagination is “decouple[d]” from “practi-
cal concern,” free from “the constraints of logic and rational understanding”
(58-59).
42  Discussing the conceptual change (i.e. modification in one’s set of concepts)
which follows a profound experience of an artefact and which may become
manifest in one’s modified belief scheme or conduct, Catherine Wilson argues
that cognition via literature need not be perceived in disjoint terms of either raw,
indefinite, inarticulate experience, or acquisition of true beliefs. Her argument
may be taken to show that experiential knowledge and propositional knowledge
inspired by art are related to each other (though, as she argues, the connection
is not direct).
43  Cf. “as far as the moulding of a creative stand is concerned art may fulfill, at least
in some cases, such a function also in relation to the recipient” (Ossowski 373).
77—
have one’s categories of knowledge themselves transformed (John 338-39).44 Indeed,
by interacting with products of their minds, people not only come to know but also
transform reality and themselves, as noted by Popper (Knowledge and the Body-Mind
Problem).45 Last but not least, to quote John, “engagement with art […] integrates
pleasure-seeking into cognitive activity” (332). And, as Susan Sontag, who also saw
art as, among other things, “an instrument of pleasure,” put it, “one doesn’t have that
much pleasure in life” (“On Art” 31).46
In their paper “Thinking with Art: From Situated Knowledge to Experiential
Knowing,” Ian Sutherland and Sophia Krzys Acord suggest that contemporary art-
ists, like composer Gayle Young (with her Black Bean Soup, 1994) and visual artist
Tino Sehgal (with his This Success/This Failure, 2007), change the model of art’s rela-
tion to cognition. By inviting art performers and the audience to participate in their
projects, such artists depart from the model in which artefacts created by artists
contain truth about reality, and promote a new model in which art offers situations
44  Cf. also e.g. Martha C. Nussbaum’s argument that the novel helps the reader
practice empathy and develop moral sensibility. Contemporary novelists agree.
McEwan, for example, says that “Imagining what it is like to be someone other
than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion
and the beginning of morality,” (“Only Love and Then Oblivion”). Swift, in an
interview with Catherine Bernard, makes the same point (224-25).
45  Art’s ability to effect a change in reality is also very much emphasized by Martin
Heidegger in Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, a highly original and influential the-
ory of art. Art is where, out of the “intimate conflict” between the earth and
the world (which in some passages evoke associations with matter and con-
sciousness), Being becomes and truth happens (nota bene Heidegger replaces the
classical notion of truth taken by him as “correctness in representation,” with
truth as “unconcealment of being,” 176-77). However, because Heidegger re-
jects rationality, it is difficult to integrate his insights with the ideas of other
authors discussed here. Gadamer also places much emphasis on art’s cogni-
tive function, recognizes the transformative power of art and its influence on
the recipients’ self-understanding, as well as their creative participation (qtd.
in Nicholas Davey), but because Gadamer’s aesthetics is also inseparable from
his metaphysics, these ideas in his works have a highly idiosyncratic meaning.
That artistic experience (the process of creation and reception of art) shapes
the artist and the recipient is also emphasized in the pragmatist aesthetics (cf.
Shusterman 53-55).
46  Interestingly, Sontag, who once famously protested against reducing artefacts to
their interpretable meaning (“Against Interpretation”), in “On Art” emphasizes
the importance of truth in art.
78— The cognitive theory of art
for interactive experience in which recipients with the help of artefacts, creators,
mediators and the like produce knowledge. That is why Young asks musicians to
“play” the recipe for black bean soup and Sehgal invites people to an empty gallery
in which they find children playing with each other. Cognition is no longer a mat-
ter of “a top-down construct” but of “an interactive, in situ encounter” (126); it is
experiential, subjective and embodied. However, in the light of the cognitive theory
of art presented above, it does not seem necessary to change art’s format from ar-
tefacts to performances; from complex encoded meanings and values to emotional
and sensual stimulation. All artefacts (Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passacaglia from the
beginning of the 18th century and Salvador Dali’s The Sacrament of the Last Supper,
1955, included) invite the recipient to be active (to search for the meaning of both
the artefact and the recipient’s own reaction), and every artistic experience engages
out of necessity the recipient’s body, the mind being embodied.
***
For the subsequent analysis of contradiction in art, the following tenets from the
above discussion are the most important: (1) art is among other things a cognitive
endeavour; (2) art’s cognitive endeavour is partly carried out by means of meanings
presented in artefacts; (3) some of these meanings are expressed in the form of,
or can – although impoverished by the process – be translated into sentences or,
more precisely, statements which affirm or deny something.47 To be able to discuss
artistic contradictions one more assumption is necessary: (4) propositions conveyed
by means of artefacts which concern reality have logical value (are either true or
false), and if they concern fictional reality, they have logical value with reference
to the fictional reality in question; and another assumption is useful: (5) artistic
propositions may be presented in the assertive mode, as true, i.e. assertions, or in
the non-assertive mode, i.e. as suppositions. The distinction, as Jerzy Pelc explains,
consists in the attitude of the author of the proposition: if s/he is convinced that the
proposition is true, it is an assertion; if the conviction is missing, it is a supposition
47  Cf. Ajdukiewicz: “an expression will, for its certain meaning, be called a de-
clarative sentence (or a statement in the logical sense of the term) if, for that
meaning, it states a proposition, i.e., a thought which reports a state of things”
(Pragmatic Logic 18).
79—
(“O wartości logicznej” 99-100).48 The last two tenets are the most problematic and
need to be discussed in detail in the remaining part of the chapter.
2.2 The logical value of artistic statements
It seems obvious that without claiming that logical truth values apply to artistic
statements, one cannot speak of the statements contradicting each other (or of one
statement contradicting itself). That the mode of assertion is relevant may be less
intuitive. In logic, both assertions and suppositions have logical value, and this logi-
cal value does not depend on the assertive or non-assertive mode of the statement
(Pelc, “O wartości logicznej” 98-99, 102). Nonetheless assertion may be treated as
a complex statement consisting of a statement and a metastatement which says that
the statement is true. (There are theories, such as the redundancy theory of truth,
which assume that to assert p means the same as to assert that p is true; E. J. Lowe).
This is relevant to the study of contradictions because only by making an assertion
does the speaker claim that his/her statement is true; hence, only when asserting a
self-contradictory statement ( p ∧ ~ p), which according to the non-contradiction
principle is false, does one fail to respect the principle (mutatis mutandis this applies to
mutually exclusive statements). Thus, without recognizing the possibility of differ-
entiating between assertions and suppositions in fiction, one has no chance of dif-
ferentiating between contradictory statements and contradictory statements which
violate the non-contradiction principle.
If art is a mode of cognition, if it entails meanings and is concerned with reality,
it seems reasonable to assume that those meanings which can be translated into
propositions (or have that form) should, like all propositions, be either true or false
(and have the form of assertion or supposition). Indeed, in so far as art’s function
is cognitive, truth (not beauty or moral goodness) should be considered the key
category. Truth is, however, a problematic notion. The correspondence definition
of truth (adaequatio rei et intellectus) has been questioned on various grounds, among
48  Ajdukiewicz explains that suppositions (or “conceived” propositions, which is
the term he uses) are stated in “the form of a neutral realization of that state
of things, neutral in the sense of implying no acceptance and no rejection”
(Pragmatic Logic 17). Following Pelc, the two categories (assertions and supposi-
tions) simplify reality in which the strength of the conviction can adopt a variety
of degrees (“O wartości logicznej” 102-04).
80— The cognitive theory of art
them that reality either does not exist or is inaccessible.49 But to contest the notion
of truth is to declare all cognitive efforts misconceived. Attempts have been made,
also in the field of art criticism, to introduce pragmatic or coherence definitions of
truth. These, however, replace the concept of truth with concepts of other (epis-
temically desirable but quite distinct) qualities: utility and coherence.50 Reporting on
the contemporary debate on truth, Tadeusz Szubka, names two other rivals of the
classical definition, Paul Horwich’s deflationary minimalism (which does not treat truth
as a substantial property) and Crispin Wright’s alethic pluralism (which claims that the
basic concept of truth may in various contexts be instantiated by various properties,
including correspondence and coherence). Both, as Szubka explains, recognize the
basic “equivalence schema,” i.e. the schema which states that the proposition that
p is true if and only if p (219-35). The schema brings to mind the correspondence
definition of truth, though clearly the notion of correspondence itself is missing
from it. Still, Horwich openly admits that deflationary minimalism does not ques-
tion that truth consists in ideas being compatible with facts (qtd. in Szubka 225).
Under the circumstances, i.e. since the notion of truth is fundamental for any cogni-
tive activity and since alternative definitions either do not seem competitive with,
or radically different from, the correspondence definition, it seems reasonable to
abide by this definition. The fact that the present work is concerned with the notion
49  In the field of literary studies this approach may be illustrated with the words of
Januszkiewicz: “We cannot speak of reality except in terms of a certain inter-
pretation of it because – let us underline this point – there is no reality in itself
(at any rate there is nothing we can say about it)” (103; cf. also Michał Paweł
Markowski’s “Precz z dekadencją”). However, that reality is always in human
experience mediated by language(s) and interpretation(s) does not mean that
the human search for truth (human cognitive activity) must be relinquished.
It seems possible to recognize the presence of languages and ideas in what one
experiences as reality, and either try to explore this reality nonetheless (with
better awareness of the difficulties involved) or change the object of investiga-
tion: focus on languages, ideologies and interpretations; arguably they too are
part of reality.
50  According to Przełęcki, the classical definition of truth aims to capture truth’s
essence, whereas coherence and pragmatic definitions merely spell out how
truth may be identified: to be true means to be compatible with the criteria of
acceptability for propositions adopted in science, be it coherence or utility (qtd.
in Szubka 215-17). Cf. also Ajdukiewicz, Zagadnienia i kierunki filozofii (33-38).
81—
of contradiction (a notion deriving from classical logic) is another reason why the
concept of truth should be accepted here in its classical formulation.
As regards the truth (or falsehood) of meanings inherent in artefacts, the fol-
lowing categories of artistic propositions should be distinguished: (1) propositions
which paraphrase ideas expressed (verbally or non-verbally) in the artefact, and (2)
verbal statements which are part of the artefact. Within the latter category, it is also
important to differentiate the sub-category of statements presented in the mode of
fiction. It is the category of interpretive and fictional statements that for different
reasons are perceived as most problematic. With reference to the former it is the
very notion of interpretation that is contested, with reference to the latter it is their
truth value.
Though the possibility of interpretation is no longer taken for granted, for a
long time it was common practice in art criticism to interpret works of art, i.e. to
verbalise their meaning in the form of propositions and to assume that the meaning
can be discussed in terms of truth and falsehood; nor has this practice been entirely
relinquished. The logical status of these propositions has attracted relatively little at-
tention. Authors who insisted that strict logical procedures apply here as elsewhere,
like Ingarden, who claimed that propositions may only be inferred from other prop-
ositions and since these are missing from artefacts, such inference is impossible (O
dziele literackim 382; cf. also Rosner 184-85), seem to be in a minority. More popular
was the approach represented by John A. Searle, who simply noted that fictional
texts may convey nonfictional speech acts (presumably, assertions whose truth the
speaker must be prepared to defend) often not represented in the text (35), or Weitz,
who spoke of propositions implied by some artefacts (novels or works of visual arts)
and possessing logical value (qtd. in Rosner 51-53). Of course in practice, especially
when the message of the work is vague or highly personal, assessing its truth value
may be hard or impossible. But it would be unreasonable to claim that the statement
− lack of authenticity in human behaviour may give rise to major social problems − which is how
Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy can be read, or analogical statements conveyed by other
books, are in principle devoid of logical value.
82— The cognitive theory of art
The truth value of fictional statements
More contentious than the truth value of propositions which spell the meanings
of artefacts, is the truth value of sentences that can be found in works of fiction. It
is argued that sentences which concern fictional reality are devoid of logical value
because they use names without reference and hence themselves have sense but no
reference and thus no truth value (e.g. Gottlob Frege 62-63),51 or that they are false
because no state of affairs corresponds to them in reality (cf. e.g. Pelc, “Quasi-sądy”
63; cf. also Przełęcki 89-90).52 Also Ingarden, who calls fictional statements quasi-
propositions, believes that the question of their truth value is irrelevant. Though
they have the appearances of propositions and make assertions, in fact they are
not propositions; they are not stated in earnest though they pretend to be, hence
the term (O dziele literackim 237-38).53 Propositions sensu stricto refer to reality that is
autonomous with reference to the act of assertion; apparently in a work of literature
the reality to which the acts of quasi-assertion refer is constituted by these very acts
(O dziele literackim 229-44; “O tak zwanej prawdzie” 138-39).54 Michał Januszkiewicz
may be taken as a contemporary representative of this sceptical approach. As he
suggests, it is futile to discuss fictional sentences in terms of the logical notion of
truth: logically true sentences will be few and trivial (115-16).55
51  Cf. also P. F. Strawson and the non-predication theory of fictional sentences
(qtd. in Markiewicz, “Fikcja w dziele literackim” 129).
52  Rosner, when presenting Pelc’s view, points out that if all fictional sentences are
taken as false, two sentences which contradict each other are both equally false,
which constitutes a challenge for logic (38).
53  Also in “O tak zwanej prawdzie” he concludes that we deal in literature with qua-
si-propositions, which are neither real propositions nor real suppositions (172-74).
54  In “O tak zwanej prawdzie” Ingarden suggests later that this might apply mostly
to lyrics (150-52), not narrative, in which “the intention of the description is
directed at presenting it [the fictional reality] as something entirely independent
from the teller” (150). Incidentally, in postmodern fiction, fictional reality is
very often shown to depend on the narrator’s or character’s creative act.
55  In more general terms Januszkiewicz argues that truth in literature is not the
truth of logic; truth in literature has already been “interpreted, mediated by
language” (110). It is “mixed with fiction” (105). Works of literature help people
understand themselves and the world by confronting them with various inter-
pretations of reality; in the act of interpretation readers creatively re-invent the
text and formulate truths consistent with their own experience (110-13, 122-23).
83—
Some authors who in general deny that fictional sentences might be presented
in the assertive mode and have truth value allow for some exceptions. For Ingarden,
exceptions include tendentious literature, which combines literature and journalism
(O dziele literackim 382, note 1), statements presented on the author’s behalf, also
when ascribed to a character – though this he finds highly untypical of art (“O tak
zwanej prawdzie” 143-45) – and some statements in works which are borderline
cases between artistic and non-artistic texts, like Plato’s dialogues (“O tak zwanej
prawdzie” 163-71). Also Searle believes that some sentences within a work of fiction
are nonfictional, spoken “in earnest.” The first sentence of Anna Karenina by Lev
Tolstoy about happy and unhappy families, or sentences about London (the town
being, as Searle suggests, real) in Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories of Sherlock Holmes
are his examples of either true or false assertions (33-35; Searle does not provide the
criteria for identifying nonfictional sentences). Markiewicz adopts a similar position:
on the whole, sentences to be found in fictional works are not propositions and
hence have either none or negative logical value (121, 137-38); the mode of fiction
excludes the mode of assertion (137). His list of exceptions is extensive: authentic or
presumably authentic sentences spoken by historical figures in narratives, sentences
spoken by fictional characters in so far as they refer to real states of affairs (139),
some sentences in lyrics, especially dealing with philosophical, religious or social
subject-matter (139-42), general statements in narratives if offered by the narrator
or characters with the author’s approval as his/her assertions (“Fikcja w dziele liter-
ackim” 142-43).56 Such attempts to isolate in works of fiction nonfictional sentences
− basically the sentences concerned with reality transcendent to the world of fiction
and presented in the author’s name – and reserve for them truth value seem to be
discontinued in contemporary narratology.
Interestingly, some of the authors mentioned above seem at times inclined to
adopt an even more liberal position. Thus in “O wartości logicznej” Pelc states that
in a work of literature all declarative sentences are either true or false, and have the
status of either propositions or suppositions (or of some intermediate form). This
applies also to sentences reporting the words of a fictional person, such as a char-
acter. Without clearly formulating this idea, Pelc implies that while the sentences
56  Cf. also Markiewicz’s survey of various opinions on the status of sentences in
works of fiction (“Fikcja w dziele literackim”128-32).
84— The cognitive theory of art
creating fictional reality may be logically false, the words spoken by fictional charac-
ters may often be logically true (esp. 113-14, 127-28). In “Wyrażenia imienne a fikcja
literacka” Pelc tentatively considers the possibility of assessing the logical value of a
sentence in a literary text which employs the mode of fiction in dual terms. In so far
as the sentence refers to objects of the real world, the correspondence definition of
truth should be used; and in so far as the sentence refers to fictional objects, either
the coherence definition of truth, or a modified version of the correspondence defi-
nition (assessing the compatibility of the sentence with the fictional reality) should
be used (326, 331-32). Also Ingarden considers at one point the possibility that the
logical value of fictional sentences might be estimated with reference to fictional
reality.57
An analogical position has been recommended with reference to nonfictional
statements concerning fictional worlds. For both David Lewis and John Heintz, to
make a true (or false) statement about fictional reality we need to precede it with an
intensional operator “In such-and-such fiction...” (otherwise the statement is either
“automatically false” or devoid of truth value as it employs subject terms with no
denotation, “Truth in Fiction” 37-38).58 This seems also Eco’s standpoint. In fact in
the relevant respect he does not seem to differentiate between fictional assertions
and nonfictional assertions concerning fictional realities. Eco illustrates his belief
that it is “most reasonable” to assume that “fictional statements are true within
57  Cf. “‘propositions’ delivered by characters presented in a literary work also pos-
sess – within the work itself – a certain truthfulness aspect, but it is relative to
the world presented in a given work” (139); nota bene, the role of this kind of
truth value in aesthetic experience is for Ingarden “inferior” (“O tak zwanej
prawdzie” 142). Cf. also O dziele literackim (243).
58  David Lewis’s analysis of truth in works of fiction is highly complex. It demands
that one accepts the notions of possible worlds in which the plot of the fictional
story is actually enacted and of the “trans-world identity” of stories. Roughly
speaking, the truth of a statement about a work of fiction is assessed with refer-
ence to possible worlds in which a given work “is told as a known fact rather
than fiction.” The relevant possible worlds have to comply with the explicit con-
tent of the work as well as respect either, in one version, common facts about
life, or, in another, common beliefs of the author and the original readership
(“Truth in Fiction”). An alternative solution of John Heintz, for whom only the
explicit content of the work of fiction counts and the fictional reality is other-
wise indeterminate (qtd. in Lewis 43, note 11), is both easier to handle and more
intuitive, though not entirely unproblematic (cf. the discussion below).
85—
the framework of the possible world of a given story,” with a hypothetical state-
ment taken from a student’s paper: “[…] at the end of the tragedy Hamlet marries
Ophelia” (this statement, which he classifies as “untrue,” is followed by another:
“in the fictional universe of Gone with the Wind […] Scarlett O’Hara marries Rhett
Butler,” which is “true”; Six Walks 88).59
Considering the above opinions and considering the natural response of read-
ers to works of fiction, it seems reasonable to opt for assessing the truth value of
statements in works of fiction in terms of correspondence between the fictional
statement and the (fictional) state of affairs to which the statement refers (by anal-
ogy with the classical definition of truth). Apparently this is how readers intuitively
behave. When dealing with artefacts whose fictional reality abounds in fantastic
elements (and hence is hard to conceive of), or artefacts which consistently provide
contradictory information about their fictional reality, it may be systematically im-
possible to identify even this kind of logical value of the work’s fictional statements
(alternatively one might say that the statements in question are devoid of logical
value). Isolated fictional statements referring to fictional reality that has not been
well established might also be problematic as regards their truth value (cf. the dis-
cussion below). Artefacts whose fictional reality is conceivable and comprehensible,
not fraught with contradictions and sufficiently well established may well be treated
according to the formula proposed above.
Thus, when the wolf tells Little Red Riding Hood that he is her grandmother,
the assertion is false in the context of the tale (or quasi-false and quasi-asserted), for
he is a wolf pretending to be the grandmother; by analogy when the little girl at last
understands the situation and says, “Apparently you are a wolf,” this in terms of the
fairy tale is a true supposition (i.e. a quasi-true quasi-supposition). (The same would
apply to an assertion In Little Red Riding Hood the wolf was the girl’s grandmother and a
supposition Apparently in the tale the wolf was a wolf ). Whether they are called quasi-true
and quasi-false, or true and false with reference to the fictional reality seems irrelevant as
regards the subject of contradiction (in the present research project both expressions
59  Interestingly, Eco speaks of the “alethic privilege” of fictional worlds, as in fic-
tion “the notion of truth is indisputable,” whereas in the actual world one needs
to rely on various sources of information which need not be reliable (Six Walks
91, cf. also 87-93).
86— The cognitive theory of art
will be taken as synonymous and used interchangeably). What matters is that the
notions of truth and falsehood can be applied to sentences presented in the fictional
mode, regardless of the identity of the speaker (be it the narrator, lyrical subject or
character), and regardless of their subject (be it the fictional or real world).
Alternatively, one might apply Benjamin Hrushovski’s theory of dual reference.
This is how McHale summarizes it: “literary texts involve a ‘double-decker’ struc-
ture of reference”; they
project at least one internal field of reference, a universe or semantic con-
tinuum (loosely, a “world”) constructed in and by the text itself. In addition,
they inevitably refer outside their internal field to an external field of refer-
ence: the objective world, the body of historical fact or scientific theory, an
ideology or philosophy, other texts, and so on. The internal and external
fields constitute two parallel planes but, says Hrushovski, their geometry is
non-Euclidean, for the planes overlap at many points without merging into
one; that is, many referents are shared by the two planes, thus possessing
a “dual referential allegiance.” (qtd. in McHale, Postmodernist Fiction 28-29)
This approach might be combined with the theory of possible worlds developed
in narratology by Thomas Pavel, Eco and Lubomir Doležel. Presenting the theory,
Ryan explains that
Fictional propositions can […] be evaluated in different reference worlds.
While they may be true or false of worlds that exist independently of the
text in which they appear, they are automatically true of their own fictional
world by virtue of a convention that grants declarative (or performative)
force to fictional statements: unless its narrator is judged unreliable […],
the fictional text gives imaginative existence to worlds, objects, and states
of affairs by simply describing them […]. (“Possible-Worlds Theory”)
87—
Within this approach, the sentences of the fairy tale discussed above are both of
them false with reference to the recipient’s experiential reality, whereas with refer-
ence to the fictional reality, the former is false and the latter is true.60
The convention of the performative force of fictional statements, by itself, also
answers the question of the truth value of fictional statements which call into being
a fictional reality – statements whose truth value cannot therefore be estimated with
reference to anything. This issue, raised by Ingarden, is most relevant to postmodern
fiction whose narrative agents often take liberties when creating and destroying
(denarrating) fictional realities by their acts of speech. If there are no reasons to
consider the narrative agent unreliable, such statements should be taken as true.
As regards the areas that remain indefinite in the fictional reality, Ryan presents
two possible solutions. One might either assume that the indefinite gaps are by de-
fault filled in with the recipient’s knowledge of “their own experiential reality” and
every proposition is either true or false, as in “the principle of minimal departure”
(this is Ryan’s standpoint), or one might agree with Doležel that the indefiniteness
of fictional worlds should be accepted as such (“Possible-Worlds Theory”; cf. also
Heintz, qtd. in David Lewis 43, note 11). However, given the variety of artistic con-
ventions, it is not obvious that such general interpretive rules can settle this issue.
McHale seems right when he states that “Some of the indeterminacy of fictional
worlds and the objects in them is permanent: we will never be able to close the gap.
Other gaps, however, are temporary, designed to be filled in by the reader in the
process of realizing or concretizing the text” (Constructing Postmodernism 36).
Final remarks
A relatively minor problem, though relevant to the issue under discussion, is that of
metaphorical expressions and the complications they generate for the logical value
60  Though the possible-worlds theory is not really part of the current project’s
framework, it is worth mentioning also because in its context the question of
literature being concerned with truth has recently regained its scholarly sta-
tus. To quote Ryan, “Before the advent of PW [Possible-Worlds] theory it was
almost sacrilegious to mention the issue of truth in relation to literary works.
Recourse to the notion of PW makes it possible to talk about the truth of the
propositions asserted in fictional texts without reducing these texts to a repre-
sentation of reality […]” (“Possible-Worlds Theory”).
88— The cognitive theory of art
of sentences of which they are a part. Przełęcki, speaking as a semantic logician, in
his discussion of art’s cognitive capacity claims that the value can be defended. As
he suggests, such sentences, though very often false if taken literally, have cognitive
value. They may be ambiguous, but it is nonetheless possible to provide their literal
equivalents (a set of sentences rather than one sentence), which shows that they ex-
press propositions, either true or false. Nota bene Przełęcki admits that the paraphrases
often fail to render the indefiniteness as well as emotional and evaluative aspects of
metaphors (80-85).61 Indeed, the meaning of some metaphorical expressions might
remain elusive and untranslatable into plain language. But then the language of art
in general is indirect and enigmatic; trying to comprehend it often constitutes a chal-
lenge but there is no need to assume that each attempt inevitably ends in defeat.
As for identifying the assertive vs. non-assertive mode of fictional sentences,
this is by and large a matter of interpretation, in the course of which various fac-
tors should be taken into account (including the specific fictional situation and the
convention/genre of the artefact). In general, if a sentence is presented, whether
by the implied author (in a paratext), the narrator, the lyrical subject or a character,
with no reservations as regards its truth, it should be taken as an assertion. Cautious
language, on the other hand, with phrases such as “possibly,” “it seems as if,” or
the conditional mode might be taken to indicate suppositions. Sometimes, espe-
cially when a statement made by a character or the narrator might apply to both
the fictional and nonfictional reality, it might be ascribed in the second place also
to the implied author of the work. The status of the statement might then change:
a character’s or narrator’s assertion might become the implied author’s supposition
and vice versa. This again is a matter of interpretation; implied authors have at their
disposal various artistic means (e.g. irony, the narrator’s unreliability, the character’s
moral stature and the like) with which to signal their approval of statements with
which they identify, and reserve with reference to those which they find doubtful or
mistaken – all such means need to be considered.62
61  Of course, not all authors agree, cf. Januszkiewicz’s summary of the standard
view of philosophers on the figurative language of literature: “in terms of logic
every metaphor is gibberish because its predication is contradictory; metaphors
and thinking with images are gibberish because utterances of this kind cannot
be successfully translated into colloquial and unequivocal utterances […]” (106).
62  Borowiecka’s suggestion that the most valuable statements to be found in works
89—
Before closing the discussion of the logical value that can be attributed to those
meanings inherent in artefacts which have the form of, or can be translated, into
propositions, it seems appropriate to state the obvious: artefacts are not logically
constructed systems of propositions, in particular, they are not deductive systems.
Such systems, as Zygmunt Ziembiński explains, consist of (1) a set of initial proposi-
tions, called axioms, accepted without any proof, and (2) propositions accepted as
their direct or indirect consequences (152). This does not mean that ideas inherent in
works of art are self-contained units, unrelated to each other. Referring to Aristotle,
Dutton claims that elements of “all adequate works of art” are “meaningfully inter-
related within a whole work” (236); about “artistic masterpieces” he adds that they
“fuse myriad disparate elements, layer upon layer of meaning, into a single, unified,
self-enhancing whole” (237). Dutton’s view may seem exaggerated but even so, as
a rule ideas presented in artefacts are related to each other, though only in some
cases by explicit logical (formal, syntactic) relations such as inference, conjunction,
disjunction or contradiction. More frequent are (semantic) relations of common
theme, similarity/contrast or inclusion (a general idea and its exemplification) and
the like. Finally, there are relations of subordination and coordination constituted
within the artefact. Important factors in establishing such relations between ideas
are their position in the artefact’s structure63 and the emphasis they receive (it may
be signalled by, among other things, the order in which ideas are introduced, the
amount of space assigned to them, or the frequency of their repetition).
***
To sum up, in the present work it will be assumed that whether the sentence found
in an artefact refers to fictional or real (extra-artefactual) world the same notion of
truth consisting in correspondence between the proposition and the state of affairs
the proposition describes is adequate. The same approach will be adopted with ref-
erence to all artistic statements translatable into propositions, including non-verbal
of art are suppositions because they concern philosophical ideas (181) seems
unjustified. Neither science nor philosophy offers certainty. Further, the state-
ment’s mode (assertive and non-assertive) depends on the speaker’s attitude, not
on the discipline to which it belongs.
63  In Philosophy in Fiction, taking advantage of the work of various narratologists, I
try to outline in a systematic way the structurally determined priority of ideas
expressed in fiction.
90— The cognitive theory of art
modes of communication. It will be assumed that such statements have logical value
and are presented either in the assertive or non-assertive mode (though in some cas-
es both the truth value and the mode of presentation might be unidentifiable). This
decision is corroborated in the first place by the practice of critics and recipients of
art who take the truth value of artistic statements into consideration. The fact that
to deny truth value to such statements is to automatically exclude the possibility
that art might contain contradictions (a possibility which is widely recognized by
theoreticians of art) lends further support to this approach.
The detailed and lengthy discussion of propositions which can either be found
in artefacts or used to paraphrase meanings contained in them in whatever form
should not be taken to imply that such propositions constitute art’s primary con-
tribution to human cognition, or that in toto they can be called artistic knowledge.64
As suggested above, formulating and conveying meanings, both true and false, is
only one way in which art performs its cognitive role. It is the subject of the present
research project – artistic contradictions – rather than the relative significance of the
propositional content of works of art that accounts for the extended presentation of
the latter.
As regards the cognitive function of the novel, in the history of the English-
language novel and novelistic theory, the most important ideas have been embodied
in the works of realist novelists (the novel explores social reality, moral issues above all, by
means of its faithful representation),65 articulated and/or applied by Henry James ( fiction is
64  In particular, it does not seem advisable to claim that ideas formulated in art can
compete in terms of their epistemic value with those proposed in science. To
say that art and science are different modes of cognition, does not disparage art.
Art in its exploration of human life experience (meanings and values included)
seems irreplaceable. To assess the value of propositional knowledge in literature
(or art for that matter) by epistemic standards currently adopted in science, as
recommended by Swirski (“Literature,” esp. 14-20), will not do justice to the
cognitive service literature has been doing to mankind. Also, though social sci-
ences (e.g. sociology, psychology, anthropology) or philosophy on the one hand
and art (especially literature) on the other often are concerned with the same
matters and may at times put forward similar hypotheses, no such similarity
obtains as regards the theses’ epistemic status because of the difference in their
justification (nota bene recognized by Swirski, “Literature” 17).
65  Henry Fielding, Walter Scott, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy
and their less famous contemporaries expressed faith in representing social
91—
art, it competes with life and in its cognitive ambition is comparable with history and philosophy),
Virginia Woolf (the novel should explore the human psyche, the novel’s form should correspond
to its content, “Modern Fiction” 105-10), Mark Schorer (the novelist makes sense of his/her
experience while working on the novel’s form, esp. 387-91), Ian Watt (the novel is a critical, in-
trospective and empirical genre of literature) and Lodge (the novel is a supreme medium with which
to explore consciousness; the history of the novel is the history of techniques invented to represent the
human psyche, “Consciousness and the Novel”). Worth noting is also the general shift
from the novel treated as a store of knowledge and an educational tool in the past
(the Victorian novel included) to the novel conceived of as a mode of exploration
(cf. the discussion in Teske, “The Novel: A Store of Ideas vs. a Mode of Cognition”).
Various dispositions explaining its cognitive potential have been ascribed to
the novel: criticism (Watt 68, 71, 83), “inbuilt scepticism in relation to all systems
of thought” (Milan Kundera 218), a self-questioning character (Malcolm Bradbury,
Introduction 2-4),66 efficacy in exploring consciousness (Lodge, “Consciousness
and the Novel”). Even so, to claim that the novel is superior in its cognitive potential
seems ill-advised: other kinds of art may have their advantages. Nonetheless the
novel’s unique combination of unrestrained use of language (the colloquial register
included), mode of fiction (comparable with the hypothetical mode in science, yet
taking full advantage of imagination) and freedom of form appear to grant it incred-
ible possibilities.
reality for the sake of the reader’s edification also in their nonfictional writings
– prefaces, essays, reviews – but these were brief comments rather than memo-
rable arguments (cf. Markiewicz, Teorie powieści 28-40, 70-82, 133-50).
66  Bradbury also speaks of the novel’s relative (compared with other kinds of litera-
ture) resistance to apriorism (“The Open Form: The Novel and Reality” 12).
92— The cognitive theory of art
 Chapter Three
The theory of contradiction in art

3 .1 C o n t r a d i c t i o n s i n p h i l o s o p h y a n d
lo g i c (c l a s s i c a l a n d pa r ac o n s i stent)

Contradiction can easily be found in culture and adopts there various manifesta-
tions, whereas its presence in nature remains uncertain. Philosophers, who first
identified the phenomenon1 and who have paid it much attention ever since, distin-
guish many categories of contradictions. Most important are logical contradictions,
obtaining in discourse between propositions one of which is the negation of the
other (e.g. This ball is red and This ball is not red ),2 and ontological contradictions,

1   Though some reflections on contradictions are sometimes ascribed to Heraclitus,

Parmenides or Zeno of Elea, Aristotle seems to have truly opened the discus-
sion formulating in his Metaphysics the principle of non-contradiction (Poczobut
19-24). The logical principle of non-contradiction, “the most indisputable of
all beliefs,” states that “contradictory statements are not at the same time true
[…]” (Aristotle IV. 6); while the ontological principle ensures that “the same
attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject
and in the same respect […]” (IV. 3) or, in another formulation, that “the same
thing cannot at one and the same time be and not be, or admit any other similar
pair of opposites” (XI. 5). Finally, there is a formulation that can be read as a
psychological variant of the principle: “it is impossible for any one to believe the
same thing to be and not to be […]” (IV. 3). The interpretation of Aristotle’s
words as introducing the logical, ontological and psychological versions of the
non-contradiction principle was put forward by Jan Łukasiewicz (Poczobut 24,
note 14).
2   This is a general formula. More precisely, the relation of contradiction in classi-
cal logic obtains between propositions of the form SaP and SoP (Every S is P and
Some S is not P) as well as SeP and SiP (No S is P and Some S is P). Propositions SaP
and SeP (Every S is P and No S is P) are contraries (not contradictories), whereas
the subcontrary relation is that between SoP and SiP (nota bene in the case of this
relationship both propositions may be true); each time S and P are nonempty,
94— The theory of contradiction in art
obtaining in reality when one state of affairs is a negative of another state of affairs
or, in another formulation, one object both exhibits and does not exhibit a certain
property (e.g. the redness of a ball that both is and is not, or a ball that both is and
is not red). A third kind of contradiction frequently recognized is psychological,
obtaining between mental acts one of which negates the other (e.g. both having and
not having the belief that the ball is red or, in another variant, having the belief that
the ball both is and is not red).3 Contradiction, then, generally speaking is defined
in philosophy as a kind of relationship that obtains between two conjoined elements
one of which negates the other.
There is also the principle of non-contradiction (in various versions – logical
and ontological among them), which states that a conjunction of contradictory
propositions is false (the logical version) and that contradictory states of affairs (or
objects with contradictory properties, in the alternative formulation) do not exist
(the ontological version). The principle of non-contradiction thus states that there
are no true conjunctions of contradictory propositions and no real objects with
contradictory properties (no real contradictory states of affairs). In classical logic the
logical version of the principle is one of the three most fundamental ones (next to
the principles of identity and the excluded middle). In science the ontological version
of the principle is part of the procedure of falsification. Most philosophers accept
them both. They seem less certain as regards the viability of the psychological for-
mulation of the non-contradiction principle. Łukasiewicz, for instance, believed that
its status might be that of an empirical law (based on empirical research) of doubtful
general names (Poczobut 68). In other words, classical logicians speak of con-
tradictions only with reference to such pairs of propositions where one is a ne-
gation of the other, and one is true, the other false. Other authors (e.g. Stanisław
Jaśkowski) emphasize that the two propositions must be expressed in the same
language and the terms they use must have the same meaning (Poczobut 65).
3   There are other realms, such as deductive systems, systems of obligations or
personal beliefs, in which contradictions gain different formulations. In such
contexts also the principle of non-contradiction receives different formulations
and sometimes a different status (of an empirical law or an epistemic norm, etc.)
(see the discussion in Poczobut 57, 62-63). These specific forms of contradic-
tion are not irrelevant to art but for the sake clarity they will not be taken into
account here.
95—
value, as it is sometimes argued that contradictory psychological states actually do
occur (qtd. in Poczobut 98; cf. also Edmund Husserl, qtd. in Poczobut 38).
As regards the relation between the three basic kinds of contradictions as well
as between the principles which declare them false, unreal or impossible, Robert
Poczobut shows that philosophers’ opinions vary. Some argue that the rules of logic
and the structure of reality correspond to each other: either because logical rules
merely describe the structure of empirical reality (semantic realism, e.g. Kazimierz
Ajdukiewicz and Stanisław Leśniewski) (qtd. in Poczobut 75-76) or because em-
pirical reality is conceivable solely in terms of logic (semantic idealism, e.g. Zdzisław
Kowalski) (qtd. in Poczobut 104, note 72, cf. also 171, note 111). In either case logical
and ontological formulations of the non-contradiction principle are seen as inti-
mately related with each other. Others, however, (e.g. Thomas Nagel) believe that
the two realms – of logic and reality – are totally disconnected (qtd. in Poczobut 76).
If so, the two formulations of the non-contradiction principle resemble each other
by mere coincidence.4
As regards psychological contradictions, these seem reducible to either logical or
ontological ones. Contradictions between mental acts can, as argued by Łukasiewicz,
be interpreted as contradictions between having a belief p and having a belief ~ p,5
or as contradictions between having and not having a belief p; only the latter inter-
pretation entails contradiction sensu stricto (qtd. in Poczobut 99). Referring to the
latter formulation, some authors interpret psychological contradiction as a case of
ontological contradiction involving two contradictory states of affairs (e.g. Józef
4   David Chalmers considers the hypothesis that consciousness is the m-property,
i.e. it cannot be superposed (cannot behave like a wave) and, when entangled
with elements that can be superposed (e.g. photons), automatically causes their
collapse (they stop behaving like waves) and defines their position. This would
explain, Chalmers suggests, why it is impossible to be seeing red and seeing
green at one and the same moment. That is also why Schrödinger’s cat cannot
both be dead and alive in the presence of consciousness: otherwise it could be
both (“Consciousness and the Collapse of the Wave Function”). This might be
yet another way of accounting for the relation between the structure of reality
and its experience by humans with reference to the principle of non-contra-
diction: the principle characterizes in the first place neither reality, nor human
mental faculties but the result of their interaction.
5   More precisely, Łukasiewicz speaks of having in one’s mind two beliefs to which
correspond two contradictory propositions (qtd. in. Poczobut 98-99).
96— The theory of contradiction in art
Maria Bocheński) (qtd. in Poczobut 99). Given the former interpretation, psycho-
logical contradiction approximates logical contradiction between two propositions.
Significantly, all specific formulations of the non-contradiction principle (including
those referring to sentences, beliefs and states of affairs) are covered, as suggested by
Poczobut, by the fundamental formulation of the non-contradiction principle: “It is
impossible that something should both be and not be” (109).6
From the beginning most philosophers have perceived contradictions as non-
existent in reality7 and undesirable (since epistemically harmful) in discourse.8 This
is why, as noted by Poczobut in his historical survey, they have formulated the non-
contradiction principle and treated it as the foundation of all cognition (Aristotle,
Thomas Aquinas, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz or Immanuel Kant to name but a
few).9 From the start, however, some voices of dissent have been audible. Poczobut
lists various authors who argue that the principle should be suspended with refer-
ence to the phenomenon of change (Heraclitus, Graham Priest), certain objects such
as the Absolute (Plato, Plotinus, Meister Eckhart), logical paradoxes (Priest), mental
constructs (Łukasiewicz) and possible worlds (Nicolai Vasiliev). That is, in these
cases both contradictory propositions might be true, both properties real (Poczobut
19-58, 150-62, 325, 373-74). Others believe that contradictions, rather than under-
mining rationality, may, at least in some contexts, be seen as contributing to creative
activity (late Wittgenstein) (Poczobut 55-57). Also Nietzsche mistrusted the basic
rules of classical logic, which he perceived – to cite Norris – as “expressions of our
6   The author later admits that this is in fact an ontological formulation of the
principle (393).
7   Ontological contradictions presuppose negative states of affairs, whose mode of
existence is far from clear (Poczobut 170-80).
8   Aristotle claimed that in making a statement and negating it, one cancels the
former statement – argumentation becomes impossible. He also pointed out
that the principle of non-contradiction is necessary for the classical definition
of truth and for cognition in general (Poczobut 25; cf. also Gutting 304). If
one assumes the logical-ontological parallelism as well as absence of ontologi-
cal contradictions, it follows that discourse whose subject is reality to be true
should be free of contradictions; under these assumptions logical contradiction
is a sign of epistemic error.
9   It has also been treated as a moral rule, for example by Łukasiewicz (qtd. in
Kołakowski, Ułamki filozofii 11).
97—
present inability to think beyond them, rather than possessing an absolute valid-
ity” (qtd. in Norris, Deconstruction 77). Most famous among advocates of contradic-
tions is probably Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who having identified being with
nothingness, interpreted contradiction as the principle of reality, life and change
(Poczobut 40-43).10
This tolerance of contradictions has led to the creation of paraconsistent logics,
which, as Poczobut explains, by contrast with classical logic, use various strategies
to deal with contradictions (allegedly observable e.g. in legal systems, systems of
personal beliefs or quantum mechanics), rather than declaring them in principle
false or unreal, as well as epistemically harmful. Thus paraconsistent logics suspend
the law of Duns Scotus: ( p ∧ ~ p) → q, i.e. the law which says that from a system
of propositions including a contradiction, one can deduce any proposition whatso-
ever. They distinguish between strong ( p ∧ ~ p) and weak contradictions ( p, ~ p): in
the former the two propositions are conjoined; in the latter they are merely placed
together. Paraconsistent logics adopt the non-adjunctive approach, i.e. they suspend the
rule which says that if p is true, and q is true, then their conjunction is also true. They
redefine negation by weakening the opposition between falsehood and truth (so that
falsehood and truth are not mutually exclusive). They differentiate between supposi-
tions and assertions: in the latter contradictions are hard, while in the former (when
one or both statements are suppositions) they are soft and relatively innocuous, etc.
(Poczobut 253-326, 353-54, 390). Some paraconsistent logicians are also dialetheists,
i.e. they believe that there may be true contradictions: that in some cases both p and
~ p are true and so is their conjunction. To put it differently, “some claims are true
and false, that is, they have a true negation” (Priest, “Logically speaking”).11
Other philosophers, Poczobut reports, such as Witold A. Pogorzelski, Pavel
Materna, Szubka, or B. H. Slater, find the above strategies hard to accept. They
10  Some authors (e.g. Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg) doubt whether Hegel’s
theory truly involves a violation of the logical principle of non-contradiction
(Poczobut 42-43).
11  Incidentally, Priest, who represents both paraconsistent logic and dialetheism,
does not on this account question rationality or voice epistemic scepticism; as
he argues, within the framework of a paraconsistent logic contradictions are not
as epistemically harmful, as they are in classical logic (“Logically Speaking”;
for a detailed discussion of Priest’s standpoint see Poczobut 150–69, 371–91).
98— The theory of contradiction in art
claim these strategies might accidentally sanction false contradictions (paraconsist-
ent logics do not provide any criteria by means of which the both true and false con-
tradictions might be distinguished from the simply false ones) and weaken the strict
epistemic requirements which urge scientists to search for better, non-contradictory
theories. Further, allowing for true contradictions, paraconsistent logics actually
redefine the notions of contradiction, truth, falsehood, conjunction and negation, so
that their language and the language of classical logic become incompatible − true
contradictions of paraconsistent logics are not contradictions in terms of classical
logic (Poczobut 389-91, also 353-54). These are serious objections, but regardless of
the value of the whole project some solutions introduced by paraconsistent logicians
seem applicable and useful when analyzing artistic contradictions (see the discussion
below).
Since the present study is concerned with artefacts, it seems appropriate to
mention the problem of contradictions inherent in imaginary constructs, such as a
square circle, which have received much attention in both logical frameworks (clas-
sical and paraconsistent). Some authors claim that they are unacceptable (Bertrand
Russell), some find them acceptable (Łukasiewicz, Alexius Meinong), and some
accept them with certain reservations (Ingarden) (qtd. in Poczobut 222-52). The
debate focuses on the status – verbal, conceptual, or real – one should ascribe to
imaginary objects that entail contradictions. In his critical comments on Ingarden’s
approach, Poczobut makes a subtle suggestion that contradictory imaginary objects
are in fact no more than verbal operations in which contradictory predicates are
ascribed to the same subject. There is no reason to assume that they possess an
ontological correlative.12
Poczobut seems right. However, in terms of Popper’s world 3 theory, in which
artefacts (and other products of the human mind) are conceived of as objectified
12  “It seems that, taking into consideration everything that has been said so far, the
so-called mental constitution of a self-contradictory object amounts in fact to
purely verbal operations of stating contradictory predicates about one and the
same subject. However, does everything that one can grammatically articulate
in a given language need to have a strict (even if purely intentional) ontological
correlative?” (Poczobut 231). Incidentally, in some cases one could argue that
the conceptual correlative might in fact exist; Escher’s drawings, for example,
seem to suggest that some contradictions inherent in imaginary objects might
be susceptible to visualization.
99—
abstract ideas, real and autonomous, indeed, in the light of any theory which ascribes
to mental constructs the status of being real, imaginary contradictory objects gain
the ontological status of this category (a square circle equals in this respect Chopin’s
Nocturnes). Further discussion of this issue lies beyond the scope of the present re-
search project: the identification of the mode of existence of imaginary contradic-
tory objects depends in the final account on metaphysical assumptions whose value
cannot be resolved by investigating artistic contradictions. No attempt therefore
will be made to define the ontological status of artefacts containing contradictions.
Imaginary contradictory objects, such as square circles or houses that are bigger
on the inside than on the outside, if part of the fictional reality, will on the other
hand be treated as fictional (or quasi-) contradictions (contradictory elements of the
fictional reality), pretending to be real, ontologically-contradictory objects.
Concluding the discussion of ontological contradictions (of whatever kind, i.e.
involving natural, mental or imaginary objects and processes), one might perhaps
agree with Priest, who in his short story “Sylvan’s Box,” notes that he cannot see “any
reason why existence should imply consistency” (577). Apparently, as suggested by
Richard Routley and Robert K. Meyer, it is impossible to either verify or falsify the
thesis of the non-contradictoriness of reality and so its acceptance demands an act
of faith (qtd. in Poczobut 181-82). One might thus consider as most reasonable the
position taken by N. C. A. Da Costa in his lecture “Paraconsistent Logic” recom-
mending agnosticism: one should suspend one’s judgement as regards the existence
of objects and states of affairs exhibiting contradictions (qtd. in Poczobut 408-09).
For the sake of simplicity in the following discussion it will be assumed that onto-
logical contradictions do not occur,13 though this assumption is controversial and
agnosticism might on the whole be a better option. It will also be assumed that logi-
cal contradictions are not true (within classical logic this is the standard assumption)
13  The assumption can more easily be defended if reality is assumed to consist
only of material objects and processes. Within the frameworks which perceive
immaterial objects (e.g. psychological states or products of the mind) as real (as
in the metaphysics of Plato, George Berkeley or Popper) the assumption seems
risky, among other things, in view of the fact that, as already mentioned above,
some authors claim that psychological contradictions do occur, while others
argue that contradictions exhibited by imaginary contradictory objects are not
confined to the level of language.
100— The theory of contradiction in art
and that psychological contradictions can be reduced to either logical or ontological
ones (cf. the discussion above).
3.2 Contemporary philosophers on contradiction in art
Before moving to the subject of artistic contradictions, it might be worth noting
how select philosophers approach this issue. The statements collected below, with
the exception of Priest’s, are digressions in their works. When analyzing the status of
intentional objects, the possibility of true and conflicting interpretations, the status
of the non-contradiction principle, the epistemic value of coherence and the like,
these philosophers devote a few paragraphs to artistic contradictions. Some of them
are doubtful whether artistic contradictions in general, or artistic contradictions of
specific types, may occur. Susanne K. Langer, for example, in Philosophy in a New
Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (1948), excludes the possibility.
Artistic truth − “the truth of a symbol to the forms of feeling – nameless forms,
but recognizable when they appear in sensuous replica” − she argues, is in this
respect different from propositional truth. There are no contradictions in art, whose
“presentational symbols have no negatives, there is no operation whereby their
truth-value is reversed […].” Referring to Hans Mersmann, Langer notes that this is
also the source of art’s “possibility of expressing opposites simultaneously” (213).14
Discussing intentional objects, Witold Marciszewski (“Problem istnienia przedmi-
otów intencjonalnych,” 1973) concedes that self-contradictory intentional objects
might possibly enjoy some “esse intentionale,” though since the basis for defining their
ontological status is insufficient, he recommends suspending judgement on the mat-
ter. In general, as he claims, there is a common intuition that intentional objects
should not be self-contradictory. When told that the Wolf ate the Granny and that
he did not eat her, the child will protest. The world of fiction should be a possible
world: fairy-tales need not be life-like, but they are not supposed to entail logical
14  Nota bene, this does not deprive, for Langer, art of its cognitive value. Artistic
form conveys experience that cannot be expressed verbally, translated into
words or interpreted. Falsehood consists in art’s failure to give adequate form
to experience. To the extent that art is successful, it leads to “knowledge by
acquaintance” – Langer borrows Bertrand Russell’s expression – “of affective
experience, below the level of belief, on the deeper level of insight and attitude”
(212-14, cf. also 199-216).
101—
impossibilities (esp. 197-99). David Lewis (“Truth in Fiction,” 1978) also finds
self-contradictory fiction problematic. In Lewis’s theory, possible worlds are worlds
in which the plot of the fictional story is actually enacted. For impossible fiction –
fiction whose plot, as Lewis says, “might be impossible” (for example, on account
of featuring square circles) or whose “possible plot might imply that there could be
nobody in a position to know or tell of the events in question” (45), in other words,
for fiction which entails contradictions – there would be no such worlds. He does
not take the possibility of there being impossible possible worlds seriously. In impossible
fiction “anything whatever is vacuously true” (45). This, however, does not apply to
works whose contradictions result from authorial errors (45-46).
For Stephen Davies (1988), by contrast, true contradictions in works of fiction
do not constitute a problem. As examples of artistic representations of logically
impossible worlds, he offers a hypothetical story “in which it is both true and not
true that a time-traveler kills the baby who would otherwise grow into his father”
as well as Escher’s drawings. Like Lewis, he notes unintended inconsistencies which
can be found in some literary works, e.g. contradictory information about the loca-
tion of Watson’s war wound in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. As Davies puts it,
“it is true in those stories that Watson was wounded in the thigh and that he was
not wounded in the thigh” (“True Interpretations” 293). Susan Haack (“Coherence,
Consistency, Cogency, Congruity, Cohesiveness, &c.: Remain Calm! Don’t Go
Overboard!” 2004) notes that in literature it is possible to find inconsistency and
other kinds of incoherence. As she explains, consistency, in the strict logical sense, is a
quality of a system of propositions from which it is not possible to derive p and ~ p;
in other contexts the term might also refer to “mutual compatibility,” and be sensi-
tive to both the logical form of propositions and the meanings of words that com-
pose them (168-69). It is a failure in this kind of consistency – more often detected in
theories or sets of beliefs – that can be found, for example, in a poorly constructed
detective novel plot. But this is less frequent in art than inconsistent behaviour of
characters (when in a similar situation they act differently), incongruous thematic
structure, or disunified use of language or form. Haack also notes that some kinds
of incongruity (e.g. an anachronism) need not be considered a defect in aesthetic
terms (173-74, 180). Donald F. Henze (“Contradiction,” 1961) is also positive about
the desirability of literary contradiction, noting that the law of non-contradiction is
102— The theory of contradiction in art
justified when discourse serves the purpose of communication, since discourse free
from contradiction is intelligible. But language is used in a variety of ways, for dif-
ferent purposes: intelligibility need not always be the desired quality. In this context
Henze quotes Karl Britton’s opinion that contradictions in poetry are useful (25).
Indeed, in Communication: A Philosophical Study of Language (1939) Britton suggests that
contradictions, paradoxes and nonsensical expressions in poetry have emotional
significance (qtd. in Rosner 90).
Also some philosophers concerned with art’s cognitive potential do not find
contradictions in art problematic. According to Ewa Borowiecka (Poznawcza wartość
sztuki, 1986), the law of non-contradiction and criticism with reference to propound-
ed ideas are obligatory in science, not in art. No one demands that art’s results should
be verifiable, supported by evidence and arguments, justified or true (in the logi-
cal sense): art may well entail contradictions (104). Marian Przełęcki (“Poznawcza
wartość sztuki,” 1996) examines metaphors in the context of art’s cognitive value.
As he notes, metaphors usually entail contradiction, as in Blaise Pascal’s statement,
“Man is but a reed […].” About such statements taken literally one may say that they
are “semantically inconsistent” or “clearly false,” for they are either contradictory, i.e.
analytically false (their meaning is contradictory with “semantic postulates,” which
“together with their logical consequences constitute the set of analytical sentences
of a given language”), or else contradict “truths commonly accepted and taken for
granted within a given language community.” Such contradictions (as in other cases
manifest tautologies) may signal that an expression is to be taken as metaphorical
(80-81). Przełęcki’s analysis of metaphorical expressions might help understand a
fairly general function of contradictions in art – they draw the recipients’ attention,
prompt them to identify the “error” and guess its meaning.
Finally some philosophers choose to create self-contradictory artefacts and
claim that their contradictions should be accepted as such (i.e. true contradictions),
rather than naturalized with the use of some reading strategy. In 1997 Graham Priest
published a short story, “Sylvan’s Box,” in which a cardboard box is discovered to be
at the same time empty and to contain a wooden figurine, which is Priest’s argument
in favour of the possibility of fiction evincing inconsistency without being incoher-
ent (579-80). In comments following the story, he claims that it would be a mistake
to try and restore the story’s missing consistency in an act of interpretation. The
103—
story tells of an impossible world (or, more precisely, of a world where “something
logically false holds” but where not everything obtains), and should be interpreted
in the light of a paraconsistent logic (580).
The statements collected above show that the phenomenon of artistic contradic-
tions has been noted by philosophers. Some of them are unwilling to acknowledge
that the contradictions might be true: this would be counter-intuitive (Marciszewski)
and might generate logical problems (Lewis), but other philosophers allow for
logically impossible worlds (Davies, Priest) and inconsistent statements (Haack,
Przełęcki). Some authors recognize that contradictions in art may be both intended
and unintended (Lewis and Davies). More importantly, some authors believe that
contradictions do not conflict with art’s cognitive potential (Borowiecka) and show
by their analyses that contradictions might be part of this potential (Przełęcki).
3.3. The colloquial notion of contradiction
and its a pp l i c a t i o n in the studies of art
The cursory survey of the treatment that contradictions have received in philoso-
phy, presented at the beginning of the chapter, will serve as a point of reference
for the analysis of artistic contradictions. But one must not ignore the fact that
various examples of contradictions in art from the state of research review indicate
that contradiction is used in this context in a less strict sense, even if one excludes
from consideration those uses which belong to the Hegelian tradition. Thus, un-
natural narratologists discuss at length the mutually exclusive scenarios of Coover’s
“Babysitter” (Alber et al. 117-19); Furlani cites Beckett’s words: “Never nought be
nulled” (456); Caraher’s examples include metaphors from William Wordsworth’s
poems in which men (the Leech-Gatherer and the Cumberland Beggar) are present-
ed by means of images of inanimate nature (“Metaphor as Contradiction” 165-69).
The same liberal use of the term contradiction can be witnessed in the studies of the
postmodern convention discussed in Chapter Five. As an example of contradiction,
Lodge cites a sentence from Leonard Michael’s work, “It is impossible to live with
or without fiction” (Modernism, Antimodernism, and Postmodernism 10); Waugh illustrates
the phenomenon with the three endings in The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John
104— The theory of contradiction in art
Fowles,15 and with metaphors which suddenly become literal in Richard Brautigan’s
Trout Fishing in America (Metafiction 140); McHale cites The Hothouse by the East River
by Muriel Spark, whose characters are at the same time dead and alive (Postmodernist
Fiction 64-65). These authors seem to identify contradiction not with negation but
with mutual exclusion, which, as Poczobut explains, is the most common non-pro-
fessional interpretation of contradiction (64-65, 69).16 Nota bene, in some cases the
term might simply be misused (of the examples cited above Beckett’s and Michael’s
sentences, the endings of Fowles’ novel and the literalization of metaphors seem
most problematic).
Logical contradiction obtains between two propositions that both exclude and
complement each other. In other words, to be contradictory, the two propositions
cannot both be true and cannot both be false (Poczobut 68-69). The colloquial con-
tradiction, by contrast, is a relation between propositions that only exclude each
other, which means that they cannot both be true, but can both be false (Hołówka
104-05, cf. Johnstone 35, and Haack 168-69). The colloquial definition of contradic-
tion is thus less precise and covers – apart from strict logical contradictions – also
propositions which simply mutually exclude each other (but do not have the form
of a proposition conjoined with its negation).17 In more general terms, two elements
15  Nota bene, the two protagonists, Sarah and Charles, part in the first (chs. 43-44)
and third (ch. 61) endings, but reunite in the second (chs. 56-60); the narrator
rejects the first ending as false (295-96), the other ones he presents as plausible
(348-49, 398), i.e. none is offered as true (cf. Charles Scruggs’s discussion of the
book’s endings).
16  The concluding section of the chapter offers a brief survey of other uses of
language sometimes referred to as contradictory which, however, have little in
common with logically defined contradictions.
17  In practice the situation is more complex because logical contradictions are of-
ten not identified as such by laymen. As Teresa Hołówka explains, the sentences
“Everything is purposeful” and “Nothing is purposeful” or “Paul bumped into
Gavin deliberately” and “Paul did not bump into Gavin deliberately” are con-
tradictory for a non-professional user of language but not for a logician; whereas
the sentences “If Mary went on doctor’s leave, then she must have fallen ill” and
“Mary went on a doctor’s leave though she did not fall ill” or “It was windy and
rainy yesterday” and “It was not rainy or it was not windy yesterday” are contra-
dictory only for a trained logician (103-05). But while the cases of colloquially
contradictory propositions which do not qualify as logically contradictory result
from the difference in the definitions of the two terms, the cases of logically
105—
(propositions, states of affairs or mental acts) mutually exclude each other if they
cannot both be true or real. If contradiction is defined in terms of mutual exclusion,
such propositions as The book is green and The book is blue, or such states of affairs
as the book that is at one and the same time both entirely blue and entirely green
(each time both conjuncts cannot be true and real, but they can be false or non-real)
qualify as contradictory, on the condition that being green and being blue cannot
coincide. Thus not only cases of p ∧ ~ p exemplify colloquial contradiction but also
cases of mutually exclusive propositions p ∧ q, where q is not explicitly a negation
of p, but from q a negation of p follows, for example with reference to the default
model of reality.18
To comply with the prevalent usage of the term in the field of (postmodern) aes-
thetic theory and to capture the phenomenon in question in its rich variety, contradic-
tion in art will in the present study be defined as conjoined mutually exclusive mean-
ings of the artefact if they are translatable into mutually exclusive propositions.19
(One may also use the term with reference to such relation of mutual exclusion
within the artefact’s semantic content). If the definition is extended (and this seems
advisable), also cases of mutual exclusion between the work’s semantic content and
the default model of reality which constitutes its context might be treated as artistic
contradictions.
Henceforth, the term contradiction will be taken to mean artistic contradiction i.e.
conjoined mutually exclusive meanings in an artefact (or between the artefact and
the default model of reality); the term contradictory will be used interchangeably with
mutually exclusive and the verb to contradict will be used interchangeably with to mutually
exclude. Whenever the words contradiction, to contradict and contradictory are used in their
contradictory propositions which are not recognized as such by the users of lan-
guage result from their lack of competence.
18  This kind of mutually exclusive contradictions corresponds to covert ( p, p → q,
~ q), as opposed to overt ( p, ~ p), contradictions within sets of beliefs, discussed
by Poczobut with reference to Christopher Cherniak (302).
19  This definition restricts the concept of artistic contradiction to meanings, which
is consistent with the assumption adopted in the present work that there are
no ontological contradictions. To construct a liberal definition, which allows
for objects with mutually exclusive properties, one needs to relinquish this
assumption.
106— The theory of contradiction in art
strict logical meanings, they will be preceded by the epithet logical. In some contexts
the term contradiction may also denote the relation between two sentences or proposi-
tions which mutually exclude each other without being conjoined.
The definition of artistic contradiction is operative only in the context of some
assumptions concerning artistic propositions, their presence, truth value and the
either assertive or non-assertive mode of art. These assumptions have been intro-
duced in the previous chapter as part of the theoretical framework of the project.
Thus, it is essential to assume that even though clearly stated propositions or acts
of assertion about empirical reality are missing from many artefacts, they very of-
ten contain meanings some of which either have the form of, or can be translated
into, statements bearing logical value (either true or false). In logic proposition is the
meaning of a (logical) sentence, i.e. of a sentence which bears logical value (Ludwik
Borkowski 13-14). In the present study, the terms proposition and sentence will be
used interchangeably and will mean a basic unit of discourse bearing logical value.
Another term, statement, will sometimes be used as their synonym, unless the context
makes it clear that a different meaning, i.e. a basic unit of discourse or communica-
tion, is intended.
The question of truth is relevant because the relation of mutual exclusion with
reference to two meanings consists in that they cannot both be true. Thus, to speak
of artistic contradictions one needs to assume that both nonfictional statements
that the artefact conveys and nonfictional and fictional statements that are part of it
are not in principle devoid of logical value. It is also reasonable to assume that these
artistic propositions (like propositions in other areas of culture, everyday speech in-
cluded) are either asserted (presented as true) or offered as suppositions. The mode
(assertive or non-assertive) cannot change the truth value of the proposition, but an
assertion may be taken as containing, apart from the primary statement, also a meta-
statement that the primary statement is true. Thus, only an asserted contradiction
violates the non-contradiction principle. In other words, without recognizing the
difference between assertions and suppositions in art, one cannot differentiate be-
tween artistic contradictions which do and do not transgress the non-contradiction
principle.
Another assumption, this time related to logic, not art, states that classical biva-
lent logic (as contrasted with multivalent or modal logics) provides the right context
107—
for the discussion of artistic contradictions in the present study. This assumption
is justified by the context in which art that is the primary object of the current
research project, i.e. the postmodern English-language novel, has been created. Also
the Western artistic tradition, discussed in the theoretical chapters, has the Western
philosophical tradition as its natural point of reference.20
The decision to adopt in the study of art the colloquial concept of contradiction
has also some important consequences. These are (1) multiplicity of contradictions,21
which demands that they be classified and that some criteria of their importance be
established, (2) their lack of transparency: whereas in classical logic one may abstain
from analyzing the meaning of contradictory propositions and focus on their for-
mal structure (negation, conjunction, etc.), to identify the colloquial contradiction
semantic analyses of the meanings involved will very often be necessary to ascertain
whether indeed they cannot both be true (the clarity of the original formulation,
where the contradictory relation involves two statements which differ solely in that
one of them is preceded by the sign of negation, is lost), (3) their complex struc-
ture: in the logical contradiction there are always only two elements involved in the
relationship,22 in the colloquial contradiction, there may be two or more (e.g. The
book is red, The book is white, and The book is blue – all mutually exclude one another).23
Also, the distinction between self-contradictory and absurd (nonsensical) uses of
language becomes fuzzy. For example, the idea that evil is even, voiced by one of
the narrators in At Swim-Two-Birds (1939) by Flann O’Brien, clearly absurd, might
now also be taken as contradicting the common knowledge that evenness is not a
property that can characterize evil.24
20  Admittedly, there might be some exceptions, such as Priest’s short story, which,
as he explains in the comments following the text, should be interpreted within
the framework of a paraconsistent logic.
21  Adopting the strict logical definition would by contrast make the phenomenon
of artistic contradiction most exceptional.
22  This is a simplification – if the sentences are complex, the logical contradiction
may also be difficult to recognize and analyze (cf. Hołówka 105-06).
23  In the present study only cases consisting of two elements will be discussed.
24  To fully appreciate the meaning of the statement one should bear in mind that it
opens the novel’s final paragraph depicting the state of insanity (216), and that
evenness and oddness have in the novel figurative meanings.
108— The theory of contradiction in art
When defining artistic contradictions, the kind of elements that may be involved
is as important as the kind of relation obtaining between contradictory elements.
Even though artefacts are in the main meaningful material objects, artistic contra-
dictions appear solely on the level of their semantic content. These are propositions,
though often expressed in fragmentary and abbreviated ways, that sometimes hap-
pen to mutually exclude each other in a work of art. This semantic interpretation
of artistic contradiction is based on the assumption that ontological contradictions
cannot occur and that artefacts do not have a psychological dimension. Ontological
and psychological contradictions may occur only in art operating in the fictional
mode and they should be called quasi-contradictions, being part of the fictional
reality (see the discussion below).
It might seem that also contrasting qualities or opposing tendencies encountered
in artefacts qualify as artistic contradictions (goodness and badness taken as absolute
moral qualities, or the goodness of Cinderella and the badness of her step-sisters, or
the good nature of Dr Jekyll and the corruption of Mr Hyde). But contradictions in
logic are a propositional, not conceptual, phenomenon. One can speak of contradic-
tory concepts only if these are taken as condensed propositions. The same applies to
artistic contradictions. Contrasting qualities/tendencies qualify as artistic contradic-
tion only if they are translatable into mutually exclusive propositions. To qualify as
quasi-ontological contradictions, on the other hand, such contradictory properties
should be ascribed at one and the same time to one and the same fictional object (or
state of affairs), and this is not true of the examples listed above. From the semantic
definition of artistic contradictions it also follows that they might involve values
only in so far as values participate in contradictory meanings (e.g. the contradiction
Love is good and Love is not good indirectly involves values, but it is the meanings of the
two propositions, not the values, which mutually exclude each other).
At the same time, not demanding that the mutually exclusive elements should in
the work of art have the form of propositions, the definition allows for contradic-
tions in all kinds of art (non-verbal art included), as well as for quasi-ontological,
quasi-psychological and quasi-logical contradictions in the fictional reality of (both
verbal and non-verbal) art. In this way the definition respects the fact that art com-
municates ideas in a variety of ways. Also mutually exclusive meanings may be ex-
pressed in an artefact: (1) formally (under the guise of some meaningful formal
109—
device), (2) by the artefact’s model of reality, or (3) verbally (in art that makes use of
natural language), i.e. taking advantage of the three basic artistic means of convey-
ing ideas. In each case the contradictory components (whether implicit in formal
elements or aspects of the model of reality, or explicit in some verbal statements) are
essentially semantic elements, translatable (obviously with some loss of emotional
impact, meaning, imaginative appeal, etc.) into propositions, e.g. This is a urinal (this
is the meaning of the object’s material form) and This is a fountain (this is what the
inscription says verbally) in the famous case of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917).
Also verbal “conceptual contradictions,” such as “the passage of eternity” from
Ghosts (126) by Eva Figes (1988), are contradictions only in so far as they are translat-
able into propositional contradictions (e.g. eternity passes away is what the metaphor
implies but eternity does not pass away follows from the dictionary definition of the
word).
It seems most important that the colloquial notion of contradiction when ap-
plied to art does not confine this phenomenon to verbal art or, even more restric-
tively, to the verbal art capable of discourse (i.e. one that uses language to make
propositions), to the exclusion of, for instance, sculptures or pantomime.25 The goat
floating in the sky in Marc Chagall’s Rain (La Pluie, 1911) or the melting clocks in The
Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali (La persistencia de la memoria, 1931) clearly defy
the model of reality assumed as default in the works. René Magritte’s The Treachery of
Images (La trahison des images, 1928-29), a picture featuring a pipe and declaring in an
inscription “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” is more ambiguous. Strictly speaking the picture
shows a representation of a pipe, not a pipe itself, 26 but one can imagine the same
picture bearing the inscription “Ceci n’est pas une représentation d’une pipe.” Ludwig van
Beethoven’s “Funeral March” (the third movement from his Piano Sonata No. 12,
Op. 26, 1800-1801), if it were titled “In the Circus” and instructed the pianist to
play dolce, might serve as another hypothetical case. The Anatomy of an Angel (2008) by
Damien Hirst, a sculpture featuring an angel whose skin has partly been removed
25  This is basically consistent with critical studies of works of music or visual arts
presented in Chapter One, though not all of the works discussed there exhibit
contradiction in the light of the definition adopted here.
26  Cf. the artist’s comment: “The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it!
And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it’s just a representation, is it not? So if
I had written on my picture ‘This is a pipe,’ I’d have been lying!” (Magritte 71).
110— The theory of contradiction in art
revealing human anatomy, is an actual exhibit. The humanity of the angel contra-
dicts the default image of the angel as immaterial, which is evoked by the part of
the angel’s body which quite conventionally shows a white, beautiful winged being;
the title highlights this contradiction. Blodeuwedd (2015) by Aleksander Bednarski,
a portrait of one of the heroines of The Mabinogion, the Welsh myths, features apart
from her face also the owl into which she was changed for betraying and trying to
kill her husband. The fact that the girl’s face and the owl are shown from two dif-
ferent perspectives, and the trompe-l’oeil suggesting that the top right-hand corner of
the canvas is peeling off remind the spectators that, though apparently they can see
a beautiful girl, this is merely a picture (which uses a metafictional contradiction).
The above examples, real and hypothetical, show that music and visual arts may
entail contradictions (on the assumption that each time the contradictory elements
are translatable into propositions, e.g. An angel is a supernatural creature and An angel
is but a human being in disguise), if they use language in the title, inscription or instruc-
tions concerning the performance, falsify an element of the default model of the
real world, or create and destroy the illusion of reality. Whether it is possible for a
work of art that makes no use of language to display an internal contradiction (one
that does not involve the default model of reality) is an open question. It might be
that non-verbal means of artistic expression are so imprecise as to preclude the
possibility of clearly expressing mutually exclusive ideas. Such ideas might perhaps
be vaguely suggested in the artefact and firmly established only on the level of its
interpretation. The vagueness of expression is indeed an important difficulty inher-
ent in any study of contradictions in non-verbal art: it may often be impossible to
differentiate between opposition and mutual exclusion, between the meaning of the
work and its interpretation.27
27  Since in the case of all non-verbal meanings inherent in artefacts, they need
to be translated into words for contradictions to become manifest, one might
argue that contradictions appear on the level of interpretations (as a relation
between interpretive statements) not in the work of art. This seems a reason-
able position. However, the need to “translate” the object under investigation
into words is in human cognition almost universal. All scientific knowledge of
reality is mediated by language (various languages – natural languages, but also
the language of logic or mathematics). The situation of studies of art is not ex-
ceptional. Yet the sceptical position which says that language is self-referential
and unable to contact extra-linguistic reality is in science most rare. There is no
111—
As regards the conjunction as such, it may be expressed in various ways. If all
the artefact’s meanings are ascribable to one agent (e.g. the lyrical subject), for the
two mutually exclusive meanings to be somehow conjoined it suffices if they are ex-
pressed within the artefact. Otherwise, they should be clearly ascribed to one agent
(e.g. a character). Obviously if the two meanings are not expressed simultaneously,
it should be clear that the former has not lost its validity by the time the latter has
appeared, nor should the latter cancel the former (cf. the discussion of the logical
strength of artistic contradictions, below).
The choice of the colloquial definition of contradictions in art also affects their
relation to the non-contradiction principle. To assert a conjunction of logically con-
tradictory propositions, e.g. The book is green and The book is not green is to break the
principle of non-contradiction − “of two contradictory propositions one is false.”
To assert a conjunction of colloquially contradictory propositions (which are not
logically contradictory), e.g. The book is green and The book is blue, is to break a rule
that might be taken as a colloquial counterpart of the principle of non-contradiction
− “of two mutually exclusive propositions one or both are false.”28 Though this is
imprecise, by analogy with the term contradiction, the term non-contradiction principle
will be henceforth used broadly for the colloquial counterpart of the logical rule.
In other words, an artistic contradiction will be described as violating the law of
non-contradiction if the two conjoined mutually exclusive meanings are asserted
(as true).
The distinction between contradiction as such and contradiction which violates
the non-contradiction principle is relevant in the context of art, as the following ex-
ample based on Thinks... (2001) by David Lodge demonstrates. When one character
(Ralph Messenger) believes that the self is an illusion and another (Helen Reed) that
reason why it should be mandatory in the humanities. Under the circumstances
the distinction between contradictions which appear on the level of interpreta-
tion, and contradictions which, though expressed non-verbally, are inscribed in
artefacts, seems defensible.
28  The original principle says something about conjunctions of a proposition with
its negation, i.e. it says that they cannot both be true and hence their conjunc-
tion is false. The “colloquial” principle is tautological – statements that exclude
each other cannot both be true (i.e. exclude each other); but, like its original, the
principle states that the conjunction is false.
112— The theory of contradiction in art
it is not, their beliefs exemplify contradiction. The principle of non-contradiction
is not violated unless some textual authority (a character, a narrator or the implied
author) communicates the idea that both these beliefs are true, and so is their con-
junction (incidentally, this does not seem to be the case in Lodge’s novel). In other
words, for the non-contradiction principle to be breached, the two contradictory
propositions, which may originally be expressed by two subjects (e.g. characters),
must within the artefact be authorized and asserted by some, preferably superior,
narrative agent (e.g. the implied author); the agent must make it clear that both,
together, are to be taken as true. If this is the implied author (whether of a verbal
or non-verbal work of art) or an agent who enjoys the implied author’s approval in
this respect, such contradictions are most significant. This is so because such ideas
are usually part of the work’s thematic concern (or closely related to its message);
contradictions located elsewhere will more often play merely an auxiliary function.
Also, within classical narratology, the implied author’s ideas are often taken to cor-
respond to those of the real author.
On the assumption that it is possible to recognize two kinds of art, mimetic and
poietic (the former focused on representation, the latter on invention), one might wish
to allow for two distinct kinds of contradiction. By analogy with Gutowski’s argu-
ment that the correspondence definition of art is applicable to representational art
and the coherence definition to non-representational art (“Prawda – rzeczywistość –
sztuka”), one might wish to speak of contradictions resulting from failure to achieve
correspondence (unfaithful representation in mimetic art) or coherence (incoherent
invention in poietic art). One might thus speak also of contradiction resulting from a
breach of a convention/rule/order instituted in the artefact. Even rejecting the pure
categories of mimetic and poietic art, on the grounds that all art combines both di-
mensions (cf. Chapter Two), one might still postulate the two theoretical categories
of contradiction.
But the coherence definition of truth seems dubious,29 and the idea that one
might interpret as contradiction a relation between the actual element and the ele-
ment required by a formal convention, if it does not involve the categories of mean-
ing, truth or reality, seems even more so (as in the case of a repetition of a note in
29  Though correlated with truth and possessing epistemic value, coherence is a
distinct epistemic quality (cf. Chapter Two).
113—
dodecaphonic music, which violates the rule that before any note is repeated all
twelve notes of the chromatic scale must be sounded at least once). In the light of
the definition accepted here only if an artefact contains conjoined mutually exclusive
meanings translatable into propositions, does it contain contradictions. The term
does not apply to artefacts in which lack of internal consistency has an exclusively
formal character. But, if one accepts the ideas that all art is to some extent represen-
tational and that artistic form is pregnant with meaning (cf. Chapter Two), artefacts
displaying apparently formal inconsistencies may well convey in this way conjoined
mutually exclusive meanings and, if so, evince contradictions.
The construction of Miss La Trobe, a character in Virginia Woolf’s Between the
Acts (1941), who all of a sudden turns out to be the mastermind in control of the
novel’s plot, might illustrate this technique of producing an (illusory) effect of a
purely formal incoherence. The character metamorphoses into the text’s narrator-
fabulator or even its author, thus disrupting the accepted narrative structure. If this
construction of the character involves a contradiction, it is because certain mean-
ings are implied: Miss La Trobe is a character (a quasi human being) and her sudden
authority over the other characters (in the novel’s final scene, Isa and Giles, going to
bed, unaware of the fact, apparently begin to act out a scene from Miss La Trobe’s
newly invented script) contradicts the belief that human beings cannot solely by
means of their imagination control the lives of other people (this belief is part of the
default model of reality invoked by the text). But Miss La Trobe is also an artist (the
author of the script and the director of the pageant – the central event of the novel),
so by endowing her with such unusual powers, the novel attributes to the artist, a
person who takes advantage of her creative abilities, a God-like stature. Since Miss
La Trobe is additionally an outsider, mostly absent, the novel – apart from prob-
lematizing human creative abilities – may be taken by readers familiar with Woolf’s
theological beliefs to raise in this way also the issue of the impact that the divine will
might have on the drama of human life.30
As regards the coherence definition of truth, one might argue that however du-
bious it may be, it is de facto employed when assessing the truth value of quasi-prop-
ositions (in the case of art which employs the mode of fiction), when one compares
30  This interpretation of Miss La Trobe and her authorship is partly based on
Barbara K. Olson (94-99, esp. 95).
114— The theory of contradiction in art
one quasi-proposition with other quasi-propositions. However, given the suspension
of disbelief, which normally is part of the recipients’ encounter with fictional reality,
they will have the impression that truth (and contradictions) there, in the fictional
reality, have the status of truth (and contradictions) here, in nonfictional reality. One
might even say that the fictional reality as a rule (there might be some exceptions,
cf. Priest’s short story) takes for granted the standard (nonfictional) interpretation
of truth and contradiction. Admittedly, the situation changes if contradictions are
unusual or omnipresent and the nonfictional reality vague, as may happen in some
works. In such situations one might consider exchanging the notion of truth with
the notion of coherence. A breach in this coherence might then be interpreted as a
kind of contradiction on the condition that conjoined mutually exclusive meanings
are involved.
3.4 Various categories of artistic
contradictions and their characteristics
In the above discussion artistic contradictions have already been divided into those
which violate the non-contradiction principle and those which do not. It has also been
noted that they can consist of two or more mutually exclusive elements. However,
it is possible to discern many other kinds of artistic contradictions. Some, expressed
explicite in works of art, are directly available (ready-made for the recipient to enjoy);
others, hidden (implicit) in the work, may depend on the process of interpretation
for full disclosure; they are part of the work but become manifest in aesthetic experi-
ence. Thus a formal feature of an artefact or an element of its fictional reality may
need to be translated into a proposition for the relation of mutual exclusion between
this proposition and another one expressed in the work to become clear. In another
case logical consequences entailed by a certain statement may need to be analyzed
so that the contradiction between this statement and another one expressed in the
work becomes obvious. Even ideas expressed verbally may be disguised by figurative
language or craftily encoded (as in the case of the secret message contained in a letter
from Pelafina to her son in Danielewski’s House of Leaves; the message shows that
Pelafina knows of Zampanò, which contradicts the possibility that Truant invented
Zampanò long after her death, basically cancelling the only common-sensical inter-
pretation of the novel; cf. the discussion of House of Leaves in Chapter Eight).
115—
In some cases, when artefacts are ambiguous, they might allow for various in-
terpretations and contradiction might be located not in the artefact itself but in its
interpretation (cf. Empson’s monograph). Perspicacity by René Magritte (Clairvoyance,
1936), for instance, featuring a painter who paints a bird though his model is clearly
an egg might, but need not, be taken to involve a contradiction. The painter may be
interpreted as seeing beyond the present shape of the egg into its potential future
(the standard interpretation, implied in the title), but the picture might also be taken
as a portrayal of falsification implicit in an act of representation. To put a sign of
equation between an egg and a bird (say about one item This is an egg and This is a
bird) is to make a contradictory statement. But the sign of equation is missing from
the picture: it is supplied in the act of interpretation.
Fictional contradictions (q u a s i - c o n t r a d i c t i o n s)
and metafictional contradictions
Theoretically, possessing material dimension, works of art might exhibit ontological
contradictions. These, however, as most philosophers claim and as is assumed in
the present work, are non-existent. If so, they are non-existent irrespective of the
artistic or non-artistic status and/or location of a given object or state of affairs
(Escher’s lithograph Waterfall, 1961, cannot both be black and white and not be
black and white; a square circle cannot exist as an exhibit in an art gallery as it can-
not exist anywhere else). As regards psychological contradictions, artefacts, being
devoid of awareness, cannot exhibit them. If one broadens the concept of art so that
it encompasses not only the body of existing artefacts but also the process of their
creation and reception, which seems reasonable, especially within a cognitive theory
of art, then naturally one might search also the psychological experiences of the
artist and the recipient of art for artistic contradictions provided that psychological
contradictions are possible.31 As the current project concerns contradictions inher-
ent in artefacts, this issue lies beyond its scope.
31  It might still be unnecessary to postulate a special category of artistic psycho-
logical contradictions, on the grounds that psychological contradictions are re-
ducible to semantic ones (conjoined mutually exclusive meanings), unless this
reduction were perceived as illegitimate.
116— The theory of contradiction in art
In the light of the assumptions accepted here, all that artefacts can do with
reference to ontological and mental contradictions is present them (as well as logi-
cal contradictions) in the fictional reality, and possibly simulate the former in the
artefact’s material body. Thus, in representational art, offering a fictional model of
reality (or its fragment), one may have (fictional) logical (i.e. referring to discourse),
either strictly logical or colloquial, contradiction (cf. the lines from Ever After (1992)
by Graham Swift, showing Bill Unwin contemplating the death of his wife, Ruth:
“It’s not the end of the world. It is the end of the world. […] Life goes on. It doesn’t
go on,” 120); as well as (fictional) ontological contradiction (e.g. Priest’s impossible
object in “Sylvan’s Box”); and (fictional) psychological contradiction (exemplified,
for instance, by Truant’s insane mother who allegedly out of love tries to kill him,
as if she both loves and does not love him, House of Leaves 630). These (fictional)
contradictions occur between fictional ideas, states of affairs and mental states,
respectively. They might be called quasi-contradictions, by analogy with Ingarden’s no-
tion of quasi-propositions, and the terms quasi-true and quasi-false introduced with
reference to the logical value of fictional statements in Chapter Two. (The terms
quasi-contradictions and fictional contradictions will be used henceforth interchangeably
for contradictions that belong to the realm of fictional reality). Simulation of onto-
logical contradictions might in turn be illustrated with the book cover of House of
Leaves, which is too short, thus suggesting that the book is bigger on the inside than
the outside, like the titular house of the Navidsons.
It has been suggested above that some kinds of art can operate in the mode of
fiction, that some ideas may be conveyed in art via the shape of the fictional reality.
It has also been suggested that in this way art may exhibit quasi-contradictions of
various kinds – logical, ontological and psychological. It is worth noting that some
such quasi-contradictions are merely part of the fictional reality and some are simul-
taneously artistic contradictions (i.e. part of the artefact’s nonfictional meaning).
The difference can be illustrated with the following examples: (1) “[…] I coughed.
I didn’t cough,” – here John Truant, a fictional character, first makes a statement,
then denies it (House of Leaves 43); (2) “nothing’s all” – also these words are spoken
by Truant (House of Leaves xiv). The former is a fictional ontological contradiction:
two mutually exclusive states of affairs are presented side by side in the mode of
fiction (a fictional logical interpretation of this contradiction is also possible). The
117—
latter is both a fictional logical or ontological contradiction and, more importantly,
a nonfictional artistic contradiction (one of the novel’s readings is nihilistic, cf. the
discussion of the novel in Chapter Eight).
A different status should be ascribed to fictional contradictions whose primary
function is auxiliary (constructing the fictional reality) and fictional contradictions
whose primary function is thematic (a relatively direct expression of (the author’s)
ideas about reality). Not all contradictions, however, are easy to categorise in this
way. “Nothing comes back. It all comes back” (Ghosts 28) is a case of colloquial
quasi-contradiction that is part of the fictional narrator’s experience (a lonely aging
woman feels alienated in the town undergoing the usual process of modernization);
but it may also be taken as a general comment on the self-contradictory character of
change, in which identity is both retained and lost, which is also a major theme in the
novel. Consider also this example taken from Flaubert’s Parrot (1984) by Barnes: “Full
of honour, widely loved, and still working hard to the end, Gustave Flaubert dies at
Croisset,” followed by “Impoverished, lonely and exhausted, Gustave Flaubert dies”
(27, 31). This is both a fictional colloquial contradiction (or fictional ontological con-
tradiction if we assume that the sentences describe two mutually exclusive states of
affairs) and nonfictional non-contradictory artistic statement, if one accepts the in-
terpretation that by means of the cited sentences Geoffrey Braithwaite, the fictional
character-narrator, demonstrates that one and the same fact can be interpreted in
two mutually exclusive ways. Since this idea coincides with the novel’s concern with
meanings, the character-narrator’s belief may also be taken as part of the novel’s
(nonfictional) message. Fictional contradictions (ontological, psychological or logi-
cal) in an artefact often serve to convey nonfictional meanings.
It is also worth noting that the fictional mode may introduce anomalies into
the way contradictions operate in art, when the fictional reality entails ontologically
self-contradictory elements. The sentences Rex is a dog and Rex can fly in a story
set in a fictional world in which dogs can fly will not be contradictory. The only
contradiction will be located between the actual and the fictional reality (or, to be
precise, their models), on the condition that the fictional reality is meant to faithfully
represent the actual reality; otherwise the two will simply be incompatible.
The sentences The book is blue and The book is green, in a fictional reality which
does not allow ontological contradictions, will exemplify a contradiction. But if the
118— The theory of contradiction in art
fictional reality allows ontological contradictions (i.e. the same object/state of af-
fairs may both possess and not possess a given property), these sentences (like the
sentences The book is blue and The book is not blue), though contradictory in the real
world, may well all be true, i.e. not mutually exclusive in the unreal one. If so, they
do not exemplify artistic contradiction.
The sentences The book is blue and The book is not blue in a fictional reality in which
a book can both be and not be blue, however, seem to continue to exemplify logical
contradiction (defined as conjunction of a proposition and its negation32) and break
the logical principle of non-contradiction. They seem to be logically contradictory
(or quasi-contradictory, considering the mode of fiction), while the reality to which
they refer exhibits ontological quasi-contradiction. The quasi-logical and quasi-
ontological laws of non-contradiction are either broken or abrogated. Nota bene, such
discussions of what happens to logical notions and principles in a self-contradictory
fictional world should be taken as highly speculative.
Some authors (Eco, Marciszewski, David Lewis) find self-contradictory fiction-
al worlds controversial. For Eco, being impossible, they do not qualify as normal
fictional worlds. Commenting on Eco’s standpoint, McHale quite rightly notes that
in postmodernist fiction there are many cases of such worlds and that in the final
account their possibility depends on there being someone who believes in them
(Postmodernist Fiction 33-34). Interestingly, the impossibility of “self-voiding” fiction,
fiction which flaunts its contradictions, as argued by Eco, results from the recipient’s
automatic assumption that the rules which obtain in the real world obtain also in
the world of fiction.33
It is important then to distinguish between (1) contradictory (i.e. mutually-
exclusive) statements which appear in fictional discourse and serve, for instance,
32  If logical contradiction is defined in terms of exclusion and complement (i.e.
as a relation between two sentences that cannot both be true and cannot both
be false), the sentences The book is blue and The book is not blue describing self-
contradictory fiction will not count as logical contradiction. With reference to a
reality that is not self-contradictory the two formulations of logical contradic-
tion are of course equivalent.
33  Cf. Eco’s comments on Doležel’s analysis of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s House of
Assignation, whose events, their location, temporal order and ontological status,
quasi-real and quasi-artefactual, are presented in various, mutually exclusive
ways (Six Walks 81-82).
119—
as an artistic means of expression (but do not describe ontologically contradictory
fictional reality), and (2) statements which may strike the reader as contradictory (i.e.
mutually exclusive) because they would be contradictory if referring to the real world,
but which are not contradictory with reference to the ontologically contradictory
fictional reality. In some situations the recipient may lack evidence to decide whether
the fictional reality is self-contradictory or not, and will be unable to properly assess
the logical status of statements concerning this reality. In House of Leaves, the house
which is bigger on the inside than on the outside is a puzzle both for the reader, the
characters who live in it, i.e. the Navidsons, and for Zampanó, the fictional hyper-
diegetic narrator. Their fictional reality is ontologically self-contradictory but the
Navidsons and Zampanó wrongly assume that it is not. If Truant is the author of
the tale (merely pretending to be another narrator, hyper-diegetic with reference to
Zampanó), then it is he who invents the self-contradictory reality for the Navidsons.
Incidentally, there are some suggestions in the book that the reality in which he lives
is also self-contradictory. The self-contradictions are part of the fictional realities
in the novel; metaphorically they may represent the self-contradictory nature of the
human mind that has created them, as well as letting the reader understand that the
story, though allegedly true, is in fact fictional (this and other interpretations of the
book are discussed in Chapter Eight).
Next to fictional and nonfictional contradictions, it seems important to recog-
nize metafictional contradictions, which operate between the fictional and nonfictional
modes. Indeed, the metafictional strategies typical of contemporary art consist in
creating and subsequently dispelling the illusion that the fictional reality is real.
In other words, they are based on the two mutually exclusive messages: This is real
and This is not real (cf. Waugh, Metafiction). Metafictional contradictions can be dis-
tinguished not only with reference to their construction, but also with reference to
their thematic function (cf. Chapter Eight).
Internal and external contradictions
The next two categories of contradictions can be identified with reference to their
location (cf. the distinction between intra- and extratextual contradictions noted
by Balcerzan, 60). That is, some contradictions are contained within the artefact
– these may be called internal contradictions (e.g. Navidson’s documentaries that both
120— The theory of contradiction in art
exist and do not exist in House of Leaves); others operate between the artefact and re-
ality or, more precisely, the default model of reality adopted/dominant in a given culture
at a given time, with which the prospective recipient will be conversant34 and which
serves as a natural point of reference for the work – these may be called external
contradictions.35 Somewhere between internal and external contradictions, one might
locate the special case of contradictions between the text and paratext identified by
Waugh (Metafiction 139-40). In works of art which include instructions concerning
their performance contradictions of similarly uncertain status may also appear in
this area (e.g. in drama, in the area of stage directions as well as between stage direc-
tions and the text proper of the play; cf. Looby, 203-05).
External contradictions may ensue when the artist, accepting the default model
and in a way invoking it in the artefact, contradicts it so as to achieve artistic effect,
as in O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds, where a cow testifies against its literary author
who failed to milk it (203-05), or in Samuel Beckett’s Watt (1953), where a woman,
aged 21, suffers from haemophilia36 – in the default model of reality cows do not
appear in court and women do not suffer from haemophilia. Otherwise, such con-
tradictions may arise as a consequence of a disparity between the author’s and the
default models (the author may but need not be aware of the disparity) – Martel’s
(mis)representation of atheism as irrational belief and agnosticism as dogmatic ma-
terialism in Life of Pi might serve as a case in point (cf. my essay “Life of Pi by Yann
Martel”). But it may sometimes be difficult to decide whether the contradiction is
34  This approach is based on the assumption that ideas expressed in art refer to
reality. Because human beings have no certain, direct knowledge of reality and
because a model may more easily be compared with another model than with
reality, reality is here substituted with its default model. Naturally, the default
model is a simplification – the artist’s model (like each recipient’s model) will
depart from the hypothetical default model adopted at a given time in a given
culture.
35  For the purpose of this analysis, it is important to assume that the default model
of reality must either have, or be translatable into, a propositional format (cf.
the definition of artistic contradictions). Since in modern Western culture the
propositional form of the model seems prevalent, this assumption does not
seem to be problematic.
36  At the bottom of the page a footnote informs the reader that “Haemophilia is,
like enlargement of the prostate, an exclusively male disorder. But not in this
work” (Watt 102).
121—
intended as a provocation or is a result of the author’s idiosyncratic view of life. This
ambiguity seems to be the case of Albert Angelo’s narrator and his view of one’s re-
sponsibility for what happens to one: ”You can accept responsibility for everything,
but absolutely everything, that happens to you: for who else is there to do so?” (57).
This interesting idea clearly contradicts the default model of reality with its notion
of being responsible for one’s own acts, and not the acts of other people.37
The names (internal and external contradictions) may not be fortunate. Some of
the external contradictions might justifiably be called internal. This applies to con-
tradictions which operate between the work’s explicit model of fictional reality and
the implicit default model of reality assumed in the work (cf. At Swim-Two-Birds and
Watt cited above). Conversely, some internal contradictions in art that employs the
mode of fiction might be interpreted as external. This would apply to contradictions
in artefacts whose fictional reality does not entail the rules of classical logic, which
therefore to be recognized as contradictions require a reference to the default model
with its notion of contradiction and principle of non-contradiction. Be that as it may,
it seems possible to differentiate between a work of art that contains two conjoined
mutually exclusive meanings ( p and q) and a work that contains one meaning ( p) in-
compatible with the mutually exclusive meaning (q) in the currently accepted model
of reality (either invoked in the work or constituting its natural context).38
In the case of external contradictions, the principle of non-contradiction is only
violated if the implied author clearly signals39 that s/he accepts as true both the be-
lief expressed in the artefact and the mutually exclusive default belief (part of the de-
37  If the work is read against its cultural context and if the author is aware of
inscribing the model as a point of reference in his/her work, then it is natural
to treat such contradictions as external yet located in the work since a reference
to external reality is incorporated there. But external contradictions might also
be treated as located within aesthetic experience and ensuing in the process of
interaction between the work and the recipient’s mind.
38  External contradictions might also occur between ideas expressed in the arte-
fact and ideas that belong to the default model of reality adopted in cultures
other than the one in which the artefact was created. These deserve interest
too but because of space limitation they will not be examined here any further.
39  In practice this clarity may be unavailable, so that it might be impossible to
ascertain that the principle of non-contradiction is violated in the case of con-
tradictions obtaining between the artefact and reality (i.e. its model implied in
the artefact).
122— The theory of contradiction in art
fault model of reality invoked in the artefact). Angela Carter’s Bloody Chamber (1979)
will illustrate this point. The book’s protagonist is a young woman who is aware of
her sexuality, unconcerned about moral issues, able and willing to take control of
her life. This image of femininity contradicts the contemporary social stereotype
of young women as innocent, weak and passive. However, unless one assumes that
Carter (or, more precisely, the implied author) accepts as true both these perceptions
of women, the principle of non-contradiction is not violated.40 Carter’s book can
also be taken to show that contradictions may occur between various works of art
(cf. e.g. the traditional version of Little Red Riding Hood and Carter’s “The Company
of Wolves”; incidentally, in such cases the principle of non-contradiction cannot
possibly be threatened).41
Ideas offered in an artefact which contradict the default model of reality may
(1) serve to convey the artefact’s nonfictional message, which may be contradictory
or not, (2) contribute to the artefact’s construction of its (fictional or nonfictional)
reality. In Johnson’s Albert Angelo (1964), close to the end of the book, the narrator
states that telling stories is telling lies and the reader who trusted Albert’s tale so
far was naively deceived. This contradicts the common view of story-telling, which
perceives fiction as something different than deception, as an efficient mode of
communication, provided that one realizes that its statements must not be taken as
literally true.42 The novel’s non-standard idea is dramatized in the novel’s construc-
tion and presented in the metafictional chapter, whose narrator many critics identify
with the author; indeed Johnson is known to have made similar statements about
story-telling outside his novels. The contradictory belief of the narrator, which is
part of the artefactual reality (its fictional vs. nonfictional status is not clear), may
40  In Carter’s stories the image of the young woman is simplified, like the social
stereotype inscribed in conventional fairy tales and to some extent still popular
in the Western society of the late 20th century. But for the two images to mutu-
ally exclude each other, neither needs to be true.
41  One might also consider the possibility of aesthetic experience entailing a con-
tradiction if the recipient of the artefact combines the belief expressed in the
artefact with a mutually exclusive belief that s/he holds.
42  Cf. e.g. Lodge’s expression of the standard view: “fiction […] is a kind of
benign lie, because it is known to be untrue but has explanatory power”
(“Consciousness” 42).
123—
thus also be read as part of the novel’s nonfictional contradictory message. By con-
trast, in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) some people can spy on other
people’s dreams, which is impossible in the default model of reality – this external
contradiction is part of the novel’s fictional reality, but its general metaphorical
meaning is non-contradictory: it may be taken to denounce human lack of respect
for other people’s privacy (cf. the discussion of the two novels in Chapter Nine).
Interestingly, some internal contradictions in artefacts (even those aiming at
verisimilitude) need not contradict reality, i.e. they may correspond to internal
contradictions in reality (i.e. its default model). Even if one does not allow that
psychological experience, imaginary objects and quantum mechanics entail real
contradictions, the case of logical contradictions suffices to argue that some internal
contradictions found in art need not falsify (the default model of) reality. As regards
the relation of internal contradictions in artefacts with contradictions inherent in
the default model of reality, four combinations may occur:
The artefact’s model of reality The default model of reality
case 1 contradiction contradiction
case 2 contradiction no contradiction
case 3 no contradiction contradiction
case 4 no contradiction no contradiction
Table 1. Contradictions in the artefactual and the default models of reality
Internal contradiction in an artefact might be derivative of internal contradiction in
the reality the artefact represents (case 1), or not (case 2). In the former case (1) con-
tradiction does not involve falsification of reality. An artist representing two contra-
dictory legal regulations (or two contradictory beliefs of a mentally ill person) does
not misrepresent reality. If the represented object (basically, discourse) is self-contra-
dictory, then its faithful representation involves reproducing these contradictions. In
the latter case (2), when a contradiction in an artefact bears no evident connection to
reality, one can speak of falsehood (as well as an external meta-contradiction). Further,
one should recognize the case in which art fails to reproduce a contradiction that is
part of the default model of reality (case 3; this entails falsification of reality and an
external meta-contradiction) and, finally, the case in which both the artefactual and
the default models of reality are free of contradictions (case 4).
124— The theory of contradiction in art
Some authors claim that contradictions between the artefact’s fictional reality
and the default model of reality are not true contradictions (cf. Ajdukiewicz’s argu-
ment that the sentences “Zeus exists” and “Zeus does not exist” do not contradict
each other if the former is spoken in intentional language and refers to a character
from Homer’s work − exist in that case means esse intentionale − and if the latter is spo-
ken in empirical language and describes empirical reality − exist means then esse reale;
qtd. in Poczobut 234-36).43 And yet though strictly speaking these contradictions
are apparent, they should not be dismissed. Ideas presented via the fictional world
of the artefact may well strike the recipient as conflicting with his/her knowledge of
the world. This reaction is justified on the assumption that, though in the mode of
fiction, the artefact is ultimately concerned with the recipient’s experiential reality,
and intended as its representation.
There may, however, be some cases in which this assumption is erroneous.
Some works, employing, for example, the conventions of fantasy or magic realism,
may deliberately choose to create fictional realities incompatible with the real world,
i.e. their intention may be to invent new worlds for their own sake rather than in
order to indirectly comment on the real one. In that unusual case their incompat-
ibility with the default model should not be interpreted as contradiction (the two
models do not refer to the same element). But it seems reasonable to assume that
most artefacts are concerned (whether directly or not) with some aspects of the real
world, and what is needed is an appropriate interpretation of the artefact, sensitive to
the convention/style/genre it employs (whether the presentation is literal or figura-
tive, realistic or grotesque) and the mode in which it refers to reality (normative or
descriptive). Roughly speaking, the nonfiction novel presents reality as it is, fantasy
presents reality as it could be; in a work of fantasy external contradictions should be
expected, while in a nonfiction novel they would be at odds with the convention.
43  This is a very simplified presentation of how Ajdukiewicz interprets intentional
objects and their mode of existence, conducted in the language of Leśniewski’s
ontology.
125—
The logical strength and aesthetic
significance of contradictions
As suggested above, though art constitutes one of the major interests of paracon-
sistent logics (next to the phenomenon of change, logical paradoxes or imaginary
objects), paraconsistent logics with their true/real contradictions and methods of
dealing with them, appear to have no significant reflection in art. However, some
distinctions introduced in these logics might be applicable in the study of artistic
contradictions, in particular when it comes to assessing their logical strength. In
paraconsistent logics (unlike in classical logic) contradictoriness is gradable. It seems
reasonable to assume that this also holds true of artistic contradictions, defined in
terms of mutual exclusion. The logical strength of artistic contradictions might be
taken as conditioned by several factors: the strength of assertion (i.e. whether the
contradictory ideas are presented as true or merely entertained as possible; cf. hard
and soft kinds of contradiction in paraconsistent logic); the directness of mutual
exclusion (ranging from pure negation to exclusion inferable with reference to addi-
tional assumptions); the relative placement of the two mutually exclusive elements in
the work (their closeness might correspond to conjunction, and their remoteness to
vague co-presence; the distance might be expressed in terms of the amount of text
separating the two elements, but also, for example, their being ascribed to one or
many subjects; cf. strong and weak contradictions of paraconsistent logic); their being
resolvable or not; and eventually their compliance (or lack of it) with the principle of
non-contradiction. These qualities of artistic contradictions and hence their logical
strength contribute to their effect.
Differences in the logical strength of contradictions may be illustrated with the
following two examples. In Midnight’s Children, Padma’s, the novel’s narratee’s, belief
that “love, to us women, is the greatest thing of all” (267) contradicts Saleem’s in-
terpretation of the behaviour of his sister, the Brass Monkey, who humiliates Sonny
(the boy who loves her) by stripping him of his clothes in the middle of the town
(255) because she cannot bear to be loved: “The Brass Monkey was never so furious
as when anyone spoke to her in words of love; desperate for affection, deprived of
it by my overpowering shadow, she had a tendency to turn upon anyone who gave
her what she wanted, as if she were defending herself against the possibility of being
tricked” (209). This is a weak contradiction because the contradictory meanings are
126— The theory of contradiction in art
voiced by two subjects: Padma claims that love means everything to women, Saleem
that his sister scorns love; they are not juxtaposed in the novel; they can be resolved
by assuming that Padma wrongly generalizes her experience, i.e. her statement is
erroneous. By contrast, the quasi-contradiction between Zampanò being blind and
Zampanò being an expert on films produced when he was already blind, taken from
House of Leaves, is strong: both ideas are part of John Truant’s narrative, both are
asserted, and they are placed so close to each other that the reader cannot miss the
fact that they contradict each other (to “resolve” this contradiction the reader may
assume that the figure of Zampanò is not quasi-real, but fictional).
Contradictions can be constructed and they can also be resolved. This applies
to most man-made contradictions. The (self-)contradictions that cannot be resolved
are by deconstructionists called aporias (Barry 78-79). Outside this tradition they
are often called paradoxes. Technically speaking, resolution will be achieved if the
relation between the two propositions (e.g. Life is fun and Life is not fun) is modified
− the strength of one assertion is, for example, weakened (cf. Life may be fun may
replace Life is fun); if one of the contradictory elements is cancelled (declared false44);
or if the contradictoriness between the propositions turns out to be merely appar-
ent – when some important factor or context previously missing is added (Life is not
fun may be complemented with the phrase when you need to walk your dog and a storm
is raging outside), or some imprecise term (e.g. fun) is clarified (cf. Johnstone 35-36).45
In the case of conjunctions of contradictory statements violating the principle of
non-contradiction, to cancel the violation, either the conjunction or one proposition
must be declared false (e.g. “That Life is not fun is not true”) or else the element of
44  As Harris points out, this is essentially impossible when a contradiction involves
metaphysical statements, in contrast with factual (empirical) ones (337). In the
work which operates in the mode of fiction, everything depends on the author’s
invention. Cf. also Johnstone, who notes that a contradiction may be caused by
a lie or a mistake (35-36).
45  Cf. the following example from Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children: “Once upon a time,
a prince, unable to bear the suffering of the world, became capable of not-liv-
ing-in-the-world as well as living in it; he was present, but also absent; his body
was in one place, but his spirit was elsewhere” (487, cf. also 496). The parable
illustrates the narrator’s state of dissociation from reality after he has become a
Pakistani citizen and soldier. In its initial formulation the narrator’s condition
exhibits a contradiction, which is resolved when the modes of being present
(carnal) and absent (mental) are specified more precisely.
127—
assertion must be removed. Without always solving the contradiction, these steps
make it comply with the principle. If artistic contradictions are concerned, these
operations may be part of an artefact, but some of them may also take place in the
recipient’s reflection.
More often perhaps, contradictions in art will be resolved by some interpre-
tive strategies typical of art reception. A textual contradiction may, for example, be
translated into a non-contradictory higher-level meaning by the recipient searching
for a coherent message (thus the two mutually exclusive interpretations of Flaubert’s
old age from Barnes’s novel convey, among others, a coherent idea that one fact may
allow various, also mutually-exclusive, interpretations). Contradictions involved in
many artistic conventions, with which the recipient is familiar, such as two-dimen-
sional presentation of three-dimensional reality in painting, talking animals in fairy
tales, verbal presentation of the private content of a character’s consciousness by an
external narrator and the like, are in the act of reception treated as negligible (they
are not really solved, but ignored). Thus even though the wolf encountered by Little
Red Riding Hood can speak, the reader, though s/he knows that wolves cannot
speak, will not be disturbed or eager to guess the meaning hidden behind this con-
tradiction.46 Apparently contradictions which are either part of art in general or part
of well-established conventions gradually lose their effect. To use Jonathan Culler’s
term, they become naturalized (cf. Rimmon-Kenan 124; in terms of unnatural nar-
ratology they remain unnatural, but become conventionalized, cf. Alber et al. 131).47
The recipient registers them when identifying the convention, but thereafter focuses
his/her attention elsewhere, as if only unconventional contradictions (the genderless
narrator in Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body, 1992, or the contingent God
46  In fact talking animals often inform the reader that the tale in which they ap-
pear belongs to the genre of fairy tale, as well as vaguely suggesting that man is
part of nature (i.e. the literal contradiction serves to convey non-contradictory
meanings).
47  In the novel practically all contradictions are meaningful, for in this genre there
are very few fixed rules. Basically, the novel is a narrative, fictional, relatively
extensive, prose work. Thus, there are few contradictions between the novelis-
tic convention and the default model of reality. Of course, reality is not entirely
verbal or fictional, nor is it exclusively prosaic and some two hundred pages
long, but these two elements (language and fiction) lie at the bottom of all litera-
ture conceived of as art and are so ubiquitous as to be practically transparent.
128— The theory of contradiction in art
in Beckett’s Watt) were truly meaningful. Nota bene, the very convention of fiction
involves a contradiction (stories which are not true are presented as if they were);
we can speak of a breach of the non-contradiction principle only if the author both
claims that the story is authentic (true) and indicates that it is not, i.e. in metafiction.
Another strategy for solving or, more precisely, weakening contradictions con-
sists in reading a seemingly quasi-ontological contradiction as quasi-psychological.
In Orlando (1928), the contradictions with the default model constituted by the fan-
tastic longevity of the protagonist as well as his/her inexplicable change of sexual
identity are resolved when at the end of the novel it turns out, as James Hafley
explains, that the protagonist of Woolf’s novel is engaged in a mental exploration
of his/her potential to be different selves (96-99). Sometimes an internal quasi-
ontological contradiction, which seemed to be ascribable to the implied author, will
turn out to be an internal quasi-logical contradiction ascribable to a character or
the narrator. These and other strategies of dealing with contradictions have been
discussed among others by McHale (in his analysis of modernist fiction, Postmodernist
Fiction 12-25), Waugh (Metafiction 137) and Alber (“Impossible Storyworlds – and
What to Do with Them”). Some such strategies might be inscribed in the artefact,
others may be invented ad hoc by imaginative recipients and belong in the aesthetic
experience.
This considerable number and variety of artistic contradictions calls for come
criteria against which to measure their artistic significance. These are not easy to
codify. A tentative list might include the following: (a) the originality (vs. banality) of
the contradiction; (b) its direct (vs. tangential) relation to the primary theme of the
artefact; (c) its nonfictional, fictional, or metafictional character; (d) the strong (vs.
weak) emphasis that the contradiction receives in the artefact; (e) the logical strength
of the contradiction; (f) the thematic, heuristic, auxiliary or aesthetic function of the
contradiction in the work.48
48  The complex issue of functions performed by contradictions will be discussed
in detail in Chapter Eight. In brief, there are contradictions directly contribut-
ing to the meaning of the artefact, contradictions which guide the recipient in
his/her interpretation of the artefact, contradictions which perform auxiliary
function (e.g. participate in the construction of the fictional reality) and contra-
dictions whose primary function is aesthetic.
129—
The c o g n i t iv e / e pi s t e m i c value of artistic contradictions
The final issue to be raised in this chapter concerns the cognitive/epistemic value of
contradictions. It has been argued that contradictions constitute a threat: (1) inher-
ent in language they make it incapable of any meaningful statement, (2) inherent in
a deductive system they destroy it by legitimizing any conclusion whatsoever. One
might further claim that (3) artefacts which introduce contradictions that are miss-
ing from reality (or vice versa) deprive art of veracity. Additionally, various authors
note that contradictions often evoke negative emotions. To cite Johnstone: “This
experience is a kind of anxiety. When we are faced with a contradiction, we feel
that we must deal with it as quickly as possible, for we regards it as a threat to the
integrity of life or thought, and we doubt that it will spontaneously disappear” (35).
But contradictions used in works of art, even those which break the non-contra-
diction principle, need not prevent artefacts from being intelligible and truthful. On
the contrary, they can help art function as a means of cognition (in the context of
discovery) and perform various meaning-related functions (thematic and heuristic).
This is so because although in knowledge, as most philosophers agree, contradic-
tion equals error and is unwelcome, yet in the process of cognition contradiction
is a signal of falsehood, an essential element of falsification (cf. Popper, Myth of the
Framework 143): it is not desirable in itself, but necessary and useful. Works of art
taken as sources of truth about reality, if fraught with contradictions, may indeed
be less effective. If, however, art is taken as a mode of cognition, it might use con-
tradictions to pose questions or offer original experience to the recipient. Truth,
even though not encapsulated in the work, remains relevant. Contradiction in this
approach is an element of a cognitive procedure, while truth is a property of the
belief that the recipient may formulate as a result of his/her experience. Further,
works of art are not deductive systems from which other (possibly false) proposi-
tions might be inadvertently derived49 (one cannot exclude the possibility of an ar-
49  This is not to say that the recipient cannot make any acts of deduction with refer-
ence to the artefactual reality. However, if this reality is fictional, the status of
the deduced propositions will also be fictional (from the quasi-proposition Geoffrey
Braithwaite in Flaubert’s Parrot is a widower combined with the premise To be a widower
one must have lost a wife, taken from the default model of reality, one may deduce the
quasi-proposition Geoffrey Braithwaite must have lost his wife). Nota bene, to make such
inferences, one needs to accept Ryan’s minimal-departure principle which states
130— The theory of contradiction in art
tefact constructed as a system of beliefs, but this would be an exceptional situation).
Finally, contradictions found in artistic statements need not be taken literally: like
most artistic means of expression they should be interpreted. Only the meaning of
contradictions, retrieved in the process of interpretation, taking into account the
whole artefact viewed against broad cultural context, is relevant when assessing their
contribution to the whole artefact, and their cognitive value. This interpretation may
often be contradiction-free.
Also, though contradictions may occasion cognitive discomfort (as stated by
Johnstone), they strengthen art’s appeal (as noted by Britton or Furlani). They often
test the recipient’s mental faculties, but so do many other aesthetic devices, such as
missing information, ambiguity and high complexity. Though not exactly enjoyable,
they might all be cognitively useful. Finally, once they are resolved or accepted (as
in “the Zen way of reading” discussed by Alber, 83-84), they may bring cathartic
fulfilment (cf. Vygotsky, whose dialectical interpretation of contradictions does not
preclude the possibility that his description of the recipient’s experience might be
partly valid for their other interpretations50).
All this is not to deny the possibility that some contradictions in art might be ac-
cidental and erroneous, as noted by Davies or Lewis. The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897)
by Joseph Conrad, in which Singleton is on the first pages of the novel introduced as
an avid reader and on the final page cannot sign his name, is a case in point.51 This
that “when readers construct fictional worlds, they fill in the gaps […] in the text
by assuming the similarity of the fictional world to their own experiential reality”
(“Possible-Worlds Theory”). In this sense, Eco claims, fictional worlds are “para-
sites of the real world” (Six Walks 83; cf. also the entire “Possible Woods” chapter
in the same book). But some authors disagree. Doležel, for example, claims that
fictional gaps are “ontological” – “irrecoverable lacunae that cannot be filled by
legitimate inference” (qtd. in Keen 122). Indeed, Ryan’s principle might not apply
to all kinds of fiction. Anyway, in general, since propositions one finds in works of
art are not axioms or their consequences, there is no risk involved that the recipi-
ent will wrongly assume that all propositions inferable from these works are true.
50  Vygotsky speaks of affective contradictions generated by the antinomical struc-
ture of every artefact. In the aesthetic experience, through the work of imagina-
tion, the contradictory emotions clash with each other and collapse, releasing
energy (292-300).
51  Barnes enumerates some other contradictions of this kind in Flaubert’s Parrot
(76-77).
131—
is also not to deny that some external contradictions which falsify extra-artefactual
reality, while encouraging the recipient to believe that the task of faithful representa-
tion has been achieved (many works of socialist realism might serve as an example
here), might lower the work’s truth-content and incapacitate its educational func-
tion. But most of the time, though this may seem counterintuitive, contradictions to
be found in artefacts seem to be meaningful; more than that, they seem to be part
of art’s cognitive strategies. Specific examples discussed in the subsequent chapters
will lend further support to these claims.
The thesis that contradictions can generate meaning in art is not exactly new.
Caraher, for example, interprets contradiction as “intimate conflict,” a “generative
principle” of discourse (14), which exposes the “conflicted and conflictual nature”
of philosophy, art and literature: “Contradiction does not cancel, undermine, or
paralyze cognition and discourse but, instead, helps to constitute these activities in
intriguing and sometimes disturbing perplexity” (1). Contradictions may, he argues,
reveal truth that the adopted models of reality repress (5). Harris, too, recognizes
the possible cognitive benefits of “apparent”52 contradictions: they are “of consider-
able use in leading us to recognize the inadequacy of generalization in the face of
the diversity of situations encountered and multitude of possible perspectives open
to each individual” (342, see also 336).53 For Empson, they represent the contradic-
tory character of the mind and human life experience. Also unnatural narratologists
emphasize the cognitive benefits of impossibility found in fiction, which most of the
time involves contradictions. Impossible fiction, they say, helps test new ideas and
develop new cognitive frames, and questions the accepted worldview (cf. the discus-
sion of Empson and unnatural narratology in Chapter One). The specific cognitive
contribution of postmodern contradictions in postmodern fiction (related especially
to improved discernment as regards the contingent status of various aspects of so-
cial life) will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Nine. That works of art might
52  In his opinion the contradictions that truly contribute to human life experience
are not really “logical or factual” ones (342).
53  At the same time it should be noted that Harris is critical of both the contem-
porary enthusiastic approach to contradictions, inspired by what he perceives as
a mistaken belief in the self-referential character and antinomical structure of
language, and careless use of language which may indeed generate unnecessary
contradictions (340-42).
132— The theory of contradiction in art
by means of contradictions convey specific ideas has already been illustrated in the
studies of Wall, Lavocat and Furlani, discussed in Chapter One.
***
Summing up, artistic contradiction consists in conjoined mutually exclusive mean-
ings translatable into propositions (or having that form) and present in an artefact;
the non-contradiction principle is violated when it is explicitly stated or clearly im-
plied that the relevant meanings are asserted in conjunction (i.e. presented together
as true). Though this definition is in some ways restrictive, it does not deny the
existence of other artistic phenomena such as incongruity (illustrated by Flaubert’s
Parrot, for example, where the grief-stricken protagonist, who has lost his wife, de-
votes his attention to Flaubert’s parrots as if his despair were not the main subject of
the book, or the Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family, c. 1470, by an unknown artist,
which portrays a lady with a fly sitting on her snow-white head-dress), fragmentation
(exemplified by Levels of Life by Barnes, where the first two chapters are concerned
with the history of ballooning and a passionate love affair of those days, and the
third speaks of the real author’s experience of having lost his wife), or the polarity of
human experience (cf. “the contradiction [in Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders] between
Moll’s lively evocation of her criminal and sexual exploits, and the reformed state
of pious religious conviction in which her memoirs are allegedly written […]” noted
by Lodge, Consciousness 43). These are important artistic techniques and subjects,
but they should not be confused with contradictions. As regards nonsensical use of
language, as in the Dormouse’s story of three little sisters learning to draw things
that begin with M such as memory and muchness (101) in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in
Wonderland (1865), it may often involve contradictions.
Given the above definition, it is possible, when analyzing various works of art
to distinguish certain categories of contradictions. With reference to their location
and mode of presentation, the following basic kinds of artistic contradictions may
be distinguished: (1) internal contradictions: (a) internal nonfictional contradic-
tions, i.e. conjoined mutually exclusive nonfictional meanings presented within the
artefact, (b) internal fictional contradictions (quasi-contradictions), i.e. conjoined
mutually exclusive meanings inherent in the artefact’s fictional model of reality
(these may include fictional psychological, logical and ontological contradictions),
(c) internal metafictional contradictions, i.e. fiction and nonfiction conjoined; (2)
133—
external contradictions: mutually exclusive meanings between the artefact and real-
ity (or more precisely its default model) located (a) between ideas concerning reality
expressed in whatever manner in the artefact and ideas which belong to the default
model of reality accepted in the culture to which the artefact belongs,54 (b) between
the artefact’s fictional reality taken literally (e.g. talking animals in fairy tales or geo-
metrical shapes in Pablo Picasso’s portraits) and the default model of reality accepted
in the culture to which the artefact belongs (or in other cultures, cf. the reservation
mentioned in note 54) on the condition that the fictional reality is meant to represent
the actual one.
It is also important to recognize that, depending on various factors, contradic-
tions offered by artefacts may be logically strong or weak, and artistically significant
or insignificant. Further, they can be expressed in the artefact verbally, formally,
by means of the model of reality or by a combination of the foregoing (a detailed
discussion of the typology of artistic contradictions based on the criterion of art’s
modes of expression is presented in Chapter Six); they may be available directly in
the artefact (whether explicite or implicite) or in the act of its interpretation; they may
be resolved in the artefact itself (or in the act of its reception) or not at all, and serve
various functions (thematic, heuristic, aesthetic, auxiliary and others).
Apart from artistic contradictions sensu stricto (located in the artefact), it is
possible to identify contradictory meanings between various artefacts, as well as
psychological contradictions (if one allows for their occurrence) in the artist’s or
recipient’s mental experience occasioned by the artefact (alternatively they might be
reducible to contradictory meanings) and contradictory interpretations of artefacts
available in criticism and scholarship as well as all kinds of non-professional read-
ings of artefacts.
Whether the status of contradictory imaginary objects (artefacts containing
contradictions included) is only verbal, conceptual or in some sense real remains
an open question, beyond the scope of the present research project. The project
is concerned first of all with artistic contradictions in postmodern fiction, their
54  Or in other cultures, though the status of such contradictions will be slightly
different: these contradictions cannot be said to be implicit in the artefact, they
arise in the act of the artefact’s reception as the element of conjunction is sup-
plied by the recipient.
134— The theory of contradiction in art

characteristics, types and functions. In the second part of the book special atten-
tion will be paid to (1) novelistic contradictions which (seem to) break the principle
of non-contradiction and thereby impress the recipient as odd, thought-provoking,
absurd or erroneous, (2) the impact contradictions have on the novel’s intelligibility
(and, in particular, its ability to convey a coherent message), (3) the cognitive value
of artistic contradictions.
The above, highly abstract discussion, may produce the impression that within
the framework of art’s cognitive theory, contradictions are reducible to their intel-
lectual content, that their emotional and sensual dimensions are negligible. This is
not so. The intellectual, emotional and sensual spheres of human life should not be
perceived as separate or mutually exclusive. Emotions and perceptions, like reason,
perform cognitive functions, though they may be less sophisticated and harder to
bring into awareness, let alone under control. Both the artist and the recipient of art
in their aesthetic experience take advantage of all their cognitive resources. This
also applies to experience occasioned by contradictions, which are typically con-
spicuous and memorable (as regards perception) and disturbing and irritating (as
regards emotions).
 Chapter Four
Artistic contradictions and their
implications for s c h o l a r s h ip

It is reasonable to suppose that contradictions present in works of art have some

implications for literary studies and studies on art in general. First of all, artistic
contradictions seem capable of generating contradictory statements concerning the
artefacts’ meanings, i.e. contradictory interpretations. Furthermore, they seem to
support the deconstructionist belief that instead of striving to reconstruct a co-
herent message of a text (works of literature included), the scholar should disclose
contradictions that prevent the text from conveying the message; in other words,
contradictions question the legitimacy of the traditional reading strategy aiming to
find the work’s coherent meaning. Finally, artistic contradictions appear to under-
mine the procedure of falsification by invalidating the assumption that the object
under investigation is contradiction-free. This is why the three issues (contradictory
interpretations, justification of the interpretive principle of coherence, and falsi-
fication of statements concerning art’s meanings) will briefly be discussed in this
chapter. In each case the discussion will be confined to the area directly related to
artistic contradictions.

4 .1 C o n t r a d i c t o r y i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s
For the sake of clarity, it seems advisable to precede the discussion with basic defini-
tions. Scholarly interpretation of a work of art is here taken to mean verbal reconstruction
of the meaning of the work, which, as typical of art (verbal art included), is to
some extent presented in the work non-verbally.1 Such interpretations constitute an

1   There are many contexts, other than the academic one, in which an artefact may
be interpreted. In some of them, reconstructing the work’s meaning will not be
the primary aim. Stecker, for example, mentions as alternatives interpretations
136— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
important element of scholarly investigation of art: to define the significance of an
artefact in culture it is important to describe and explain the perceptual, emotional
and intellectual experience of the artist and art recipients (cf. also the discussion of
interpretation in Chapter Two). Within the humanities, construed as rational inquiry
into culture, an interpretation is acceptable if it is logically correct and supported by
factual (empirical) evidence (e.g. the text of the novel). If an interpretation is shown
to contradict either empirical evidence or basic rules of logic, it may be considered
falsified. (This in fact is a simplification: in some circumstances, discussed later in
the chapter, such falsification is not conclusive). If there are competitive interpreta-
tions and one of them has more evidential support, this does not disqualify inter-
pretations with less support. One artefact may admit of a variety of interpretations,
especially if it is rich in meaning or ambiguous. Ambiguity in art is here understood as
lack of unequivocally identifiable meaning and may be caused either by extensive in-
definiteness in the work (generated by the use of symbols, open-ended construction,
an unreliable narrator, the oneiric convention and the like) or by the work expressing
conflicting ideas without showing its author’s preferences.
Contradictions in artefacts and contradictions in or between interpretations
constitute two separate research problems. This is so because artefacts and their
interpretations (even if the latter are treated as part of art or part of aesthetic experi-
ence) are separate phenomena, at least in that the former do not need the latter for
their existence. At the same time the two are closely connected with each other.
Indeed, it is often difficult to draw the borderline between the meaning inherent
in the artefact (especially a verbal one) and the verbalized meaning of the artefact
reconstructed by its recipient or, in some cases, revealed by its author. Naturally, an
interpretation of an artefact is, ontologically speaking, secondary to, and content-
wise dependent on, the artefact. “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” 1939, by
Jorge Luis Borges, which shows that it is possible to have a quasi-autonomous inter-
pretation of literary works that have never been written, is a rare specimen (and one
which does not really comply with the definition of interpretation adopted above).
Because of this close connection one may well suppose that contradictions in (or
which “aim at making a work relevant to a certain audience” or which “aim at
collaborating with the original artist in creating a work” (“Relativism” 14).
137—
their absence from) the artefact might have some impact on the internal consistency
of the work’s interpretations and their mutual compatibility.
The main problem as regards contradictory interpretations has been formulated
by scholars as follows: are there true and incompatible interpretations of one and the
same artefact? The question might be broadened to include self-contradictory inter-
pretations (i.e. one contradiction contradicting itself), but since their analysis would
be analogous to that of contradictory interpretations, there is no need to do so. The
term used in the discussion has been most of the time incompatible – but (again, most
of the time) it has been taken as synonymous with contradictory.2 It seems, however,
advisable to use instead the notion of mutual exclusion (as in the case of artworks). It
happens most rarely, if at all, that there are two competing interpretations, one of
which is a negation of the other. Further, in the debate it has been assumed that the
two interpretations involved have the form of single sentences ( p and q). But, as
noted by Susan L. Feagin, interpretations rarely have that form, and so one should
speak either of two (or more)3 conflicting compound statements (i.e. conjunctions
of statements) or of sets of sentences, one set conflicting with another (135). Indeed,
interpretations vary as regards their number of sentences and mutual relations be-
tween them. Even so, to simplify the present discussion, it will be assumed that each
interpretation consists of – or (more realistically) can be reduced to – one sentence.
2   Stecker, for example, defines compatibility as follows: “A pair of interpretations
are compatible if and only if they could be true of the same work at the same
time. They are incompatible if and only if they could not be. […] If two interpre-
tations are incompatible, they make mutually contradictory statements” (292),
and “Interpretations are incompatible if they ascribe contradictory properties to
the same object” (293). Stecker considers later one more definition of “seeing-
as” incompatibility: “Two interpretations are incompatible, […] if seeing the
work in terms of one interpretation makes it impossible to see the work in terms
of the other at the same time” (296), but he does not recommend its use with
reference to literature (“Incompatible Interpretations” 296-97). Davies, also
taking part in the debate, speaks of “conflicting,” “contradictory or contrary”
interpretations, and means by this interpretation of the form “p and not-p” or “p
and q where p and q are contraries” (“True Interpretations” 290).
3   Feagin believes that the relation between varying interpretations is not really
one of logical contradiction (135), which is why she does not limit their number
to two.
138— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
Though the problem of logically incompatible interpretations may appear to be
highly abstract and academic, it deserves attention. Torsten Pettersson rightly points
out that their presence in literary studies might undermine the studies’ rationality:
“If we may on equally defensible grounds be told that an object is p and that it is not
p, what kind of knowledge is that? Must we not accede to the deconstructive insist-
ence on the indeterminacy of meaning and regard all readings as misreadings?”
(147). The rational standards seem equally threatened if one can claim that an object
means p, q and s, where p, q and s mutually exclude each other.
Various authors have responded to the question in various ways, though on the
whole they deny that true contradictory interpretations of one work should be pos-
sible. For some authors, such as Monroe C. Beardsley (The Possibility of Criticism, 1970)
or Wayne C. Booth (Critical Understanding: The Powers and Limits of Pluralism, 1979) the
matter is obvious (both qtd. in Pettersson 147-48).4 Pettersson calls their approach
the Complementarity Thesis: “except in the case of a small number of ambiguous
works, acceptable interpretations of a literary work are complementary, and cannot
be logically incompatible.” In a “refined version” of the thesis, logical incompatibil-
ity due to “the interpreters’ divergent critical stances and assumptions” is also per-
missible; otherwise interpretations of one work must be logically compatible (148).
Other authors consider the problem in more detail. Among them Feagin rep-
resents a radical stance in that she believes that interpretations should not be esti-
mated in epistemic terms. Interpretation is not “a correct description of the work
based on some sort of correspondence between what the interpretation says and
what is in the work” (134). Its aim is not truth but enrichment of the recipient’s life
and art experience effected by suggestions how the artefact may be approached (134,
141). Interpretations can thus be “original” or “profound,” not “true” or “false,”
nor even “plausible,” as “plausible,” according to Feagin, means “plausibly true”
and is thus no better than “true” or “false” (134, 139-41, 143-44). Feagin claims
further that works of art are misconstrued when taken as self-contained, complete,
and independent of interpretations (136, 138). In the light of these assumptions, the
4   Zgorzelski, though less dogmatically, expresses a similar point of view: “the ap-
pearance of contrary interpretations generates the suspicion that at least one of
them is false (probably the one which presents a more sketchy and less coherent
interpretation […]” (237).
139—
problem disappears, as Feagin notes: “Critic K says ‘S is p’ and critic C says ‘S is not-
p.’ They are making conflicting claims, however, only if ‘S’ refers to the same thing
in both cases. […] I have denied that ‘S’ refers to anything at all” (“Incompatible
Interpretations of Art” 139).
Some authors who recognize the cognitive aim of interpretations claim that
true or false does not apply to interpretive statements. Joseph Margolis, for example,
argues that when assessing interpretations, the truth predicate should be replaced
with the “apt” or “plausible” predicate (taken as truth values), and bivalent logic with
multivalent (qtd. in Stecker “Relativism” 15, 17).5 As Robert Stecker points out, in-
terpretations which in bivalent logic would be incompatible can now be asserted and
their “truth-like” claims made without violating the principle of non-contradiction
(“Relativism” 15).
Finally, there are authors who insist on strict epistemic evaluation of interpre-
tations, and put the problem of true incompatible interpretations under scrutiny.
Stecker explains that often two interpretations merely seem to be incompatible, as
in the case of the following pairs: “it is plausible that the governess [from The Turn of
the Screw] battles real ghosts” and “it is plausible that she hallucinates ghosts”; or “a
way of understanding a poem is p” and “the correct way of understanding what the histori-
cally situated author was doing is not-p” (“Relativism” 16). Interpretations which – being
non-assertive, creative developments of a work of art − do not have truth value
may exemplify the same apparent incompatibility (“Relativism” 16). As regards two
truly contradictory interpretations, Stecker is prepared to allow only the situation
in which one provisionally accepts them both, being unable to decide which one
is true, i.e. because of one’s epistemic limitations (“Incompatible Interpretations”
295). Otherwise, the non-contradiction principle rules out the possibility of true
contradictory interpretations (“Incompatible Interpretations” 292).
Also Stephen Davies is confident that “contradictions cannot be asserted tru-
ly” (“Relativism” 8). They result, he explains, when one of the interpretations is
5   In principle this is also Pettersson’s standpoint, though he combines Margolis’s
approach with his own notion of interpretation focused not on the verbal mean-
ing of the text but its “implications,” i.e. “attitude, injunction, or conception of
the world” (151), which are conveyed by the text and loosely related to its verbal
meaning. Consequently, Pettersson’s notion of plausible interpretation is quite
liberal.
140— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
erroneous, or is not an asserted proposition but “an injunction to imagine,” or when
the two interpretations refer to different artefacts (e.g. different editions mistakenly
taken as identical), or when they merely appear to ascribe to the artefact mutu-
ally exclusive properties (e.g. they speak of love and hate, which seem to mutually
exclude each other but which a person may experience simultaneously). They may
also result from elliptical language: people often speak of interpretations of a work,
having in mind meanings that “can be put upon the given work” (“Relativism” 8-10,
“True Interpretations” 295-96). If this is how interpretations are understood, if the
artwork has many meanings, and if true means “true-to-the-work,” i.e. correspond-
ing to one of its meanings, then one can have true “contradictory” interpretations
(in reality they do not contradict each other). The work’s ambiguity may, for Davies,
be another reason for apparently true, mutually exclusive interpretations: “There is
no difficulty in holding that something which is ambiguous allows for contrary in-
terpretations, each of which emphasizes one of the ambiguous elements […]” (“True
Interpretations” 293, cf. 2946). Most importantly, Davies recognizes the special case
of interpretations of an artefact which contains contradictions. It may, he says, hap-
pen that “the interpretation reports a contradiction contained within the work as
part of its content.” In such situations the proper approach is to offer an interpre-
tation which will recognize the two contradictory meanings: “‘W is p and W is
not-p’ then should be read as ‘W says <p and not-p>.’” The latter formulation “can
be a true description of the work and involves no contradiction” (“Relativism” 8).
Strangely, though Davies clearly identifies the problem, he is dismissive about it.
The approach of Stecker and Davies, who see epistemic criteria as relevant to
interpretations, and exclude the possibility of two true mutually exclusive interpreta-
tions, seems right.7 One might, however, consider making two reservations. Firstly,
although in scholarship, whose aim is cognitive, truth is the basic category, in the
6   Cf. Empson’s study of ambiguities and interpretive contradictions they occasion.
7   In the academic context replacing epistemic criteria, when assessing interpreta-
tions, with alternative criteria of their acceptability, such as aesthetic signifi-
cance or relevance to contemporary recipients, cancelling the moment of asser-
tion from interpretive statements, opting for relativism (interpretations relative
to the recipient), using a multivalent logic or accepting true contradictions do
not seem either appropriate or necessary. Cf. Stecker’s and Davies’s discussions
of these solutions and their drawbacks.
141—
absence of the criterion of truth, it seems appropriate to speak of theses and theories
being possibly true, not true. A fortiori this applies to research focused on arts, where
meanings and values, available only via the interpreter’s psychological experience,
are involved. Secondly, it seems advisable to openly allow for the possibility of two
true (incomplete) mutually exclusive interpretations, when the artefact under discus-
sion is ambiguous (indefinite or self-contradictory) and each interpretation does jus-
tice to one of its multiple meanings. The proper procedure, as Davies notes, in such
situations would be to combine the two interpretations into one and clearly locate
the source of interpretive conflict in the artefact’s indefinite or self-contradictory
character. Ideally, all interpretations should be complete; in practice, however, it
would be unrealistic to demand that all interpretations give a proper account of all
the meanings a given artefact contains; partial interpretations need to be accepted.
But, once a partial interpretation is confronted with another partial interpretation
and they are found to mutually exclude each other, the proper procedure is to re-
examine the work of art, find whether both interpretations have sound support in
the work and, if so, conjoin the two hypotheses into one, indicating the ambiguity
inherent in the work of art and ascribing the contradictory or indefinite meaning to
the work. Interpretations that fail to note the work’s ambiguity should in the process
of research be gradually eliminated, i.e. supplemented, modified, or replaced with
other interpretations.
Conversely, it seems most unlikely that there should exist an unambiguous work
of art that would allow for two interpretations, both of which aspire to be true
and find mutually exclusive meaning in the work, regardless of whether a given
interpretation concerns a fragment/element of the work (an episode, a character) or
the work taken as a whole. Hopefully this also holds true of interpretations offered
within ideological approaches such as feminist, post-colonial or Marxist studies of
art. Their interpretations will naturally reflect the ideological assumptions and po-
litical aims of a given approach and will therefore tend to diverge from each other,
but this should not result in finding in the artefact ideas that are absent from it or
ignoring those that are present. In the case of mutually exclusive interpretations,
unless their mutual exclusion reflects the indefinite or self-contradictory character
of the artefact, it may be assumed that at least one of the conflicting interpretations
is erroneous (cf. the discussion of the falsification procedure, below).
142— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
To close the discussion of (possibly) true mutually exclusive interpretations and
their possible relation to the artefacts’ self-contradictions let me present some ex-
amples illustrating the three basic cases: (1) two mutually exclusive interpretations,
one of which is erroneous, (2) two mutually exclusive interpretations of a work
that is indefinite, and (3) two mutually exclusive interpretations of a work that is
self-contradictory.
The case of two mutually exclusive interpretations, one of which is erroneous
may be illustrated with an example borrowed from Maria Stefanescu’s essay devoted
to the notion of the implied author. In the course of her argument, Stefanescu brief-
ly discusses two interpretations of Martel’s Life of Pi: Werner Wolf’s and Rebecca
Duncan’s. For Wolf, the novel highlights “a profoundly un-postmodern and seem-
ingly ‘unfashionable’ centre of meaning: religious belief as a ‘better option’ in com-
parison to scepticism and atheism” (qtd. in Stefanescu 55). “Pursuing a close reading
of the novel, Wolf traces the stages during which what might have become another
postmodernist story of migration, multicultural hybridity and decentering of iden-
tity and meaning actually unfolds as ‘a spiritual rite of passage’” (Stefanescu 55).
The “contrasting reading”8 by Duncan focuses on the protagonist’s postmodern self
(“decentered, multiple and fragmented”) in postmodern culture. Meanwhile “the
novel’s thematization of religious faith is either downplayed (‘the story of the ship’s
sinking... features very little religious or spiritual insight’ […]) or construed as fur-
ther evidence of a postmodern self-definition […] or misrepresented (according to
Duncan, who plainly disregards textual evidence, subsequent to Pi’s ordeal […] the
protagonist’s religious thoughts ‘turn to mockery and negation’ […])” (Stefanescu
56). Concluding this part of her essay, Stefanescu evaluates both interpretations:
I would find it equally difficult not to regard Duncan’s reading of Martel’s
novel – given the amount of textual evidence she understates or appears to
overlook – as an illustration of a self-fulfilling interpretive hypothesis. On
the other hand, I believe that Wolf has grounded his argumentation in rich
and compelling textual data, producing a reading of Life of Pi that accounts
for a great deal of formal and thematic detail. (57)
8   This is the word Stefanescu uses. She does not call the readings contradictory.
143—
The two interpretations of Life of Pi mutually exclude each other, at least in so far
as the novel’s religious ideas are concerned, because Duncan misreads the text, as
suggested by Stefanescu.
The case of two mutually exclusive interpretations of a work of art that is in-
definite may be illustrated with two examples reported by Caraher and Stecker. In
his editorial essay from Intimate Conflict, Caraher discusses Derrida’s deconstruc-
tion of Heidegger’s and Meyer Schapiro’s interpretations of Van Gogh’s The Shoes.
Heidegger believes that the shoes are the property of a peasant woman and speak
of the hardship of her life, whereas Schapiro argues that they “point back to the
artist,” a self-conscious man living in the city (qtd. in Caraher 8-9). Stecker’s example
concerns literature and refers to Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw: “Many critics
believe that in The Turn of the Screw, the ghosts are figments of the governess’s mind.
Many other critics believe that the ghosts are not figments of the governess’s mind.
[…] each interpretation can accommodate all the details of the work,” (“Pettersson
on Incompatible Interpretations” 302).9 In each case the competitive interpretations
cannot both be true, and yet both seem legitimate (in particular, neither contradicts
the textual (artefactual) evidence). The diverging critical interpretations have their
source in the work’s indefiniteness.
The well-known duck/rabbit drawing discussed by both Stecker and Davies will
serve as the first example of a work of art which contains a contradiction and thus
allows for true, mutually exclusive interpretations. According to Stecker, the two in-
terpretations of the picture − “it represents a rabbit” and “it represents a duck” − are
both true and compatible. He further suggests that the two interpretations should be
conjoined and that the picture be taken as intentionally ambiguous (“Incompatible
Interpretations” 296).10 My position is slightly different: the two interpretations are
9   Markiewicz’s discussion of Chochoł, a weird messenger from Stanisław
Wyspiański’s Wesele, might serve as yet another case in point. As Markiewicz
explains, Chochoł may be read as a symbol either of the nation’s dead sterility
or regenerating vitality. Markiewicz gives several examples of literary symbols
which allow divergent or even contrastive (“przeciwstawne”) interpretations.
He also notes that such interpretations of symbols yield different readings of
the texts to which the symbols in question belong (“Ideologia” 262).
10  Davies, in turn, believes that we deal here with “experientially exclusive” inter-
pretations: the diagram, as he says, presents both a rabbit and a duck; we can
make an assertion recognizing the presence of both animals, but we cannot
144— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
contradictory (this is a rabbit mutually excludes this is a duck) and this contradictori-
ness derives from the artefact. Both interpretations are true but, taken separately,
incomplete (each captures only a fragment of the work’s meaning). A hypothetical
ironic poem, whose ironic and non-ironic readings, while being equally plausible,
contradict each other, might provide a fairly similar literary example.11 For a real-life
literary case one might turn to Danielewski’s House of Leaves, which allows for both
nihilistic and uplifting interpretations (see the discussion in Chapter Eight).
To sum up: it appears that two mutually exclusive interpretations may be true
when the work they refer to is self-contradictory or radically indefinite in its mean-
ing. A good interpretation of contradictory works should recognize their contradic-
tory character and explain how it gives rise to various interpretations, which – if
fragmentary – might mutually exclude each other. In the case of an indefinite arte-
fact, its interpretation should adopt a tentative form, in accordance with the faint
textual evidence supporting it. Otherwise, if the work, neither self-contradictory
nor indefinite, has two mutually exclusive interpretations or one self-contradictory
interpretation, this in all likelihood means that the interpreter has committed an
error. The error might lie in the background knowledge assumed in the process of
interpretation, or in faulty copies of the artwork investigated by different scholars,
and the like. If, however, the error is located in the interpretation, this interpretation
may well be considered falsified.
4.2 The i n t e r p r e t iv e p r i n c ip l e of
coherence and its justification
When inquiring into the meaning of a given artefact, one may choose to follow the
interpretive principle of coherence or the interpretive principle of contradiction. The two terms de-
note here dominants of the work’s interpretation. (The latter term in particular should
not be confused with the logical principle of non-contradiction). Most of the authors
who investigate the phenomenon of artistic contradiction, discussed in Chapter One
and Chapter Five, as well as the analyses of the novels in the analytical chapters
perceive both of them simultaneously (“Relativism” 12).
11  This example too is borrowed from Stecker, who uses it to claim that the as-
sertions that the poem is ironic and that the poem is not ironic are both false
(“Incompatible Interpretations” 293).
145—
demonstrate that art takes advantage of what is colloquially defined as contradiction. In
rare cases it takes advantage of what is in strict logical terms called contradiction. There
are also authors, such as Vygotsky and Caraher,12 who believe that contradiction is the
aesthetic principle of all art, and others, such as Hutcheon, who claim that this is true
about postmodernist art.
And yet for ages theorists of art and artists alike have claimed that art is based
on the principles of harmony, order, balance and organic unity. Barry Allen might
be taken to represent this approach nowadays. He argues that coherence (which he
does not define, offering as his excuse the term’s indeterminacy, 262) is man-made
and to be found only among artefacts, defined broadly as “effect[s] of human perfor-
mance” (264), some of which, if they anticipate perceptual and, via the imagination,
the emotional and intellectual response of the recipient, also display aesthetic coherence
(266). The artefact “is the very origin of coherence, where the quality first begins to
exist.” It is “the very model of coherence” (259).13 Allen further claims that, though
unnatural, coherence is desirable and indispensable (263).14
It seems reasonable to opt for a via media and recognize that art can be both
coherent and contradictory. To continue the discussion the term coherence, for all its
indeterminacy, needs defining. Though it is not so strictly bound up with logic as
contradiction, and there are many contexts in which it is used, in the present work it
12  Interestingly, Caraher interprets contradiction as “intimate conflict,” something
that assures closeness: “contradiction renders: it draws things intimately together
– restores or gives things back to one another – even as it separates or divides
things from one another in mutual difference” (14); interpreted in this way con-
tradiction seems to entail a higher-level unity.
13  The often incredible organization of nature, both inanimate and animate, defies
Allen’s belief in the contrast between the coherence of art and incoherence of
the natural world.
14  The same cannot be said of incoherence: “There may be a point to tactical
incoherence launched against the hegemony of some style or mode, but it is dif-
ficult to see how incoherence could be desirable on its own” (Allen 263). Allen’s
praise of coherence finds an unexpected denouement: “Someone might think
that since coherence is artificial, the most truthful thing for art, literature, or
‘theory’ to do is subvert any so-called coherence, since there can be no more to it
than arbitrary power. Yet even that is not to say incoherence is good on its own,
only that it is better than the coherence of lies – better knowingly to inhabit
incoherent ruins than dream a dream of coherence” (263).
146— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
is important that the two should receive a similar (basically logical) treatment. Two
(out of three) definitions of coherence discussed in detail by Erik J. Olsson in his
2011 essay “Coherentism” – by A. C. Ewing (1934) and Laurence BonJour (1985) −
demand that the relevant system of beliefs be consistent; other constraints include
probabilistic consistency and logical consequence (258-60). As these additional con-
straints seem to have little relevance to art, inconsistency seems crucial. Discussing
some concepts of the “coherence family,” Haack explains that a logician will call a
set of sentences consistent if it is impossible to derive contradictory sentences from
it. “Outside formal-logical contexts,” one may call a set of sentences consistent if they
are mutually compatible15 (168-69). The context of art is not “formal-logical,” so the
colloquial notion is suitable. By analogy with contradiction, one might define artistic
consistency as absence from the artefact of mutually-exclusive meanings, having the
form of, or being translatable into, sentences. The quality seems gradable: depend-
ing on the amount and logical strength of contradictions, an artefact might be called
more or less consistent/contradictory.
It seems however, that the term coherence should not be dispensed with either.
When theorists of literature speak of the work’s coherence, as in Christopher Butler’s
“coherence-conferring strategies” (qtd. in Hawthorn 64) or Jonathan Culler’s “mod-
els of coherence” by means of which readers try to make sense of the work (qtd. in
Rimmon-Kenan 124), they seem to take coherence as the quality of being intelligi-
ble. This notion of coherence subsumes consistency (at least consistency on the level
of the work’s overall meaning). Consistency in turn contributes to, but does not by
itself guarantee, the work’s artistic coherence; one might expect that a coherent work
of art should also be congruent – i.e. its elements related to one theme (cf. Haack
173). Taking all of this into consideration, consistency in the discussion below is used
to denote the quality of a work which does not contain mutually exclusive meanings
(relative consistency means that such mutually exclusive meanings do not prevent the
work from conveying a consistent message). A coherent work of art is one which is
relatively consistent, as well as one whose diverse elements can be integrated and
make sense with reference to the work’s theme(s).
15  Haack’s example of mutually incompatible sentences (“Tom is a bachelor” and
“Tom is married”) shows that these are mutually exclusive sentences; she also
explains that such sentences cannot both be true (169).
147—
The via media indicated above consists in respecting the fact that in most works
of art and aesthetic experience both consistency and contradiction seem to be in-
volved (though naturally in particular instances one or the other may dominate).16
Works of extremely loose structure might fail to qualify as either contradictory or
consistent. This, however, is a side issue, and will be treated as such so as not to
complicate the present considerations.
Contradiction, consistency (and lack of integrity) inherent in the work of art will
evoke in aesthetic experience an emotional and/or intellectual sense of tension, har-
mony or confusion. Inquiring into the work’s meaning, the recipients may choose to
follow either the interpretive principles of coherence or contradiction. With refer-
ence to literature, the interpretive principle of coherence could be identified with the
liberal humanist approach deriving from traditional scholarship dating back at least
to Augustine. As reported by Eco, in De doctrina christiana Augustine recommends
that “any interpretation given of a certain portion of a text can be accepted if it is
confirmed by, and must be rejected if it is challenged by, another portion of the
same text” (qtd. in Eco, Interpretation 65). The principle of contradiction, in turn, was
introduced more recently by Derrida and has since then been applied by deconstruc-
tionists. This is how Paul de Man, another founder of the approach, defines it in an
interview with Robert Moynihan, “It’s possible, within a text, to frame a question
or to undo assertions made in the text, by means of elements which are in the text,
which frequently would be precisely structures that play off rhetorical against gram-
matical elements” (qtd. in Moynihan 156). Without actually using the term principle of
contradiction, deconstructionists search for contradictions in all kinds of texts.
The traditional and deconstructionist approaches have been contrasted by Peter
Barry:
The deconstructionist reading […] aims to produce disunity, to show that
what had looked like unity and coherence actually contains contradictions
and conflicts which the text cannot stabilize and contain. […] In contrast,
more conventional styles of close reading had the opposite aim: they would
16  The above hypothesis might not apply to art that is entirely devoid of meaning,
like (possibly) some works of purely decorative art, tapestry or jewellery and
the like.
148— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
take a text which appeared fragmented and disunified and demonstrate an
underlying unity […]. (77)
These then are the recipient’s two basic options: in the name of coherence to try and
explain contradictions away or, on the contrary, expose them in the name of con-
tradiction.17 In the former case, one presumes that the work conveys some coherent
message (in the final account this approach seems to rest on the conviction that
reality is intelligible and people rational); in the latter case, one acts on the assump-
tion that the work is conflicted with itself, unable to pass any message (this time the
ultimate basis seems to be the beliefs that reality is unintelligible, and that people are
confused by language laden with the mistaken logocentric metaphysics).
The choice of one or the other principle need not be determined only by the
interpreter’s preferences for one or the other mode of reading; it may also be dic-
tated by the work. It seems fairly typical for a work of art to exhibit contradictions
and thereby challenge the recipient to make sense of them (and, by extension, of the
whole work). Yet the work of art may also itself resolve contradictions, thus prompt-
ing the recipient to question in a sceptical frame of mind the offered resolution or
detect contradiction between the fabricated harmony of the artefact and the natural
disorder of human life experience. Naturally, the two sides of the encounter need not
be at cross-purposes: the work and its recipient may also be united in their common
objective to either establish coherence or acknowledge contradictions. Further, the
artist’s choice of consistency or contradiction in his/her poetics and the recipient’s
search for consistency or contradiction when interpreting the work, do not seem to
determine the cognitive value of the encounter. Both coherence/consistency and
contradiction, taken both as principles of art’s composition and interpretation, may
be cognitively valuable. What matters is how they are employed.
Of course, both principles may be used in one act of interpretation. Indeed,
one might argue that the scholarly standards of objectivity are most fully met by
a holistic approach, in which neither the coherence nor contradiction inherent in
the work of art is neglected. Exclusive use of either methodology brings, as Barry
argues, predictable results: “identifying patterns and symmetries in the structuralist
17  Naturally, one can also choose to ignore the contradictions and consistency of a
work of art, though this will not cancel their presence.
149—
manner discovers a unified text which is, so to speak, happy with itself, whereas
‘reading the text against itself’ produces a sense of disunity, of a text engaged in a
civil war with itself” (79, cf. 77).
One might argue further that in the same name of objectivity, the scholar should
not assume in advance either the intelligibility (implied in the choice of search for
coherent meanings) or the unintelligibility (implied in the choice of detecting con-
tradictions) of the reality to be explored. However, any rational cognitive enterprise
demands the assumption that reality is, at least within certain limits, intelligible.
Thus, in the name of the rationality of scholarship the principle of coherence should
be given priority over the principle of contradiction. This assumption of the arte-
fact’s intelligibility, mandatory for the scholar, might also be made by a non-pro-
fessional interpreter. This choice, whoever makes it, need not entail relinquishing
the complementary principle of contradiction (taken as attentive exploration of the
work’s contradictions18).
The above rationality-of-scholarship argument may be strengthened with refer-
ence to the creator’s and recipient’s rationality. The rationality of the creator, taken
together with the idea that art serves communicative purposes, would encourage
him/her to make a comprehensible artefact. The same argument formulated with
reference to art’s cognitive function is less convincing, for one cannot exclude the
possibility of the artist choosing to provide recipients with an opportunity to test
their response to an irrational, incomprehensible artefact. But even this unusual pro-
ject, to be effective, must not be misconceived by the recipient. The rationality of the
artefact might on the other hand find some further support in naturalistic theories
of art. It seems that human beings, creatures endowed with advanced consciousness,
are at the same time the only creatures that indulge in artistic activity (cf. Dutton
7-9). This does not seem to be a coincidence; on the contrary, awareness and creativ-
ity seem closely bound with each other (cf. Popper’s theory of interaction presented
in Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem). To be a means for furthering human (self-)
awareness, art can hardly be in principle nonsensical. Within scholarship, one might
18  Departing from the definition of their method presented by de Man (cited
above), and reading the text in the light of their own metaphysical assumptions,
deconstructionists seem at times to produce contradictions in texts they decon-
struct (cf. Chapter Eight).
150— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
argue also from the epistemic value of coherence19 and the effectiveness of science
based on the choice of rationality (with its assumption of the intelligibility of reality).
Nota bene, the argument from the non-contradictory nature of reality explored by
art is abortive. One cannot argue that since reality is contradiction-free, so should
be art which explores it. Though effective with reference to science, this argument
fails with reference to art, which inquires into human psychological experience,
which as regards its contents – what art is most interested in – does not seem to be
contradiction-free.
Also narratologists have noted the impact of contradictions on narrative reading
experience and reading strategies. Apparently readers of fiction instinctively search
for coherence, and are distracted by contradictions and incongruities. Mieke Bal in
her essay “Figuration” notes how, when she was working on novels (and paintings),
her “attention was systematically arrested by the detail that seems out of place, the
contradiction that tears open the work, the monstrous element that reveals flaws and
disparities and, because it provokes astonishment, offers never-ending possibilities
for the understanding of these works” (1289). Having spotted a contradiction, the
reader often automatically tries to naturalize (or rationalize) it. Ryan enumerates the
following techniques of doing so: “1) mentalism (events exist only in the minds of
characters), 2) virtualisation (we assume that the contradiction represents a version
of the plot which remains virtual), 3) allegory, 4) meta-textualism (the different ver-
sions are rough drafts of the work that is in the process of being constructed), 5) the
structure of Swiss cheese or of black holes: in that case we isolate contradictions so
that they do not contaminate the remaining narrative” (qtd. in Lavocat, note 30; cf.
also Alber’s list of strategies discussed in Chapter One). Such strategies seem to be
driven by the belief that the text should be consistent and, more generally, coherent.
This complies with Rimmon-Kenan’s discussion of the process of reading. The
reader aims to arrive at “an overall meaning which makes sense of the text as a
19  An additional reason why the search for contradiction should remain, method-
ology-wise, subordinate to the search for coherence is that, as argued by Ernest
Gellner in his study of linguistic philosophy, what is cognitively valuable is uni-
fying explanations; to concentrate on differences is contrary to scientific prac-
tice (199-201). For a discussion of arguments in favour of respecting the value
of coherence within the realistic and pragmatist concepts of science, see Adam
Grobler’s “Jak być koherentnym pragmatycznym realistą.”
151—
whole” (122). To achieve this aim, as Menakhem Perry notes, from the start the
reader integrates all kinds of information revealed in the text (qtd. in Rimmon-
Kenan 122), and formulates hypothetical interpretations which s/he later corrects,
or replaces with better ones, if need be.20 With some texts the effort may prove
futile: the definite meaning might not be available if the text offers multiple mean-
ings which complement or mutually exclude each other without indicating which
meaning is the right one (122). Rimmon-Kenan quotes also Culler, who says that
interpretation of a text requires “an integration of its elements with each other, an
integration which involves an appeal to various familiar models of coherence” (qtd.
in Rimmon-Kenan 124). The models, like hypotheses, might be created, modified
or rejected in the process of interpretation (124-25; interestingly, there may also
be “clashes” between them, 129). They may be found, Perry suggests, in reality
or culture (qtd. in Rimmon-Kenan 125).21 An informed reader (familiar with de-
constructionist practice) might try to oppose this apparently natural inclination to
resolve contradictions in the name of coherence and instead try to explore their
significance, but most readers will not.
To sum up, it might appear that reading the artefact which is coherent, the
interpreter should search for coherence; and if the artefact is self-contradictory, its
interpretation should expose contradictions. Reading against the artefact intuitively
seems less sensible. But art can be both coherent and contradictory, and works of art
usually exhibit both these qualities. Both reading strategies are thereby justified, but
the interpreter’s search for coherence, based on the default assumption of the coher-
ence of the artefact (which may be disturbed, but only in rare cases truly negated by
20  Rimmon-Kenan does not use the word, but one can well view this process as
informal application of the falsification procedure. If in the process of aesthetic
experience, some new evidence (newly introduced into the work or newly spot-
ted by the recipient) contradicts the initial hypothesis, the hypothesis is falsified.
For example, the reader of an Agatha Christie novel may, without being aware
of the fact, repeatedly apply the procedure of falsification when eliminating
candidates eligible for the role of the murderer.
21  Strangely, though Rimmon-Kenan admits that some modern works seem to re-
sist the reader’s effort “by making various items undermine each other or cancel
each other out” (122), she sounds confident when arguing that “everything in a
text can ultimately be naturalized, made intelligible, either by reality models or
by models derived from literature […]” (126).
152— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
artistic contradictions or amorphism) seems to occupy the superior position. This
applies above all (but not exclusively) to scholarly interpretations.
4.3 Artistic contradictions
and the procedure of falsification
Another issue related to artistic contradictions concerns their impact on the proce-
dure of falsification, a basic methodological strategy originally identified by Popper
with reference to the natural sciences but used also in the humanities, though per-
haps with less awareness. Falsification in natural science is based on the assump-
tion that contradictions cannot occur in the object under discussion, i.e. nature,22
and therefore they should not appear in scientific theories. The logical scheme of
falsification has the argument form called modus tollens: [( p → q) ∧ ~ q)] → ~ p (cf.
also Grobler, Metodologia nauk 65-66), and entails the strict logical notion of contra-
diction. Alan Chalmers in What Is This Thing Called Science? illustrates the procedure
with the following hypothetical research project. One can see that bats can fly well
and hunt at night even though their eyes are weak. To solve the puzzle, one might
formulate the hypothesis ( p) that, though we do not know how exactly this is pos-
sible, bats do see well at night using their eyes. The hypothesis might next be tested
in an experiment in which a sample of bats is blindfolded. If the original hypothesis
is correct, the blindfolded bats will perform much worse than those able to use their
sight (q). They do not (~ q), which falsifies the hypothesis (~ p) (72-73; the symbols
have been added).23
22  Cf. Popper’s example of a non-existent contradictory fact – it is the body which
is “as a whole, at the same time both positively and not positively charged,
and thus at the same time both attracts and does not attract certain negatively
charged bodies” (Conjectures and Refutations 329).
23  This presentation of falsification simplifies the procedure, which is quite com-
plex and often difficult to implement. Contradictions possible in art add merely
one more complication. The most problematic, as Grobler explains, is the iden-
tification of the faulty element (this might be the tested hypothesis, observa-
tional report or background knowledge), the isolation of the tested hypothesis,
and the absence of clear criteria for the assessment when and what kind of revi-
sion within the background knowledge is required. Grobler also presents some
attempts to improve on the Popperian version of falsification, but apparently
so far they have failed to either effectively solve the above problems or offer an
alternative (Metodologia nauk 61-133).
153—
If logical contradictions do appear in research (within a theory or between the
theory and the so-called empirical data), they signal an error on the part of the
scientist. To cite Chalmers again, observing at a given place and time a raven which
is not black conclusively falsifies the thesis that all ravens are black (62-63). The
hypothesis is falsified on the assumption that reality is not self-contradictory, i.e.
on the assumption that the raven cannot be both black and not black. A similar as-
sumption made with reference to works of art may sometimes, if the artefact under
discussion contains contradictions, prove wrong. Much is at stake, as to resign from
the procedure of falsification in the area of studies of art (or in the sphere of art’s
interpretations) would, in terms of the Popperian model of science, mean that the
studies (or part of them) lose the status of science: falsifiability in this model is the
criterion of demarcation between science and non-science.
But it seems that many scholars investigating culture (the meanings of artefacts
included), take advantage of the procedure of falsification, in the above strict or,
more often, much looser sense, when examining the internal consistency of their
hypotheses or confronting them with new empirical data, previously adopted theo-
ries of considerable epistemic status, and the like. Eco’s discussion of an alchemical
misreading of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale in his book Six Walks in the Fictional
Woods illustrates falsification in which a literary interpretation is confronted with
textual evidence. In Eco’s book the passage serves first of all to support the idea that
in fiction, in contrast to “the actual world,” “the notion of truth is indisputable,” but
he adds that “[t]his ‘alethic privilege’ of fictional worlds also provides us with some
parameters for challenging farfetched interpretations of literary texts.” This is how
Eco discusses Giuseppe Sermonti’s interpretation of the tale and Valentina Pisanty’s
critique of his work:
Translating the fable into chemical formulas, he [Sermonti] has identified
Little Red Riding Hood as cinnabar, an artificial mercury sulfide which is
as red as her hood is supposed to be. Thus, within herself, the child con-
tains mercury in its pure state, which has to be separated from the sulphur.
Mercury is very lively and mobile, and it is no accident that Little Red
Riding Hood’s mother warns her not to go poking about everywhere. The
wolf stands for mercurous chloride, otherwise known as calomel (which
154— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
means “beautifully black” in Greek). The stomach of the wolf is the alche-
mist’s oven in which the cinnabar is transformed into mercury. Valentina
Pisanty has made a very simple comment: if, at the end of the story, Little
Red Riding Hood is no longer cinnabar but mercury in its pure state, how
can it be that when she steps out of the wolf’s belly she’s still wearing a
red hood? There is no version of the fable in which the little girl steps out
wearing a silver hood. So the fable doesn’t support this interpretation.
In a comment following the interpretation Eco adds, “you can’t make them [texts]
say the contrary of what they have said. You can’t ignore the fact that Little Red
Riding Hood at the end is still wearing her red hood […]” (Six Walks 91-92). This
logical contradiction (the hood should be silver but is not) disqualifies the interpre-
tation. Obviously, Eco assumes that the text is consistent, that it does not contain
contradictions. It is this assumption that makes the procedure of falsification pos-
sible. In other words, Eco does not entertain the possibility that the author of Little
Red Riding Hood wanted the characters to be read allegorically and yet intentionally
misrepresented the result of the chemical reaction (introducing thus a contradic-
tion into the text of the tale) to shock and puzzle the readers, or let them see
that chemical reactions cannot be adequately represented by means of human and
animal characters. If this were the case Sermonti’s interpretation could no longer
be said to logically contradict the text. (One might, however, demand that in such
case Sermonti should have told the reader that at the end the tale breaks the rules
and contradicts itself making silver red, and he should have tried to account some-
how for this unexpected conclusion). And yet few readers would question Eco’s
assumption of the text’s consistency. A traditional fairy tale may of course contain
some contradictions inherent in all kinds of magic tricks or fairy-tale characters
(talking animals or animated objects), but these are part of the convention and do
not exemplify internal, unresolvable contradictions (comparable to the contradic-
tion that pure mercury red in colour would constitute). Admittedly, some more ex-
perimental, postmodernist artefacts might make a similar assumption of the text’s
consistency less tenable.
155—
The above interpretation illustrates the case of a faulty interpretation which
logically contradicts empirical data.24 Eco believes in falsification as a method of
eliminating faulty interpretations. By suggesting that Jack the Ripper’s glaring mis-
interpretation of the Gospel according to St Luke would not be accepted as legiti-
mate by even the most liberal scholars, Eco argues that he has thereby falsified the
thesis that there are no public criteria of interpretation (Interpretation 23-25). Later in
that book Eco comments: “we can accept a sort of Popperian principle according to
which if there are no rules that help to ascertain which interpretations are the ‘best’
ones, there is at least a rule for ascertaining which ones are ‘bad’” (Interpretation 52).
But, as suggested in the first section of this chapter, it may also happen that
artefacts containing contradictions or indefinite as to their meaning will give rise
to various, mutually exclusive interpretations. It may happen therefore that logi-
cal contradictions one encounters in an interpretation or between two interpreta-
tions derive from artistic contradictions or indefiniteness inherent in the artefact
(Danielewski’s House of Leaves and Van Gogh’s Shoes exemplify such artefacts). A
proper interpretation of a contradictory artefact should, as suggested by Davies
(above), take into account its contradictory character. Mutatis mutandis this applies to
indefiniteness. This is why the presence of logical contradiction in the interpretation
(or between two interpretations) cannot be automatically taken as a signal of error.
The following procedure appears to resolve the complications that ensue in the
process of falsification as a result of artistic contradictions.25 If, within the humani-
ties, in research concerned with art, within a thesis/theory (or between two theses/
theories) as well as between a thesis/theory and the so called empirical data, one en-
counters a contradiction, two possibilities should be taken into account: (1) the con-
tradiction may derive from a contradiction (or indefiniteness) inherent in the artefact,
24  In the previous section, Stefanescu’s analysis of the two interpretation of Life of
Pi exemplifies the case of two contradictory interpretations. Confronted with
the empirical data, one of them proves false.
25  This part of the book by and large sums up a more detailed discussion of the
problem from my article, “Poznawcza koncepcja sztuki.” In some respects,
however, the approach has been revised (cf. the distinction introduced here
between the interpretive principle of searching for coherence and the default
assumption of the work’s coherence; cf. also the more restrictive presentation
of the circumstances in which the latter assumption might be necessary in the
process of falsification).
156— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship
(2) the contradiction may result from an error: faulty assumptions or background
knowledge, a mistake committed when analyzing empirical data or drawing conclu-
sions, or a mistaken hypothesis. Logic-wise, falsification is conclusive when conjoined
with the thesis that the artefact is contradiction-free (or definite) in the respect that
is relevant to the contradictory thesis/theory. Methodology-wise, having detected a
contradictory thesis/theory, to falsify it one should first eliminate the possibility that
the thesis/theory in question reflects a contradiction (or indefiniteness) inherent in
the artefact. Demonstrating that there is a contradiction (or indefiniteness) in the
artefact that gives rise to the logical contradiction in the thesis/theory prevents falsifi-
cation. As regards a contradiction between two theses or theories, demonstrating that
it derives from an artefact should result in the conclusion that the two theses (theo-
ries) are incomplete when separate and complementary when taken together, for each
takes into account only some out of the mutually exclusive meanings of the artefact.
In theory, the above procedure seems within the scholar’s reach, but in practice
demonstrating that an artefact is contradiction-free might in some cases by hardly
doable: witness Eco’s example of a falsified interpretation, where such demonstration
is replaced with a tacit assumption (Sermonti is only mistaken on the assumption
that the fairy tale is consistent as regards its use of colours to represent chemical sub-
stances). In general, falsification of allegorical interpretations which are partly con-
sistent with textual evidence and partly contradictory, i.e. on the whole most probably
erroneous, might demand the assumption that the work is contradiction-free. Similar
problems might appear with reference to falsifications of metaphorical interpretations
and, more generally, interpretations which are imaginative, removed from the literal
meaning of the text, and not fully consistent with textual evidence. To falsify them
one may need to assume arbitrarily that the artefact is consistent in a given respect.
This assumption of the work’s default consistency or, more precisely, of the
absence from the work of a contradiction in the respect in which the interpreta-
tion seems to contradict the work, necessary in some cases for the procedure of
falsification, seems parallel to the assumption of the superior status of the coherence
principle of interpretation discussed above. Justification of the latter principle is
ultimately based on the default assumption of the intelligibility of the object under
investigation, necessary in any kind of rational inquiry. The default assumption of
the consistency (in the relevant respect) of an artefact, which might on the whole
157—
contain contradictions, required as a pre-requisite for falsification, should also
be justified, but this justification can hardly be based either on the rationality of
scholarship, or on the rationality of the creator and recipient, or on the derivative
intelligibility of the work. A local contradiction in an artefact need not preclude the
possibility of the work’s global coherence and intelligibility, or of the rationality of
the artist, the art recipient and scholarship. The argument might be effective only in
situations in which the contradiction in question is highly significant for the work,
and thus global rather than local in its implications.
Alternatively, in some cases consistence might be postulated with reference to
an aesthetic convention, such as the realist novel, or the author’s style, if well estab-
lished and predictable. With reference to fictional realities, the default assumption of
their consistency might be explained with reference to Ryan’s principle of minimum
departure: what is not explicitly specified by the author is taken by the recipients to
correspond to their knowledge of “their own experiential reality” (“Possible-Worlds
Theory”). If the author has not declared that some exceptional laws of logic or on-
tology operate in the fictional world, the recipient assumes that the principle of non-
contradiction obtains both in its discourse and reality (logically and ontologically).
But also this justification seems feeble. After all, the present work documents many
cases of artistic contradictions, so that the default assumption that the artefact is
contradiction-free in the relevant respect, made when empirical evidence is missing,
in order to falsify an interpretation which seems to contradict the artefact, remains
in the final account arbitrary. One might consider suspending one’s judgement as
possibly the best solution in such cases.
A glaring logical contradiction between the artefact and its interpretation or
within an interpretation, unless derivative from the work, seems to disqualify the
interpretive hypothesis. In other situations caution is advisable also because it might
prove possible to find in many artefacts some meaningful elements contradicting
reasonable interpretive hypotheses, on the whole well-grounded in evidence. It
may be very hard to codify the criteria for assessing how important these elements
should be to conclusively falsify the hypotheses in question. The problem will be
most pronounced in the case of postmodern artefacts. If the procedure is applied
very strictly, an artefact’s rich, mutually exclusive and indefinite meanings might
lead to a rash disqualification of valuable hypotheses.
158— Artistic contradictions and their implications for scholarship

Confronted by all these problems, one might choose to confine falsification in

the field of art studies to statements – both specific and general – which are not
concerned with meanings (such as In Waterland by Swift the protagonist acts as the narra-
tor, or The postmodern novel often introduces a prominent narratee), and exclude those which
do (for example, Waterland shows that the story of human life is a fairy tale à rebours).
Recognized as unfalsifiable, interpretive hypotheses in the Popperian model would
be placed outside the humanities. This of course is most undesirable, since meanings
are crucial in culture. It would perhaps be more expedient to think of an alternative
demarcation criterion for the humanities and use falsification only where feasible.
Alternatively, one might choose to defend the falsifiability of interpretive hypo-
theses, i.e. assume that the contact of a theory (thesis) with empirical data sufficient
to identify an erroneous theory (thesis) may be accepted as the criterion of scientific-
ity in the humanities, also when they deal with art’s semantic content. Because the
application of falsification is limited by mutually exclusive, multiple and indefinite
meanings inherent in art, the procedure should be considered successful only when
the contradiction between the theory and empirical data is most pronounced (and
other potential sources of the contradiction eliminated).
To conclude, the presence of artistic contradictions complicates the procedure
of falsification but does not seem to entirely disqualify it. Falsification of contradic-
tory interpretive hypotheses, to be conclusive, requires that the work of art under
examination be in the relevant aspect free of contradictions (i.e. it is important to
eliminate the possibility that the logical contradiction in the hypothesis is derivative
of the contradiction inherent in the work of art). In practice, in some cases (in the
absence of relevant evidence) this might prove impossible. It may then be necessary
to arbitrarily assume that the work in question is in a given respect contradiction-
free or else consider such a hypothesis unfalsifiable. Obviously, non-scholarly in-
terpretations, especially if they do not aim to find true and objective meanings of
the artefact, will not find artistic contradictions troublesome. Even without artistic
contradictions, on account of art’s indefiniteness (which may also result in logically
contradictory interpretive hypotheses) the use of falsification with reference to art
demands much caution.
 Part Two
Contradictions in
Postmodern Fiction
 C h a p t e r F iv e
Critical a pp r o a c h e s to
postmodernism and postmodern
contradictions – a r e vi e w

Three seminal works – Metafiction (1984) by Patricia Waugh, Postmodernist Fiction

(1987) by Brian McHale and The Poetics of Postmodernism (1988) by Linda Hutcheon –
best represent the classical scholarly response to the phenomenon of contradiction
in postmodern fiction. In the review below brief attention is also paid to an early
1976 lecture by David Lodge, in which he tries to name the distinctive features of
postmodern narrative, as well as to McHale’s later volume of essays, Constructing
Postmodernism (1992). All these works clearly regard contradiction as a basic aesthetic
category of postmodernism. To offer a more up-to-date view of the matter, the
survey is supplemented with a discussion of some late 20th- and early 21st-century
works (mostly articles) referring both to the early studies of postmodernism and the
cultural phenomenon in question.
This chapter serves as an introduction to the second part of the book which con-
tains (1) an analysis and classification of forms of contradictions typical of narrative
fiction (illustrated with examples taken from a postmodern novel), (2) a comparative
study of contradictions in the realist, modernist and postmodern narrative conven-
tions, (3) a survey of the uses of (postmodern) contradictions and their contribu-
tion to art’s cognitive potential, conducted within the structuralist framework and
juxtaposed with deconstructionist practice and Derrida’s thought, (4) a collection of
case studies illustrating various meanings of postmodern narrative contradictions in
selected thematic contexts.
162— Critical approaches to postmodernism and postmodern contradictions – a review
5 .1. C l a s s i c a l studies of postmodernism
and postmodern contradictions
For David Lodge contradiction is one of the alternative principles of composition
(next to permutation, randomness and discontinuity) of the postmodern narrative,
comparable in this respect with metonymy in realism or metaphor in modernism.
This claim he illustrates with the final words of Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable:
“You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on” (as Lodge notes: “Each clause negates the
preceding one, as, throughout the text, the narrator oscillates between irreconcil-
able desires and assertions”); a sentence from Leonard Michaels’s short story: “It
is impossible to live with or without fictions,” and Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut,
featuring Bokononism (a fictional religion) based on “the heartbreaking necessity
of lying about reality and the heartbreaking impossibility of lying about it.” Lodge
also argues that “One of the most powerful emblems of contradiction, defying the
most fundamental binary system of all, is the hermaphrodite, and it is not surprising
that the characters of postmodernist fiction are often sexually ambivalent […],” as in
Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth and In Transit by Brigid Brophy (10-12).
Patricia Waugh – the metafictional contradiction
Patricia Waugh’s study of metafiction introduces the notion of contradiction in
the very definition of metafiction, i.e. art that exposes its own status of artefact
in order to examine the concepts of fiction and reality (2). Metafictional texts, in
other words, are structured around the conflict between art’s (traditional) endeav-
our to pass for real and art’s (postmodern) choice of self-disclosure. A conflict
is not a contradiction, but it may take this form. In particular, to simultaneously
present an artefact as quasi-real and explicitly artificial might threaten the principle
of non-contradiction.
The other potential source of contradiction inheres in the two concepts that
metafictional texts set out to problematize – fiction and reality – which have tra-
ditionally been interpreted as mutually exclusive. Waugh, however, cites Tzvetan
Todorov, who claims that the fantastic (the convention he investigates) questions
this mutually-exclusive interpretation of the concepts (qtd. in Waugh 108-09); in
Waugh’s opinion this applies to metafiction (109-11). Analyzing Doris Lessing’s The
Memoirs of the Survival, the scholar states: “What the novel does powerfully assert […]
163—
is a metafictional affirmation of the inadequacy of a mutually exclusive opposition
of the concepts ‘reality’ and ‘fiction’” (111). If so, if the concepts are not mutually
exclusive, then the contradiction ensuing when one item is classified as both real and
fictional, disappears.
The contradiction in metafiction, as presented by Waugh, does not entail a viola-
tion of the principle of non-contradiction in so far as the method of metafiction
is to alternate between the construction and deconstruction of the illusion: “The
alternation of frame and frame-break (or the construction of an illusion through
the imperceptibility of the frame and the shattering of illusion through the constant
exposure of the frame) provides the essential deconstructive method of metafiction”
(31).1 To violate the principle, one needs two mutually-exclusive ideas or proposi-
tions to be both together asserted as true. Even so, metafictional art may prompt
in readers a sense of contradiction between the artefact pretending to be real and
manifesting its own artificial construction. But there is more to it. The metafictional
method, given Waugh’s interpretation, offers on a deeper level an experience of
contradiction between the innovative world-view promoted by the metafictional
novel, which consists in perceiving social reality as by and large “fictional” (i.e.
artificially constructed, linguistic), and the traditional model of reality, which takes
social reality as given and natural.
Waugh recognizes various forms of contradiction, beginning with the classical
conjunction of a proposition and its negation: “Well, thought Belacqua, it’s a quick
death, God help us all. It is not,” taken from Samuel Beckett’s “Dante and the
Lobster” from More Pricks than Kicks (46). She speaks of overt contradiction also in the
case of the sentence: “Wooded but infertile are the most magnificent pastures” (73)
from See the Old Lady Decently by B. S. Johnson, though in strict logical terms there
is no contradiction here.2 Contradictions inherent within “paragraphs, sentences or
1   Cf. “Metafiction functions through the problematization rather than the de-
struction of the concept of ‘reality.’ It depends on the regular construction and
subversion of rules and systems. Such novels usually set up an internally con-
sistent ‘play’ world which ensures the reader’s absorption, and then lays bare its
rules in order to investigate the relation of ‘fiction’ to ‘reality,’ the concept of
‘pretence’” (40-41).
2   Interestingly, for Waugh, also certain notions contain contradictions: “femme
fatale,” she explains, combines the meanings of “apparent seductress” and actual
164— Critical approaches to postmodernism and postmodern contradictions – a review
even phrases,” which “foreground processes of linguistic selection” (140), may also
involve literalization of figurative expressions (as in Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing
in America), or “confusion of literal and allegorical worlds” (as in Darkness Visible by
William Golding; 140-41).
Waugh locates contradictions not only on “the micro-structural level” of sen-
tences and phrases mentioned above but also the “macro-structural level” of narra-
tive strategies (140). They may involve “worlds” that cannot be reconciled with each
other: “Authors enter texts and characters appear to step into the ‘real’ world of their
authors. Words self-consciously displayed as words appear to get up and walk off the
page to haunt the author or argue with the reader” (101-02; e.g. Slaughterhouse-Five by
Kurt Vonnegut, 127-29, 139); or stories which, though they mutually exclude each
other, are presented within one text as simultaneously true (e.g. Robert Coover’s
“The Baby-Sitter” or “The Magic Poker,” 138-39). Another kind of contradiction –
between the text and paratextual elements – is illustrated with Vladimir Nabokov’s
Pale Fire (139-40). Yet another – contradictory endings – is exemplified by Fowles’
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (140). Also paradox, defined as simultaneous mak-
ing and denying an assertion, is for Waugh a form of contradiction. This can take
the form of endless repetition, infinite regression, or circular structure (e.g. John
Barth’s Letters, Donald Barthelme’s “The Glass Mountain”; 141-43). Wherever they
appear, the postmodern (metafictional) contradictions (unlike realist or modernist
ones) have no resolution (see also Chapter Seven below). The main function of such
contradiction seems to be to draw the reader’s attention to the fictional status of the
text; at least this is the function Waugh often mentions (e.g. 45-46, 73).
Waugh speaks of contradiction also in a more abstract sense, for instance, when
discussing Beckett’s Watt: “The contradiction between, on the one hand, an abstract
methodology which constructs a ‘system’ and, on the other, the apparent concrete
illogical ‘reality’ of experience in the world […] is in fact irreconcilable. So Watt con-
structs his own system of ‘Kriks’ and ‘Kraks.’ Instead of trying to force correspond-
ence between his system and the world, he simply ignores the world” (45). Strictly
speaking, there is no contradiction here, only incompatibility. But on the whole,
“virgin” (see Waugh’s discussion of Sarah from The French Lieutenant’s Woman
126-27); nota bene a difference between appearance and reality is not really a
contradiction.
165—
Waugh’s study is most valuable in that she relates contradictions to metafictional
art and the problematic concepts of fiction and reality. It is also important that she
provides plenty of examples and tries to identify the basic forms that contradiction
can adopt.
Interestingly, in her later essay “Postmodernism” (2001), whose focus is culture,
not literature, Waugh does not mention artistic contradictions (the term performative
contradictions “of obsessively naming the unnameable” appears once with reference to
the effort of defining postmodernism, 290). Though she mentions the phenomenon
of “self-reflexivity in literature” (291) and how it might help discern various “orders
of fictionality” (296), Waugh suggests that the period when postmodernism was first of
all a term for a literary movement, characterized by self-consciousness, extensive use
of parody and irony, mixing high and low art and the like, came to an end in the early
80s. Postmodernism, she explains, “can be understood as a gradual encroachment
of the aesthetic into the spheres of philosophy, ethics and, most recently, science;
a gradual displacement of discovery, depth, truth, correspondence and coherence
with construction, surface, fictionality, self-reflexive narrative and ironic fragmenta-
tion: realism giving way to idealism and then to an all-pervasive textualism” (292).
Identifiable with more or less radical epistemic scepticism originating in the thought
of Nietzsche and Heidegger, postmodernism has considerable and risky impact on
contemporary theories of social and political life, as it undermines such concepts
as the self, knowledge, value, universal freedom and justice (“Postmodernism”).
Apparently, in this interpretation artistic contradictions lose their significance.
Brian McHale – the ontological contradiction
According to Brian McHale’s Postmodernist Fiction, the ontological dominant is the
distinctive feature of postmodernist fiction. Though the primary subject of such
fiction is the “unreality of reality” (221-22) also other themes, such as those of love
and death are prominent and interpreted in ontological terms. It is primarily in the
context of ontological issues foregrounded by various postmodern motifs and strate-
gies that McHale mentions contradictions in Postmodernist Fiction.3 In The Hothouse by
3   Introducing the postmodern convention, McHale cites Douwe Fokkema, who
places “logical impossibility” among “compositional and semantic conventions
of the period code of postmodernism” (qtd. in McHale 7).
166— Critical approaches to postmodernism and postmodern contradictions – a review
the East River by Muriel Spark, for example, there are people who are dead but realize
this slowly; in this way, as McHale explains, by means of the under-erasure strategy
the text tackles “death as the ultimate ontological boundary” (64-65).
Most directly concerned with contradictions is the section entitled “Excluded
middles” in the chapter “Worlds under erasure” (106-09). Explicating a quotation
from Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, in which Oedipa Maas calls excluded
middles “bad shit, to be avoided” (106), McHale writes, “She is lamenting the ab-
sence, in her world – as indeed in our world, according to conventional logics – of
any third alternative to the polarity of true and false, any mode of being between
existence and nonexistence.” But, as he notes, in some postmodern texts “events
apparently both do and do not happen” or “the same event happens in two irrecon-
cilably different ways” (106). He illustrates this technique with a passage taken from
John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”: “Naturally he didn’t have nerve enough to ask
Magda to go through the funhouse with him. With incredible nerve and to every-
one’s surprise he invited Magda, quietly and politely, to go through the funhouse
with him” (107). In this passage “bifurcating, mutually-exclusive possibilities are
jointly realized, juxtaposed […]” (107).4
Given McHale’s interpretation of metaphors, they too constitute an area where
contradictions feature prominently. Speaking of objects denoted literally by expres-
sions that are in the first place to be taken as metaphorical, McHale argues that they
“both exist and do not exist,” more precisely, they “are at one and the same time
present, in the sense that the reader may partially concretize (visualize, ‘realize’)
them, and absent, in the sense that they are excluded from the presented world,
‘denied existence’” (134). In postmodern texts, in which metaphors are introduced
so that the reader is uncertain whether the literal or figurative meaning or both are
relevant, this effect is amplified. The same applies to the postmodern use of allegory.
Though the simultaneous presence and absence implies contradiction, McHale does
not use the term in this context. He speaks, on the other hand, of contradictions in
the context of postmodern historical fiction. By violating constraints traditionally
put on the historical novel, above all the rule that neither facts concerning people,
4   This is one of the techniques of self-erasing fiction, next to, for example, the
loop strategy, in which a given incident both precedes and follows another
(McHale 108).
167—
events nor material culture that belong to “official history” nor laws of physics or
logic may be contradicted, postmodern writers (e.g. Rushdie in Midnight’s Children)
question both the official, orthodox version of specific past events, as well as the
convention of historical fiction and the notion of history (84-96).
It is important to note here that McHale distinguishes between various kinds of
irregularities. He speaks of mutually incompatible physical norms of two worlds in Cambio
de piel by Carlos Fuentes (16); of the violated (or transgressed) convention of the historical
novel in Robert Coover’s Public Burning (21, 89); of “incommensurable and mutu-
ally exclusive worlds” (44) in Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (43-44); of paradoxes
which arise when the author becomes a character in his/her own texts, as in Ronald
Sukenick’s Out, (205-06); of mutually exclusive endings in Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s
Woman (109-10); of paradoxes and “transgressions of the logic of narrative levels”
(metalepsis) in complex Chinese-box narratives (cf. Julio Cortàzar’s “Continuity of
Parks” 120; it is worth noting that the narrative levels correspond here, according to
McHale, to the ontological ones). Often, however, he speaks of contradictions sensu
stricto, e.g. in Fuentes’ Terra Nostra “familiar facts are tactlessly contradicted” (17), or
of self-contradictions, Coover’s Pricksongs, “The Magic Poker” and “The Elevator,”
for instance, are “self-contradictory or self-cancelling fictions” (20).
It is further worth noting that McHale repeatedly speaks of postmodern con-
tradictions violating the law of the excluded middle (not the principle of non-con-
tradiction). For example, when discussing Molloy by Samuel Beckett, McHale notes:
“There are difficulties with the structure of Beckett’s world, incipient internal con-
tradictions, threatened violations of the law of the excluded middle. In particular, it
appears that Moran both is and is not identical with Molloy – a blurring of identities
that tends to destabilize the projected world, and consequently to foreground its on-
tological structure” (12).5 Such references to the law of the excluded middle (“out of
two contradictory propositions one is true”) show that McHale speaks of contradic-
tions in the strict logical sense, for the law applies to sentences and their negations.
Though not directly related to contradictions as such, also McHale’s suggestion
that three logical modalities of classical logic – necessity, possibility and impossibility
5   Nota bene, in the case of Molloy, the reader can “recuperate […] internal contra-
dictions” with reference to the unreliable narrator, responsible for the logical
disorder; the novel exemplifies the modernist convention (McHale 12).
168— Critical approaches to postmodernism and postmodern contradictions – a review
– might help identify the status of fictional texts and fictional postmodern texts (33).
Though McHale first notes the common intuition that fictional texts are exempt
from the rules of logic and hence neither true nor false, he next points out that the
mode of necessity applies to statements about reality, and the mode of possibility to
fictional statements. In postmodern texts, however, we often deal with “characters
who are both dead and not dead” whose “world both exists and does not exist”
(34); we encounter “an anarchic landscape of worlds in the plural” (37). Apparently
postmodern fiction may operate in the mode of impossibility.6
Finally, McHale compares the method of postmodern writers to the method
of deconstructionists. However, noting the parallel between Derrida’s strategy of
placing some words “under erasure” (crossing them out in print) and the novelistic
practice of presenting an account of events, then declaring the account invalid and
offering a new version (as in Clarence Major’s Reflex and Bone Structure), McHale
emphasizes their different objectives: Derrida aims “to remind us that certain key
concepts in western metaphysics […] continue to be indispensable to philosophical
discourse even though that same discourse demonstrates their illegitimacy. They
both cannot be admitted, yet cannot be excluded […],” whereas in fiction the aim
is to expose “the processes by which readers, in collaboration with texts, construct
fictional objects and worlds” (100).7
Clearly, McHale connects contradictions present in postmodern fiction with its
ontological dominant (which corresponds to the questions of fiction and reality in
Waugh’s account), studies closely all the cases of simultaneous presence and absence,
and pays special attention to self-contradictory fictional worlds (i.e. ontological con-
tradictions in fiction). Though McHale’s use of the term contradiction is relatively
precise, a proper definition is missing.
6   McHale quotes in this context two opinions: Doležel’s, who accepts logical im-
possibility in fiction, and Eco’s, who “excludes logical impossibility from the
propositions that constitute worlds: every proposition must be either true or false
of a possible world, it cannot be both true and false. This is to say that possible
worlds, according to Eco, obey the law of the excluded middle” (33).
7   The two methods differ also in that in fiction these are “not signifiers of con-
cepts in a philosophical discourse, but presented objects in a projected world”
that are introduced only to be revoked (McHale 100).
169—
In his later book, Constructing Postmodernism (1992),8 McHale emphasizes on the
one hand the provisional, narrative and constructivist character of his theory of
postmodernism, and on the other the cultural diversity manifest in the phenomenon
of postmodernism (and postmodernist literature in particular). The book thus of-
fers “not a construction of postmodernism but a plurality of constructions” (3). In
practice this means that instead of offering a systematic presentation of the poetics
of postmodernism construed as ontologically-oriented as in Postmodernist Fiction, the
book consists of essays presenting often highly technical analyses of issues such as
the prominence of TV in the postmodern novel in general and Thomas Pynchon’s
Vineland in particular or the postmodern counter-paranoid reading practice recom-
mended by Eco in Foucault’s Pendulum. Though McHale devotes some attention to
alternative theories of postmodernism, such as those offered by Charles Jencks or
Alan Wilde, on the whole he remains faithful to his own 1987 theory,9 and it is in
terms of this theory that he approaches contradictions inherent in the convention,
without however devoting much attention to the subject.
Linda Hutcheon – the deconstruction/
self-subversion contradiction
Analyzing postmodernism, both theory and art, Linda Hutcheon finds that it essen-
tially self-contradictory: “[…] I would argue not only that postmodernism […] retains
its own contradictions, but also that it foregrounds them to such an extent that they
become the very defining characteristics of the entire cultural phenomenon we label
with that name” (43). Consistently, she quotes Charles Newman’s interpretation of
post-modern as “a dash surrounded by a contradiction” (qtd. in Hutcheon 37). In Poetics
of Postmodernism Hutcheon claims that this self-contradictoriness has various forms.
8   Though the book was published in 1992 (five years after Postmodernist Fiction) it is
important to note that almost all the chapters (except for chapters 7 and 9) had
been previously published as essays or book reviews, one dating as early as 1979,
the majority coming from the late 80s and early 90s.
9   Closing his discussion of Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum, however, McHale suggests
that recognition of the reality of the actual world might be the postmodern
gesture par excellence, and admits that at this point he departs from his original
reading of the ontological dominant of postmodern fiction – the reading along
which this fiction is concerned above all with “world-making and-unmaking”
(187).
170— Critical approaches to postmodernism and postmodern contradictions – a review
One of the most basic is the conjunction of “aesthetic autonomy and self-reflexivity”
with “grounding in the historical, social, and political world” (ix). Hutcheon calls
this dual – self-referential and context-oriented – attitude a contradiction and a paradox
(ix, xiii). Another contradiction inheres in the postmodern “dependence on and
independence from that which temporally preceded it and which literally made it
possible,” i.e. modernism (18). Yet another can be found in the postmodern con-
testation of the contemporary world, discourse and ideological systems, of which
postmodernism is a part: “Wilfully contradictory […] postmodern culture uses and
abuses the conventions of discourse. It knows it cannot escape implication in the
economic (late capitalist) and ideological (liberal humanist) dominants of its time.
There is no outside. All it can do is question from within” (xiii).
This last contradiction translates into the contradictory practice of postmod-
ernism, which “uses and abuses, installs and then subverts, the very concepts it
challenges” (3).10 Postmodernism adopts and deconstructs notions and principles
such as self, identity, human nature, reality, history, language and its relation to
reality, representation (realism included), truth, reason, authority, control, order, the
aesthetic (as uncontaminated by the political), moral values, as well as all kinds
of social institutions and practices, science included. By revealing the contradic-
tions which they contain and to which they give rise when contextualized (e.g. by
acknowledging the single self and then exposing its actual plurality, or by assuming
and then undermining the difference between history and fiction), postmodern-
ism reveals that these notions, practices and institutions are provisional, local and
temporary, discursive and devoid of meaning other than that given them by people.
Like McHale, Hutcheon notes that the postmodern method seems to resemble the
method of Derrida: critique of certain notions, related in the first place to liberal
humanism and “capitalist mass culture” and perceived as widely accepted miscon-
ceptions, by exposing their contradictory character.
10  Referring to Ihab Hassan’s list of features which characterize modernism and
postmodernism, Hutcheon argues that the list sums up “the unresolvable con-
tradictions within postmodernism,” which is “play with purpose” as well as “the
process of making the product; it is absence within presence, it is dispersal that needs
centering in order to be dispersal; it is the ideolect that wants to be, but knows it can-
not be, the master code; it is immanence denying yet yearning for transcendence” (49).
171—
In literature, it is historiographic metafiction whose combination of the self-
referential autonomy of art with history conceived of as the true account of the past,
both installed and subverted, best embodies the postmodernist attitude.11 D. H.
Thomas’s The White Hotel, for example, installs and subverts the humanistic ideol-
ogy of the subject: free, autonomous, coherent, continuous, individual, modelled on
white, heterosexual, middle-class man. This ideology is contested by various narra-
tive strategies (such as multiple points of view or intertextual inserts) and the story
itself (the protagonist’s affliction is not a result of her traumatic individual past but
of the collective, Jewish, future). The novel “disturbs and disperses the notion of
the individual, coherent subject and its relation to history, to social formation, and
even to its own unconscious” (166); this “dispersion becomes the objective correla-
tive of the decentering of the female (as well as male) subject and of history” (166).
Lisa, the protagonist, turns out to be “the ‘read’ subject of her own and of others’
interpretations and inscriptions of her” (161). The novel does not deny, it prob-
lematizes the notion of the subject: “The subject is both a coherent, unified whole
and a contradictory, dispersed multiplicity” (175). This position is imposed on the
reader, as the novel’s strategies “prevent the reader from finding or taking any one
subject position from which to make the novel coherent. Asked to confront and not
evade contradictions, the reader cannot but feel ill at ease and disturbed. As spoken
subject s/he finds no anchor in discourse for her/his own (gendered) subjectivity
through identification” (169; cf. ch. 10 in which the novel is discussed in detail).
Hutcheon also discusses architecture, dance, music and visual arts in similar terms.
Typical methods of postmodern art include (combinations of) parody, explicit con-
tradiction, paradox, exposure of artistic conventions, ironic intertexts. In fiction this
means first of all using and abusing realist and modernist narrative strategies.
As can be seen, some contradictions appear to constitute postmodernism (au-
toreferentiality and contextualization; critique of the culture and discourse in which
postmodernism is implicated; the method which consists in using and abusing
the same elements); other contradictions, which postmodernism strives to detect,
11  Cf. “Historiographic metafiction […] keeps distinct its formal auto-representa-
tion and its historical context, and in so doing problematizes the very possibility
of historical knowledge, because there is no reconciliation, no dialectic here –
just unresolved contradiction […]” (106, cf. also 224).
172— Critical approaches to postmodernism and postmodern contradictions – a review
seem to be part of various (historical, political, cultural, etc.) aspects of social life.
Contradictions of either kind (postmodernism does not recognize the division into
itself and external reality, art and life) should be recognized but not resolved. On
the contrary: “this deliberate refusal to resolve contradictions is a contesting of what
Lyotard […] calls the totalizing master narratives of our culture, those systems by
which we usually unify and order (and smooth over) any contradictions in order to
make them fit” (x). Though their presence may upset and disappoint, postmodern
contradictions are valuable: they mark advanced self-awareness and self-criticism,
secure social space for plurality and hybridity, generate energy and initiate change,
by creating conducive conditions (cf. 218). Not that the ideology of liberal human-
ism is unattractive or perceived as such. Postmodern art “enshrines” (191) what it
contests in an act of interrogation. As Hutcheon puts it, the “postmodernist subject
lives […] in full knowledge both of the power of and desire for those humanist mas-
ter narratives and also of their impossibility, except as they are acknowledged to be
necessary (if illusory) consolations” (191, cf. 6). A sense of loss seems perceptible in
the author’s voice, though elsewhere she emphasizes the element of political implica-
tion and artificiality of the interrogated values (cf. 203).
Apparently, most of the time by contradiction Hutcheon means contrast, oppo-
sition, incompatibility (of notions, interpretations, aims, projects or forces). She
understands contradictions in a very Hegelian way (ontologically and dynamically,
though the moment of synthesis might be missing), not in a logical, Aristotelian
way.12 Affirming so as to subvert may seem irrational; combining metafictional self-
awareness with deep engagement in (textualized) reality has not been usual in the
previous epochs; critical examination of reality of which one is a part may seem
self-defeating, but strictly speaking none of these practices is logically contradic-
tory (except for the situation when some utterance offers self-critique as regards its
own truth value, which indeed leads to paradoxes13). As regards the contradictions
12  Cf. the following description of postmodern contradictions: they “reject any
neat binary opposition that might conceal a secret hierarchy of values. The ele-
ments of these contradictions are usually multiple; the focus is on differences,
not single otherness […]” (43).
13  Hutcheon seems to assume that this applies to all postmodern cognitive effort:
“It is more a questioning of commonly accepted values of our culture (closure,
teleology, and subjectivity), a questioning that is totally dependent upon that
173—
generated by interpreting one and the same item as part of history and fiction, centre
and periphery, the past and the present, life and art, and the like, they disappear the
moment the relevant realms are not perceived as opposites (in accordance with the
liberal humanist fashion), but taken as dependent on each other (as recommended by
postmodernists). This indeed might be among the chief achievements of postmod-
ernism: demonstrating the problematic (constructed) character of certain notions
(e.g. the self) and distinctions (e.g. reality vs. fiction). Contradictory statements may
help us to perceive some simplifications (also false beliefs) commonly adopted in so-
cial life whether for the sake of convenience, out of habit, or in the interests of those
who hold power. When the notions and distinctions are perceived as problematic
or illusory, contradictions are neutralized (e.g. if history and fiction are perceived as
mutually exclusive, to say that a given work exemplifies both kinds of discourse is
to utter a contradiction, but the contradiction disappears for a postmodernist who
recognizes an unavoidable element of fiction in history, and the historical grounding
of fiction – history and fiction being two signifying systems with limited claims to
either truth or autonomy from life, cf. 93, 112).
Though Hutcheon repeatedly denies the presence of dialectic in postmodernism
(cf. e.g. x, 106, 209), and though the element of synthesis seems on the whole missing
from her study, the dynamic (processual) element is clearly there, which she herself
admits: “there is no such thing as a postmodern dialectic in the sense of a ‘continual
unification of opposites, in the complex relation of parts to a whole’ (R. Williams
[…]), though there is indeed a sense of a doubled and active struggle of contraries
(Coward and Ellis […])” (213). Apparently the element of resolution is missing in
the name of truth: “The postmodern view is that contradictions are inevitable and,
indeed, the condition of social as well as cultural experience. To smooth them over
would be bad faith, even if it would also be our normal reaction within a humanist
context” (227). But there is also another reason – postmodernism tries to avoid the
trap of totalization.
Though most of the time Hutcheon finds perfect correspondence between post-
modern art and theory, when analyzing postmodernism in the light of the theories
which it interrogates. This is perhaps the most basic formulation possible of the
paradox of the postmodern” (42). However, the legitimacy of such an approach
seems doubtful.
174— Critical approaches to postmodernism and postmodern contradictions – a review
of Hayden White, Michel Foucault, Emile Benveniste, Teresa de Lauretis, Jacques
Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and many other postmodern authors, she notes one im-
portant difference. The theories fall into the trap of totalization when explaining
reality: “One could argue that class is to Marxism what gender is to feminism, power
to Foucault, writing to Derrida, the Name of the Father to Lacan: that is, despite the
anti-totalizing aim of all of these decentered (postmodern) theories, there is still an
essentializing center around which totalities can be constructed” (214). Ironically,
this makes the above theories self-contradictory (though in a different way than
that characterizing postmodern art): “In the light of postmodern art, I have argued
that what we might label postmodern theory would be inherently self-contradictory:
what I earlier called those Foucaldian totalizing negations of totalization and es-
sentializations of the inessentializable (power) or those Lyotardian master narratives
about our loss of faith in master narratives” (228-29). Postmodern art, according to
Hutcheon, manages to avoid the mistake, by accepting contradictions. To resolve
them would mean to totalize (215).
Hutcheon’s approach, when contrasted with Waugh’s or McHale’s, is much more
abstract (it concerns aesthetic theory rather than artefacts) and much less precise
(most of the time she speaks of opposing tendencies, contrastive features, ambi-
guities, conflicts of loyalties). What seems most valuable as regards the contradic-
tions of postmodern fiction is Hutcheon’s analysis of the technique of contradic-
tory presentation of the basic notions of liberal humanism, employed as a means of
their critique. Also noteworthy is Hutcheon’s claim that postmodernism cherishes
contradictions.
***
To sum up, though Waugh and McHale do not explicitly introduce definitions of
contradiction, their examples show that they adopt the logical definition, though
especially for Waugh in some cases the statements involved are mutually exclu-
sive (rather than being a statement conjoined with its negation), and – for both
Waugh and McHale – often they are not stated verbally, but expressed by means of
form. Hutcheon’s understanding of contradiction is much closer to the Hegelian
strife of opposing forces (such as the use and abuse of certain concepts and
forms), with the moment of synthesis (or resolution) missing. None of the authors
tries to classify contradictions but they identify what they consider to be the key
175—
postmodernist contradiction – the metafictional contradiction (Waugh), the ontological
contradiction (McHale), the deconstruction/self-subversion contradiction (Hutcheon) – though
they do not use these names. For Waugh and Hutcheon, the most important con-
tradiction is that between the real and the fictional/illusory status of an object; for
McHale the contradiction between presence and absence, affirmation and denial of
an object’s reality. Waugh notes also certain types of contradictions (resolvable and
irresolvable; operating on micro- and macrostructures). Hutcheon’s analysis goes
beyond individual works of art to focus on postmodernism, which itself entails
contradictions, whose chosen practice is, as she claims, “contradictory.” The texts
contain multiple examples of contradictions (such as mutually exclusive worlds,
story-lines, or endings; paradoxes resulting from transgressed narrative levels, i.e.
metalepsis; contradictions between the text and paratexts, or the text and a well-
established literary convention) that can rarely be found outside the postmodern
convention.
Most importantly, all three authors recognize the cognitive value of contradic-
tions they find in postmodern fiction. Contradictions help the recipients recognize
the uncertain status of their environment (works of art, fictional storyworlds, social
reality, basic notions such as the self or history) and the extent to which these might
be constructed, linguistic and provisional. Since a change in the conceptual system
sometimes resolves contradictions, they may be said to initiate such changes. Also,
contradictions encourage people to think critically, accept reality in its diverse forms
(instead of reducing reality to categories that can be easily handled but which mis-
construe it), and examine original modes of experiencing and understanding life.
5.2 Recent accounts of postmodernism
and postmodern contradictions
In his essay, “Postmodernism and Literature,” included in The Routledge Companion
to Postmodernism (1998), Barry Lewis recommends Waugh’s Metafiction and McHale’s
Postmodernist Fiction as “the most useful guides” to postmodern literature (the third
book he recommends is Larry McCaffery’s Postmodern Fiction, published in 1986,
122). Although Lewis does not mention contradiction among traits typical of the
postmodern convention some traits he does mention come close to it since they con-
cern logical errors; this applies especially to “vicious circles, or a loss of distinction
176— Critical approaches to postmodernism and postmodern contradictions – a review
between logically separate levels of discourse” (123). By “vicious circles“ Lewis
understand situations in which “both text and world are permeable, to the extent
that we cannot separate one from the other” (131). As he explains, “The literal and
the metaphorical merge when the following occur: short circuits (when the author
steps into the text) and double binds (when real-life historical figures appear in fic-
tions)” (131). Discussing the double binds, Lewis refers on the one hand to mental
disorders that consistently contradictory messages may cause, and on the other to
the frequent glaring contradictions between the publicly accepted knowledge of
the past and postmodern fiction featuring historical characters. He then combines
the two phenomena and speaks of the “derangement of postmodernist writing”
(132). Poststructuralist thinkers, such as Jean-François Lyotard, Gilles Deleuze,
Félix Guattari and Fredric Jameson, speak of schizophrenia as the condition of the
postmodern society. This helps understand the connection between disorder and
postmodern poetics: “Temporal disorder, involuntary impersonation of other voices
(or pastiche), fragmentation, looseness of association, paranoia and the creation of
vicious circles are symptoms of the language disorders of schizophrenia as well as
features of postmodernist fiction.” After World War II, the disoriented and disen-
chanted postmodern authors, as Lewis puts it, “delighted in delirium” (133). This
view of postmodern fiction, though explicitly not making much use of the notion
of contradiction, can help account for its presence: the confused mind of a schizo-
phrenic, also when the affliction is symbolic, may well ignore the rules of logic.
In a more recent discussion of postmodernist literature included in The Cambridge
Companion to Postmodernism (2004), Steven Connor speaks of both Hutcheon’s Poetics
of Postmodernism and McHale’s Postmodernist Fiction as the “most influential books on
literary postmodernism” (“Postmodernism and Literature” 62).14 But from his own
discussion of the convention – admittedly concise – the notion of contradiction is
missing, both in the context of literature and culture (Introduction, “Postmodernism
and Literature”). Lyotard’s idea that postmodernism, respecting the unrepresent-
ability of contemporary life experience, refused to falsify it by imposing on it neat
14  Connor relates the prominence of narrative fiction in literary postmodernism
(both in literature and its theoretical models) to the postmodern recognition of
the temporal and vocal dimension of literary art, as opposed to the modernist
interest in space and sight (“Postmodernism and Literature” 62-64).
177—
artistic forms, and that consequently the relation between the postmodern work
and reality is one of “incommensurability” (qtd. in “Postmodernism and Literature”
67) seem crucial in Connor’s own view of postmodernism. For him, postmodern
art is very much concerned with scale and proportion, as well as affirming disorder
and plenitude taken as states of the world made of words (“Postmodernism and
Literature”).
Also Bran Nicol, in his recent handbook of postmodern fiction, The Cambridge
Introduction to Postmodern Fiction (2009), devotes plenty of space to the theories of post-
modern fiction put forward by McHale, Hutcheon and Waugh (cf. esp. 30-39; 99-
105). He regards both McHale and Hutcheon as “the two theorists who have made
the most enduring impact on theories of postmodernism in fiction” (31), and with
reference to Waugh, states that she “demonstrated most persuasively” that metafic-
tion “is the most distinctive formal practice employed by postmodern writers” (30-
31). The theories of the three scholars underlie Nicol’s discussions of postmodern
novels. Nicol’s own interpretation of the convention focuses on its combining (1)
the narratives’ exposure of their artefactual character, (2) their opposition to real-
ism, above all, their rejection of any naive referentiality of language and narrative,
and (3) their strategy of directing the reader’s attention to the process of reading and
interpreting (xvi). Indeed it is the postmodern reader’s self-awareness and cognitive
activity prompted by the artefact (often overloaded with information) that comes
into the foreground in Nicol’s analyses of specific authors and their works. Nicol’s
approach does not shed new light on the phenomenon of contradiction, though he
notes every now and then both contradictions and inconsistencies in postmodern
texts, affirms that “one of the definitive aspects of postmodernism is its contradic-
tory nature” (139), and, predictably, recognizes contradictions located in the reader’s
position (cf. his discussion of Swift’s Waterland: “Right away this device [the nar-
rator is a history teacher addressing his class] positions the reader of the novel in
a typically contradictory way: it makes it a highly didactic, rhetorical piece of text,
as the reader becomes one of the listening schoolchildren with no other option
than to follow his or her authoritative teacher. At the same time, the way the novel
gathers together a wide range of individual narrative strands within the teacher’s
larger discourse places the emphasis on the reader to determine the meaning of the
relationship between them,” 112).
178— Critical approaches to postmodernism and postmodern contradictions – a review

***
The recent works of Lewis, Connor and Nicol do not significantly develop the in-
quiry into postmodern contradictions, except for relating them to mental disorders
(an affliction of the postmodern mind) and the reader’s experience. But even if
explicite they do not proclaim the importance of postmodern contradictions, from
their unreserved recognition of the value of the studies of Waugh, McHale and
Hutcheon, it seems to follow that implicite they share the classical authors’ view on
the matter.
 Chapter Six
Contradictions in n a r r a t iv e fiction
– House of Leaves
by Mark Z. Danielewski

Many kinds of artistic contradictions have already been discussed in Chapter Three:
internal and external; nonfictional, fictional (logical, psychological, ontological quasi-
contradictions) and metafictional; apparently or truly violating the non-contradiction
principle, or not violating it at all; resolvable and unresolvable, and the like. The
purpose of the following analysis is to focus on the categories of contradictions most
relevant to narrative fiction, though most of them can also be found elsewhere. The
chapter offers a typology of such contradictions based on the three ways of convey-
ing ideas that art has at its disposal. The typology will provide more refined analytical
tools for the subsequent comparison of the three conventions and provide a nar-
ratological focus to the study. Nor will the postmodern convention be forgotten as
the discussion will be illustrated with examples taken from a postmodern novel. The
choice is not random, for a realist or modernist novel could hardly serve the purpose.
The typology is preceded by a brief survey of categories of narrative contradic-
tions which have already been identified by narratologists and by an attempt to
reconstruct the categories of literary contradictions implicit in Peter Barry’s analysis
of the method of deconstructive criticism. At the end of the chapter, some attention
is given to the placement of contradictions in the structure of narrative works. The
model of narrative structure adopted for this purpose is that presented in Narrative
Fiction by Rimmon-Kenan, with some modifications introduced by Patrick O’Neill
in Fictions of Discourse (the model is discussed in greater detail in Chapter Seven).
Two kinds of contradictions identifiable with reference to their thematic function –
metafictional and sceptical – are also briefly mentioned.
Almost all the above kinds of contradiction are illustrated with examples taken
from House of Leaves, which is why a short synopsis of Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel
180— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk
comes before the discussion proper. House of Leaves has been selected for the study
because the novel is postmodern, famous for its contradictions (well exemplified in
the house of the title on Ash Tree Lane, whose interior dimension is greater than the
exterior one), and concerned both with the themes of human irrationality and the
condition of contemporary scholarship (both of which seem pertinent to the subject
of contradiction). Interestingly, though House of Leaves is first of all an instance of
verbal art, it incorporates significant elements of typography and other visual arts.
Since the present chapter is concerned with technicalities, the question of whether a
coherent interpretation of this novel can be found is postponed till Chapter Eight,
where also the general issue of the impact of artistic contradictions on art’s intel-
ligibility is discussed at some length.
The following brief account of the book exemplifies some of the contradictions
of which it consists. The story begins when John Truant, the top-most narrator,
visits the flat of a recently deceased man, Zampanò. Among the man’s belongings,
he finds piles of notes which, put together, amount to an academic monograph on
documentary films by Will Navidson. This is odd since Zampanò could not have
watched the films, having been blind when they first allegedly began to circulate.1
Odder still, the films, Truant argues, do not really exist (House of Leaves xix–xx).
Irrespective of their uncertain status, the films were originally meant to document
the happy family life of Will, his partner, Karen Green, and their children, Chad and
Daisy. However, after it transpires that their new house is bigger on the inside than
the outside and hides a void, the films record perilous expeditions into the empty
space. Zampanò’s account of the films is annotated with Truant’s footnotes telling
the story of his own life. His past entails many tragic events: his insane mother’s
attempt to maim him and strangle him when he was a small boy, his father’s death
in a car accident, the brutal bullying and beating he experienced at the hands of
Raymund, his foster-father, an ex-marine, and his loss at sea of a Haitan friend-to-
be when working for a canning factory in Alaska. Truant’s present life involves an
apprenticeship in a tattoo shop, multiple erotic experiences but no intimate relation-
ships, a sense of alienation, fits of panic, considerable dependence on drugs and
alcohol, and finally, an obsession with Zampanò’s book and Navidson’s films.
1   As reported by Truant (House of Leaves xxi) and confirmed by Zampanò in his
correspondence dating from 1978 (House of Leaves, Appendix D, 554).
181—
6 . 1 N a r r a t iv e contradictions – some
categories and distinctions
For some time now narrative contradictions have been subjected to critical inquiry.
Various narrative contexts in which contradictions become prominent (irony, nar-
rative unreliability, construction of fictional reality) and categories of narrative
contradictions (e.g. infinite regression, circular structure, narrative loops, short circuits and
denarration) have been identified by authors discussed in Chapter One and Chapter
Five. Some relevant distinctions have also been introduced. Waugh, for example,
differentiates between contradictions located in the novel’s micro- and macrostruc-
ture (Metafiction 137-41). The two kinds might be illustrated, respectively, with the
passage in which Truant describes his uncanny experience in the tattoo-parlour
storeroom – “Impossible. / Not impossible,” or “This is what it feels like to be
really afraid. Though of course it doesn’t” (70-71) – and Truant’s reference to the
book’s page number, of which he should be unaware, being a quasi-commentator on
Zampanò’s notes, not the book’s editor (note 68, 57). Unnatural narratology in turn
has put forward the three categories of unnatural storyworlds, unnatural minds and
unnatural acts of narration, which seem roughly translatable into contradictory sto-
ryworlds, contradictory minds and contradictory acts of narration. In House of Leaves,
the world of the Navidsons and especially their house, whose space can rearrange
itself at will, might exemplify the contradictory (and hence unnatural) storyworld;
the mind of Zampanò, which with no access to visual information is capable of ana-
lyzing the visual aspects of films,2 is an instance of a contradictory (hence unnatural)
mind; finally, Pelafina’s letters, with their intricate artistically typed graphic form,
supposedly written in a mental institution, where often she was in very bad condi-
tion and presumably had no access to a typewriter, let alone a computer with a good
graphics editor, might represent a contradictory (hence unnatural) act of narration.3
2   Cf. for example, the following passage: “It is a beautiful shot. In fact, the com-
position and elegant balance of colours, not to mention the lush contrast of
lights and darks, are so exquisite they temporarily distract us from any questions
concerning the house or events unfolding there” (29).
3   Larry McCaffery comments on this element of the book, suggesting that its
purpose is to make the recipient aware of the issue of authenticity (qtd. in
Danielewski, Interview 120, cf. also 133). If one accepts Danielewski’s explana-
tion – he suggests that Pelafina’s letters as regards their form must have been
182— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk
But though many important forms and kinds of narrative contradictions have been
identified, apparently no attempt has been made to classify them.
One such classification, or typology to be precise, of literary contradictions
might, however, be derived from Barry’s analysis of deconstructionist practice.
Barry distinguishes “three stages of the deconstructive process,” each concerned
with specific kinds of contradictions, as well as omissions, paradoxes and inconsist-
encies. The stages are called verbal, textual and linguistic (74-79). It seems possible to
deduce from his analysis three basic types of contradictions which the oppositional
reading aims to detect. Though all Barry’s examples refer to poetry, the categories
he names seem applicable to narrative fiction and might perhaps by called literary
contradictions. Modifying their application, I retain Barry’s labels and illustrate each
category with examples taken from Danielewski’s novel.
The most obvious literary contradictions implied in the deconstructionist prac-
tice are verbal paradoxes/contradictions. To cite Barry’s description, they are “paradoxes
and contradictions, at what might be called the purely verbal level” (74).4 This cat-
egory covers first of all (fictional) phrases, such as “unheimlich” “house” (House of
Leaves 28, 364; “heimlich” in German means “homely”), and (fictional) statements,
such as the frequent combinations of affirmative and negative sentences: “[…] I only
coughed. I didn’t cough” (House of Leaves 43), or the more ambiguous expression
“nothing’s all” (to which Truant draws the reader’s attention, saying that though
meaningless, it pleases him; House of Leaves xiv). In the same category of contradic-
tions one might presumably place contradictions which involve elements of fictional
reality but which are at the same time clearly manifest in the novel’s verbal layer.
Relevant examples from Danielewski’s novel include the quarter inch difference in
the external and internal dimensions of the house; a blind man, Zampanò, who acts
altered by someone and only then reproduced (Interview 120) – there is in fact
no unnatural act of narration involved here, but the apparent unnaturalness
(contradictoriness) of the scene arrests the reader’s attention.
4   Discussing the verbal stage of deconstructionist practice, Barry mentions also
the literary strategy whereby elements which constitute binary oppositions may
be rearranged in the text so that the element that is normally considered inferior
is given priority; as a result the world represented in the text appears to be at
odds with the real world. This literary strategy also comes under deconstruc-
tionist scrutiny (74-75).
183—
as an expert on films he could not have seen; and the hallway which is inside the
house but apparently does not exist when the house is approached from the outside,
and is registered in The Five and a Half Minute Hallway documentary (apart from its
simultaneous presence and absence, one and the same hallway is supposed to be in
the west and the north walls of the house, House of Leaves 4, 57). Danielewski’s book
provides also examples of verbal contradictions located in the (fictional) critical
discourse on the fictional reality presented in the book. The disagreement between
Keillor Ross and Zampanò as regards the ironic vs. non-ironic use of the word out-
post by Navidson when describing his house (House of Leaves 23) is a case in point. So
is the contradictory information concerning the source of a quotation from Genesis
offered by Zampanò, Truant and the editors (252). The conflicting information
about Zampanò’s article concerning the maze guarded by the Minotaur might serve
as yet another example. According to Zampanò’s notes, the article is supposed to be
titled both “Birth Defects in Knossos” (published in the Sonny Won’t Wait Flyer
in Santa Cruz in 1968) and “Violent Prejudice in Knossos” (published in the Sonny
Will Wait Flyer in Santa Cruz in 1969). Truant spots this contradiction: “I’ve no idea
why these titles and cited sources are different. It seems much too deliberate to be
an error […]” (110-11).5 Please note that the subdivision within the category of verbal
contradictions introduced here is meant to highlight the variety of items covered by
the single category; the subdivision is missing from Barry’s discussion.
The next category of contradictions that can be reconstructed from Barry’s
discussion of deconstruction might be called (2) textual paradoxes/contradictions. They
operate on “the text as a whole” and consist in “shifts or breaks in the continuity”
which may involve an inconsistency in “time, or tone, or point of view, or attitude,
or pace, or vocabulary.” The category also covers omissions: “when a text doesn’t
tell us things we would expect to be told” (Barry 75). The shift from third- into
first-person narration in Truant’s account of his father’s accident (House of Leaves
37) might serve as one example. Truant’s decision to speak of himself in the third
person, when telling about his father’s death, implies a denial, possibly dictated by a
need to protect himself against pain: using the first-person narration he admits that
the experience is his own but switching into the third-person narration he implies
5   Cf. the discussion of this contradiction in Hayles (797-98).
184— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk
that it happened to someone else. The following description of a trunk also exempli-
fies this category of contradiction: “a black, unremarkable, paint spattered trunk,
which as I quickly found out was one of those old cedar lined jobbers […] complete
with rusted latches, rotting leather handles and a lifetime of digressions and disap-
pointments” (House of Leaves 20). The description of the trunk changes abruptly from
literal to figurative (admittedly, content-wise the two descriptions do not mutually
exclude each other, though their modes, literary and figurative, are usually kept
apart). Textual contradictions might also be detected in the novel’s structure. There
are three narrators in the book – Zampanò, Truant and Navidson (who narrates by
means of documentary films) – and two main stories: Navidson’s and Truant’s. The
reader does not know which is the real story: it appears that the story of Navidson
might be invented by Truant and thus, within the novel, enjoy the status of fiction,
but this is never clearly stated (cf. omissions). Additionally, Truant’s story, possibly
the main story of the novel, is placed in footnotes, which normally do not contain
information of primary significance. Last but not least, the category of textual con-
tradictions might perhaps be illustrated with cases of so-called erasure (a strategy
in which a fragment of fictional reality is first created and then cancelled) as in the
passage telling of Truant’s friends in Seattle, who help him regain sanity: Truant
first presents this episode, then, two pages later declares it fictitious, invented by
him allegedly to cheat himself (House of Leaves 507-09). Needless to say, many of the
above examples illustrating textual contradictions do not qualify as colloquially (let
alone logically) defined contradictions.
The third and final category of literary contradictions that seem implied in
Barry’s study is that of linguistic contradictions. These are “moments […] when the ad-
equacy of language itself as a medium of communication is called into question,” for
instance, “saying that something is unsayable; or saying that it is impossible to utter or
describe something and then doing so; or saying that language inflates, or deflates, or
misrepresents its objects, and then continuing to use it anyway” (Barry 75-76). This
kind of contradiction might perhaps be found in the suggestive, though inconclu-
sive, words of Zampanò: “Incomplete. Syllables to describe a life. Any life” (House of
Leaves 545). The crossed-out passages, e.g.: “Or in other words: shy from the sky. No
answer lies there. It cannot care, especially for what it no longer knows. Treat that
place as a thing unto itself, independent of all else, and confront it on those terms.
185—
You alone must find the way. No one else can help you. Every way is different. And if
you do lose yourself at least take solace in the absolute certainty that you will perish”
(House of Leaves 115; in the book this and similar passages are almost always printed
in red and crossed out in black), might perhaps qualify as a linguistic contradiction
in a performative mode, with linguistic scepticism inscribed in the act of crossing
out. One might also consider the possibility of linguistic contradiction being ex-
pressed in the novel by analogy in the passages denouncing digitalized documentary
photography as untrustworthy because easy to manipulate (House of Leaves 3, the very
first paragraph of Chapter 1; 141-45). Although the passages concern photography, a
fortiori the objections raised against this medium, once considered the most reliable,
apply to literature. Admittedly, in the book the opposite conclusion is drawn: the
possible deception of photography is supposed to rehabilitate the word, “Truth will
once again revert to the shady territories of the word and the humanity’s ability to
judge its peculiar modalities” (House of Leaves 145). But this opinion need not prevent
the reader from formulating a common-sensical conclusion that all representations
of reality might be subjected to manipulation.
Barry closes his presentation with the category of aporia: a self-contradiction
which defies logical analysis, highly popular with deconstructionists (78-79). Even
though the categories named by Barry do not originally pertain to contradictions in
narrative works, they are quite useful and easy to apply in this context. However, the
criteria according to which the categories are differentiated as well as the categories
themselves, though grounded in the deconstructionist practice, seem in some de-
gree arbitrary, and might miss some kinds of narrative contradictions. Conversely,
designed to describe deconstructionist practice, the categories are not limited to
contradictions, and mix them with other kinds of artistic incoherence (many textual
inconsistencies in focalization or tone do not involve the relation of semantic mutual
exclusion). It might therefore be advisable to order narrative contradictions in a
more systematic way. One way of doing so is with reference to the means of convey-
ing ideas available to narrative fiction (nota bene this typology will apply to all kinds
of art which are representational and use language).
186— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk 187—

6.2 A typology of n a r r a t iv e contradictions based fictionality may be found in nonfiction narratives, while works of fiction may entail
on a rt’s three modes of expressing ideas facts taken from the real world, and that there are texts whose status (fiction vs.
nonfiction) is ambiguous, as they either do not exhibit clear signs of either mode (as
Kinds of art and their a bi l i t y to express ideas in James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces) or, conversely, exhibit signs of them both (as in
The three main modes of communicating meaning in art are: (1) form (formal ex- Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis) (Nielsen 282, 284-92).
pression of ideas) − a mode of expression typical of all art; (2) the artefact modelling Another useful distinction concerns the category of verbal art, within which
reality – the mode available to representational art; and (3) language – the mode of one may differentiate art that uses words in a discursive way (i.e. art that is capable of
verbal art (cf. Chapter Two). Accordingly, it is possible to distinguish the following formulating propositions and indicating logical relations between them) and art that
basic categories of art: representational and non-representational, verbal and non- uses words in a non-discursive way (neither propositions nor logical relations be-
verbal. One might wish, by analogy, to introduce one more division – into formal tween them can be formulated there). Indeed, it seems that these are the categories
and non-formal art, but if form is art’s basic mode of exploration/communication, of the discursive vs. non-discursive use of language that are really important, non-
the category of non-formal art (art that makes no use of form when communicating discursive verbal art being in terms of its ability to convey complex ideas basically
ideas) remains empty. If one adopts Gutowski’s broad view of artistic representation similar to non-verbal art. All these distinctions are recognized in the table below.
(cf. Chapter Two), then the category of non-representational art might also remain
Representational Non-representational (?)
empty. In the diagram below, the category has been retained because it is still rec- Type of art

ognized by some authors and because the representational (or referential) element Particular General

may in some artefacts be minimized, but its dubious status is indicated with question fictional (operating in factual/nonfiction (neither fictional nor
the mode of fiction) (operating in the factual)
marks. mode of nonfiction)
Within the basic categories (of representational and verbal art) further distinc- formulating the novel (House of nonfiction novels essays (Leszek empty category?
tions may be drawn with reference to more specific modes of expressing ideas. Thus, explicit, Leaves by Mark Z. (B. S. Johnson’s The Kołakowski’s “General
meaningful Danielewski) Unfortunates, 1969) Theory of Not-
within the category of representational art it seems purposeful to recognize the propositions Gardening,” 1985)
category of art that makes use of the mode of fiction, art that is factual, and art that using deep level stream-of- (the category is in concrete poetry (the nonsense poetry
escapes the division into the fictional and the factual, formulating ideas in most verbal language consciousness prose principle possible “Wind” by Eugen (“Jabberwocky” by Lewis
without in a work of fiction but apparently most Gomringer, 1953) Carroll, 1871)?
general terms (e.g. aphorisms). This last category cannot easily be subsumed under formulating (final lines of the exceptional)
either the fictional or factual categories, which both refer to either imaginary or real explicit, famous monologue
meaningful of Molly Bloom
particulars and demand that the recipients of artefacts, should they experience the propositions in James Joyce’s
need, draw the general conclusions themselves. Ulysses, 1922)

Within fictional art, one may note that the proportion of the real and the unreal paintings (Marc press photograph sculptures (e.g. aleatory music (John
non-verbal (using either Chagall’s Rain) or (Denis Thorpe, readymades by Cage Music of Changes,
may vary: the conventions of magic realism and fantasy are genres liberal in their non-natural languages or no ballet (Pina Bausch’s Ulverston, 1992) Marcel Duchamp 1951)?
use of fiction, whereas in realism or naturalism the element of fiction is more re- language at all, except to Café Müller, 1978) such as Fountain,
give the work its title) Auguste Rodin’s
strained. It is also worth noting that since an element of invention is present in every Thinker, 1880-81)
human attempt to represent reality, the term factual should best be taken as relatively
factual or aspiring to be factual. Henrik Skov Nielsen explains further that techniques of
Table 2. Typology of art illustrated with examples of categories of art and specific artefacts
188— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk
The above diagram and the comments preceding it show that the major categories
(representational and non-representational, verbal and non-verbal) are simplistic6
and should be complemented with finer distinctions. However when classifying
contradictions, the basic categories will suffice.7 Taking thus into consideration the
three modes of artistic expression – formal, representational and verbal (all available
to narrative fiction), assuming that contradiction in the standard case involves only
two elements,8 allowing for both pure contradictions (the two mutually exclusive
elements belonging to the same mode) and crosses (hybrids), as well as ignoring as
insignificant the order in which the contradictory elements appear – one obtains six
combinations of mutually exclusive statements, i.e. six kinds of contradiction (cf.
table 2).
Mode in which art
formal representational
presents ideas:
formal X X
representational X X
verbal
Table 3. Possible kinds of narrative contradiction
As suggested further on in the chapter, some self-reflexive statements, though con-
sisting of only one element, might be able to communicate a self-contradictory mes-
sage, choosing verbal, representational or formal modes of expression. Also ironic
6   It is also worth remembering that the categories overlap (cf. Chapter Two).
7   This is a simplification. Taking into consideration the categories of fiction, non-
fiction and their combination, i.e. metafiction, within art’s modes of representa-
tion one might discern nonfictional, fictional and metafictional kinds of contra-
diction (already discussed in Chapter Three). This division will be omitted here.
8   Naturally one might have a work of art in which an (artistic) contradiction is
generated by three propositions or more. For example, with reference to the
traffic lights the propositions: The light is green, The light is red, and The light is orange
are all mutually exclusive. Theoretically each of them might be conveyed in a
different medium (form, language, model of reality), thus resulting in a formal-
representational-verbal contradiction. However, the basic model to be service-
able has here been limited to the basic case involving two elements.
189—
statements (verbal above all) represent a type of contradiction in which one element
communicates two contradictory meanings. Usually, however, only one meaning is
intended, the other the recipient should identify as false, so that the contradiction is
instantly resolved. Needless to say, cases in which the reader cannot decide whether
the statement is intended as ironic or not, and the contradiction remains unresolved
are in the present context the most important.
The above types of contradictions, distinguished with reference to their mode
of expression, may be illustrated once again with examples taken from Danielewski’s
book. Though many examples illustrating the typology based on Barry’s analysis of
deconstruction might be repeated here, other examples have been used to let the
reader appreciate the self-contradictory character of the novel.
verbal
The basic categories
The first most obvious category is that of verbal-verbal contradictions. It can be illustrat-
X
ed with the passage: “I dream of vampires. I dream of god. I dream of no vampires.
I dream of no god” (House of Leaves 544), or with the diverse, contradictory inter-
X pretations of Navidson’s filming of the coffee mugs and the sunflower seed shells
(98-99, note 113). The contradictory information concerning the book’s author also
exemplifies this kind of contradiction. The names of Zampanò and Danielewski
are printed on the book’s title page and book cover,9 respectively. Alternatively, this
contradiction might be interpreted as a formal incongruity consisting in an unusual
introduction of a fictional element in the area traditionally reserved for nonfiction.
Another category is representational-representational. Since in the novel the fictional
reality is created by means of language, the examples which follow are also verbal-
verbal, but this seems to be their contingent or secondary quality, as one might well
picture the same contradictory fictional reality represented by visual means in a
video clip or a comic strip. The scene in which Mallory and Hillary (animals) enter
the hallway to find themselves in the backyard, presumably going through the wall,
may be cited here. From Zampanò’s comment that the incident is “startling” (74-75),
9   In fact, one can read “Mark Z. Danielewski’s” on the page preceding the title
page, and Danielewski’s name is given in the copyright note so that he is rec-
ognized as the book’s author not only on the book cover but also twice inside
the book.
190— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk
one may gather that the rules governing the fictional reality do not allow cats and
dogs to go through walls. The films of Navidson, which both exist and do not exist,
might also illustrate this category of contradictions.
The next category – formal-formal contradiction10 – is more problematic, as it is
difficult to find undisputable examples. They might perhaps be found among such
narrative devices as metalepses11 (or strange loops).12 In Postmodernist Fiction McHale ex-
plains that metalepsis transgresses the logic of narrative, and demonstrates this with
the example, borrowed from Gérard Genette, of Julio Cortázar’s “Continuity of
Parks,” a story about a man reading a novel about a murderer whose intended victim
is himself (119-20). Characters, McHale argues, often serve as “agents or ‘carriers’
of metalepsis,” when they display an awareness of being fictional (121), as happens
in Gabriel Josipovici’s “Mobius the Stripper,” whose protagonist can hear the voice
of his author (122). When discussing The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and in particular
the “author’s” appearance in the novel’s fictional reality, McHale speaks only of
“metafictional frame-breaking” (198) and an apparent “short-circuit of the onto-
logical structure” (213, cf. 215) but it seems that the term metalepsis applies as well.
Metalepsis is thus a narrative strategy in which a character, an event, or a state of
10  In Chapter Three I argued against recognizing purely formal inconsistencies
as contradictions. In terms of the definition of contradiction adopted in the
present book, violating a formal order is a contradiction only if conjoined mutu-
ally exclusive meanings are involved. The term formal, somewhat misleadingly,
is used now to refer to art’s formal mode of communicating ideas. A formal-
formal contradiction should be interpreted as a semantic contradiction expressed
by means of two formal elements of the work of art.
11  Gérard Genette introduces the term metalepsis in Narrative Discourse for all kinds
of narrative transgressions: “any intrusion by the extradiegetic narrator or nar-
ratee into the diegetic universe (or by diegetic characters into a metadiegetic
universe, etc.), or the inverse [the figure in which the author is an object of his/
her characters’ actions]” (234-35). As he explains, metalepsis involves a crossing
“in defiance of verisimilitude” of the boundary between the world of the story
and the world of the story-telling (236).
12  McHale attributes the latter term to Douglas Hofstadter and uses the two terms
interchangeably (Postmodernist Fiction 119). Lodge and Barry Lewis prefer the
term short circuit. However, for Lodge the term also covers some other strate-
gies such as a jarring combination of fictional and factual elements (Modernism,
Antimodernism, and Postmodernism 12), while for Lewis the term applies only to
situations in which the author pretends to enter the storyworld (131).
191—
affairs belongs to two different narrative levels, which violates “narrative logic” (to
use McHale’s expression, 119). If a given metalepsis involves two mutually exclusive
meanings, then it is also a case of artistic contradiction.
As suitable instances of metaleptic contradiction in House of Leaves one may con-
sider the paradoxical scene in which Navidson, lost in the void, when his quasi-real
story is still in progress, begins to read House Of Leaves13 (465, the “of” in the title
of the book is capitalized); or the scene in which Truant in the music performed in
a bar in Flagstaff recognizes references to the Internet version of Zampanò’s book
with his (Truant’s) introduction and notes (the scene is almost immediately cancelled
by Truant, who claims that, though described in his notebook, it makes no sense
to him whatever, which resolves the contradiction, 512-14; cf. the discussion of the
last contradiction in Chapter Eight). The two examples, together with the notion of
metaleptic contradiction, might be questioned on the grounds that they represent a
formal inconsistency rather than a semantic contradiction, which may perhaps be
created in the act of interpretation. But one may defend the original classification
along the following lines.
Metalepsis (a transgression of the standard narrative order), as long as it does
not convey contradictory meanings, is a formal anomaly, not an artistic contradic-
tion. If a given metalepsis conveys two contradictory meanings, one of which states
This is a fact and the other This is fiction, then this metalepsis exemplifies an artistic
contradiction, whose character is metafictional. This should be taken as a hypotheti-
cal situation. In practice, the contradictory meanings generated by a metalepsis are
more specific. If, for example, the author enters the world of the characters, the
contradictory meanings might be read as The author is the author and The author is a
character. In consequence, the story, which previously pretended to be real, is exposed
as artificial. In other words, the semantic contradiction that has its origin in the
metalepsis generates another semantic contradiction, one whose character is meta-
fictional. The former semantic contradiction is formal-representational (The author
is the author is conveyed by the work’s formal structure, while The author is a character
is an element of the fictional reality); the latter is formal-formal (as the modes of
fiction and nonfiction are formal aspects of the work).
13  Cf. Slocombe’s discussion of this “internal, reflexive paradox” (101).
192— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk
Though metafictional contradictions are distinguished with reference to their
primary theme or thematic function (they are concerned with reality and fiction, cf.
Chapter Eight) as well as their status (depending on the mode in which an artefact
operates, artistic contradictions have the status of fictional, nonfictional or meta-
fictional, cf. Chapter Three), and do not in general constitute a separate category
as regards their mode of expression (discussed in the present chapter), it seems ap-
propriate to mention them at least briefly in the context of narrative contradictions.
If the term metafiction is taken to mean self-reflexive (auto-thematic) fiction, all
contradictions which concern art might be called metafictional as in each case the
work of art engages in a reflection on itself. Of course, taken so broadly, the category
of metafiction need not involve contradiction, i.e. an artefact may well be concerned
with art without subverting itself. But metafiction thus construed may involve con-
tradiction and does so in all the cases where meta-comments serve to question the
artefact’s artistic character.
If, on the other hand, one adopts the narrow definition of metafiction proposed
by Waugh, which equates metafiction with fiction which problematizes the catego-
ries of fact and fiction by subverting its own quasi-reality (Metafiction 2), then not all
self-referential art qualifies as metafictional. Conversely, all metafiction will then
involve contradiction of one of the following categories: verbal-representational (e.g.
John Truant explains that he made up the episode featuring his recovery at the
end of the book); formal-representational (e.g. “Zampanò” – an intertextual name
borrowed from Federico Fellini’s La Strada, which signals the fact that the story of
Zampanò is a mystification, that he is not a real human being14); and representational-
representational (e.g. the photographs of Zampanò’s notes in which he considers an
alternative ending to Navidson’s tale, involving the death of both Chad and Daisy,
552). In other words, the contradiction will involve the artefact’s fictional reality, i.e.
the representational component which carries the implicit suggestion that this real-
ity should be taken as real (if the suggestion is missing, there is no contradiction) and
its usually subsequent denunciation (verbal, formal or representational) as fictional.
The reader of a metafictional text receives thus two conflicting messages, This is
14  Cf. the critical note by McCaffery and Sinda Gregory, following their interview
with Danielewski, concerning the character’s name (Danielewski, “Haunted
House” 125-26).
193—
real and This is not real (cf. the discussion of metafictional contradiction in Chapter
Three). All of this on the assumption that what is real is not fictional (the two
categories exclude each other, cf. the discussion following the analysis of Emotionally
Weird in Chapter Nine). The statements which are metafictional and refer to their
own truth value may further generate paradoxes (i.e. result in self-contradictory
statements whose logical value is a puzzle).
Metafictional contradictions aside, the remaining mixed categories of narrative
contradictions are less problematic than the formal-formal ones. The verbal-formal
contradiction embraces cases in which one of the two mutually exclusive meanings
is stated verbally and the other is conveyed by means of a formal component of
the work. This kind of contradiction is exemplified by one of the novel’s narra-
tors, John Truant, who flaunts his unreliability (House of Leaves 16, note 18)15 but by
and large qualifies as a reliable narrator (at least according to one interpretation of
the book, cf. Chapter Eight). Another contradiction of that kind can be found in
Danielewski’s intertextual reference to Borges’s famous short story. Zampanò cites
twice the same passage from Miguel de Cervantes, attributing it the second time to
Pierre Menard and calling it an “exquisite variation” (House of Leaves 42, note 49). If
common-sensically one treats the two texts as identical, then there is a contradiction
between the repeated passage (formal element) and the statement that one is a varia-
tion of the other (verbal element).
In the verbal-representational contradiction one of the contradictory meanings is
stated verbally, the other is conveyed by means of an element of fictional reality. This
kind of contradiction occurs when Truant states that the book by Hubert Howe
Bancroft does not exist (House of Leaves xx), though Appendix III, ascribed to the
Editors and subtitled “Contrary evidence,” contains a reproduction of the title page
of the book (658). A more dramatic example can be found in a passage taken from
15  One may say that the book is based on a fraud: Truant pretends to be editing
Zampanò’s notes on the Navidsons to tell the story of himself: his tragic past,
his present inability to trust himself. Literally speaking, everything Truant says
about Zampanò and the Navidsons might indeed be false, but metaphorically
speaking by means of these lies he makes his confession and nourishes his au-
thentic hope that imagination and words can help one regain the ability to love.
In other words, though not (literally) truthful, Truant may be considered reli-
able (at least if one accepts the above interpretation).
194— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk
one of Pelafina’s letters to Truant, in which she confesses that she tried to kill him
out of love, to release him from “the pain of living […] the pain of loving” (630): she
claims that she loves her son but in her insanity attempts to murder him – her words
contradict her actions. More importantly, the meaning conveyed verbally is negated
by the meaning expressed by means of the fictional reality.
The last category – representational-formal contradiction – is one in which the work’s
fictional reality and its form convey the contradictory meanings. A book imitating
in its font, page layout and typing errors a typewritten text (and thus communicating
the meaning This is a typewritten text) with one word house printed in blue (thus deny-
ing the previous meaning) might serve as a hypothetical example, related to House of
Leaves but not contained in the book.
The three categories of homogenous contradictions are relatively clear-cut; the
heterogeneous ones are less so. One is constantly reminded of the fact that the
categories of verbal, representational and formal means of expression in a given
artefact to a significant extent overlap, that one and the same element of an artefact
may justifiably be classified as, say, an aspect of form and an element of fictional real-
ity. Many of the examples cited above clearly demonstrate this quality of art’s mode
of expression and may impress the reader as chosen and classified arbitrarily to suit
the needs of typology. What is more, meanings communicated by the artefact’s form
are usually vague; also when considered in the context of the whole work, they might
be definable only in the act of interpretation. Though the examples are imperfect
and the categories they represent, to some extent co-extensive, the typology need
not necessarily be thereby invalidated.
A typology of n a r r a t iv e contradictions
and postmodern n a r r a t iv e strategies
For all its defects, the typology of narrative contradictions presented above should
help understand the nature of specific forms of postmodern narrative strategies,
often entailing contradictions, mentioned by Waugh in Metafiction and McHale in
Postmodernist Fiction. These include (1) telling stories which mutually exclude each
other (such as Coover’s “Babysitter,” Waugh 138-39 and McHale 108) or which
conjure up mutually exclusive fictional realities (Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five,
Waugh 127-29, 139; Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, McHale 43-44); (2) constructing
195—
stories whose plot line is circular or forms a loop (such as Julio Cortázar’s 62: A Model
Kit, Waugh 142; Barth’s “Frame-Tale” and Robbe-Grillet’s La Maison de rendez-vous,
McHale 111, 109); (3) complementing a text with a mutually exclusive paratext (as
in Nabokov’s Pale Fire, Waugh 85-86, 140); (4) using the erasure strategy – project-
ing and recalling a state of affairs, and thus producing self-consuming texts (Clarence
Major’s Reflex and Bone Structure, McHale 99-100); (5) introducing logical impossibili-
ties into fictional realities (The Hothouse by the East River by Muriel Spark, McHale 34);
(6) employing dual figurative and literal (Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America, Waugh
140-41, McHale 137) or allegorical and literal modes (William Golding’s Darkness
Visible, Waugh 141; Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, McHale 142).16
In terms of the typology proposed above, narratives whose dual plots, or mul-
tiple storyworlds exclude each other exemplify the category of representational-
representational contradictions. The same applies to narratives which place some
passages under erasure – on the condition that the state of affairs first projected
continues to exist after it has been recalled and mutually excludes the new one (oth-
erwise the narrative merely tells first one version of the story, then replaces it with
another); any act of denarration (another term for this narrative strategy) is also
highly metafictional. Stories whose plot line is circular (and entails a contradiction)
or exhibits a loop (an event A both follows and precedes an event B; cf. McHale,
Postmodernist Fiction 108) are based on paradoxes and might be interpreted as either
verbally or representationally contradictory depending on whether they are conceiv-
able or not: the contradictions that are inconceivable qualify as a feature of dis-
course; those which can be imagined should be taken as representational, though in
16  Infinite regression is sometimes treated as another self-contradictory narrative
strategy. Waugh places the strategy (and image) of “endless repetition” and
“infinite regression” in the category of paradox, perceived as “a form of con-
tradiction,” which “makes an assertion at the moment that it denies that asser-
tion (and vice versa)” (141). Waugh’s examples include Barthelme’s short story
“Sentence,” which “shows how a sentence can be a clause within a clause within
a clause which has at its centre a story, ‘The Fantastic Orange Tree,’ composed
of sentences which...” (Metafiction 142). Also McHale speaks of “something like
a functional equivalence between strategies of self-erasure or self-contradic-
tion and strategies involving recursive structures – nesting or embedding […]”
(Postmodernist Fiction 112). But recursive structures, also those approximating infinite
regress, i.e. even if the moment of embedding is repeated many times, do not en-
tail a contradiction, unless the whole strategy is clearly metafictional.
196— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk
the final account they too are expressed by means of language. The same applies to
narratives whose fictional realities violate the rules of logic. Narrative works whose
use of language oscillates between figurative or allegorical and literal do not always
entail semantic contradictions: sometimes the metaphorical/allegorical and literal
meanings can be reconciled with each other. If a contradiction is involved, it should
best be classified as representational-representational if the different modes (e.g. lit-
eral and figurative) create mutually exclusive storyworlds (provided this is feasible),
or as verbal-representational if the conflict of meanings occurs between discourse
and fictional reality (the conflict in that case will be of a metafictional character: art
vs. quasi-reality). Finally, contradictions between the text proper and its paratextual
additions might adopt all kinds of forms depending on how in the text proper and
in the paratextual element (the design of the book cover included) the contradictory
meanings are expressed.
The above discussion revolves around novel narrative strategies which make use
of contradiction. But the long established convention of unreliable narration also
makes use of it. Mutually exclusive statements by the narrator and conflicts between
the narrator’s report on fictional reality and other verbal accounts of this reality of-
fered in the work have the form of verbal-verbal contradictions. Contradictions be-
tween the narrator’s report and fictional reality exemplify the verbal-representational
type. Contradictions between the narrator’s and the implied author’s interpretation
of fictional (or nonfictional) reality may have the form of verbal-verbal (when para-
textual elements are involved) or verbal-formal contradictions (the formal design of
the book being controlled by the implied author). If the unreliable narrator is not
explicit but conveys his/her ideas by means of the form of the narrative or being a
narrator-fabricator does not only describe but also creates the fictional reality, other
kinds of contradictions are also possible.
S e l f - s u bv e r s iv e , s e l f - s c e p t i c a l c o n t r a d i c t i o n s
Apart from the most typical contradictions consisting of two components, one finds
in art contradictions which consist of more than two mutually exclusive statements,
each expressing one of the mutually exclusive meanings (these have been excluded
from the discussion for the sake of clarity) and contradictions which consist of a
single component. These are self-reflexive statements which negate or mutually
197—
exclude themselves. The contradiction consists in signalling doubts or denial as to
the utility (existence etc.) of artistic means of expression used in the artefact when
the doubts or denial are presented by the means in question. To distinguish them
from the categories listed above and indicate their primary theme one might call
them self-sceptical.
Self-sceptical contradictions may be divided into verbal, representational and
formal. The verbal self-sceptical contradiction consists in a verbal expression of scep-
ticism about language’s capability of presenting reality or communicating ideas.17
(The category corresponds to linguistic contradictions in the previous typology).
Analogical scepticism might also be expressed in art with reference to the other
modes of artistic expression, i.e. formal and representational. Thus, one might
consider representational self-sceptical contradictions: representational expressions of
scepticism about art’s representational potential. This category may be illustrated
by the efforts of various characters in House of Leaves to represent what is either
unrepresentable, e.g. the void in the Navidsons’ house, which Navidson tries to
film, or inaccessible (or even non-existent), e.g. Navidson’s films to Zampanò, who
nonetheless analyzes them − these situations imply that nothing in the quasi-real
world corresponds to the represented object, which means that its representation
falsifies reality. Admittedly, the idea that representing non-existent objects means
negating the value of representation is not ready-made in the book, but has to be
formulated by an (imaginative) reader in an act of interpretation. One might also
consider formal self-sceptical contradictions, i.e. formal expression of scepticism about
formal means of art. Here the use of footnotes in Danielewski’s novel may serve
as an illustration: usually meant to be helpfully informative, in House of Leaves the
quasi-scholarly footnotes often merely confuse the reader. The notes are often ex-
cessively long, packed with redundant details or placed out of order, so that their use
in the book contradicts their standard function. They make the reading toilsome, at
17  Linguistic scepticism can also by expressed by means of a fictional scene in
which characters talk to each other but fail to communicate, or by means of a
text abounding in erased passages and thereby unintelligible, but in these cases
(when scepticism about language is expressed by means of the model of reality
or formal means of expression) the moment of contradiction is much less spec-
tacular (it is present only in so far as the work’s model and form are, in the final
account, made of language).
198— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk
times practically preventing the reader from following the story. But it is fair to say
that this example too is questionable – the contradiction, or contrast, can be found
between the conventional and experimental uses of footnotes, only one of which is
exemplified by the novel. Some pages of Chapter 9 of House of Leaves (120-45), which
look like a mosaic of various geometrical figures tightly packed with print in various
fonts, printed upside down, horizontally and in mirror reflection, if taken in isola-
tion and interpreted as an assessment of formal (not verbal) means of expression,
might provide a better example. (Critics usually find the chapter’s unusual typogra-
phy to be a formal correlative of the labyrinth – a crucial image in the chapter and
the whole book, cf. e.g. Hayles 791-92; i.e. if contextualized, this typographic design
gains a different meaning).
On the subject of scepticism, it is finally worth noting the presence in con-
temporary fiction of the more general theme of epistemic scepticism. In House of
Leaves this scepticism takes inter alia the form of contradictions undermining the
institution of scholarship and science. Numerous passages from the mock scholarly
commentary on Navidson’s documentary films illustrate this phenomenon. When
Karen asks various experts to interpret the meaning of the house and its void, she
is told, among other things, that they should be read as a crazy House Keeper, or a
womb, or “that which infinitely patterns itself without the outside” (356-61), i.e. the
responses are vague, weird and mutually exclude each other. Discussing the archi-
tecture of the Navidsons’ house, Zampanò reports two opinions: Günter Nitschke
suggests that the structure of architecture is constituted by man who experiences it;
Christian Norberg-Schulz, by contrast, claims architecture does not depend on any
observer for its structure (169-71). The two critics who compare Will Navidson and
his brother, Tom, to the biblical Jacob and Esau – Eta Ruccalla and Nam Eurtton
– cannot agree on which Navidson corresponds to which biblical character (247,
note 224). A fictional Stephen King reports two mutually exclusive interpretations
of Ahab’s whale that is supposed to be both “god, meaning, and purpose” as well
as “purposelessness and the void” (361). The three theories that attempt to explain
why Navidson returned to his home for the final exploration – the Kellog-Antwerk
Claim, which says he was driven by the will to possess, The Bister-Frieden-Josephson
Criteria, which speaks of self-annihilation (Zampanò emphasizes that the latter in-
terpretation refutes the former, 396), and The Haven-Slocum Theory, which opts
199—
for self-sacrifice – mutually exclude each other (House of Leaves 385-88, 394-402,
406-07).18
A single case of mutually exclusive scholarly/scientific interpretations of some
aspects of reality need not be taken as undermining the reliability of the institutions
which author them, but their considerable accumulation is telling, as is the use of
contradiction for that purpose. Even though the critique is moderated by the use
of parody (the moment of comic exaggeration), the contradictions, which question
the value of human intellectual endeavour, incorporated in a book which is part of
this endeavour, might collectively be taken as another self-sceptical contradiction,
a humanistic expression of epistemic scepticism with reference to the humanities.
Resuming the discussion of the typology of contradictions with reference to
artistic means of expression, and summing up the results, one may note that all in all
ten types of contradiction can be distinguished: six major categories, three categories
of self-subverting contradictions, consisting of a single element and related to the
theme of scepticism, and the special case of verbal ironic statements. Metafictional
contradictions, identifiable with reference to their status and function, may adopt
a variety of forms. Finally, to simplify the terminology, one might abbreviate the
term verbal-verbal contradiction to verbal contradiction, call representational-representational
contradictions simply representational, and replace formal-formal contradictions with formal
contradictions.
6 . 3 N a r r a t iv e c o n t r a d i c t i o n s i n t h e n a r r a t iv e s t r u c t u r e
Narrative contradictions can further be characterized with reference to their place-
ment in the basic structure of narrative works – the three realms of characters (the
storyworld), the narrator (narratorial discourse) and the implied author (the text’s
design). In general, one might presume that typically in the story one might encoun-
ter contradictory elements of fictional reality, including the characters’ contradictory
utterances (e.g. the contradictory house of the Navidsons); in narrative discourse
one can find contradictory propositions (e.g. the crossed-out passages telling of the
Minotaur, if interpreted as both affirming and denying the relevant statements);
whereas the design of the whole text favours contradictions expressed by means of
18  Later yet another explanation is offered, ascribing to Navidson aesthetic motiva-
tion (418).
200— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk
the text’s form (e.g. the contradiction between the quasi-real and explicitly artificial
character of Truant’s tale). The situation seems simple – representational contradic-
tions are located in the storyworld, verbal contradictions belong in the realm of
characters and the narrator, and formal contradictions are above all the implied
author’s privilege.
But while these three kinds of contradiction − verbal-verbal, representational-
representational, formal-formal − seem the most important, contradictions may
also be composed of heterogeneous elements, e.g. verbal-representational or verbal-
formal, often engaging the realms of the narrator and the characters or the charac-
ters and the author. Of course, if two different narrative agents present the mutually
exclusive meanings, the logical strength of the contradiction is much weaker (the
element of conjunction being minimized) than when both meanings are authored
by one agent (cf. Chapter Three).
Further, the situation may get more complex in narratives featuring two implied
authors (unreliable and reliable ones, if one accepts O’Neill’s theory of authorial
unreliability, 70-71), narratives with embedded narratives, multiple narrators, or in-
stances of metalepsis. Some experimental narratives might exhibit other less typical
cases of mixed contradictions. In the case of Danielewski’s book it is, for example,
necessary to take into account the realm of the anonymous editors: the contradiction
between Truant’s claim that Bancroft’s book does not exist and the reproduction of
its title page in Appendix III supplied by the Editors, whose status is uncertain,
fictional rather than real (discussed above), is an example of a heterotopic contradic-
tion – even if the editors are taken as fictional agents, they belong in the realm of
the implied author (unless the Appendix is taken as fabricated by Truant, which is
also possible).19 Indeed, many postmodern contradictions discussed by McHale and
Waugh or unnatural narratologists violate the narrative structure and defy the neat
division suggested above.
***
To sum up, with reference to art’s capacity for handling ideas, the conjoined
contradictory meanings might be classified into verbal, representational and
formal (in various combinations). In some cases a single element may convey
19  If the Editors are interpreted as narrators, which also seems possible, then the
contradiction between them and Truant is located in the realm of narrative.
201—
the self-contradictory meaning (cf. the ironic and self-sceptical contradictions).
Depending on the narrative realm in which they are placed, they can take the basic
shapes of contradictory elements of fictional reality (in the storyworld), contradic-
tory statements (in the storyworld or the narrator’s discourse) and self-contradic-
tory formal design (on the level of the text’s construction), or their combinations.
Further kinds of contradictions may be identified with reference to certain themes
(e.g. metafictional contradictions).
The approach offered here – a typology of contradictions with reference to the
way in which they are expressed in the artefact and the place where they are located
– helps capture the essential features of the phenomenon of artistic contradiction,
explaining why in contrast with discourse, in which contradictions appear almost
exclusively in the form of propositions, and in contrast with natural reality, from
which they appear to be absent, in art (as well as in some other areas of social reality)
contradictions can appear in a variety of forms. The typology may also help explain
why kinds of art that belong both in the category of verbal and representational (e.g.
narrative literature, but also film or comic strips) have in this respect a much richer
potential. Contradiction in which the mutually exclusive meanings are conveyed
by means of fictional reality or inscribed in the text’s narrative structure seem una-
vailable to lyrical poetry; a sculpture, unless it makes some use of words, which is
possible though unusual, can hardly articulate contradictions verbally. Interestingly,
in pre-postmodern narrative (except for works published earlier but composed ac-
cording to the postmodern poetics, like Tristram Shandy, 1759-67, by Laurence Sterne,
or At Swim-Two-Birds, 1939, by O’Brien), it seems hardly possible to encounter contra-
dictions expressed by means of the work’s form. This observation helps appreciate
the unique quality of the postmodern phenomenon of artistic contradictions. A
more systematic comparison of the three narrative conventions – realism, modern-
ism and postmodernism − as regards their use of contradictions is the subject of the
next chapter.
Last but not least, it seems important to note that both the categories which
help conceptualize the phenomenon of artistic contradictions discussed in Chapter
Three and the categories of contradiction which help understand the phenomenon
in the area of narrative (and other kinds of art which can use words and models
of reality to convey ideas) discussed in the present chapter may be useful but not
202— Contradictions in narrative fiction – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsk

sufficient when dealing with a specific text. It may often be much more important
to explore the semantic content of the contradiction and its cognitive function than
to identify its structure. But identifying basic forms of contradiction need not be
regarded as art for art’s sake. It can help us appreciate the variety of forms that
artistic contradictions adopt, compare the use that various kinds and styles of art
make of contradictions, and eventually contribute to a better general understanding
of the whole phenomenon.
 Chapter Seven
Contradictions in re alist, modernist
and postmodern fiction

The aim of this chapter is to compare and contrast contradictions that can be found
in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction. It has already been noted that in real-
ism they are relatively rare and in postmodern fiction most conspicuous, but a more
detailed examination of the types of contradictions, contexts in which they appear,
their uses and the like might help understand the special phenomenon of the post-
modern convention.
While postmodern contradictions have attracted much attention from theoreti-
cians of postmodernism (the three studies presented in Chapter Five prove this
well), the other conventions under discussion – realism and modernism – have not
been so popular. Statements on realist contradictions are hardly available. Waugh’s
attempt to contrast contradictions of the three conventions, realism included, seems
in this respect exceptional. According to Waugh: “In realist or modernist writing,
textual contradictions are always finally resolved, either at the level of plot (realism)
or at the level of point of view or ‘consciousness’ (modernism). In metafictional texts
that employ contradiction, there can be no final certainty […] only a reworking of
the Liar Paradox, which might run something like this: ‘<All novelists are liars,>
said the metafictionist, truthfully’” (Metafiction 137). The thesis, though as regards
the realist and modernist conventions not supported by any evidence in Waugh’s
book, seems quite right. One might perhaps note that the difference pointed out by
Waugh concerns not only the level at which contradictions are resolved but also the
level at which they are located.
McHale’s view of the modernist contradictions confirms Waugh’s statement.
He notes the presence of contradictions in modernist texts (as well as inconsisten-
cies such as a world embedded in itself, or improbabilities typical of the fantastic
204— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction 205—

convention), but claims they are neutralized (recuperated), when shown to be illusions,
fabrications of an insane (in Cambio de piel by Fuentes) or dying mind (in Robbe-
Grillet’s Dans le labyrinthe), “ill-founded or outright fictional speculations” (as in
Pynchon’s V ) or part of the convention of the unreliable narrator (in Molloy by
Beckett). On the whole, modernist poetics, subordinate to its epistemological domi-
nant, introduces contradictions and similar complications in order to foreground
issues of the mind and its cognitive abilities, e.g. to represent the mind’s fallibility.
Postmodern contradictions are not resolved and they are related to the novel’s onto-
logical concerns (Postmodernist Fiction 12-25).
Hutcheon also devotes some attention to modernist contradictions, but her ap-
proach is different. Adopting the Hegelian notion of opposing tendencies, Hutcheon
lists relevant interpretations of the basic contradictions of the convention:
Many critics have pointed out the glaring contradictions of modernism:
its élitist, classical need for order and its revolutionary formal innovations
(Kermode 1971 […]); its “Janusfaced” anarchistic urge to destroy exist-
ing systems combined with a reactionary political vision of ideal order
(Daiches 1971 […]); its compulsion to write mixed with a realization of the
meaninglessness of writing (in the work of Beckett or Kafka); its melan-
choly regret for the loss of presence and its experimental energy and power
of conception (Lyotard 1986 […]). In fact, Terry Eagleton sees as a positive
characteristic of modernism the fact that it retains its contradictions: “be-
tween a still ineluctable bourgeois humanism and the pressures of a quite
different rationality, which, still newly emergent, is not even able to name
itself” (1985 […]). (43)
scope and impact, as well as more deeply integrated with the intellectual tradition of
Western civilization (cf. Teske, Philosophy in Fiction 54).
Realism – recommended by Lodge (cf. “The Novelist at the Crossroads”) and to
some extent exemplified by his own writings – can also be found in such works as
On Beauty (2005) by Zadie Smith or The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling. Modernism
– prominent in the writings of Ishiguro (cf. The Remains of the Day, 1989) or Pat
Barker (cf. Union Street, 1982) – appears in an almost pure form in James Kelman’s A
Disaffection (1989) or Eva Figes’ Ghosts. Contemporary postmodern novelists include
Jeanette Winterson (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, 1985), Julian Barnes (Flaubert’s
Parrot), Salman Rushdie (Midnight’s Children), John Banville (Doctor Copernicus, 1976)
and David Mitchell (number9dream, 2001).
The three conventions can be defined with reference to formal features and
thematic content typical of each and their cognitive strategies. The following discus-
sion is based on Philosophy in Fiction (54-69, 217-33), where I present the results of my
own research but also and to a far greater extent the research of such scholars as
McHale, Lodge, Waugh, Hutcheon, Ian Watt, Gabriel Josipovici and many others.
The model of narrative structure adopted in the discussion is one put forward by
Patrick O’Neill in Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory (only the names of the
author’s and the narrator’s domains have been switched).
Most obviously the three conventions may be defined in terms of their formal
features.
Table 4. Formal features most typical of the three narrative conventions
Convention

Realism Modernism Postmodernism

7.1 B r i e f presentation of realism , the implied the author’s the author’s the author’s presence is clearly

Narrative component
author authority is presence is barely perceptible (via shocking
modernism and postmodernism in the context conspicuous, tangible typographic experiments,
the narrator inflated paratextual elements,
of the c o g n i t iv e theory of art
acts as his/her hybrid generic construction of
Many narrative conventions contribute to contemporary British fiction. The choice mouthpiece the text, metafiction, intertextual
references, etc.); the (unreliable)
of realism, modernism and postmodernism (all taken ahistorically), rather than his- author may manipulate the
toriographic metafiction, Gothic or the campus novel (to name but a few other reader

possibilities) is dictated by the belief that the former are more comprehensive in
206— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction 207—

Convention In preparation for the subject of contradiction, it seems advisable to pay some more
Realism Modernism Postmodernism attention to the principle of the text’s structure. Realist texts are typically cohesive
the narrator external, either internal, prominent, self-conscious,
in construction (causality and chronological succession of events provide the ba-
impersonal, subjective, often metafictional: conscious of his/ sis for this arrangement); modernism opts for loose or arbitrary (often imaginative
objective, often unreliable, or her art (i.e. the act of narrating
omniscient, external but then or creating the fictional reality),
and subjective) connections and ambiguity (aesthetic design or mental associations
reliable almost intangible, often playful and untrustworthy; work as principles of unity); the postmodern strategy consists in disintegration. This
with characters frequently accompanied by a
acting as focalizers prominent narratee (allegedly may be achieved by means of exaggerated use of realist and modernist strategies of
(sometimes involving real or expressly fictitious, or of cohesion, i.e. metonymy (replacement based on contiguity) and metaphor (replace-
the multiple-point-of- vague status)
view technique) ment based on similarity) respectively, as argued by Lodge: “Some postmodernist
construction chronologically- aesthetic design plot is difficult to follow (often writers have deliberately taken metaphoric or metonymic strategies to excess, tested
of the ordered, tight (e.g. involving there are many stories, them, as it were, to destruction, parodied and burlesqued them in the process of
narrative plot (consisting myths) comes to fragmented and intricately
of exposition, the foreground; related to each other), the using them, and thus sought to escape from their tyranny” (11). Alternatively, and
development, plot consisting of principle of verisimilitude may be more frequently the effect of disintegration is achieved by means of combining in-
climax and mental events may violated (as in magic realism),
closed ending) be reconstructed events already narrated may be compatible, contradictory or disconnected elements; Lodge enumerates here “[…]
is the backbone but is not self-evident cancelled, the ending is often
of the narrative; due to dislocated open, multiple or circular; devoid
Contradiction, Permutation, Discontinuity, Randomness, Excess and The Short
Circuit [i.e. metafiction]” (Modernism, Antimodernism, and Postmodernism 10-12).
Narrative component

causally linked chronology, abrupt of clear structure, the fictional

events respect opening, open world appears amorphous,
the principle of ending, faint links discontinuous or anarchic;
The three conventions can also be compared and contrasted in terms of their
verisimilitude between the events discourse may marginalize the thematic content.
story

character average, self-conscious, metafictionally self-conscious, i.e. Table 5. Thematic content of the three conventions
plausible, sane, introspective, often conscious of being a construct/
conflicted of an artistic frame artefact of their own invention Convention
with external, of mind, over- or at the mercy of forces
social reality, sensitive, neurotic external to themselves, (e.g. Realism Modernism Postmodernism
characters characters are torn subordinate to a convention), subject-matter social interactions, consciousness creative activity
interact with by inner conflicts; often not quite human; out of man’s interactions with
each other meaningful details touch with autonomous (mind- external reality
against a from the character’s independent) reality, characters

Aspects of thematic content

panoramic environment replace engage in creative activities; it dominant ethics epistemology ontology & aesthetics
social the panoramic is in this sphere of their lives that
background background conflicts are located emotional tone positive, active, uncertainty, oscillation despair in the face
practical approach: between hope and of the void, covered
discourse plain, everyday colloquial language heterogeneous discourses are resolution to solve despair, decision to up by playfulness,
speech often combined with mixed; vulgar and poetic, high- urgent social problems carry on in the name grim humour of
poetry (metaphors, brow and colloquial registers of existential values disillusionment, ironic,
symbols, unusual coexist; the difference between rather than expecting self-conscious distance
syntax); verbal literal and figurative languages success
presentation of pre- may be blurred; in extreme
speech experience cases language is aleatory or epistemic common-sense view recognition of cognitive (radical) scepticism,
governed by arbitrary rules; approach of of life, “self-satisfied,” uncertainty constructivism,
extensive use of irony the convention confident approach relativism, self-
consciousness
208— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction 209—

Convention extensive modification; the difference between the three conventions consists once
Realism Modernism Postmodernism again in the shift of emphasis (interactions are emphasized in realism, in modernism
the primary sanity neurosis (inner conflicts psychosis (loss of
they are complemented with consciousness, while postmodernism pays almost equal

Aspects of thematic content

mental state of impede man’s contact contact with external, attention to all the three: interactions, consciousness and creative activity).
man depicted with reality and result objective reality)
in the text in confusion)
The table also indicates the location of the basic conflict in each convention.
man’s primary social reality and subjective experience/ objectified products
Thus, in realism conflicts arise between man and external reality and are located
environment/ physical objects and consciousness/ mental of the human mind in the characters’ domain; in modernism conflicts are internal (psychological) and
the basic processes (Popper’s states and processes (Popper’s world 3),
context for world 1) (Popper’s world 2) processes of creation
located in the narrator’s or a character’s (if the narrator’s presence is minimized)
man’s life psychological experience expressed by means of introspective discourse, while in
postmodernism conflicts usually involve external, though not necessarily mind-
autonomous, reality and the human mind and relate to some creative activity or
its results; they are often located in the novel’s overall design, i.e. in the implied
The use of the three narrative domains in the three conventions with reference to
author’s domain, or in the narrator’s or protagonist’s creative experience and, if so,
their thematic content also yields a certain pattern.
in their domains.
Text Narration Story The three conventions can also be contrasted in terms of art’s major cogni-
the implied author’s the narrator’s the characters ’
tive strategies. Realism is educational rather than cognitive: the author acts as an
Realism act of creation opinions interaction authority, delegates the narrator or the protagonist to express his/her (moral) ideas
with external reality
and illustrates them with the story. The reader is invited to vicarious experience of,
the implied author’s the narrator ’s the characters ’
act of creation consciousness and introspection and
above all, various social aspects of the characters’ lives. As for the work’s message,
Modernism
self-consciousness interaction with the reader may accept it or adopt a critical attitude and disagree with the novelist,
external reality
though the novel does not encourage this kind of sceptical reception. The modern-
the implied author ’s the narrator ’s the characters ’
act of creation consciousness, interactions with
ist author is much less certain of his/her authority or the world’s meaning; s/he
Postmodernism
often marked by self- an external, man- makes more extensive (imaginative) use of form to communicate more tentatively
awareness as regards made environment,
its creative activity introspection and
formulated ideas so that the message is less definite, the text more open. The reader
creative performance needs to participate to make sense of the text. The novel offers a fictional model
Table 6. The use of narrative domains in the three conventions (bold marks the narrative domain of mental experience and the reader is again invited to vicariously experience its
fully employed in a given convention, upper-case letters are used for the host of the domain) diverse aspects. Postmodernism favours formal innovative strategies (games, rid-
dles, paradoxes, etc.) and provocative ideas, which let the author pose questions and
All three conventions operate in all three narrative domains, but while realism offer experimental experience rather than provide however tentative solutions (the
foregrounds the domain of the characters, in modernism the domain of the nar- answers that the postmodern text might supply are often subsequently questioned,
rator gains equal weight, and in postmodernism all three domains are fully used. e.g. a statement that sounds conclusive and wise, may turn out to be ironic). More
Also worth noting is the conventions’ thematic focus. The subjects of the narrative than ever the reader may have misgivings that his/her world’s construction will be
domains – the author’s act of creation, the contents of the narrator’s consciousness, disturbed. To profit from the encounter, s/he needs to reflect on his/her experience
and the characters’ interaction with various aspects of reality – do not undergo
210— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction
of the text, which may be well be metafictionally honest (the author disclosing the
methods of his/her work) or cunningly manipulative. The vicarious experience is
once again offered to the recipient, only to be cancelled or undermined. One might
say that, in response to the text, the reader is encouraged to become metafictionally
conscious of being a reader and of being challenged. The reader may also feel en-
couraged to assume the position of the work’s co-creator. The lack of easy gratifica-
tion felt by the modernist and postmodern reader seems an integral part of the texts’
cognitive strategies.
One may thus note that though ideas are conveyed in all three conventions, real-
ism employs for this purpose, above all, the story, modernism – the narration, and
postmodernism – the story, narration and the formal shape of the text. The vicari-
ous experience is offered each time, though in postmodern fiction it is first offered
and then taken away; instead the reader is encouraged to participate in creating the
work. The difference between the three conventions consists also in the fragment
of reality a given convention tries to model (social interactions, consciousness,1 and
creative activity in realism, modernism and postmodernism respectively), when in-
vestigating various aspects of the human psyche. The basic cognitive mechanism of
art – a work of art extending the possibilities of introspection – can be found in all
the three conventions.2
The above model of the three conventions, though based on research conduct-
ed by various scholars, is a theoretical model. Its epistemic status might well be
strengthened with relevant textual evidence, but this is not the purpose here. The
model, hypothetical as it is, will serve as a point of reference in the discussion of
contradictions in contemporary fiction.
1   Although by means of all art people examine their consciousness, it is the mod-
ernist convention which chooses human consciousness as such for its primary
subject.
2   The two paragraphs summarize the tentative findings of three case studies and
the analysis of the theoretical model of the three conventions which I present in
detail in “Cognitive Strategies of Realist, Modernist and Postmodern Fiction.”
211—
7. 2 T h e realist, modernist and
postmodern novels – analyses
Assuming that contemporary British fiction can be interpreted in terms of the three
styles, the following discussion of contradictions will be based on three case stud-
ies – one title illustrating one style: The Casual Vacancy by Rowling (realism), Ghosts by
Figes (modernism) and Flaubert’s Parrot by Barnes (postmodernism).
R e a l i s m – Th e C a s u a l Va c a n c y ( 2 012 )
In the first sentence of his report on his interview with Rowling, titled “Mugglemarch,”
Ian Parker announces: “J. K. Rowling writes a realist novel for adults.”3 Further on,
in the course of his article, Parkes quotes Rowling, who suggests that her book’s
precedent might be the 19th-century “anatomy and the analysis of a very small and
closed society.” A brief analysis of the novel’s form and thematic content confirms
this classification.
The external, objective, almost imperceptible narrator seems to represent the
implied author and provides the reader with reliable and relevant information, analy-
ses of the characters’ psychological experience included.4 Although the point of view
of the narrator is most of the time combined with the subjective point of view of one
of the numerous characters, there is no suggestion of their solipsistic isolation. The
narrator remains firmly in control (choosing when and which focalizer to introduce
or providing the reader with missing information through timely retrospections),
while the first-hand, emotionally charged accounts of important incidents add vivid-
ness to the book and furnish details in the portraits of the major characters. The
3   Later, defining the novel’s genre, Parker also speaks of “a rural comedy of man-
ners that having taken on state-of-the-nation social themes, builds into black
melodrama” (“Mugglemarch”). The presence of the comic element might
be open to debate but the ending may justifiably be called melodramatic.
Apparently the author’s social commitment prevented her from objectively rep-
resenting social reality. Nota bene such lack of generic purity seems frequent in
the 18th- and 19th-century English realist novel.
4   Moral evaluation of the characters, audible in some comparisons (Maureen, for
example, is compared to a hunting hawk, 41) and tone (bitter in the description
of Robbie’s corpse left unattended in the morgue, 538), is fairly discreet; human
vices and virtues are drawn so clearly that the reader does not need further
guidance.
212— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction
characters are average and life-like,5 the events are plausible, causally connected and
chronologically arranged (except for easily identifiable retrospective passages). The
language imitates closely contemporary everyday speech, reflecting the differences
in the characters’ social background, age or temper (cf. the lower-class slang of
Krystal, baby-language of Robbie, or the aggressively vulgar style of Simon).
Throughout the book the presentation of individual psychological experience
remains subordinate to the novel’s investigation of social issues. The book shows
how selfish greed deprives people of a sense of responsibility for each other and
brings about unnecessary suffering, while duplicity and self-deception destroy hu-
man relationships. These moral issues are presented in the context of a wide spec-
trum of social ills, such as drug addiction, racism, sexual abuse, domestic violence,
underage sex, poverty, pornography, marital infidelity, unwanted parenthood, the
misuse of the Internet to publicize defamatory information, and many others.
All in all, both the book’s form (with two minor exceptions to be discussed
later) and theme seem typical of realism. As regards contradictions, they are absent
from the book. What one can find (on the level of the story) are conflicts, like that
between the Mollisons, who, allied with the Aubreys, stand for the affluent, self-cen-
tred upper-middle class, and the late Fairbrother, who believed that the local politics
should be sensitive to the needs of the poor; or between Fats, who wants authentic-
ity, and his parents, Tessa and Colin, who wish to protect their adopted son by hid-
ing the truth from him. However, such conflicts of interest are not contradictions.
One also finds scenes in which the characters lie, as in the case of Tessa assuring
Fats that Colin loves him: “She added the lie because she could not help herself.
Tonight, for the first time, Tessa was convinced that it was a lie […]” (540). This is
a verbal-representational contradiction: the character says Your father loves you and
thinks Your father does not love you, but the reader understands that one proposition
is taken by the character to be false, and thus the contradiction is resolved and the
principle of non-contradiction is not violated. There are also verbal-representational
contradictions between some characters’ beliefs and the fictional reality. For exam-
ple Colin’s belief that he poisoned Fairbrother is contradictory with the results of the
post-mortem examination, but the reader knows that Colin suffers from OCD and
5   Two characters’ names (Krystal’s and Fairbrother’s) might be read as symbolic
but they sound quite natural.
213—
so his self-accusations cannot be trusted (once again there is no breach of the rule of
non-contradiction). With reference to their artistic status the above contradictions
should be classified as fictional logical contradictions (even if expressed partly by
means of the work’s model of reality, they concern contradictory propositions, not
contradictory states of affairs).
From the domains of the characters and the narrator contradictions are other-
wise absent. In the domain of the implied author one might try to locate them in the
choice of epigraphs and the construction of plot (the two formal elements which,
incidentally, might not be typical of realism). The epigraphs, though they seem to
continue the Victorian novelistic tradition, do not offer a poetic commentary on the
action. Taken from Local Council Administration by Charles Arnold-Baker (i.e. from a
nonfictional source), they seem to produce a double effect: authenticating the book
(by making direct reference to real life) and providing ironic contrapuntal com-
ments on the story.6 Even so, the relation between the epigraphs concerned with
authentic legal theory of local government and the fictional picture of actual social
reality is one of incompatibility, not contradiction. (The same applies to the relation
between the novel’s innovative use of epigraphs and their standard usage in realist
novels). Meanwhile the metafictional effect, which does entail contradiction, seems
too subtle to be taken into consideration: the fictional reality is too solid to be sub-
verted by the ironic interjection of authentic material in the epigraphs; and if it were
more prominent, it should be classified as a postmodern element in a realist novel.
As for the exaggerated neatness of plot, The Casual Vacancy features a truly huge
number of subplots, closely interrelated with each other. Some coincidences seem
almost incredible: when Sukhvinder leaps into the river, trying to rescue Robbie, she
crashes onto the computer monitor thrown there by Simon; Krystal and Fats have
sexual intercourse in the cemetery, as it turns out, next to the grave of Fairbrother;
Robbie’s death takes place on the day of Howard’s heart attack. In a realist novel,
adhering to the principle of verisimilitude, an excessively neat plot contradicts the
reader’s model of empirical reality, well known for its inclinations towards chaos.
However, one should remember that the action of Rowling’s book is set in a
6   The quotations, except for the first epigraph, are preceded by short headings,
e.g. “Fair Comment” (199) or “Duplicity” (289), which generate further tension
between the quotations and the text of the novel.
214— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction
provincial town, with a tight social network, that most of the time the novel’s plot
seems fairly ordinary, as well as that some unnatural ordering of life is typical of all
artefacts, and especially those which aim to convey a clear message, the realist novel
included.7 Thus the novel’s plot need not be taken as over-coherent and thereby
contradictory. Conversely, to perceive the novel’s arrangement of plot as excessively
artful means to agree that in this respect the novel departs from the realist conven-
tion, possibly in the direction of hysterical realism, a variant of postmodern fiction
defined and criticized by James Wood in his review of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth.8
To sum up, practically the only (and somewhat dubious) instances of interest-
ing contradictions that can be found in the book seem unrelated to the novel’s
realist convention, as the novel’s construction of plot in so far as it is excessively
well-organized might be related to hysterical realism, while the novel’s ironic use
of epigraphs introducing nonfictional material, if taken as metafictional, should be
considered postmodern. The contradictions which can be found in the novel’s sto-
ryworld, resulting from a character’s lie or mistaken belief are trivial. The apparent
lack of significant contradictions in the pure realist convention can be explained
by the convention’s focus on ethical aspects of social life. Contradictions might
7   Cf. Norris’s critique of deconstructionist readings of realist fiction, which take
narrative arrangement of events departing from the chronological and causal
order as paradoxical. As Norris explains, such readings are guilty of a “category
mistake” which consists in confusing the construction of the fictional reality
with the fictional reality itself: “That novels are constructed in a certain way – and
to that extent reorder the ‘logic’ of contingent events – is known upon a mo-
ment’s reflection to every reader” (Deconstruction 134, see also 133). Likewise one
should not find a narrator having insight into characters’ minds as contradict-
ing the real life fact that people’s minds are unknown to anyone but themselves
– this being a well established narrative convention. Such at least might be a
common-sensical approach applicable also to the neat arrangement of events
in realist fiction. If, however, one chooses to see aesthetic form as essentially
contradictory with real life (e.g. if one believes that the flat surface of the pic-
ture contradicts the three-dimensional nature of the landscape that it shows, as
the recipient is confronted with two mutually exclusive ideas Life is flat vs. Life
is three-dimensional ), then any departure from one-to-one representation may be
interpreted in terms of contradiction.
8   The most characteristic features of this kind of writing include sensational sub-
ject-matter, caricature-like characters devoid of humanity, a huge number of
events extraordinarily related with each other, and interest in large-scale social
phenomena rather than personal experience of life (Wood).
215—
infiltrate the realist convention if they were present in the (real) social life a given
novel aims to represent. Social life is by no means free of contradictions: it is enough
to think of various bureaucratic procedures, but apparently they do not come into
the foreground with reference to the ethical issues of social injustice and human
deficiency in compassion, which is the subject of Rowling’s book. In a more seri-
ous vein, one can think of contradictions entailed in various elements of social
order (cf. Carter’s Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman), but they become manifest
when social organization is perceived in terms of man-made meanings, as typical of
postmodernism.
M o d e r n i s m – G h o s t s ( 19 8 8 )
Eva Figes (1932-2012) is on the whole a modernist writer, though in some of her
novels, as noted by Kathleen Wheeler, she becomes metafictional (253-54). This is
how Wheeler describes the fiction of the author of Ghosts: “Drawing upon Virginia
Woolf, Katharine Mansfield and Samuel Beckett, Figes dispensed with overt plot,
characterization, progressive development and dialogue, and sought to capture the
‘stream’ of experience without allowing for any stable dichotomy between inner and
outer” (253); “Like impressionist painters and modernist writers, she has sought to
focus upon the act of and nature of perception itself – of how we perceive, rather
than what we perceive. In parallel, she has attended to how we feel and think, and to
how those perceptions get transformed into verbal experience” (254); “Thus Figes,
like the modernists before her, has repositioned subjectivity and made it the central
thematics, while realist truth and objectivity are marginalized as complete fictions”
(254).
Most of this seems true of the novel in question. Ghosts tells of old age, loneli-
ness, the transience of life and the burden of selfhood. More specifically, the book
depicts the suffering of a woman whose mother has had no tender feelings for her
child, offered no close physical contact. More generally the book records feminine
experience of various social roles (daughter, mother, lover, friend, passer-by etc.).
The most important of the novel’s formal features are the direct interior monologue
of the internal narrator, retrospective narration conducted in the present tense,
216— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction
fragmentation9 (the whole text is divided into four chapters – each devoted to one
season, sixteen subchapters – each focused on a specific incident such as a visit in
an old people’s home, and clearly separate paragraphs), aesthetic design serving as
the structural principle of the text (in the absence of causal links between specific
episodes), poetic prose (rich in metaphors and memorable images, permeated with
a rhythm of repetitions), and the lack of definite setting in time and place (no dates
or names are given).
The novel provides many instances of verbal contradictions, as illustrated by the
following selection of passages (emphasis added): “My body which is not my body, sweat-
ing into sheets. My life which is not my life, waking up round me, as the walls become
faintly visible, what is laughingly called here and now rises up like a prison, my
prison walls” (2). The logical (or psychological – both classifications seem possible)
quasi-contradiction used here emphasizes a sense of alienation from one’s own ag-
ing and failing body, from one’s life situation. (Cf. also “This person who rises unsteadily
is not me. I feel I should say as much to anybody who might be looking,” 110). The ex-
perience of the narrator’s environment is likewise perceived by her as contradictory.
Witness the following quotations: “The exposed time, the waiting time. Waiting for
leaf and blossom, one more time. The same, but not the same” (7) or “The same figures
but not the same, hurrying to the underground station” (5). The contradictory state-
ments seem to show that a sense of familiarity and alienation may coexist as well as
that one may be misled by repetition into a false sense of permanence. The feeling
of things simultaneously retaining their identity and losing it is also visible in the
following passages displaying more verbal contradictions: “This is not my city. Is, and
is not” (18) “I know this city, and do not know it” (31) and “Nothing comes back. It all comes
back” (28). Interpreted as verbal statements, these are logical quasi-contradictions;
interpreted as reflection of the protagonist’s mental experience, they are psychologi-
cal quasi-contradictions.
Contradictions may also be found in the novel’s use of metaphors, e.g. “White
flakes fall out of a dense grey sky, and leafless trees receive them. The dark twigs
branch, holding out for oblivion. The air is filling with soft nothingness, multiply-
ing to infinity” (122). This metaphorical description of the snowfall, taken literally,
9   The effect of fragmentation is counterbalanced by the persona and uniform
style of the narrator, recurrent motifs – images, themes, etc.
217—
contradicts mathematics, which is part of the novel’s default model of reality: math-
ematics says that nothingness cannot multiply to infinity, it remains nothingness
no matter how many times multiplied (the contradiction obtains between the literal
meaning of the poetic phrase and the rules of mathematics). Cf. also: “Snow turns to
water, water to mist. Each living thing turns into its ancestor. Who will read the pas-
sage of eternity, hour by hour?” (126). This metaphor, again taken literally, contradicts
the dictionary meaning of eternity and captures man’s inability to grasp the notion of
something that does not pass away.10 The intended meaning of the two passages (the
image of delicate, innumerable snowflakes and the inconceivability of the notion
of eternity), though constructed with the help of external contradictions, does not
involve contradiction.
The book’s title, taken literally and combined with the book’s contents, might
be interpreted as another case of implicit internal contradiction for, with the single
exception of the protagonist’s father, the book is concerned with people who are
still alive. Thus the reader gets two conflicting messages: These are ghosts (if the title
of the book is taken literally) and These are not ghosts. If, however, the title is taken as
figurative, the contradiction disappears. The whole device might serve as a reminder
of human mortality. (Cf. also this passage: “How surely they stride, between the
cliffs of concrete, concrete and glass, something definite about them, as though secure, each
in his or her own body, unaware of being ghosts even now, as the dust rises and falls, and the
sky grows light,” 18-19; here one can additionally note an incompatibility between
human fragility and human illusion of stability).
Also some existential dilemmas shown in the novel resemble contradictions.
Consider the following passage: “I find that I exist unscathed only in a vacuum,
only in the long hours I spend by myself. And yet the wish to escape this vacuum,
to make contact, is very strong. Too strong, I think, so my longing is bound for
disappointment” (138). The passage describes the paradox of being oneself only
in isolation and yet desiring company, of having two needs that cannot be recon-
ciled, i.e. both fulfilled. The conflict might be interpreted as part of the character’s
10  Poetic phrases which attribute mental experience to the unconscious world (e.g.
“trees […] devoid of leaf dreams,” 122, “the reproachful, dying moon,” 147,
“[t]he bridge waits, crossing the grey water,” 26) might also be called contradic-
tory as, taken literally, they disagree with the common-sense view of reality.
218— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction
psychological experience or as universal, inscribed in human nature. A similar case
of an existential dilemma presented passim in the novel is that of self-identity, which
one wishes to develop at first and which later becomes a burden so that one comes
to envy inanimate objects their lack of consciousness, though here the two needs or
desires succeed one another, rather than appearing simultaneously. The two cases,
carefully examined cannot qualify as quasi-psychological contradictions, though
they may appear as such at first glance. (In the latter case, one could speak of a
quasi-psychological contradiction if the protagonist wished at one and the same
time to both develop and be relieved of her personal identity).
Finally, it might be argued that some fictional contradictions in Ghosts should
also be taken as nonfictional, part of the novel’s message – apparently this is how the
novel’s analysis of the self-contradictory character of change might be read.
The above analysis appears to indicate that contradictions in modernist fiction
tend to be expressed by means of verbal contradictory statements (either explicit or
inherent in figurative expressions; the latter appear only if the expressions are taken
literally), introduced in the description of fictional psychological experience. They
may be classified as fictional logical (consisting of mutually exclusive statements) or
fictional psychological contradictions (consisting of mutually exclusive mental states).
Apart from some contradictions which appear if figurative expressions are taken lit-
erally, they are internal (both contradictory elements are located within the artefact).
Most of them serve to express certain aspects of human psychological life, which is
not in essence self-contradictory, though it may impress one as such. In other words,
most of them can be resolved by the reader (i.e. the reader will know how to interpret
them and these interpretations will be free of contradictions). (Those in Ghosts which
cannot be resolved are the ones that name existential dilemmas, and these are not
really contradictions (cf. the case of the conflicting needs), and possibly the nonfic-
tional contradiction related to the phenomenon of change). Though fairly frequent,
the contradictions do not produce the effect of the text’s or life’s unintelligibility.
They are used as an emphatic means of expression as well as to render the human
way of thinking. Some perform also a thematic function (inquiring into the nature
219—
of change) and some might be said to perform a heuristic function by indicating that
the text uses language figuratively.11
P o s t m o d e r n i s m – F l a u b e r t’ s P a r r o t ( 19 8 4 )
Julian Barnes is easily classified as a postmodern writer. The critics’ uniform opinion
on the matter is confirmed by Vanessa Guignery and Ryan Roberts (Introduction
xii). Speaking of Flaubert’s Parrot, the author himself sees its postmodernism in the
combination of fact and fiction, exposition of narrative techniques and parody of
the traditional form of the novel (Interview).
Other formal features of this novel are also typical of postmodernism and in-
clude generic hybridity, multiplicity of discourses, fragmentation, a prominent nar-
ratee, and intertextual references. As regards its theme, the novel seems concerned
with unrequited love and, as suggested by the author, dislocated grief (Interview),
typical of the modernist exploration of consciousness. The novel is also much con-
cerned with the value of marriage and marital fidelity, typical of the realist explora-
tion of moral issues. As is typical of postmodern fiction, the book problematizes
the notions of truth, fact, fiction and interpretation and reveals the provisional
character of meaning. Even if its thematic content seems to exceed the postmodern
convention, the book seems sufficiently postmodern for the present study.
As regards the novel’s contradictions, these are both numerous and conspicu-
ous. On top of that the narrator draws the reader’s attention to the subject by pro-
vocatively asking: “What, though, about ‘internal mistakes,’ when the writer claims
two incompatible things within his own creation?” (78).12 For the sake of clarity,
11  Cf. also Daniela Gerberding’s analysis of the poetics of paradox in the novel.
The critic claims that the paradoxes, simple in form and based on apparent
contradictions – familiar and alien, alive and dead, present and past, etc. − serve in
the book to show the emotional ambivalence of memories (both desirable and
destructive), as well as the strangeness of human experience of the present mo-
ment, of nothing as something, of the continuity of life and death. Apart from
specific thematic functions, the critic argues that paradoxes also express the
complexity of human experience in general and the inadequacy of speech to
depict the processes of consciousness (180-88).
12  Cf. the lengthy discussion of allegedly contradictory, hence erroneous, informa-
tion about the colour of Emma Bovary’s eyes in Flaubert’s novel – Braithwaite’s
investigation shows that Flaubert does indeed contradict himself, but the wom-
an who was Emma’s prototype had eyes whose colour was not at all consistent,
220— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction
the analysis begins with the contradictions related closely to the novel’s form, then
moves to the narrator’s discourse and ends with the storyworld.
The most glaring formal contradictions in Flaubert’s Parrot are metafictional. The
most damaging for the reader’s suspension of disbelief seems the analogy between
Ellen Braithwaite (a fictional character who in the fictional reality is quasi-real) and
Emma Bovary (a fictional character from Gustave Flaubert’s novel who is treated
as such), noted by Eric Berlatsky. Both are adulterous wives of doctors; dissatisfied
with life, they both commit suicide. Most importantly, they have the same initials.
Ellen Braithwaite and her husband are thereby revealed to be artistic constructs,
which contradicts the status of quasi-real characters they otherwise enjoy in the
book (Berlatsky 187). The implied author is directly in control of this metafictional
trick. The sophisticated shape of the narrative, which goes beyond what one might
expect from the narrator, a retired doctor, might also count as authorial metafiction.
Other metafictional elements, including the numerous passages in which Braithwaite
meditates on literature (the meaning of factual errors in literature or the reader’s
freedom),13 are ascribable in the first place to the narrator. The narratee is another
metafictional and self-contradictory element of the book, as Braithwaite addresses
him/her as if he/she were real (a companion on the ferry whom Braithwaite can ad-
vise which cheese to buy) only to disclose (by referring to something mentioned “a
few pages earlier”) that s/he is imaginary (ch. 7). Simultaneously, the note attribut-
ing the translation of some texts in the book to Braithwaite, signed J. B. (presumably
Julian Barnes), seems to turn the metafictional effect upside down, implying that
Braithwaite is a real (not fictional or quasi-real) human being.
The contradiction on which the metafictional strategies of the text hinge is that
between fiction pretending to be real and fiction exposing its unreality (translatable
into the mutually exclusive propositions: This is real vs. This is unreal ). They expose
the text’s fictionality and question the categories of fact and fiction, i.e. work in the
way defined by Waugh as typical of metafiction (Metafiction 2). In reverse they might
also imply the nonfictionality of the real author’s own experience (his own wife’s
as reported by Du Camp (74-81).
13  Berlatsky calls Braithwaite’s opinions about literature a “metafictional commen-
tary” (187).
221—
betrayal, his own fascination with Flaubert).14 More obviously, they create a sense
of detachment between the reader and the character (and the story) and encourage
the reader to “invest significance” in the text by analogy with Braithwaite and the
parrot.15 Thus they might be said to invite the reader to adopt a metafictional stance,
a state of consciousness of being a reader.
The novel also combines various incompatible elements: (1) narrative and es-
sayistic passages, (2) factual information about the life of Flaubert and the fictional
story of Braithwaite’s life apparently based on the real author’s own life experience,
(3) the genre of the novel16 and its parody (one chapter of Flaubert’s Parrot has the
form of an examination paper, another of a dictionary). These belong to the novel’s
formal shape and should be attributed to the implied author; however, in this case
one may speak of incongruity rather than contradiction.17
It might, finally, be argued that in some respects the novel’s form is at odds with
its theme. For example, Flaubert’s moving dream about the monkeys he wounded
in a fit of panic, having misinterpreted their tender affection, is presented to the
reader as part of an examination paper (176-77). This incongruity can be explained
as a result of Braithwaite’s attempt to dissociate himself from his emotions. In more
general terms: the whole book employs a postmodern form to discuss a variety of
issues, not all of which are typically postmodern. Still, clearly we are dealing here
with incompatibilities, not contradictions.
14  Judit Friedrich notes the presence of autobiographical material in this and other
works of Barnes in her essay. To appreciate this kind of effect, the reader needs
to be acquainted with extra-textual material.
15  Braithwaite is perplexed when in the Croisset pavilion he finds a second parrot
that is supposed to have been used as a model by Flaubert, and admits that he
“had rashly invested significance in the first parrot” (21-22).
16  Cf. Barnes’s words: “I can’t think of Flaubert’s Parrot as anything except a novel”
(“‘Novels Come out of Life, Not out of Theories’” 44); he also characterizes the
novel as “an upside down, informal piece of novel-biography” (“Julian Barnes
in Conversation” 105).
17  This issue might perhaps be open to various interpretations; one might, for
example, argue that the novel by its unusual formal shape expresses the follow-
ing ideas e.g. The novel is not a narrative genre or The novel is not a fictional genre which
contradict the standard definition of the novel.
222— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction
Verbal contradictions located in the narrator’s discourse often involve mutu-
ally exclusive interpretations of one and the same fact. This is the case with the
three chronologies showing the triumphs and miseries of Flaubert’s life and the rich
ambiguous meanings of his life perceived by himself (“Chronology” 23-37). In par-
ticular, when depicting Flaubert’s death, the two descriptions − “[f]ull of honour,
widely loved, and still working hard” and “[i]mpoverished, lonely and exhausted”
− mutually exclude each other (27, 31). The two images of Louise Colet given in one
dictionary-like entry provide another example of this kind of contradictory interpre-
tations: “Tedious, importunate, promiscuous woman […] who tried to trap Gustave
into marriage,” vs. “Brave, passionate, deeply misunderstood woman crucified by
her love for […] Flaubert” (153-54).18
On at least one occasion the novel comes close to using a contradiction consist-
ing in a verbal disclosure of the deficiencies of language. It is the passage in which
Braithwaite speaks of Flaubert: “he […] saw the underlying inadequacy of the Word.
Remember his sad definition from Madame Bovary: ‘Language is like a cracked kettle
on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move
the stars to pity’” (19). However, these doubts, located in the novel’s intertext, are
removed from the (implied) author and the narrator, who thus cannot be perceived
as inconsistent in their decision to use words.
Also worth considering are contrasts between the article read by Flaubert in
L’Opinion nationale and his short story “Un coeur simple,” both extensively discussed
by Braithwaite. A man who, having been rejected by his beloved, grows obsessed with
a parrot and ends up in an asylum, believing he himself is a bird (57-58), becomes in
Flaubert’s version Félicité (the very name is meaningful), a simple woman who no
matter how many times people mistreat her, will not stop caring for whomever she
encounters on her way, including a stuffed parrot (16-17). Technically speaking, this
is a contrast, not a contradiction (no one claims that the two stories are identical).
Flaubert, inspired by an authentic story, writes a parable suggesting that love makes
sense, whether requited or not. The novel by including both accounts gives the reader
18  Cf. also the divergent accounts of their love affair given by Flaubert and Colet,
though in this case the interpretations may be taken as reports of two subjective
experiences of one relationship (furthermore, Colet’s account is not really hers,
being merely Braithwaite’s guesswork).
223—
a chance to consider Flaubert’s motives and beliefs. It also draws the reader’s attention
to the creative process and its impressive power to transform the initial inspiration.
As regards contradictions located in the story, these include the comic conten-
tion between the two museums in Rouen and Croisset as to which one possesses
the authentic parrot borrowed by Flaubert when working on his short story. From
the start it is clear that one of the museums is mistaken (or both) and in the final
chapter it turns out that the identity of the parrot cannot be established – we have
thus contradictory claims but no violation of the principle of non-contradiction.
The lack of agreement between Maxime Du Camp’s and Flaubert’s descriptions of
their adventure in Greece in 1851 (in Du Camp’s a dragoman barks like a dog, in
Flaubert’s the policeman fires in the air and a local dog barks in response; 64-65)
provides another example of similar contradiction, once again indicating the prob-
lematic nature of human knowledge of the past; once again, in the absence of any
suggestion to the contrary, the reader will assume that only one or neither account is
correct; the principle of non-contradiction is not breached. Technically, the former
contradiction is representational, the latter is best interpreted as verbal.
Thus, the non-metafictional contradictions in the novel concern most often
interpretations or reports of facts. They can be found both in the story and in the
narrator’s discourse, and might be classified as quasi-logical (entailing contradictory
statements, rather than states of affairs or mental states). They seem to demonstrate
man’s cognitive limitations (especially as regards the past) as well as the subjectivity
of human experience and interpretation of reality.
Finally, as in the case of Ghosts, also in Flaubert’s Parrot some contradictions in-
herent in the book and expressed there in the mode of fiction, translate into non-
fictional contradictions that are part of the novel’s message, which communicates,
apart from many other ideas listed above also this one: The meaning of human life is real
and The meaning of human life is imaginary.
To sum up, the most interesting contradictions in Barnes’s postmodern novel
are internal (located in the artefact). They include fictional (inherent in the fictional
model of reality) and metafictional ones. Taken together, they do not seem to cancel
the novel’s meaning, but suggest that life is more complex than one might presume
and, more specifically, develop the epistemic theme (facts must not be confused
with interpretations, truth might be beyond man’s reach, and so might hard reality,
224— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction 225—

etc.). They also increase the distance between the reader and the text so that the Convention
reader has more opportunity to reflect on the book, approach it in a critical way, Realism Modernism Postmodernism
and participate in constructing the book’s meaning, i.e. they perform a heuristic dynamics resolved within resolvable by the some may be resolved by
function. Ironically, they might decrease the distance between the reader and the the text reader if interpreted the reader (often they serve
as the narrator’s to convey non-contradictory
real author, who by deconstructing his fiction, might at times be taken to confess or character’s ideas), others – the
his own experience. mental experience metafictional ones – remain
(sometimes by unresolved unless the reader
recognizing the non- adopts a metafictional stance
7. 3 A c o m p a r a t iv e study of contradiction literal meaning of the (i.e. becomes conscious of
phrase) dealing with an artefact)
in the three conventions
subject depicting representing the expressing paradoxes of man-
The provisional conclusions that can be reached on the basis of the above studies and most human conflicted nature made (esp. verbal) reality
as regards typical form (means of expression and status), location in the narrative important conflicts, of human mental (e.g. history), deconstructing
functions duplicity, as well experience, cognitive the illusion of coherence (e.g.
structure, frequency, subject and function of modernist and postmodern contradic- as absurdities limitations, and between various interpretations)
tions, their interpretation, dynamics and total effect are presented in the diagram of social life paradoxes of the and of the simplistic view of life
(thematic human condition (thematic function); inviting
below. The discussion of realist contradictions, by contrast, is partly hypothetical, function) (thematic function) or provoking the reader to be
critical and take responsibility
in so far as it includes contradictions which might in theory be found in the realist for the ensuing interpretation,

Aspect of contradiction
novel but are missing from Rowling’s novel. (heuristic function)

total effect in local discourse rich paradoxical construction of

Table 7. Contradictions in the realist, modernist and postmodern conventions the artefact disturbance in ambiguous, the text results in intellectual
of coherence paradoxical challenge, may also disengage
in the fictional statements produces the reader
Convention model of reality the effect of
Realism Modernism Postmodernism epistemic uncertainty

typical form verbal and verbal and formal, verbal and interpretation apparent contradictions contradictions are omnipresent
(means of representational representational representational of contradictions recognized by and apparently inevitable
expression) contradictions recognized modernism illustrate in the world constructed
(this issue by realism some aspects of by imaginative human
status fictional fictional, nonfictional fictional, metafictional and is highly are man- human mental beings, above all, by
nonfictional speculative) made errors experience, esp. means of language; they
Aspect of contradiction

and hence the limits of human are not accidentally faulty

typical logical logical and ontological and logical, often contingent; they cognitive faculties or arrangements in social rules or
fictional psychological, some violating the non-contradiction are perceived human conflicting mental fallacies (as in realism
contradiction violating the rule of rule as undesirable; needs and desires; and modernism); the illusion of
non-contradiction on the whole, modernism is not coherence should be dispelled,
location storyworld (esp. narration as well text (i.e. overall construction/ realism tends to confident that the contradictions exposed; the
(narrative the fictional as storyworld (esp. design of the work), and take intelligibility world is coherent and world might well be absurd or
domain) model the fictional model elsewhere (narration, of the world meaningful, it tries to unintelligible, readers who need
of social of psychological storyworld) for granted create the sense and (the illusion of) coherence
interactions) experience) and aims to coherence which should construct it on their own
represent it might otherwise
frequency rare relatively frequent omnipresent (one can speak of be missing or
an explosion of contradictions) inaccessible
226— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction
The above presentation of postmodern contradictions, based on a single title, is in-
complete. On the basis of analyses of other postmodern novels (discussed in Chapter
Eight and Chapter Nine), it might be complemented as regards both the form and
usage of contradictions. It seems safe to say that in many postmodern novels contra-
dictions are external – the mutually exclusive meanings can be located partly in the
artefact, partly in the default model of reality that constitutes the artefact’s context
(this is the case of novels introducing fantastic elements, e.g. Martel’s Life of Pi or
Carter’s Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman). Also, studies of postmodern novels
seem to indicate that very frequent among fictional contradictions are quasi-onto-
logical ones, concerning objects exhibiting mutually exclusive properties, and thus
breaking the principle of non-contradiction, like Effie’s friend, Olivia, who is both
real and fictional in Atkinson’s Emotionally Weird. As regards the additional uses of
contradiction, they include staging sophisticated experiments (as in Life of Pi, which
by providing the readers with an allegedly authentic but increasingly incredible tale
tests their credulity), providing the reader with detailed instructions how to read the
text (as in Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled where contradictions show that the novel should
be taken as an allegorical presentation of the subconscious or unconscious experi-
ence of the main character) as well as (in rare cases) cancelling the text’s meaning
(this is how Danielewski’s House of Leaves can be read). The typically postmodern
thematic function of contradictions is that related to politics. Theoreticians such
as Hutcheon or Waugh have noted the political commitment of postmodern texts.
Indeed it seems that many contradictions are implicated in politics, especially in
the campaign for the liberation or equality especially of various minorities from all
kinds of oppressive (and/or self-appointed) authorities and ideologies. This political
use of contradictions may be exemplified with The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor
Hoffman.
In all kinds of artefacts contradictions might also be a result of the author’s er-
ror and as such unwelcome, possibly devoid of aesthetic (and cognitive) value. Such
errors might be easiest to spot in mimetic fiction which tries to represent faithfully
objective reality (e.g. in realism).
***
Attached below, by way of conclusion, are brief descriptions of the three conven-
tions and their treatment of contradictions. Though formulated as assertions, the
227—
descriptions should be taken as tentative interpretations, based on various critical
sources and analyses, yet in need of further examination.
Realism is by and large mimetic, confident of its view of reality and interested in
social interactions. As regards its interpretation of reality, it tends to take the intel-
ligibility (and coherence) of reality for granted. Harmony and order are perceived
as natural and desirable. Contradictions are therefore avoided: the neat structure of
the narrative corresponds to the neat structure of the world. Some contradictions
occurring in social life (e.g. nonsensical bureaucratic legal regulations)19 may be re-
flected in the text in the form of verbal or representational contradictions. Conflicts,
not contradictions, located mainly within the fictional world (the story), are resolved
by the end of the work and order restored.
Modernism is mainly representational, concerned with psychological life, but
the element of creative transformation is also present (reality is no longer regarded
as fully dependable; the human mind might therefore be required to equip reality
with pattern/meaning). Sceptical about human cognitive powers, modernism rec-
ognizes the possibility of contradictions: their nature is logical and psychological,
they are contingent and intelligible (it is possible to analyze and naturalize them with
reference to the mind in which they originated). In the text they are most often
located in narrative discourse (sometimes representing subjective points of view of
characters) or the fictional model of reality, and have the form of verbal or represen-
tational contradictions. Sometimes they arise as a result of literal interpretation of a
figurative statement. Usually they are internal (located inside the artefact).
Postmodernism is typically experimental: free creation/invention comes to the
foreground, not, however, to the exclusion of representation. The focus falls on the
man-made world: art, technology, man’s transformations. Indeed, the postmodern
world (meanings and values included) seems man-made, constructed in an indi-
vidual creative act or collectively, to a large extent by means of language. This might
somehow explain why contradictions cannot be avoided, cannot be dismissed as
accidental. They may threaten the world’s intelligibility, even if some of them might
be solved. In a literary work contradictions appear in all areas and adopt all forms,
but the most powerful of them are metafictional, inscribed in the construction
19  With reference to legal regulations the definition of contradiction adopted here
might need to be modified to include fictional normative statements.
228— Contradictions in realist, modernist and postmodern fiction

of the text.20 Those located in the novel’s model of reality are often ontological
quasi-contradictions (entailing fictional objects exhibiting contradictory proper-
ties, i.e. impossible worlds). Some contradictions are internal but some are external
(obtaining between the artefact and the default model of reality which constitutes
the artefact’s context). On the whole, postmodernism may be said to be engaged in
subverting the illusion of the world’s coherence.
It seems proper to close the discussion of the way contradictions behave in
various kinds of literature with a brief consideration of their role in art’s cognitive
function. The contrast between realism, which is by and large educational (confident
of its interpretation of life and the author’s authority) and which rarely employs con-
tradictions, and postmodernism, which is by and large cognitive (eager to provoke,
test new ideas, critical of the epistemic status quo and human cognitive potential) and
fraught with contradictions – with modernism’s combination of moderate epistemic
scepticism and moderate use of contradictions located somewhere in between –
might indicate that contradictions are actually correlated with art’s dedication to
cognition. But one should also consider other possibilities – the presence of contra-
dictions might, for example, be primarily related to the main subject-matter of each
convention (social life, personal experience, artefacts in social life and personal ex-
perience), its dominant (ethical, epistemic, ontological/aesthetic) or its formal shape
possibly dictated by the more mimetic vs. more poietic character of the convention. It
may be hard to identify the primary correlation of contradictions as all the eligible
aspects of the three narrative conventions seem closely related to each other.

20  Both realism and modernism entail some formal contradictions (cf. the om-
niscient narrator) but they have been naturalized and are not perceived as
contradictions.
 Chapter Eight
The uses of contradictions in fiction :
structuralism vs . Jacques Derrida
and deconstruction

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the uses of contradictions in postmodern

fiction and consider their possible impact on the novel’s cognitive potential and
intelligibility. By way of introduction, three contemporary English-language nov-
els are briefly discussed: The Unconsoled (1995) by Kazuo Ishiguro, Life of Pi (2001)
by Yann Martel and, once again, House of Leaves (2000) by Mark Z. Danielewski,
all of which exemplify the postmodern convention and various uses of contradic-
tions. This discussion serves as a basis for a survey of the major functions that
contradictions perform. Much attention is paid especially to contradictions which
significantly contribute to the meaning of a given novel and/or the process of its
interpretation. The second part of the chapter brings into consideration deconstruc-
tionists’ and Jacques Derrida’s views on contradiction. Deconstruction, according
to the standard (simplistic) interpretation, maintains that all discourse, being fraught
with contradictions, fails to convey any consistent message. While the uses of con-
tradictions in postmodern fiction might supply an argument with which to oppose
this kind of epistemic scepticism, as they do not seem to have a destructive effect
(nota bene, deconstructionists do not recognize the distinction between artistic and
non-artistic uses of language), Derrida’s original treatment of contradictions, related
to his critique of logocentrism inscribed in language, might be impervious to this
kind of argument. Demonstrating that many contradictions to be found in works of
art might be meaningful and heuristically useful does not suffice to prove Derrida
wrong. Indeed, Derrida’s critique of language might partly undermine structuralist
studies of contradictions; one should, however, remember that this critique rests
ultimately on Derrida’s own uncertain metaphysical assumptions.
230— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
8 .1 U s e s of contradiction in postmodern fiction
The Unconsoled: contradictions used to instruct
the reader how to interpret the text
Ishiguro’s novel tells of Ryder – allegedly a pianist of great renown and a man ca-
pable of bringing back a town’s prosperity – who is in fact a confused and helpless
neurotic driven by a desperate wish to reconcile his parents with each other, save
the town from cultural degradation and please everybody (continually approached
by various people, Ryder is unable to refuse their requests). The novel may be taken
to demonstrate the illusory nature of the human grasp on reality, which sometimes
complies with one’s wishes but more often develops in weird, unpredictable, absurd
ways. It may also be taken to show how (neurotic) people, unaware of what they are
doing, permanently try, and fail, to rescue their parents’ mutual love. It may further
be read as a variation on Derrida’s ethics of the multiple conflicting responsibilities
one has towards the Other, each of them absolute and overriding the other ones (cf.
Gutting 308-17). Most of these meanings could hardly be available, were it not for
the contradictions inherent in the book.
Consider the following passage:
I was just starting to doze off when something suddenly made me open my
eyes again and stare up at the ceiling. I went on scrutinising the ceiling for
some time, then sat up on the bed and looked around, the sense of recog-
nition growing stronger by the second. The room I was now in, I realised,
was the very room that had served as my bedroom during the two years my
parents and I had lived at my aunt’s house on the borders of England and
Wales. I looked again around the room, then, lowering myself back down,
stared once more at the ceiling. It had been recently re-plastered and re-
painted, its dimensions had been enlarged, the cornices had been removed,
the decorations around the light fitting had been entirely altered. But it was
unmistakably the same ceiling I had so often stared up at from my narrow
creaking bed of those days. (The Unconsoled 16)
Ryder realizes that the hotel room he is in is the bedroom in the house of his aunt,
where he lived for some time with his parents. This, however, is impossible: two
231—
different locations cannot be the same location (the town in which the action of
the book is set lies, as most critics agree, somewhere in Central or Eastern Europe,
i.e. not on the borders of England and Wales).1 Looking in particular at the ceiling
above him, Ryder is certain of its identity with the other one, while noting that it has
been completely redecorated, which means that any grounds for the recognition of
the ceilings’ identity have been obliterated. Contradiction obtains here between the
novel’s fictional reality (in particular, Ryder’s experience) and the accepted model of
reality, and suggests that either there is something out of order with Ryder’s percep-
tion of space and logical thinking (he may be an unreliable focalizer and narrator
whose reports are not truthful) or the novel should not be taken as offering a literal
presentation of external reality.
Indeed, the novel abounds in such irregular experiences of place, time and
people, conflicting with the reader’s common sense, which says that space cannot
rearrange itself at will,2 time passes at a by-and-large constant pace, and one’s closest
family and friends do not normally impress one as total strangers. Critics have fre-
quently noted this strangely distorted character of the novel’s fictional reality (cf. e.g.
A. Harris Fairbanks, or Brian Shaffer 97-103). All these contradictions may be taken
to (1) indicate that the novel’s reality is not meant as a model of empirical reality but
as an allegorical representation of Ryder’s (human) subconscious or unconscious3
and, more specifically, (2) reveal their conflicted and illogical nature.
1   Cf. Natalie Reitano (364, 373) or Charlotte Innes (546). See also Richard
Robinson’s list of the countries (England included) identified in the text as for-
eign (108-09).
2   About this kind of setting, Eco (with reference to Franz Kafka’s Trial ) says it is
“a non-Euclidean world, mobile and elastic” (Six Walks 84-85).
3   Many critics have read the novel along these lines; cf. Fairbanks’s analysis of the
novel’s “anomalies” and “abnormalities,” which for him indicate that the story
takes place in a dreamworld – a world that is like a dream but at the same time
has the status of “the ultimate reality” (605-06); cf. also Gary Adelman’s belief
that “To display Ryder’s interior life, Ishiguro combines the fantastic realism of
a dream narrative with the staginess of a theatrical farce” (167), Barry Lewis’s
interpretation of the town in The Unconsoled as a “projection of Ryder’s uncon-
scious” (qtd. in Fairbanks 605), or Robinson’s interpretation of “the Eastwood
error” (in the novel the actor is supposed to feature in 2001: A Space Odyssey
directed by Stanley Kubrick) as indicating, together with the unspecified set-
ting, that the story takes place in “the fabulist and metaphorical domain” (108).
232— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
This conclusion is further supported by the fact that Ryder, who in the novel acts
as the narrator and has on the whole direct access only to his own mind, sometimes
gains insight into other characters’ minds: Gustav’s (e.g. Ryder knows of Gustav’s
worries concerning his grandson’s anxious recognition of his mother’s low spirits,
The Unconsoled 13-14); Stephen’s (e.g. Ryder knows the young man is troubled by the
memory of an evening when Stephen’s poor piano performance upset his mother,
65-71); Boris’s (e.g. Ryder has a vision of Boris’s fantasy in which together with his
grandfather the boy fights against a gang of street thugs, 218-22); Brodsky’s (e.g.
Ryder “remembers” a disagreement between Miss Collins and Brodsky which he
did not witness, 358-61). This otherwise incomprehensible telepathic ability, con-
tradicting the accepted model of reality, which does not allow for the possibility
that people have direct insight into other people’s minds, might suggest that some
characters are projections of Ryder, his alter egos, rather than characters in their
own right.4 In other words, the telepathic ability of Ryder may be taken as further
argument in favour of the novel’s allegorical reading.
Some other distortions of reality in the novel approximate the grotesque.5 A
case in point is the porters’ code, which says that three suitcases should be carried in
the hands and the fourth may be placed on the floor but that if the porter is elderly
two should be kept in the hands and one may rest on the floor (5-9). The porters’
code is presented by Gustav as if it were a sensible, progressive innovation while
being patently harmful and useless – an absurd way to complicate one’s life in the
name of a meaningless ritual. Similarly absurd is Ryder’s concert for Brodsky’s dead
dog (356-62) or the operation in which the surgeon cuts off Brodsky’s artificial leg
without realizing the leg is a prosthesis (464). Such incidents, involving an exagger-
ated, comic distortion of the standard model of empirical reality (sometimes falling
4   Cf. Ishiguro: “The whole thing is supposed to take place in some strange world,
where Ryder appropriates the people he encounters to work out parts of his life
and his past. I was using dream as a model. So this is a biography of a person, but
instead of using memory and flashback, you have him wandering about in this
dream world where he bumps into earlier, or later, versions of himself. They’re
not literally so. They are to some extent other people...” (qtd. in Fairbanks 607,
cf. also Adelman’s analysis of the novel’s characters, 167).
5   Cf. Shaffer, for whom the novel’s dimension “at once absurdist and uncanny,
dreamlike and tragicomic […] recalls the work of Kafka and Beckett and […]
both parodies and stretches the conventions of prose fiction” (90).
233—
short of explicit contradiction), nicely capture the absurdity of human life, possibly
eliciting the reader’s half-hearted smile.
Let me close the discussion of Ishiguro’s novel with a comment on contradic-
tions involved in the novel’s ethical theme. Ryder may be taken as a portrait of each
and every human being whose multiple responsibilities towards the Other cannot
possibly all be fulfilled. For example, Fiona’s request that Ryder should be her guest
when she is visited by her friends, Inge and Trude, conflicts with Boris’s request that
Ryder should help him find the missing football player. This conflict in itself does
not count as a contradiction. However, if the Other is everybody one encounters
and the obligation one has towards every Other is absolute (as argued by Derrida),
it is clear that in practice these obligations will all the time be mutually exclusive: to
fulfil one will be to neglect another and yet all of them are imperative (the deontic
principle of non-contradiction is here clearly violated). The human ethical situation
is thus deplorable: people cannot possibly live up to the moral imperative which, ac-
cording to Derrida, binds them. The Unconsoled, by means of Ryder’s abortive struggle
to help everybody, seems to bring this truth home to the reader. In other words, we
are dealing here with conflicts in the realm of fictional reality which may be taken to
indicate the self-contradictory nature of human moral obligations. The mechanism
is quite different from the one discussed above with reference to the contradictions
instructing the reader how to read the novel.6
All in all, the reader cannot miss the multiple contradictions inscribed in the
world and text of The Unconsoled. Admittedly many of the contradictions do not
transgress the non-contradiction principle. Consider the contradiction between
Ryder’s sense of heroic mission and his hopelessness, exemplified by, among others
things, his initial determination and eventual failure to find Boris’s lost football
player. Ryder’s belief in his omnipotence (revealed in his monologue) contradicts the
implied author’s conviction (illustrated by various incidents from Ryder’s life) that
humans, irrespective of how they feel, are subject in their actions to serious limita-
tions. The two opinions are mutually exclusive but no one claims that they are both
true, and most readers will probably conclude that Ryder’s belief is erroneous. But
6   It is worth noting that this ethical contradiction involves normative statements
rather than assertions of facts and so might require a non-standard definition of
contradiction (in logic the two kinds of discourse are often treated differently).
234— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
some of the novel’s contradictions – the external contradictions between fictional
reality taken literally and the default model of reality (e.g. the amputation of the
prosthesis or telepathy) – disobey the principle of non-contradiction. They may be
neutralized, for example, in the novel’s allegorical interpretation (e.g. telepathy), or
with reference to Ryder’s unreliability (e.g. Ryder’s unusual perception of space),
or not at all (cf. the ethical dilemma). Another reason why they cannot be easily
dismissed is their heterogeneity: some might be explicable in terms of the characters’
minds (e.g. the porter’s code), some (e.g. telepathy) seem to be controlled directly by
the implied author, some rest beyond even the author’s control (e.g. one’s obligation
towards the Other).
To sum up, some contradictions in the book serve to guide the reader’s inter-
pretation of the text, preventing a literal and inviting an allegorical reading of the
fictional reality. Others contribute to the novel’s themes: the conflicted nature of the
subconscious (or of the neurotic personality), as well as the human ethical predica-
ment. Still other contradictions produce a comic/absurd effect in the book.
Life of Pi: contradictions used
to stage an artistic experiment
Life of Pi is a novel about the rationality of theistic belief and, more generally, about
criteria that help people make rational choices between competing beliefs. The
novel seems to defend the theses that theism is rational (on pragmatic rather than
epistemic grounds), and that atheism – in its choice of commitment – resembles
faith, whereas agnosticism can be identified with dogmatic materialism and a pas-
sive attitude towards life. These theses and the reinterpretation of the main concepts
they involve contradict the standard approach and definitions. To encourage readers
to consider the non-standard views, the novel engages them in an epistemic experi-
ment, offering them two mutually exclusive versions of Pi’s survival story, one of
which (the imaginative version which the novel identifies with theism) additionally
openly contradicts the common-sense view of empirical reality. The novel’s use of
contradictions is much more extensive but the discussion here will be limited to
the experiment in question and its novelistic interpretation (I discuss the book’s
contradictions comprehensively in “Life of Pi by Yann Martel”).
235—
The bulk of the novel is a first-person retrospective account of Pi’s survival. The
account is hard to believe: a 16-year-old boy survives 227 days adrift in the Pacific in
a lifeboat all alone except for a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Other challenges
to the reader’s credulity include an orang-utan floating on bananas, the accidental
meeting in the middle of the ocean of two lifeboats “navigated” by two blind casta-
ways, and a predatory island with carnivorous trees. Yet the novel’s “author” (one of
the narrators acting as if he were the author) claims that the story is based on facts.
This impression of authenticity is strengthened by the descriptions, which are rich
in detail, and the tone of the novel, which at times is close to semi-documentary.
The readers are thus presented with an opportunity to test their will to believe. The
majority will eventually, though perhaps regretfully, conclude that the story is false
as it contradicts their knowledge of life.
Because the story of Pi’s survival fails to satisfy the officials investigating the
sinking of the ship, Pi offers an alternative version. Though there are multiple paral-
lels between the two accounts (e.g. the hyena from the former corresponds to the
cook from the latter), they exclude each other. The former shows Pi as a pious,
righteous man; whereas in the latter, after the cook has murdered the sailor and Pi’s
mother, Pi murders the cook and triumphantly eats his heart and liver. The officials
and the reader now face the choice, as Pi suggests, between belief (the original ver-
sion) and scepticism (the alternative version). According to Pi, since neither of the
stories is verifiable, and both fail to explain the mystery of the ship’s sinking (both
have equal explanatory power in this respect), one should feel free to believe “the
better story,” i.e. for pragmatic reasons choose (theistic) belief. As a matter of fact,
Pi’s advice may be questioned: a rational response to the situation in which one is
presented with two conflicting accounts of equal epistemic status may well consist
in concluding that at least one of them is false, though neither need be true, and
suspending one’s judgment. Also, it is debatable whether the epistemic status of the
two versions of Pi’s story is really identical.
To sum up, the novel offers the readers an imaginative experiment. By partici-
pating in it and reflecting on it, they may develop their awareness of themselves (of
the criteria that help them choose their beliefs). The most prominent of the novel’s
contradictions (those between the former version of the story and the default model
of reality as well as between the two versions of the story) are part of the thought
236— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
experiment. Others, especially those obtaining between Life of Pi’s definitions of
atheism, agnosticism, rationality and their standard definitions, contribute to the
novel’s epistemic theme: the reader may find them thought-provoking. Nota bene,
none of these contradictions breaks the principle of non-contradiction: the two
mutually exclusive accounts of Pi’s story are presented as a disjunction; and when
the narrator’s (or the implied author’s) ideas contradict the common-sense (default)
model of reality or the dictionary definitions of certain words, no one claims that
the conjunction of the mutually exclusive ideas is true.7
House of Leaves: contradictions used to weaken the
auth o r’s r e s p o n s ibi l i t y f o r t h e b o o k ’ s m e s s a g e
Danielewski’s novel, though fraught with contradictions, which often involve a
breach of the principle of non-contradiction (cf. the analysis in Chapter Six), may
nonetheless, I think, be taken to convey a message, namely that telling oneself im-
aginary stories can help heal non-imaginary wounds; the terrifying awareness of
one’s ability to inflict damage may be relieved by nursing one’s hope that people
can care for each other. To find this message the reader must want it, otherwise it
is not available: the book may just as well be read as a nihilistic meditation (cf. Will
Slocombe’s interpretation8) or a text resistant to all interpretations (cf. Kiki Benzon
7   When initially Pi lets the reader assume that the original version of his adven-
tures is true and when he later explicitly claims that it is not impossible, no
clear-cut violation of the non-contradiction principle is entailed, even though
the claim might for many readers appear highly controversial, their notion of
what is possible being less liberal than Pi’s.
8   According to Slocombe, the novel approaches the subject of nihilism and noth-
ingness. In particular, Danielewski’s work lets the recipient reflect on the fact
that the house of the Navidsons and the novel’s text, as well as all language, phil-
osophical discourse and culture are built on “a nihilistic void” or absence (non-
Being) that constitutes danger to humans (and all Being), and in spite of all their
efforts (including the effort of the novel’s reader to find its meaning) cannot be
overcome: “Underneath all forms of identity – the ‘house’ of consciousness – lies
the drive towards nothingness” (105). Also Allen B. Ruch and Conor Michael
Dawson find the novel’s message dismal. The former reads it as “essentially a
horror novel […] about the empty spaces in our awareness, the tension between
certainty and uncertainty, and the ambiguities in our apprehension of ourselves,
others, and the world”; the latter as a study of post-traumatic mental disintegra-
tion resulting in violence directed both against oneself and others (15-23).
237—
or Steven Belletto’s readings).9 Thus, like Life of Pi but on a more fundamental level,
this novel too operates as a kind of experiment: the readers can experience their de-
sire for meaning, and their participation in constructing it. Considering the novel’s
complex structure, length, and contradictions, the quest consumes much energy,
yet the dramatic events, the likeable narrator and the troubling problem of evil may
counterbalance the reader’s wish to give up.
To find in the novel the message indicated above one needs to assume that John
Truant is the real protagonist of the novel as well as the author of the Navidsons’
story,10 who attributes the story to Zampanò, a make-believe character, perhaps hop-
ing that the mystification will make the story more real and more effective. The
stakes are high: Truant needs to persuade himself that even though his own mother
tried to maim and kill him, his father died when Truant was still a child, and his
foster father was a cruel sadist, he himself is not doomed to hurt others and might
risk an intimate relationship. Mindless cruelty is in the novel symbolized by Johnnie,
a woman who kills a stray dog that Truant wanted to take home (265-68).11 It is im-
portant to note that Truant feels “haunted” by this tale and that he reads it as a tale
“about the wounded and where […] they finally end up” (265). Many other elements
of the book bring the theme of man’s capacity for evil to the foreground: (1) Truant’s
confessions: “I think something possesses me now. Nameless – screaming a name
that’s not a name at all – though I still know it well enough not to mistake it for any-
9   Benzen speaks of the “text’s resistance to coherence and unified meaning” and
concludes that “The house, like the narrative, does not draw together its com-
posite parts to achieve a definite and comprehensible shape. […] House of Leaves
makes plain in its formal structures and its characters’ drive to organize and
understand reality that integrated and unified experience is an illusion – in nar-
ratives and brains both” (12). Belletto claims that the novel “resists definitive
interpretation by courting the possibility that all interpretation is potentially
reasonable” (106) and that it (the novel) is “designed to sustain a range of inter-
pretations so wide that it would be surprising could such an interpretation be
dismissed as overinterpretation” (116).
10  Critics consider this possibility, see e.g. Natalie Hamilton (8-9). Michael
Hemmingson suggests that Truant might also be the real author of the notes
ascribed in the text to anonymous editors (282).
11  Her name, so similar to Truant’s, her artificial appearance and the phrases with
which he describes her imply, according to Dawson, that the woman reflects
Truant’s own deformed, violent self (19-20).
238— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
thing other than a progeny of anger and rage. Wicked and without remorse” (493, cf.
also 411, 494); (2) Truant’s imaginary fights with the Gdansk man (495-97) and with
a boy (403-06) – both testifying to Truant’s desire to inflict pain; (3) the story of the
imaginary Atrocity, a ship drowned by two Hands, one of which is explicitly called
“maternal” (a parable that might constitute the novel’s very centre, 297-300); (4) the
final paragraphs of the Introduction, signed by Truant, warning the reader against
the horror that s/he will find inside him/herself, a possible side-effect of coming to
know the story of the Navidsons (xxiii). The quotation of Beethoven’s words “Muss
es sein?” which precedes the narrative proper might in this context be interpreted as
a hopeless request to be spared.
This is why Truant tells himself the story of a happy family suddenly threatened
by a void (an objective, so to speak, correlative of Truant’s capacity for destruction).
At first the void destroys only the things that are forgotten and unattended but then
it becomes more aggressive and kills Tom, Will Navidson’s brother. To be defeated,
the void must be faced. This is what Will does, as well as Karen (when she goes
searching for Will) and Truant (when he tells himself the story), and the readers
(when they read it). Even though the ending of the story is ambiguous,12 the reader
may believe that Truant is doing his best, struggling to save himself from madness
(“We all create stories to protect ourselves,” he claims, 20) by following his insane
mother’s advice (“your words and only your words will heal your heart,” 598). By
choosing the optimistic interpretation, the reader may share with Truant this experi-
ence of opposing self-destruction.
In light of this interpretation many contradictions make sense. The most con-
spicuous ones (the blind man acting as an expert on films that do not exist; the
house that is bigger on the inside than the outside because it contains a void, all of
which violate the principle of non-contradiction) help convey the idea that House of
12  Cf. the emotional ambiguity of the Navidsons’ reunion (their happiness seems
forced, 526-28) and Truant’s metafictional trick (the episode in which he invents
friends, then mocks the reader for taking them as real, 507-09). This trick re-
minds the reader of Truant’s uncertain credentials and undermines the positive
meaning of the ending of his own story. However, Truant excuses himself “[…]
I wasn’t trying to trick you. I was trying to trick myself […] I had to make some-
thing up to fill the disconcerting void. Had to” (509). This admission might do
something to restore the reader’s trust.
239—
Leaves is a record of Truant’s experience and his attempt to come to terms with him-
self (rather than a horror story about the Navidsons’ house).13 Other contradictions,
such as the episode in which Truant in the bar has a chance to listen to songs based
on his own book that seems to be still in progress (512-14),14 the scratch on Truant’s
neck left by an imaginary monster (72), or the reference to Zampanò in Pelafina’s
letter apparently serve to undermine this interpretation.
Pelafina’s reference is the most damaging contradiction to the above interpre-
tation of the novel, as Pelafina (Truant’s mother) could not know of Zampanò’s
existence. As N. Katherine Hayles explains, in Pelafina’s letter dated 5 April 1986
there is a “semicoherent series of phrases encapsulated within dashes,” which in the
code established earlier between Pelafina and Truant reads as follows: “‘My dear
Zampanò who did you lose?’ […] The intimation that Pelafina can speak about
Zampanò implies she may be the writer who creates both the old man’s narrative
and her son’s commentary” (802). If Pelafina is the book’s author, the novel can
hardly be interpreted along the previously indicated lines (i.e. as the author’s desper-
ate attempt to defend one’s faith in one’s ability to protect the world against oneself).
On the one hand, Pelafina does not seem perturbed by her potential for destruction,
13  Also many weird coincidences, which do not entail contradictions, seem to con-
firm the thesis about Truant’s mystification. Thus when buttons vanish in the
void in the Navidsons’ house, they also go missing from Truant’s coat (126,
150). In the chapter that is supposed to tell the third dream of Navidson, the
reader may read instead the dream of Truant (403-06). Speaking of his mother’s
attempt to kill him, Truant uses the phrase “those five and a half minutes,”
which may remind the reader of the “five and a half minute” hallway in the
Navidsons’ house (517, 4-5, cf. the discussion of this parallel in Hamilton 9).
These coincidences indicate a strange connection between the Navidsons’ story
and the alleged editor of Zampanò’s notes. Also, the text contains clear hints as
to the metaphorical meaning of the house (standing for the mind) and the void
(standing for human capacity for evil).
14  The impact of this particular contradiction is not totally destructive, as in an-
other entry of his diary Truant declines responsibility for the entry in which
the scene in the bar is depicted (House of Leaves 515). Cf. also Slocombe’s note:
“Although Johnny Truant receives a copy of House of Leaves from a band […],
this is not intrinsically paradoxical since the band reads the ‘Circle Round A
Stone’ first edition (the internet version). The chapter in which this occurs (ch.
21) did not appear in the original internet edition and so there is – in strict
terms, at least – no paradox presented” (108, note 11). Even so, such incidents
confuse the reader and complicate the process of interpreting the book.
240— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
and on the other, the reader has no reason to believe that any part of the book
authored by her is meant to represent any reality: the whole mystification involving
John Truant, Zampanò, the Navidsons does not seem to make any sense any more.15
If on the level of Truant (i.e. the top-most narrator) the contradictions of the
text cannot be fully resolved, one might resort to the level of the implied author.
The implied author should in that case be taken as responsible for projecting his
experience (i.e. presumably the fear that because of the harm he has suffered he
might be a dangerous man) on Truant and staging the whole mystification: himself
telling the story of Truant, who tells the story of Zampanò, who tells the story of
Will Navidson, who makes documentary films about the house in which two people
hoped to be safe and happy, fought against a void and survived. Not killing them,
the implied author gives himself the right to hope that he can control his will to
destruction. Admittedly, this whole construction seems highly contrived and en-
tails a hardly acceptable anthropomorphisation of the implied author. On the other
hand, this reading of the book accounts for the omnipresent satire directed against
contemporary scholarship.16
15  Nota bene, considering how well the contradiction in question is hidden, most
readers will miss it; only the extremely curious will have to confront the chal-
lenge. The readers of The Whalestoe Letters, a companion to House of Leaves, will
feel less comfortable since, as Katharine Cox notes, Pelafina makes an explicit
reference there to Zampanò’s cats (10).
16  This satire is exemplified by the title of the fictional conference on Navidson’s
films − “The Navidson Record Semiotic Conference Tentatively Entitled Three Blind Mice
and the Rest As Well” (House of Leaves 119), or the review of a fictional book on the
same subject by Florencia Calzatti − “Unfortunately understanding Calzatti’s
work is not at all easy, as she makes her case using a peculiar idiom no reader
will find readily comprehensible (e.g. She never refers to Holloway as anything
but ‘the stranger’; Jed and Wax appear as only ‘the instruments’; and the house
is encoded as ‘the patient’)” (House of Leaves 83-84). It is difficult to explain why
Truant, given his age (25), professional experience (work in the canning fac-
tory in the past, then at a tattoo shop), and interests (clubs, strippers, alcohol)
might wish to include all the scholarly disputes, unless for the sole purpose of
making the mystification more difficult to disclose. Admittedly he once won a
scholarship, travelled a few months over Europe and showed on that occasion
a keen interest in art, but this need not suffice to back up the theory that he is
the author of the satire. The critique of scholarship might more plausibly be
explained on the level of the implied author, self-consciously preventing critics
and scholars from analyzing the book, by providing a brilliant caricature of such
241—
Alternatively, given Pelafina’s reference to Zampanò, the book may be taken as
self-negating. House of Leaves, by virtue of this contradiction, becomes then a rare
example of a book which resists all interpretations (cancels its own message). The
only message that still remains is that the meaning cannot be found unless one
creates it in spite of the text’s efforts to remain meaningless. This argumentation,
however, does not seem conclusive. There are some ways of accounting for the puz-
zling reference to Zampanò in Pelafina’s letter, after all. One might, for example,
assume that the letter (possibly also other letters — the readers’ important source of
information about Truant) was forged, though this means in effect that the readers
have no steady ground on which to base their interpretation.17
Thus, some contradictions make the reader realize that the whole book might
represent Truant’s (or the implied author’s) effort to nurse his hope that he need not
be dangerous; others seem to prevent this reading. Taken together these contradic-
tions in House of Leaves might be said to perform yet another function: shaping the
readers’ response to the text. They challenge the readers to accept the fact that they
(together with the author) construct the meaning of this text; it is not ready-made
for them. They may actually experience the effort demanded of them and, since
the reading is so toilsome and demands that they ignore the note preceding the
text, “This is not for you,”18 those who persevere become emotionally implicated.
analysis (cf. Belletto 107-08).
17  Sergeiy Sandler in personal correspondence indicated to me two other possibili-
ties: Pelafina might have prophetic powers and thus be aware of the presence of
Zampanò in her son’s future life (this explanation seems counter-intuitive as it
introduces an element of magic into the frame narrative, which otherwise seems
to comply with the common-sensical view of reality), or her son might have de-
coded the strange sentence from his mother’s letter (though it was not supposed
to be coded) and used it later when inventing the story of the Navidsons. In light
of both these explanations John Truant may well remain the narrative’s author
and the previous interpretation does not require any modification.
18  Placing a note of the kind at the beginning of the book clearly entails a paradox,
as every reader, who in the broad sense has been offered the book by the au-
thor, may consider him/herself the note’s addressee and thus instructed to put
it away. Being a paratextual element, the note will, like the book, be ascribed
to the implied author. Thus the author’s messages: one, inherent in the book
that one may assume is meant to be read, and the other, explicit in the note,
contradict each other.
242— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
When they reach the end of the book, it is too late for them to detach themselves
from the story, its sorrow, and hope, by claiming it is only a work of fiction.19 Thus
Truant’s (and/or the implied author’s) effort to find some reassurance by means of
story-telling is, with the help of the contradictions, partly transferred onto the read-
ers. The readers cannot help admitting that their belief in the novel’s message – in
the healing power of fiction, to be precise – is based on their belief that this is so.20
They cannot denounce the book as manipulative either, for it has repeatedly warned
them against itself.
Once again this discussion of the uses of contradictions in the novel – to guide
the readers’ interpretation, frustrate their interpretive effort and manipulate them
into taking responsibility for the meaning they “find” in the text – does not exhaust
the subject. Almost no mention has been made of the contradictions that can be
taken to intimate the complexity of human life experience (cf. the house that can be
“unheimlich,” 28), or show the conflicted nature of the mind of a psychotic person
(cf. Pelafina’s conviction that her attempt to kill her son, sparing him the pain of
living, is an act of love, 630), or contribute to the novel’s epistemic investigation
of the notions of interpretation, representation, meaning, research and the like (cf.
Zampanò’s discussion of various mutually exclusive scholarly interpretations of the
way Navidson films the mugs and sunflower seeds, 98-99, note 113), or serve to
develop the metafictional theme of the novel, i.e. the novel’s concern with its own
fictional status and with the notion of reality (cf. the passage in which Truant admits
that sometimes he feels “derealized” and suspects that he has been “made up,” 326).
To conclude, on the basis of this cursory discussion of the novels of Ishiguro,
Martel and Danielewski it seems reasonable to argue that their numerous contra-
dictions do not prevent the books from being meaningful. On the contrary, the
19  McHale notes that postmodern “self-consuming” works often appeal to the
reader’s “‘lowest’ instincts,” so that being emotionally engaged, s/he will expe-
rience more keenly the erasure of the fictional reality (Postmodernist Fiction 102).
20  Though in his essay, Mark B. N. Hansen focuses on the transformations of the
novel in the digital era (no longer trying to reproduce the past, the novel evokes
“reality affects” in the reader’s future-oriented bodily experience), he notes that
House of Leaves emphasizes the recipient’s role in the act of interpretation and
“forthrightly admits the void at its center so as better to foreground the role of
belief in its ‘reality’ claim” (607).
243—
contradictions enable the books to offer some of their meanings to their readers.
Danielewski’s novel might in this respect be an exception in so far as some of the
novel’s contradictions might be taken to prevent a coherent, overall reading of the
text.
Functions/uses of contradictions in
postmodern f i c t i o n : a n o v e r vi e w
On the basis of the above analysis of three postmodern novels, one can venture to
make a tentative list of the uses of contradictions in fiction (by extension applicable
perhaps also to other art forms). The names of the functions are provisional and
the list is confined to uses related to the meaning of the work and the process of
its interpretation, though even in this respect it does not presume to be complete.
The uses in question may be divided into four types: thematic (directly contribut-
ing to the novel’s meaning) and heuristic (instructing the reader how to interpret
the novel, indirectly related to the meaning the reader constructs in the process of
reading). Contradictions present in any artefact contribute to its aesthetic quality
and thus also perform an aesthetic function, which is less easily definable, and less
vitally related to the meaning of the text, and consists in making the work attractive.
Special effects – such as the effect of horror or humour – might also be classified as
part of the aesthetic function. Contradictions performing the aesthetic role might
enhance the cognitive experience, but might also have some merit in themselves.
Finally, one can speak of an auxiliary function performed by contradictions which
are relatively insignificant as such but are part of an artistic convention (e.g. talking
animals which in a fairy tale illustrate some moral aspects of human conduct).
Within the thematic function one can distinguish first of all the specific thematic
function: some contradictions help develop the theme of the work. Typically they
might appear in (1) representations of the neurotic or psychotic condition, or any
intense emotional experience (e.g. Filth, 1998, by Irvine Welsh), (2) critiques of the
absurdities of human social life (e.g. empty rituals), (3) explorations of epistemic
problems (e.g. the right criteria when choosing one’s beliefs), (4) presentation of
other issues such as the concept of God (e.g. Watt by Beckett), (5) pictures of the
child’s sensibility (e.g. Pigeon English, 2011, by Stephen Kelman).
244— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
Further, numerous unresolved contradictions, independent of their specific ap-
plication, may be said to perform a general thematic function: the cognitive-scepticism
function. They imply that the human quest for knowledge is doomed, thus conveying
a (radically) sceptical view of language, literature, art and human cognitive abilities.
The same effect (expression of cognitive scepticism) might be attributed to contra-
dictions which arise when the artist questions the epistemic value of artistic means
of expression/cognition such as language or fictional reality as a model, while using
them in the artefact.21
Finally, one can speak of the metafictional function of contradictions which arise
when fiction pretends to be real and at the same time exposes its own fictionality/
artificiality. Their aim (as typical of metafictional strategies in general, cf. Waugh,
Metafiction) is to problematize the relation between fact and fiction as well as decon-
struct cultural constructs that seem firm, unquestionable, and autonomous in their
existence, but are in fact artificial, contingent, and liable to modifications.22 Of the
three thematic functions the second and third (the cognitive-scepticism function
and the metafictional function) seem typical of postmodern fiction; the first one can
also be found in fiction prior to this convention.
Apart from contributing directly to the work’s theme, contradictions also seem
useful in shaping the readers’ response, instructing them how to read the text and
offering experiments. Also these contradictions, by participating in the process of
the work’s interpretation, contribute to the work’s meaning. These heuristic uses of
contradictions might be subdivided into the following categories: the weak-asser-
tion function, the guiding function, the experimental function and the self-negation
function.
21  The latter can be exemplified with the passages on the documentary unreli-
ability of digital photography in House of Leaves (discussed in Chapter Six) and
the former with the repetitive failure of the characters in The Unconsoled to reach
agreement on basic issues, though they speak with ease in an excessively sophis-
ticated and polite style and at other times resort to establishing secret codes of
communication (cf. 21-22).
22  One might note that metafiction (metafictional contradictions) may serve a fur-
ther heuristic function if read as the author’s attempt to avoid manipulating the
readers by disclosing to them the secrets of the artistic workshop.
245—
The weak-assertion (reader-participation enhancement) function is served by contradic-
tions which make the text ambiguous and thus weaken the assertion made in the
work or the author’s authority as, confronted with two opposing ideas, the readers
will have to think which, if any, idea to accept. In other words, they will be unable to
rely entirely on the author’s opinion, but will be forced to share the responsibility for
the work’s meaning. No longer ready-made and conveniently served up in the book,
the message needs to be constructed partly at least from the readers’ desire that the
tale should make sense. Contradictions which carry instructions for the readers (e.g.
warning them against taking the unreliable narrator’s words at face value, indicating
that the text is not meant as a faithful one-to-one representation of external reality
but as an allegory or a parody, or suggesting that the narrator is unreliable or the text
involves some mystification) may be said to fulfil the guiding function. Those which
participate in artistic experiments offered by fiction have the experimental function.
Last but not least, contradictions that effectively cancel the work’s meaning carry
out the self-negation function.
The aesthetic function comprises the enhancement of the work’s attractiveness and the
special-effect function. The latter may be distinguished with reference to contradictions
that significantly contribute to a specific aesthetic experience occasioned by the ar-
tefact (e.g. the comic effect or the uncanny effect). Of the non-thematic functions
that contradictions perform only the guiding, special-effect and auxiliary functions
seem to have been in use in the novel for a long time. The others are by and large
typical of postmodern fiction.
To sum up, some contradictions serve thematic functions: they problematize the
difference between fact and fiction, express cognitive scepticism, show the complex-
ity/absurdities of the human mind and life experience, exemplify various epistemic
problems and the like. Others perform heuristic functions: they direct the readers
in the process of interpretation, force them to accept responsibility for the resulting
interpretation, or help stage artistic experiments. Among heuristic functions there
is also the self-negating function (contradictions depriving the text of intelligibility).
All artistic contradictions also perform the aesthetic function participating in the
work’s aesthetic effect. Additionally, some of them perform an auxiliary function.
It follows that contradictions need not make a work of art unintelligible, this
being only one of their functions; they need not proclaim the total failure of human
246— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
epistemic ambitions either – the failure occurs when contradictions, especially those
which violate the principle of non-contradiction, appear in great numbers, and re-
main unresolved. On the contrary, contradictions may perform various meaning-
related functions, either contributing directly to the work’s meaning or shaping the
recipient’s response and thus assisting in the process of the work’s interpretation.
This at least is how a structuralist might interpret the uses of contradictions in
postmodern fiction.
It is now time to consider briefly how this kind of study relates to Derrida and
deconstruction since it is deconstructionists that have highlighted the phenomenon
of contradiction in modern times.
8.2 The e pi s t e m i c significance of contradictions
for deconstruction & Jacques Derrida
The general position of deconstruction on contradictions has already been pre-
sented in the Introduction. In brief, indicating all kinds of contradictions, incon-
sistencies and discontinuities in texts they examine, deconstructionists come to the
sceptical conclusion that may (simplistically) be formulated as follows: texts fail to
convey meanings, people fail to communicate, reality remains unintelligible (cf.
Barry 61-80). Their scepticism undermines also literary studies, as the belief that
every discourse necessarily contradicts itself and fails to represent reality defies the
whole project of scholarship. However, by demonstrating the role that contradic-
tions perform in works of literature, the analyses presented above suggest that de-
constructionists might exaggerate the destructive impact of contradictions on the
epistemic potential of language. In certain epistemic contexts contradictions may
indeed threaten rationality, but in others they may well be innocuous or even benefi-
cial. Contradictions in art, in particular, need not negate the work’s meaning; they
may serve as a meaning-generating strategy. Also, while it seems advisable to be
sensitive to contradictions, detecting them everywhere might be counterproductive.
All this does not prove that language is trustworthy but might indicate that further
reflection on the subject is needed; the sceptical conclusions seem hasty.
Deconstruction as presented above should not be identified with Derrida’s
thought, even though it has its origin there. Derrida’s treatment of contradictions is
much more complex. This is so because contradictions for him do not originate in
247—
the endemic conflict between figurative and literal uses of language or in the differ-
ence between its assertive and performative uses but, as Gary Gutting explains, in
the mistaken metaphysics Derrida calls “logocentric” (“Derrida” 291-94). Further,
as Gutting convincingly argues, Derrida does not question the notion of truth, the
value of rationality, the need for interpretations, the possibility of cognition, or the
need to respect the basic rules of logic – thus he should not be taken to represent
radical scepticism (304-08). Indeed, Derrida’s project aims to help people gain bet-
ter awareness of how language determines their experience of reality.
Deconstruction in practice:
D er r i d a a n d d e M a n (e x a m p l es)
By way of exemplification, I briefly analyze below two deconstructive passages: one
by Jacques Derrida (from Of Grammatolog y) and one by Paul de Man (from Allegories
of Reading).
The central notion that Derrida examines when reading Tristes Tropiques is that
of writing. According to Derrida, writing is anathematised in Claude Lévi-Strauss’s
text and in Western culture, which “has constituted and recognized itself” by its
“exclusion” (103). Derrida’s primary point of reference is the passage from the book
describing the Nambikwara – a tribe of people who, Lévi-Strauss reports, do not
know writing (i.e. speech notation) and prohibit the use of proper names. From
Derrida’s point of view, however, the Nambikwara do know writing in the broader
sense of the word, as they are able to conceive of “the traces of difference” or the
play of difference in a system, which is where language begins and where “the con-
stitutive erasure of the proper name” first takes place (109). The passage is worth
quoting at length:
It is because the proper names are already no longer proper names, because
their production is their obliteration, because the erasure and the imposi-
tion of the letter are originary, because they do not supervene upon a prop-
er inscription; it is because the proper name has never been, as the unique
appellation reserved for the presence of a unique being, anything but the
original myth of a transparent legibility present under the obliteration; it is
because the proper name was never possible except through its function-
ing within a classification and therefore within a system of differences,
248— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction 249—

within a writing retaining the traces of difference, that the interdict was that speech is direct and good, that all members of a community should enjoy each
possible, could come into play, and, when the time came, as we shall see, other’s presence and the like) underlying Lévi-Strauss’s view of society. For Derrida,
could be transgressed; transgressed, that is to say restored to the oblitera- ethics begins with writing conceived of in terms of différance, and involves the other,
tion and the non-self-sameness [non-propriété] at the origin. (109) as well as absence (101-40).
Another issue relevant to the problem of writing and its potential for violence
There are many paradoxes in the original metaphysics presented in the passage. The
that Derrida briefly tackles in the text is that of the nature vs. culture dichotomy.
most striking one is the “production” which is the “obliteration” of what is being
As Derrida points out, the status of the dichotomy varies in the writings of Lévi-
produced. The theory also has an ethical dimension: “writing, obliteration of the
Strauss: sometimes the anthropologist treats it as a matter or primary import, some-
proper classed in the play of difference, is the originary violence itself […]” (110).
times as merely a matter of methodology. Apparently Lévi-Strauss assumes that
According to Derrida, since proper names are not really proper, language can never
“everything universal in man relates to the natural order, and is characterized by
address the other in the other’s otherness, which means that the other is always vio-
spontaneity, and that everything subject to a norm is cultural and is both relative
lated. Inscribing the unique in the system means “arche-violence, loss of the proper,
and particular” (qtd. in Derrida 104). In the light of these definitions the prohibition
of absolute proximity, of self-presence, in truth the loss of what has never taken
of incest turns to be a problematic issue: as a universal rule it becomes a contradic-
place, of a self-presence which has never been given but only dreamed of and always
tion in terms (104). However, if the prohibition is the origin (the condition) of the
already split, repeated, incapable of appearing to itself except in its own disappear-
culture vs. nature dichotomy, then it cannot be understood within the system (which
ance” (112). Other violences (the violence of prohibition and the violence of its
it conditions), Derrida explains. Only in terms of Lévi-Strauss’s analysis does the
transgression as regards the use of proper names) derive from this one, and involve
prohibition becomes a “scandal”; the “scandal’s” ultimate source is the scholar’s
it. This also applies to what is commonly called violence. This is Derrida’s stand-
misplaced confidence in science. Incidentally, Lévi-Strauss himself comes to de-
point. To Lévi-Strauss, violence appears inexplicable because he fails to see its true
construct the dichotomy when he speaks of the possibility of “the reintegration of
origin. Lévi-Strauss idealizes natural men such as the Nambikwara. Oral language
culture in nature” (qtd. in Derrida 105).
is, he claims, “innocent”; writing by contrast is “a technique of oppression” (120).
About Derrida’s discussion of Tristes Tropiques, one may well say that he rightly
When the Nambikwara chief learns to write, or more precisely, learns to imitate the
notes the bias (cf. the one-sided critique of literacy) and errors (cf. blindness to
anthropologist and act as if he could write, Lévi-Strauss – who clearly realizes that
the violence of the Nambikwara) muddling the anthropologist’s discourse. In this
the chief merely performs – draws from the incident the clearly unjustified conclu-
respect the deconstructive project may well compare with conventional critique in
sion that writing comes instantaneously and serves political, not intellectual, ends.
philosophy. However, Derrida’s true aim seems to be to present his own views.
Writing is thus a means of enslavement and exploitation. Derrida takes this oppor-
The presentation is obscured by Derrida’s vocabulary (e.g. writing, whose meaning
tunity to claim that all writing (in the sense he gives to the word) is indeed related
he redefines), and by his predilection for paradoxical statements (cf. the following
to violence, which means that all language and all knowledge entail violence. But
description of the impact of writing on the human being, which combines freedom
he protests when Lévi-Strauss deplores the law and the state and writing. To take as
with bondage, constitution with effacement: “the access to writing is the constitu-
self-evident their oppressive power is for Derrida untenable, like the complementary
tion of a free subject in the violent movement of its own effacement and of its own
claim that illiteracy and absence of law guarantee liberty and non-violence. He re-
bondage,” 132). Derrida’s contradictions remain unresolved. On the one hand, they
futes Lévi-Strauss’s belief that rejecting books will solve all social ills, by analyzing
might be welcome, because for Derrida the mistaken “dream of a full and immediate
the description of the Nambikwara tribe, who – though illiterate – display much
presence” seems related to “the suppression of contradiction and difference” (115).
violence and exploitation. Derrida also notes the metaphysics of presence (the belief
250— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
On the other, they might be undesirable as some contradictions, as he explains at
the beginning of the text, become contradictions only in the light of the metaphysics
of presence: “contradiction takes on the meaning of a contradiction, and receives
its ‘illogicality,’ only through being thought within a finite configuration – the his-
tory of metaphysics […]” (102; admittedly Derrida speaks here of one specific con-
tradiction). Either way, the true aporias of the text seem related to Derrida’s own
metaphysics, or his attempt to express it in language, not to the biased and faulty
argumentation of Lévi-Strauss, which might easily be rectified.
In the chapter “Excuses,” devoted to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, from
Allegories of Reading, Paul de Man analyzes (deconstructs) the passage devoted to the
author’s memory of a theft. Rousseau treats as “paradigmatic” the incident in which,
as a young man, he wrongly accused Marion, a maid-servant, of having given him,
out of love, a stolen pink-and-silver ribbon. De Man finds in the passage inconsist-
encies, paradoxes, tensions, self-contradictions and discontinuities, which ultimately
undermine the text’s intelligibility. First of all, he claims, Rousseau’s proclaimed
intention to confess his past misconduct is hardly consistent with his, also pro-
claimed, intention to excuse himself. In so far as he excuses himself successfully,
the confession becomes pointless – the text is “self-destructive” (280). There is also
a possible “discrepancy” between a confession of a wrongful deed (for which em-
pirical verification might in theory by available) and an articulation of an excuse
(which, being an internal experience accompanying the deed, cannot be empiri-
cally verified). This possible discrepancy derives from different “truth principle[s],”
or the “double epistemological perspective,” governing the two acts (280-81). De
Man notes next that the excuse (Rousseau claims to have loved Marion and to have
meant to give her the ribbon that he had stolen) fails as an excuse (the “failure” is
“inscribed within the excuse itself”) because Rousseau relates the whole episode
once again, later in his Confessions. In de Man’s analysis of the text, the next reason for
Rousseau’s crime is not Marion and his desire for her, but his desire of “the public
scene of exposure” (285). Marion is merely a victim of Rousseau’s desire for self-
exposure, for his narrative. “The structure is self-perpetuating, en abîme, as is implied
in its description as exposure of the desire to expose […]” – there is always another,
deeper, level of shame that both cannot and must be disclosed (286). This is where
de Man explicates the text in terms of paradoxes: “since the crime is exposure, the
251—
excuse consists in recapitulating the exposure in the guise of concealment. The ex-
cuse is a ruse which permits exposure in the name of hiding […]. Or, put differently,
shame used as excuse permits repression to function as revelation and thus to make
pleasure and guilt interchangeable” (286). Exposure and hiding, repression and revelation,
pleasure and guilt are in the above paradoxes coupled with each other. But this is not
all, de Man focuses next on the sentence from Rousseau’s confession in which he
calls Marion “the first thing that offered itself,” to point out the incompatibility of
the “vocabulary of contingency […] within an argument of causality […]” (288). If
Marion is victimised by chance (because her name happened to come to Rousseau’s
mind when he needed an excuse), then the whole scene cannot be understood in
terms of his desire for her, or for self-exposure; indeed, it cannot be understood at
all, de Man suggests, because of the immense “estrangement between subject and
utterance” (289), except perhaps as a symptom of insanity.
The next incongruity that de Man detects arises with the introduction into the
text of Confessions – in which till then “absolute” truth has been the primary category
– the notions of insignificant truth and of fiction, defined here as a possibly false state-
ment with no reference to reality and of no ethical consequences. As de Man notes,
“the fiction becomes the disruption of the narrative’s referential illusion” (292). It
appears now that Rousseau’s use of Marion’s name (when he blames the theft on her)
is in this context a lie, not fiction, only because it is not recognized as the latter. In
general, “Not the fiction itself is to blame for the consequences but its falsely refer-
ential reading” (293). Still, this kind of defence of the innocence of fiction sounds
in Confessions “paradoxical and far-fetched to the point of absurdity […]” (293). A
reference to Montesquieu’s preface, in which he pretends to be a translator not an
author of his work, lets Rousseau introduce into his work the theme of ownership
and, as de Man suggests, of an “entirely gratuitous and irresponsible text” that ques-
tions “the metaphor of selfhood” (296). This motif is developed with the metaphor
of the text as machine that de Man also finds in the text. The text as machine is
devoid of meaning as the mechanical is meaningless. De Man believes this might
be taken to imply that language, in an automatic way producing the text, is the ulti-
mate cause of psychological experience (guilt or shame) that it describes, and, as he
notes: “there can never be enough guilt around to match the text-machine’s infinite
power to excuse” (299). The ultimate discontinuity of the text, in a simplifying
252— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
paraphrase, might be defined as that between its two rhetoric codes – cognitive
rhetoric (the rhetoric of tropes whose main mechanism is that of displacement), in
terms of which the text is meaningful (cf. the analysis of the Marion episode), and
performative rhetoric (related to a non-referential, entirely arbitrary system of text
production) which makes the text meaningless (278-301).
Some of the breaks, contradictions or paradoxes identified by de Man can be
found in the text (e.g. confessions for which the project of the author’s exoneration
is self-defeating, or the paradoxical introduction of the notion of fiction in a text
that is supposed to be autobiographical), but some appear far-fetched or to have
been read into the text (e.g. the need for two principles of truth – one for the con-
fessional and one for the apologetic themes of the book, or the conflict of the two
rhetorics, given that the performative rhetoric is identified in the text with reference
to the metaphor of the text as machine, for which the textual evidence presented
by de Man appears to be very weak). As for their implications, some disruptions
or discontinuities seem explicable in terms of the complexity of human nature,
which, tempted by its own egoistic desires when social judgment forbids them, acts
in perverse and self-deceptive ways. Others, for explanation, demand a reference
to a special theory which gives language and text, whose production is automatic
and meaningless, control over human mental life. These disruptions might count as
aporetic: as de Man suggests a “speech act […] can never hope to know the process
of its own production (the only thing worth knowing)” (300) – clearly these are the
limits of human cognition. It is, however, worth noting that de Man’s linguistic
speculations are related to Rousseau’s text most loosely. In the final account the
gravest contradictions (the text’s aporias) appear to belong to de Man’s own views
on the human mind, its use of language and language itself.
Derrida and contradictions
Below, I try to outline Derrida’s standpoint on the matter of contradictions. On
Derrida’s account the traditional logocentric metaphysics, which is inscribed in
language and consists in viewing reality in bi-polar, mutually exclusive terms, is
wrong. This is how Gutting reconstructs the main tenets of logocentrism proposed
by Derrida: (1) “the basic elements of thought and language are pairs of opposing
concepts, such as presence/absence, truth/falsity, being/nothingness, same/other,
253—
one/many, male/female, hot/cold,” (2) “the opposing pairs are regarded as exclusive
logical alternatives, governed by the principle of identity (A = A) and non-contradic-
tion (nothing is both A and not-A),” (3) “each fundamental pair is asymmetrical in
the sense that one term has in some crucial sense priority over the other” (293-94).
In particular, this tradition erroneously perceives presence and meaning as positive,
takes the existence of the transcendent signified – whether identified with God, con-
sciousness or discourse – for granted, and assumes that reason has direct (unmedi-
ated by language) contact with meaning (Derrida, “Semiology and Grammatology”
19, 21-22, 28-32; “Structure, Sign and Play” 109-10). The belief that “reason can
somehow dispense with language and arrive at a pure, self-authenticating truth
or method” is for Derrida “the ruling illusion of Western metaphysics” (Norris,
Deconstruction 19).
Logocentric metaphysics inscribed in language is the reason why any attempt
to speak of reality results in contradictions; contradictions are not part of reality,
they reflect the inadequacy of language to describe it, Gutting explains (306). For
Derrida (as for de Man), an element of deconstruction – some “critical motifs” that
undermine logocentric assumptions – is inscribed in every text; deconstruction is
not a procedure imposed on the text from without; it is invited by the text (qtd. in
Norris 48, 105, 108). The term that Derrida employs for contradictions occasioned
by the misconceived metaphysics of language is aporia – “a self-engendered paradox”
(Norris, Deconstruction 49).
Exposing contradictions inherent in philosophical or literary texts or in lan-
guage as such is a way of demonstrating the shortcomings of logocentrism (Gutting
294-95, 306). This kind of reading tries to indicate the extent to which a given text
is governed by the mistaken metaphysics and blind to this fact. Notably, the method
of deconstruction cannot be presented in positive terms, for to do this in language
would be self-defeating, since there is no language able to contact the transcendental
signified: “what opens meaning and language is writing as the disappearance of
natural presence” (Of Grammatolog y 159). All that deconstruction can do is show
that the texts which presume to have disclosed the signified as itself, are in this
respect mistaken, and to document the dominance of logocentrism (Of Grammatolog y
157-64). Finally, as Norris argues, Derrida recognizes the need for classical logic in
the process of deconstruction: “Derrida nowhere denies (and indeed goes out of
254— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
his way to affirm) that we have to think in accordance with classical logic if we are
not only to make adequate sense of those texts but also to locate the symptomatic
stress-points – the moments of aporia or logical tension – where such thinking meets
its limit” (“Postscript” 163).
In place of logocentrism, Derrida offers his own metaphysics based on the no-
tions of différance,23 free play, supplement and trace. His theory is not supposed to
define the structure of reality, structure being but a form of cognition (apparently
comparable with Kantian categories of understanding, such as causality);24 it tries
to respond to the free play of multiple, indeterminate, dynamic elements/mean-
ings generated by différance. Everything, all reality, requires interpretation (nothing
is directly accessible to cognition); the signified is always entangled in the signifier,
the transcendent signified does not exist (“Structure, Sign and Play” 110, 121-22).
8.3 Implications of D er r i da’s vi e w of
contradictions for the structuralist treatment
of artefacts and their c o g n i t iv e potential
The main implications of Derrida’s thought for literary studies (and the structuralist
treatment of contradictions in particular) as well as for any use of “classical lan-
guage” can be summarized as follows.
23  Derrida’s concept of différance is crucial but difficult to explain. He himself
claims that différance evades comprehension and articulation, and is not a con-
cept. In “classical language” it would, however, amount to “the origin or pro-
duction of differences and the differences between differences, the play [ jeu] of
differences” (279) within a signifying system. It is the play of differences which
constitutes both the signifiers and the signifieds; so that différance can also be
called “the possibility of conceptuality, of the conceptual system and process in
general” (“Différance” 285-86; cf. also “Semiology and Grammatology” 19-20,
26-29).
24  Derrida, “Structure, Sign and Play” (esp. 108-12). Unlike Kant, Derrida seems
to believe that the category of structure has served to satisfy the human need for
reassurance (“Structure, Sign and Play” 109); its raison d’être is existential rather
than epistemic. Derrida contrasts structure with différance: the latter is “the gen-
erative movement in the play of differences” and as such “incompatible with
the static, synchronic, taxonomic, ahistoric motifs in the concept of structure”
(“Semiology and Grammatology” 27).
255—
Derrida’s treatment of contradictions is comprehensible only in the context of
his metaphysical ideas. Otherwise his way of reading texts (whether philosophical
or literary) amounts to listing inconsistencies in other people’s writings. Derrida’s
metaphysics may be either wrong or right (of course, the same uncertainty applies
to classical metaphysics).
If Derrida is right, then contradictions should be reinterpreted. To say that
something simultaneously is and is not – is no longer to commit a logical error; it is
to show that “being” is gradable, that something can both be and not be, though this
condition cannot be expressed in any language we know (Gutting 306). Contrasting
features (good/bad; feminine/masculine; present/absent) should not be viewed as
mutually exclusive and resulting in contradictory statements if predicated about one
and the same object; they are mutually dependent. Thus, in the light of Derridean
theory, some contradictions de facto disappear (they are merely linguistically induced
illusions), but some may remain (it should not be taken for granted that all artis-
tic contradictions are “metaphysical”25). Also, Derrida’s deconstruction does not
deconstruct the logical rules of non-contradiction or identity, so that the project
of investigating contradictions in art, even if Derrida’s metaphysics is right, is not
nonsensical per se. Simultaneously, if Derrida is right, language cannot be trusted. It
can still be used for cognitive purposes more or less in the way Derrida uses it: all
the time ingeniously trying to escape language’s metaphysical burden. If Derrida
is wrong (and this is also a possibility worth considering), there is no need to rein-
terpret contradictions and no need to try to outsmart language when one wants to
make a sensible statement.
There is no way in which one might conclusively verify any theories, and ways
of falsifying metaphysical theories are highly limited (metaphysical theories can only
rarely be confronted with empirical data). Derrida’s theory seems additionally resistant
to falsification. As a metaphysical theory concerned with the most fundamental is-
sues, it cannot easily be confronted with other metaphysical theories; its falsification
could presumably consist only in disclosing the theory’s internal inconsistency. But
25  Even if the arts are essentially language-like (as it is sometimes argued), in so
far as they are non-verbal, they need not be permeated with the same metaphys-
ics that supposedly pervades all natural languages. Although, if – as argued by
Derrida – all human experience is mediated by language, then it follows that so
too is any human artistic activity.
256— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
even this does not seem feasible: falsification of this kind could only be conducted
in language, whose epistemic credentials Derrida calls into question. Incidentally, it
is not to be taken for granted that Derrida has conclusively shown that logocentrism
is wrong; at most he has shown that it lacks ultimate epistemic foundation and that
some texts which adhere to logocentric assumptions contain contradictions; also, he
has not proved that all human experience is mediated by language, or that human
beings know no structures other than that of dichotomy.
Whether Derrida is right or wrong, it seems legitimate to use the category of
structure when examining culture. Irrespective of whether structure is merely a form
of cognition (if the term form of cognition is applicable in a situation in which the use of
the form results in misconceptions), which roughly seems to be Derrida’s position,26
or an actual property of autonomous reality, artefacts (and other elements of cul-
ture), being made by people, can safely be presumed to be organized/equipped in
structures by their creators (who have the category of structure at their disposal). If
so, the application of the structuralist approach in the humanities seems justified.27
Also, the element of structure present in artefacts need not perhaps exclude the pos-
sibility of the simultaneous ongoing process of free play of meanings.
Even if the question of the truth value of Derrida’s metaphysics cannot be
settled, his contribution remains valuable: he asked important questions, brought
the phenomenon of contradiction in discourse into the limelight, re-awakened the
awareness that at the very foundation of rationality lies its irrational choice, and
convincingly argued that language and various cognitive procedures (interpretation,
logical reasoning) are fallible and should be taken as such, no matter how well they
seem to serve our purposes.28
26  Nota bene, according to Norris, the deconstructionist rejection of structure en-
tails questioning the belief that “structures of meaning correspond to some
deep-laid mental ‘set’ or pattern of mind, which determines the limits of intel-
ligibility” (3); also, “structure” is a metaphor and its metaphorical nature must
be exposed (Deconstruction 79-80).
27  If structures are made by human beings, then exploring them means exploring
the human mind (in particular its forms of cognition or, in Derrida’s terms, its
illusions). If structures are part of autonomous reality as well as part of the hu-
man cognitive faculty, then no such restrictions as to the object of examination
obtain.
28  Derrida is not the first philosopher to have questioned the cognitive potential
257—
***
To sum up, three approaches to contradictions have been considered in the present
chapter: (1) a deconstructionist exposition of contradictions that pervade all dis-
course, negate its potential meaning and thus lead to epistemic failure, (2) Jacques
Derrida’s metaphysics, in light of which contradictions result from the mistaken
logocentric view of reality (inherent in language) and reveal its fallaciousness, (3)
a structuralist exploration of contradictions and their contribution to the text’s
(artefact’s) meaning and, generally speaking, cognitive value, whether direct (the
thematic function) or indirect (the heuristic, aesthetic, auxiliary function), which
allows for the possibility that contradictions may render a work unintelligible, but
which does not reduce their function to self-negation.
I hope to have shown that contradictions in works of postmodern art can be
interpreted as contributing to art’s cognitive potential, both directly and indirectly
(instructing the reader, shaping the act of the work’s reception, enhancing its ap-
peal) and that they need not automatically prevent art from meaning anything at all,
thereby justifying cognitive scepticism, as suggested by some poststructuralists.29
With reference to postmodern art one should, however, note that its method
and aim – struggling for intellectual freedom by exposing contradictions inherent
in notions that make our culture – are often not so very different from the method
of deconstructionists. As argued by Hutcheon, postmodern culture makes use of
the cultural tradition – its ideas and ideas-laden forms of social life, which she con-
nects with capitalism and liberal humanism – to disclose their limitations (A Poetics
of Postmodernism). Thus Life of Pi might be said to subvert the notion of atheism,
demonstrating that atheism, defined as the belief that there is no God, is a faith like
theism; The Unconsoled seems to problematize the notion of one’s obligation towards
the Other by suggesting that the absolute obligation towards innumerable Others
of language. Other philosophers who voiced scepticism in this respect include
Nietzsche, Heidegger or the late Wittgenstein. Derrida, however, appears to
be the most radical and influential at the moment and his critique is to a large
extent based on his interpretation of contradictions, which is relevant here.
29  Another way of defending rationality while recognizing (true) contradictions
is that suggested by Priest: according to him, their presence need not threaten
cognition; all that is needed is a paraconsistent logic (“Logically speaking”).
258— The uses of contradictions in fiction: structuralism vs. Jacques Derrida and deconstruction

fails to take into account human beings’ finite resources; House of Leaves in a way
“deconstructs” the notions of representation and interpretation.
I also hope to have shown that the structuralist approach to artistic contradic-
tions may be seen as competitive with the poststructuralist approach because it is
not self-undermining. At the same time, it seems fair to admit that, like Derrida’s
thought, structuralism is grounded in metaphysics; in particular, as suggested in the
Introduction, it makes the following metaphysical assumptions: reality exists and is
not in principle unintelligible; language, the basic rules of logic, and the category
of structure can be used for cognitive purposes.30 Like Derrida’s metaphysics, these
ideas cannot be proved or disproved, though the spectacular progress of science
(the natural sciences to be precise) based on them, seems to speak in their favour.
Although reality need not be homogenous, and research methods effective in one
realm (nature) need not be effective in another (culture), considering that human
cognitive faculties and the choice of alternative methods seem limited, the example
of the natural sciences should not be ignored.

30  The list of the ideological implications of structuralism may be more extensive.
For Scholes, for example, structuralism entails among others a belief in some
kind of transcendent “master system which sets the pattern for all the others”
(182), relativism, and a recognition of the value of love (168-200).
 Chapter Nine
Contradictions in various
thematic contexts

The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the use of contradictions in selected the-
matic contexts. Their use in the context of truth and storytelling is exemplified by
B. S. Johnson’s Albert Angelo (1964), and the related theme of the distinction between
reality and fiction – perceived by many authors as central to the postmodern con-
vention – is illustrated by Kate Atkinson’s Emotionally Weird (2000). Angela Carter’s
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972) partly develops that theme, but
is more politically engaged in the critique of social institutions; the novel’s fictional
reality violates not only the law of non-contradiction, but also the law of identity,
or so the narrator claims. For Hutcheon, the most typical genre of postmodern
fiction is that of historiographic metafiction, this genre and the theme of history
is here represented by Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981). Finally, a slightly
older, but recognized by many critics as employing the postmodern convention,
Watt (1953) by Samuel Beckett (apparently a master of literary contradictions) closes
the survey with contradictions used to problematize the theme of human belief in
God. In each case the discussion of contradictions is restricted to the major theme
indicated above.

9.1 A l b e r t A n g e l o by B. S. Johnson:
contradictions and the truth of storytelling
Johnson’s 1964 novel offers a classic example of metafictional contradiction in-
scribed in the construction of the novel. The contradiction comes very close to
classical logical paradoxes – statements referring to their own truth value. Although,
according to Waugh, the statement “‘All novelists are liars,’ said the metafictionist,
260— Contradictions in various thematic contexts 261—

truthfully” is the essence of the metafictional contradiction (Metafiction 137), it is Even though Johnson’s experiment is well known, it seems worth analyzing
rarely presented in such a pure and explicit form. once again in the context of contradictions. Three major contradictions seem to
In part four of Albert Angelo, called Disintegration, the narrator informs the contribute to the total effect. First of all, there are contradictions between the origi-
reader that s/he has until that moment been misinformed: nal and final versions of the story. Second of all, there is the contradiction inscribed
in the liar paradox. Finally, there is the contradiction between the apparent and real
– I am trying to say something not tell a story telling stories is telling
truth value of the narrator’s metafictional statement.
lies and I want to tell the truth about me about my experience about my
The following sentences, though not quotations, exemplify contradictions ob-
truth about my truth to reality about sitting here writing looking out across
taining between the two versions of the story: My parents’ cats’ food is called Fidomeat
Claremont Square trying to say something about the writing and nothing
vs. My parents’ cats’ food is called Felixmeat. What is irregular about the contradiction is
being an answer to the loneliness to the lack of loving
that one statement is presented in the mode of fiction and the other in the mode of
– look then I’m
nonfiction (it is presented in the metafictional section of the novel).1 The narrator’s
– again for what is writing if not truth my truthtelling truth to experience
act of re-writing of his tale involves also a slightly different kind of contradiction
to my experience and if I start falsifying in telling stories then I move away
which can be paraphrased in sentences of the form: My parents’ cats’ food is called
from the truth of my truth which is not good oh certainly not good by any
Fidomeat and It is not true that my parents’ cats’ food is called Fidomeat. Again the two
manner of
sentences mutually exclude each other, but now it is more manifest that one is a
– so it’s nothing
statement made in object language and the other in a meta-language. On the basis of
– look, I’m trying to tell you something of what I feel about being a poet
these differences between the sentences (fiction vs. nonfiction, and object language
in a world where only poets care anything real about poetry, through the
vs. meta-language) one might consider dismissing the hypothesis of their contradic-
objective correlative of an architect who has to earn his living as a teacher.
toriness. But this line of argument seems doubtful because each time the narrator
[…]
appears to represent the implied (or even, according to some critics, the real) author,
– A few instances of the lies. It was Jim Wales not Wells kept the grey-
act as his mouthpiece (though with reference to a metafictional novel this expression
hounds; my parents used to live in Hammersmith but now live in Barnes;
may sound unusual), and refer to the same, allegedly real life incidents and people.
the Little Heathens I pinched from my father but gave the whippety player
In other words, it seems that the narrative should best be taken as self-contradictory.
his name in payment, in slight recompense; and my parents have two cats,
The contradictions in question might, however, be declared negligible since they
not one dog, who eat nourishing Fidomeat, not Felixmeat, which I made
concern insignificant subject-matter. The name of the cats’ food is a minor detail,
up, yes, I’m guilty, I made that word up … (167-73)
as is the district in which the narrator’s parents live, and his own profession. The
Thus Albert, or the new narrator who apparently replaces Albert, or, more precisely, story of the break-up is an exception. The difference between the story of Jenny
the original narrator who discloses at last his true identity, declares that, contrary to who left Albert and the story of Muriel whom he left cannot be considered a minor
his intention of telling the truth, he has been deceiving the reader, distorting and detail. The final version of the break-up is ambiguous. According to this version the
making up various facts of his life. The idea that stories out of necessity falsify reality
is thus dramatized in the metafictional exposure of the novelistic mystification. The
book as a whole tells a story which conveys the idea that telling stories is telling lies. 1   I am presuming that the metafictional narrator is nonfictional, though it might
perhaps also be possible to treat him as a hyper-diegetic fictional narrator.
Incidentally some critics identified him with the author or even B. S. Johnson
(cf. Johan Thielemans 83, or Ryf 60-61, 71).
262— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
protagonist was the one who ended the relationship, but he was made to do so: “For
it was I who actually broke from her, wanting too much, and her not giving, or being
unable to give, she put me in a position where I had to break away, to nurse my fantasy
without its being broken by her reality, and in this I was grievously wrong, to myself,
and to her, self-delusion is the worst crime” (172). One might speculate whether the
attempt to cover up the truth about this intimate relationship might not be the psy-
chological cause of the whole mystification. Still, even if one recognizes the impor-
tance of this incident and its two versions, one might argue that the changes that the
metafictional narrator introduces into the original story are of minor consequence
in the context of the meaning of the whole book (cf. the discussion below). Finally,
it seems worth noting that the contradictions are resolved – the original version is
pronounced false. (Admittedly, the fact that the final section of the book, which fol-
lows the Disintegration, resumes the tale in its original version slightly subverts this
conclusion, implying the metafictional narrator’s inconsistency: after all, being meta-
fictional, he might easily cancel the tale that he perceives as manipulative and false).
As regards the liar paradox, Albert Angelo clearly introduces it: the story-teller
tells the reader that the tales are lies. Johnson expressed this conviction also in his
Introduction to “Aren’t You Rather Too Young to Be Writing Your Memoirs”: “tell-
ing stories is a euphemism for telling lies” (167); to his self-posed question, “Life
does not tell stories. […] how can you convey truth in a vehicle of fiction?” he re-
plied, “The two terms, truth and fiction, are opposites, and it must logically be impos-
sible” (168).2 However, the perception of truth and fiction (taken as a mode in which
literature operates) as contradictory seems hardly tenable, as Robert S. Ryf points
out (72), noting at the same time that Johnson’s attitude might be a “useful enjoiner
against the facile falsification of experience” (72). In other words, the paradox is
solved when one realizes that fiction is a convention of which both the author and
the reader are aware: a convention which allows statements about the real world by
means of conjuring up a fictional reality whose appearance only to some extent cor-
responds to the real one. The lack of close correspondence need not affect the state-
ments’ truth value. Nota bene, this interpretation is not valid if Johnson’s intention
2   A nice extratextual contradiction related to the book can be found in a short
text devoted to Johnson by Figes, who suggests that the author of Albert Angelo
failed to see “that the only way to tell the truth is by lying” (“B. S. Johnson” 71).
263—
was to produce a novel that would present reality directly, without employing the
mode of fiction, as suggested by David Daiches (72-73). In terms of such a project
(a self-contradictory project as the novel by definition employs the mode of fiction),
the Disintegration may be read at its face value, as the novelist’s admission of failure.3
However, the most important contradiction of the novel seems to be located
elsewhere, and concerns the apparent and real truth value of the narrator’s metafic-
tional statement. Apparently the metafictional denunciation is true,4 but as a matter
of fact it is false. This is, so to speak, the one and only significant lie of the novel. The
narrator is patently wrong when denying the truth content of the story, for the story
tells a lot about the burden of being a teacher when feeling that one has usurped
one’s position of authority, or about the need to take responsibility for one’s life, the
pain of loneliness and how it cannot be overcome, and the like. There is much truth
in the book, for all the narrator says, as various critics point out (cf. Philip Tew and
Judith Mackrell5). The erroneous details are by and large (i.e. with the one exception
mentioned above) irrelevant. To disclaim this truth is to make a false statement. This
seems to be the novel’s key paradox (contradiction): the revelation of the mystifica-
tion that was not there is the actual mystification.
Even so, the actual mystification can be interpreted as committed in good faith:
to protect the reader, to establish a truthful relation against all odds, against the
3   Again one might argue that the failure is not significant, the fictional story is
almost the same as the real one with some names and minor details changed for
the sake of privacy of the people (and cats) involved, were it not for the Jenny/
Muriel affair.
4   It is true if the metafictional narrator may be trusted: the reader cannot easily
verify this declaration. In his early review of the book, “Tilting the Camera,”
Lodge points out that the whole incident might merely be a “rhetorical device.”
5   Tew argues that the novel successfully communicates ideas in spite of the pro-
claimed but superficial failure to do so: “If such characterization is imperfect
and the whole paradigm of creating other identities is prone to error, neverthe-
less things may be said obliquely and Johnson does observe closely social con-
texts and the ideological bases of human interaction” (26). The critic goes on to
show how deeply Johnson penetrates the power system of contemporary urban
life. Cf. also Mackrell: “[…] Johnson lists the ‘real-life’ details that have been
misrepresented in the fiction in order to restore the balance of truth, yet the
solid specificity and coherence of Albert’s story retains a much greater convic-
tion than these few details – despite their guarantee of truth – and this strategy
therefore does little to help Johnson’s argument” (51).
264— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
alleged deception of art’s fictional convention, against humans’ desperate need to
find order and sense, even though they might be missing (another theme the novel
develops at length, implying in particular that the need might have much impact on
the shape of human narratives). Commenting on his artistic techniques, the author
reveals their manipulative potential. Admittedly, all of this happens in retrospection,
so that the readers first have the opportunity of being told a story (manipulated),
and only then are told of having been manipulated into taking the story as true. But
at least in the final section of the book, when the story continues, they may in full
awareness re-consider their choice of suspended disbelief. This effect and the whole
discussion of the notions of fiction and truth in Albert Angelo would not be possible
without the novel’s use of contradictions.
9 . 2 E m o t i o n a ll y W e i r d : A C o m i c N o v e l by K ate Atkinson:
contradictions and the realm of the imagination
Emotionally Weird (2000) is another metafictional novel concerned with the category
of fiction. The novel consists of a number of stories. The two main narratives are
Effie’s report on her university life (she is a student of literature at Dundee uni-
versity) and her mother’s, Nora’s, dramatic story of her own life (her parents were
siblings) and Effie’s origin (on the day of Effie’s birth, Nora’s mother tried to kill the
baby). As noted by Beth E. Andersen, the two women “tell each other the secret de-
tails of their lives, sometimes truthfully, sometimes not” (128). To be precise, both
stories are apparently true, i.e. tell of a quasi-real world – unlike Effie’s creative writ-
ing assignment, The Hand of Fate, a story about a private detective Jack Gannet and
his investigation, and unlike similar attempts to write books undertaken by Effie’s
friends and teachers, which are explicitly fictional. However, as the novel progresses,
evidence that undermines the status of Effie’s tale of her academic life accumulates.
Some aspects of the story suggest that the tale may be interpreted as a true report
on Effie’s life, others intimate that it is invented. Easiest to justify is perhaps the
reading which recognizes both the “bare facts” and “pure fiction” aspects of the
tale, the novel refusing to make the choice.6 This dual, fictional and factual, status
of Effie’s tale about her life in Dundee seems the most important (possibly apparent)
6   Stephanie Zacharek calls this mode “semi-surreal.”
265—
contradiction in Atkinson’s novel. The following paragraphs examine the forms that
this contradiction assumes in the text. The technical discussion is closed with a brief
consideration of the novel’s concern with the theme of identity, and a reflection on
the central position of the two categories, real and fictional, in postmodern fiction.
The quasi-real status of Effie’s tale is first of all undermined by Nora’s com-
ments. For example, when Effie tells how, with Chick, Andrea and Terry, she tried
to kidnap the Sewells’ dog and mentions that the Sewells happened to be away, Nora
comments: “~ How convenient for the plot […] If you can call it plot” (326) – thus
implying that the tale is fabricated by Effie. Nora objects also when finding the tale
inconsistent, for instance when in Effie’s story of her life there is frost and rain or
fog and rain, both at the same time (276, 342). The most destructive for the status
of the tale, however, is the change Effie introduces in the episode in which Olivia
commits suicide. To suit Nora’s demand (under Nora’s threat that she will other-
wise erase her daughter’s tale), Effie revises her tale and Olivia’s suicide becomes
an abortive suicide attempt (365-67). On one occasion, on the other hand, Nora’s
interjections apparently result in reaffirming the tale’s ontological status. This hap-
pens when Nora, displeased by Effie introducing yet another character, goes to sleep
(60, 62). The following chapter, which continues Effie’s story, bears the title “What
Nora Missed” (63). On reappearing, Nora asks, “~ Did I miss anything?” (78), as if
the telling of the story was really the story taking place, not a report on some past
events that have already occurred.7 This, however, is impossible, as the novel’s time
of action is limited to the period that Effie and Nora spend together on a forgotten
island off the coast of Scotland, cut off from the mainland, so that Effie’s academic
life could only have taken place prior to the two women’s encounter or else must be
Effie’s invention. The re-affirmation is thus merely apparent.
7   Cf. Meyer’s interpretation of that device: “The indication here is that Effie goes
on telling her story even if Nora is not listening anymore. First of all, this leads
to the reader perceiving once more that he is supposed to listen and that the
story is told not only for Nora’s sake but for a larger audience indeed, as he
remembers the character of Kara from an earlier episode. But there is more to
this idea of Effie carrying on telling even though her mother is not listening:
it stresses the idea that Effie is telling the story to structure her own life and
achieve a clear view” (448).
266— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
The status of Effie’s tale is also questioned by the passages in which the world
of fiction (of Effie’s The Hand of Fate) and the quasi-real world of Nora’s story seem
to permeate each other. Consider the following passage, depicting Nora’s reaction to
Effie’s tale of a class during which she was asked to read a fragment of her detective
fiction, whose last word, spoken by detective Jack Gannet, is “frog”: “~ It’s not a
frog, Nora says, it’s a toad. She strokes it, a toad-wife, and kisses it gently on the top
of its head, an indignity it suffers in silence. When she places it on the floor at her
feet it contemplates her for a few seconds as if it’s worshipping her, before hopping
lazily out of the door” (177). Apparently, Effie is inventing her story while telling it:
in particular, she has introduced the frog into her story because she has just spotted
a toad on the floor of Nora’s house. The Hand of Fate is obviously a work of fiction
(but it is supposed to have already been written in the past); furthermore, Effie’s tale
about her life (of which her creative writing assignment is a part) is supposed to be
nonfiction.
Then there is Effie’s narratorial self-consciousness and authorial prerogatives,
undermining the real-life status of her tale. As Helen Benedict notes, Effie “com-
ments on and even rewrites her own story throughout” (9). This is particularly vis-
ible in the episode in which, having accompanied Dr Dick to the hospital and then
having been dismissed by a nurse, on her way home, she misses the company of
either Chick or Ferdinand: “We must pause for a second. We have come to a criti-
cal fork in the path. If I had a choice of white knights on chargers come to save
me – admittedly only from the weather, but it was very bad weather – which would
I prefer, Chick or Ferdinand? A foolish question surely, for there could be only one
answer –” (281). This passage is followed by two versions of events: one featuring
Ferdinand, the other (presented in the next chapter, titled “Or Else”) featuring
Chick. Oddly enough, though the latter version seems to cancel the former, a bruise
on Effie’s face – a mark left by a blow she receives when Ferdinand is attacked by two
gangsters in the former version – remains on her face (287-88). Another situation
of the kind takes place when Effie, speaking of her life and responding to Nora’s
irritated comment, “~ You’ll never make a crime writer,” corrects Nora: “This isn’t
a crime story. This is a comic novel” (365). It is Emotionally Weird whose subtitle reads
“A Comic Novel,” whereas Effie’s tale is to be taken in earnest, i.e. a report on her
life, neither a crime nor comic novel, or so the reader might have supposed.
267—
Effie’s story is also undermined by other metafictional tricks, such as a reference
to a page number. This occurs when Effie recalls spotting Bob, her boy-friend, with
another female student and locates the incident by the relevant page number: “On
page 49 I looked out of the third-floor window […]” (152). As a result the story, narrated as
if it were real and in progress, all of a sudden turns into an artefact, an already pub-
lished book. The reader who follows Effie’s instructions will indeed find the episode
on the page indicated by Effie: thus the second option is apparently verified. At the
same time Effie continues telling her story as if it were a report on her current life.
And yet common-sense intuition says that logically speaking the two possibilities
cannot be reconciled.
There are also internal contradictions in Effie’s tale, again undermining its
quasi-authenticity. In particular, when Effie falls into dockwater, half-drowned she
believes that it is Nora’s mother who saves her. This is confirmed by Mrs McCue,
who says that Effie was rescued by “some woman,” and this is what Effie tells
Nora (369-70, 373, 388). But then Chick produces a cutting from a newspaper which
reports the mysterious death of a woman who leapt off a rail bridge and whose body
was never found. Chick, Nora and Effie seem to believe the woman might be Nora’s
mother, but are puzzled by the date of her death, which precedes the date when she
supposedly saved Effie (388-89).
Contradictory to common-sense knowledge of life (and hence implying the
fantastic rather than the mimetic convention, a fictionalized rather than a factual
account) is the ability of some characters to hear the thoughts of others; as in the
following passage:
I pushed my way out of the kitchen […], Robin trailing on my heels. We
came upon what appeared to be a small ballroom – a space that was like a
cross between a railway station and a bordello. […] I could almost imagine
myself being waltzed off by a dashing cavalry officer, my mousseline de soie
skirts swirling, a dance card dangling from my wrist.
“Really?” Robin said, apparently quite aroused by this vision. […]
“No, not really.” (333)
In the above passage Robin seems to have direct access to Effie’s vision. Alternatively,
one might argue that the strange effect is produced not by the characters reading
268— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
each other’s minds, but by the narrator presenting the characters’ utterances as if
they were their thoughts.8
Some other contradictions in Effie’s tale are presented in the magic realist con-
vention. For example, bits and pieces of Archie’s and later also Philippa’s manu-
scripts that Effie finds in her pockets seem to have magical properties: one eaten
by Proteus almost chokes him (314-15) and another, when burnt, brings Jay back
to life (cancelling the piece of narrative depicting his fall down the stairs, 329-30).
Obviously, this kind of magic contradicts the reader’s default knowledge of life.
Contrariwise, some elements of Effie’s tale receive external confirmation, which
strengthens the tale’s credibility. This is perhaps most clear when Effie’s description
of a strange woman (who is in fact Nora’s mother but whose identity is at this mo-
ment obscure to Effie) is most exact:
She struck a match to light a cigarette and I could see her hair – the colour
of old threepenny-bits – and her perfectly straight nose. I suddenly realized
who it was that she had a look of – the height, her carriage, the way she
stood with feet splayed – she was like a poor and scrawny version of my
mother, a prototype of Nora that hadn’t quite worked. The little flame of
the match caught something else too – bitterness in the set of her features,
disappointment etched in her skin.
~ What a good police witness you would make, Nora says, rather cynically.
(151)
Also the character of Chick, who first appears in Effie’s tale and later turns out to be
her father, serves as such confirmation (cf. the scene in which Effie tells Nora about
her, Effie, asking Chick about the Glenkittrie case, related to the story of her birth,
of which Effie is unaware, and Nora grows pale and uneasy, 207).
On close scrutiny the characters from Effie’s tale appear to enjoy various kinds
of ontological status. Those whose existence is confirmed by Nora’s tale (Chick,
Nora’s mother) are most solid. Those whom Effie does not manipulate (Terri and
8   Similar occurrence can be found in the frame narrative when Nora reads Effie’s
thoughts: “The boat is ferrying a passenger to us, though his figure is indistinct
and not yet known to us. My heart tips like the waves – perhaps Ferdinand has
broken out of prison and come to find me. / ~ Unlikely, says my unromantic
unmother” (383).
269—
Bob) come next. Then there are the characters whose lives seem to depend on
Effie’s will (Olivia and Jay, who are resurrected by Effie in response to Nora’s re-
quests). Some characters’ status is weakened by their implausibly grotesque features
(e.g. Professor Cousins or Mrs Macbeth). Finally there is Ferdinand, the son of the
McCues, with whom Effie falls in love. From the start there is a very strong sugges-
tion that Ferdinand is Effie’s imaginary prince charming. When thinking of kisses,
Effie admits to having been kissed many times “and all of them put together aren’t
worth an imaginary kiss with Ferdinand” (376; the imaginariness of the kiss invites
the suspicion that Ferdinand too is imaginary).9 Most metafictional is, however, the
passage in which Nora and Effie talk about Ferdinand, who has just left his parents’
house:
~ Where do you suppose he’s going? Nora asks.
‘I don’t know.’ Who knows where characters go when they’re not needed?
Into some kind of limbo, I suppose. Like death or dreaming. Perhaps he
was with the yellow dog which had slipped off the page with such ease.
~ Where could they be? Nora asks, keen on this idea.
Effie first obliges her by suggesting two scenarios and then rejects Nora’s suggestion
that she should introduce more action by saying, “I’m not writing this kind of book”
(227).
The contradiction involved in the dual, self-conflicted status of Effie’s tale –
which is both a quasi-authentic factual account and a work of fiction – may be
solved on the assumption that reality is fiction. This resolution, however, gives rise
to new questions for in the book not all reality is fiction and not all fiction is real-
ity – in terms of the novel, Nora’s story is quasi-real (i.e. though part of a work of
9   Cf. the scene in which Ferdinand’s kiss is depicted: “~ I think you should kiss
him before he disappears again, my giddy mother […] interjects. / Personally,
I think it better if this kind of thing develops naturally between two people,
rather than as a result of intervention. On the other hand, I may never get this
opportunity again. / Suddenly, and without any preamble, Ferdinand leant over
towards me and placed his hot lips on mine and began to kiss me fiercely” (282).
Cf. also the whole episode in which Ferdinand appears as if he is responding to
Effie’s wishes and which she cancels because she gets involved in a robbery and
arrested (281-84).
270— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
fiction, it is supposed to be real), while Effie’s crime fiction is entirely fictional.10
Apparently there is an area of human experience that is neither entirely real nor
entirely fictional. One might conclude by stating that the novel’s apparently con-
tradictory character serves to dramatize this very dimension of human life – the
realm of reality transformed by imagination. Thus, when Nora asks Effie about her
tale: “How will you begin? […] And will it be real? Or will you make it up as you go
along?” (25) – the novel’s answer seems to be: it might well be both.
The apparent real vs. fictional contradiction illustrates the complex relation be-
tween reality and fiction investigated in the novel also by other means, first of all,
by the creative-writing course which Effie and her friends attend, which requires
that they should be working on their own stories (the book includes samples of their
writing: Effie’s book, but also Andrea’s, The Boy’s With No Name, Bob’s, Robin’s,
Kevin’s, Terri’s as well as their teachers’ – Archie’s, Philippa’s, and Martha’s). The
subject of fiction vs. reality is also indirectly approached in the theory of literature
course taught by Archie.
From its very beginning, Nora’s tale also frequently encourages readers to think
about their notion of reality: “it will be a tale so strange and tragic that I [Effie is the
focalizer here] shall think it wrought from a lurid and overactive imagination rather
10  This might be an oversimplification. The first incident of Effie’s detective story
(written before she has heard Nora’s tale) involves a fisherman finding the body
of a drowned woman, apparently strangled. A drowned woman is the key figure
in Nora’s story (Nora believes she drowned her mother) and an important figure
in Effie’s report on her life (she meets Nora’s mother, is rescued by her from
drowning, and later reads about the woman’s death by drowning in a newspaper
cutting). This puzzling coincidence implies that fiction does relate to reality.
There are more parallels of this kind: Maisie, a child Effie takes care of and a
quasi-real human being (i.e. one whose reality is not questioned in the book),
repeats the eccentric question of whether shrimps eat drowned people (224),
considered previously by Constable Collins, a fictional character from Effie’s
tale The Hand of Fate (154), without being acquainted with the book. Either the
question is invented each time by Effie – in which case Maisie is both a quasi-
real and fictional character – or it is asked by Maisie, introduced by Effie into her
tale and antedated. Cf. also the parallels between Effie’s story, Bob’s dream, and
Effie and Nora’s life in the following incident: in Effie’s crime fiction Madam
Astarte eats fish and chip and observes the oncoming fog and sea-fret; Bob
(part of Effie’s real-fictional academic life), asleep, shouts “Wet fish!” and in the
novel’s reality Nora, walking with Effie along the cliff, watches the oncoming
fog and sea-fret (215-19).
271—
than a real life” (25). When the story comes to the end, Nora repeats, “~ I warned
you, I told you right at the beginning that it would be a tale so strange and tragic that
you would think it wrought from a lurid and overactive imagination rather than a
real life” (379). At some point Effie suggests that if Nora used first-person narration,
her tale would become more real, to which Nora replies she would rather “it was less
real” (220). The tale thus, though implausible, is to be taken as true.11 There is also
in the novel a faint suggestion of the unreality not only of Nora’s tale but also her
world: “Occasionally, far away on the cloudy blur of water and sky that passes for
the horizon around here, the shape of a ship glides by, like a theatrical illusion – a
cardboard silhouette being moved across a painted sea. Perhaps we are on an insula
ex machina, an artificial place not in the real world at all – a backdrop for the stories
we must tell” (119).
Next, there is the episode that questions the power of imaginary reality – the
imaginary breakfast fails to satisfy hunger: “With no power and the cupboard bare,
we had to imagine breakfast. Hot chocolate and cinnamon toast for Terri, while
I preferred Braithwaites’ ‘Household’ blend tea with one of Cuthbert’s well-fired
white rolls, its outside crisp and blackened, its inside filled with doughy white air. We
remained hungry, however, for you cannot really eat your own words” (33).
We also have in the novel explicit statements concerning the real vs. imaginary
distinction, showing that the distinction is problematic, explaining how fiction is
real, and noting its impact on reality. Effie’s playful comment about the dead who
should perhaps be no longer considered real serves to highlight the difficulty in-
volved in distinguishing between the two categories: “But then we have to define
what we mean by real and none of us wants to go down that tortuous path because
we all know where it leads (madness or a first class honours, or both)” (170). More
importantly, there are Effie’s speculations, triggered by the image of a monster, in
which the status of reality is ascribed to fiction: “I supposed the angry mythical
beast was an allegory or a metaphor but who knows – perhaps it was real, in as
much as fiction is real, which it must be because it exists, unless something can exist
without being real. And even if it only exists in the form of words, words themselves
11  When Effie finds the development incredible and asks: “Are you sure you’re not
making this up?” Nora replies in the negative by asking, “~ Why would I do
that?” (250).
272— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
must exist or we wouldn’t be able to use them and Wittgenstein himself –” (230).12
Human beings seem to inhabit various realms. At first glance some of them seem
real, and some seem fictional, but on closer inspection they are all part reality, part
fiction, mixed in various proportions – perhaps this is what the novel’s contradic-
tions (the one inscribed in the dual status of Effie’s tale, which is then not really a
contradiction, and all the minor contradictions that undermine the tale’s quasi-real
status) serve to convey.
The problem of the half-real and half-fictional status is not only a matter of
literature. Sandra Meyer analyzes the novel’s literary (esp. metafictional) strategies in
connection with the theme of identity: the contemporary confusion as to who one
is and consequent attempts to construct a stable, coherent selfhood. It is in this con-
text that she touches on the relation between reality and fiction. Referring to Paul
Ricoeur’s concept of narrative identity, Meyer argues that Effie, at first uncertain of
who she is, by exchanging tales with her mother, manages to reconstruct her self.
Meyer notes that the women’s tales are “supposed to be based on reality, they are
even expected to be ‘accurate representations of reality’ within the logic of the text,”
but adds that “this cannot work […]” (445). The project is obviously undoable be-
cause a representation cannot be true, given that real life is in the process translated
into a verbal, narrative work (445-46). This artificiality of tales is foregrounded in
the novel by various strategies: Effie and Nora’s discussions of how stories should
be told, Effie’s addressing the reader, the use of different fonts for different nar-
ratives, internal parallels and repetitions, and the like. Metafiction serves then to
explain how one constructs the tale and, by analogy, the self (as well as to parody the
postmodern novel13): “the metafictional and metanarrative devices emphasise the
12  Cf. also the passage, apparently concerned with a creative-writing class exercise,
which implies that fiction might destabilize reality: “The words [three words
– bracteate, trowel, vilifies – the students are supposed to use in one paragraph]
didn’t help matters at all, prising themselves off the printed page and hanging
around like bored flies, adding further to the instability of the phenomenal
world” (172). As words become material, the world loses its stability.
13  According to Meyer, the novel is not so much postmodern as parodying the
postmodern convention (450-51, 455). This might explain the profusion of
contradictions and the lightness with which they are treated. Alternatively, one
might argue that the playful tone is meant to serve as foil for the melodramatic
story of Nora – the dramatic events, the problem of unexplainable evil.
273—
process of narration and in the case of this novel, the process of telling the story of
one’s life in order to achieve coherence, stability and a knowledge of the past” (449).
There is also a possibility of the tale’s revision (clearly illustrated by the chapter titled
“Or Else,” which contains an alternative version of an already narrated episode),
which implies the same possibility with reference to identity: “The ‘rewriting’ of
the incident indicates that identity is hypothetical, always in flux and that there are
different versions and projections of the ‘same’ identity. It thus highlights that not
only is fiction a construction, but identities are constructions as well” (453). To sum
up, for Meyer, telling stories of oneself and one’s past (which entails fictionalizing
and revising the past till it is coherent and acceptable) means constructing one’s self
(provisional, but coherent and acceptable). Yet though it seems plausible that the fic-
tional element in narratives and reality might result in the fictional element in one’s
self, the novel does not appear to encourage this kind of interpretation. Effie cannot
be reconciled with her self and her life till she hears the “true” story of her birth,
which seems to imply that a factual narrative cannot in some cases be substituted
by fiction. Incidentally, Meyer omits to mention that Nora’s and Effie’s tales are not
treated in the same way; that Nora’s is not presented in the novel as fictional.
***
This discussion of the (possibly apparent) real-fictional contradiction in the book
might be the right moment for a digression concerning the two categories.14 Like
contradiction, they come into the foreground in the mainstream novel with post-
modernism. Possibly in the name of the novel’s empiricism and rationality in the
past novelists (unlike other kinds of writers, such as poets or authors of children
literature) chose to clearly differentiate between reality and fiction, as if they were
mutually exclusive. Postmodernism puts an end to this tradition, treating the rela-
tion between the two categories as most intricate, on the one hand, and vital for
human beings, on the other. This is clearly reflected in McHale’s identification of the
postmodern dominant with ontology, in Waugh’s belief that metafiction serves to
problematize the two notions, and in Hutcheon’s repeated argument that postmod-
14  The following discussion is based partly on my essay “Reality of the Unreal: The
Use of Contradiction in Postmodern Fiction Exploring the Creative Potential of
the Human Mind,” in which I analyze Filth by Irvine Welsh and Pigeon English by
Stephen Kelman. The text written for Explorations of Consciousness in Contemporary
Fiction is currently under review.
274— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
ernism discloses the linguistic constructedness of various forms of social life: one
might say that traditionally taken for real, they are demonstrated to be fictional. But
Emotionally Weird and House of Leaves show that the postmodern novel is also engaged
in exploring the mind and its ability to create reality out of fiction.
To approach the real vs. fictional distinction, one needs to examine closely above
all the notion of reality. The OED definition of real (adj.) reads as follows: “I. That
actually exists, or relates to this. 1. a. Having an objective existence; actually existing
physically as a thing, substantial; not imaginary. b. Philos. Designating whatever is
regarded as having an existence in fact and not merely in appearance, thought, or
language, or as having an absolute and necessary, in contrast to a merely contingent,
existence” (“Real”). Apparently, the notions of “actual,” “objective,” “physical,”
“in fact,” and “absolute/necessary” existence do not entirely coincide, and do not
unequivocally explicate the notion in question.15 Neither can philosophers agree on
what is truly real (what exists or is privileged in its mode of existence): the mate-
rial, the spiritual, the ideal, the two substances (matter and consciousness), or the
two plus the realm created by the human mind (individually or collectively); and
there are many other options. Cognitive scientists, neurologists and psychologists
meanwhile have discovered that, as Susan Blackmore reports, although thanks to
reality-monitoring skills people can differentiate between reality and fiction most of
the time, for some of them (5% of the population) this may be difficult, and there
are some psychological phenomena (such as (day)dreams, hallucinations, memories
and confabulations) and some states of the mind (mental illness, intoxication, etc.)
in which the distinction becomes problematic (325-41). Also, the brain activity of
people who are imagining something, dreaming about it, or hallucinating apparently
resembles their brain activity when the same experience (e.g. dancing) is part of their
real-life experiences (Blackmore 329, 334, 387, 389).16
In contemporary Western culture, the two categories seem to be commonly
construed along the following lines: reality is identified with what is external to the
15  Cf. the most relevant meanings of fiction listed by OED: 1. b. “Arbitrary inven-
tion.” 3. b. “That which, or something that, is imaginatively invented; feigned
existence, event, or state of things; invention as opposed to fact” (“Fiction”).
16  Cf. Sigmund Freud’s intuition that the unconscious does not differentiate be-
tween the real and the unreal (qtd. in Derrida, “Before the Law” 192).
275—
individual mind, i.e. material reality (e.g. an umbrella) and immaterial reality socially
recognized as real (e.g. the concept of general elections); whereas unreality is taken
as identical with the content of individual mental experiences (e.g. the vampire from
one’s nightmare) or immaterial reality socially recognized as unreal (e.g. the uni-
corn). Clearly, this concept of the real is not faultless: apart from privileging social
(over individual) experience, it gives certain immaterial objects a highly uncertain
status (being a matter of social contract, their reality may change, and in the case of
some items – like God or the self – may for ever remain a matter of controversy).
Given the problems involved in defining the real, and the recent scientific obser-
vations of the brain’s unconscious responsiveness to the unreal, one might consider
extending Todorov’s belief that the “real is unreal” in the genre of fantasy onto the
whole sphere of human experience. That is to say, the two categories need not be
taken as identical (Todorov’s statement is provocative), but they need not be taken
as mutually exclusive either. If so, predicating about an object that it is both real and
fictional (imaginary) does not entail a contradiction. With reference to the two cat-
egories Derrida’s intuition that language with its logocentric metaphysics misleads
us might be correct.
The human mind, capable of inventing meanings and values and of assigning
them to both external reality (autonomous in its existence) and internal reality (in-
vented by the mind), appears to create its own real-fictional milieu. The postmodern
novel invites the reader to reflect on this phenomenon inter alia by means of all kinds
of metafictional techniques, including the dual-status strategy (discussed above
with reference to Emotionally Weird): one element of the text having at one and the
same time both the quasi-real and explicitly fictional status, which corresponds in extra-
textual reality respectively to real and fictional status. Incidentally, if the real-fictional
mode of experience is typical of humans, then it is hardly surprising that all kinds of
contradictions originating in the human mind can freely enter the realm of human
life, public and private.
276— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
9. 3 T h e I n f e r n a l D e s i r e M a c h i n e s o f D o c t o r
Hoffman by Angela Carter: contradictions
and critique of the social world
Carter’s Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972) is an aggressively postmodern
book both in terms of its narrative form (cf. the novel’s use of parody and intertex-
tual allusion,17 the conventions of grotesque and satire, the intensity of the novel’s
fantasy,18 its combination of pornography with elaborate style, low with high art
forms) and its view of life (the novel deconstructs various elements of social life
– political organization of the state, ideology, socially accepted sexual behaviours,
religious beliefs and practices, and language included).19 Like Emotionally Weird,
Carter’s novel concerns fiction, but this time fiction has a social character, and the
whole text is politically committed, though the political is, as David Punter puts it,
“metaphysicalized” in the novel (210).
The novel’s primary conflict is first formulated by Desiderio, the narrator and
protagonist, as that of reason vs. desire (or imagination). Various critical interpreta-
tions bring to light the conflict’s manifold aspects, psychoanalytical, cultural, and
epistemic. It has been paraphrased, among others, in terms of the power of reason
vs. the power of eros (Bonca), a world governed by the principle of reality vs. a world
governed by the principle of pleasure (Ewa Michalczyk 79), super-ego vs. id (Schmidt
57), realism vs. surrealism (Susan Rubin Suleiman 102), the Enlightenment contra
postmodernism (Day20), the Apollonian vs. the Dionysian (McHale, Postmodernist
Fiction 43), and determination vs. possibility (Punter 211). Carter herself saw the
conflict as a “dialectic between reason and passion” (qtd. in Gamble 109). But as the
novel progresses, these neat oppositions begin to break down, till at the end of his
story Desiderio reformulates the conflict as simply a struggle for power. The two
opponents involved, the Minister of Determination and Doctor Hoffman, as Cornel
Bonca suggests, represent merely two aspects of masculine sexual domination. Also
17  Cf. Michalczyk (79-80), or Suleiman (101-06).
18  Some critics also speak of magic realism (cf. e.g. Gamble 111-12).
19  Kamionowski in his analysis of the novel’s postmodern convention emphasizes
also its “anti-realism,” “discursive self-awareness” and “artistry” (31-51).
20  Day at first identifies the main conflict as that between reason (and empiricism) vs.
unreason (65), but when discussing the book offers a different reading.
277—
Jerzy Kamionowski notes that the fight between the masters of reason and desire
turns out to be “a patriarchal struggle for absolute power” (118).
In his discussion of the book, McHale notes how the clear-cut opposition is
gradually dismantled: “what had been posed as a polar opposition proves to be a
complex and paradoxical interpenetration,” as “each deuteragonist in fact possesses
the characteristics that ought to belong, according to the logic of the allegory, to
the other […]” (Postmodernist Fiction 144). This act of deconstruction is telling – the
novel approaches various elements of social life in a similar way. They are shown to
be man-made, constructed so as to suit the interests of people in power. The strict cat-
egorization of reality into material objects and meanings is fallacious: “the difference
between a symbol and an object is quantitative, not qualitative,” the peepshow proprie-
tor explains Doctor Hoffman’s philosophy (Infernal Desire 96). Hoffman himself argues:
“I can make you perceive ideas with your senses because I do not acknowledge any
essential difference in the phenomenological bases of the two modes of thought”
(206). Although Doctor Hoffman can hardly be called the author’s mouthpiece, the
idea that man-made meanings give shape to the (social) world, features prominently
in the novel and lies behind its deconstructive strategy.
Before discussing the novel’s use of contradictions to deconstruct various
structures of social life, I want to examine their less important but more conspicu-
ous uses. The fictional reality of the novel includes shadows which fall awry, sugar
which tastes salty, streets that can choose which way they wish to go, an audience in
the Opera House that turns into peacocks, street lamps which metamorphose first
into chanting pillars and then silent flowers, and bedrooms invaded by other people’s
dreams. When reading the book, the reader is first of all struck by such ontological
quasi-contradictions. As Desiderio puts it, “nothing I saw was identical with itself any
more,” (12), things and people being transmuted by the desires of the latter. As can be
seen, the ontological structure of the novel’s fictional reality violates the law of identity
( p = p). There are also more subtle phenomena revealing the ontological anomalies of
the novel’s world – lapses in its continuity or the overlapping of various worlds in space
and time, especially palpable during Desiderio’s sea voyage (144). These ontological
contradictions and other irregularities are a direct result of Doctor Hoffman’s project:
his desire machines help materialize human subconscious dreams. Having negated
the difference between ideas and material objects, Hoffman concludes, “All things
278— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
co-exist in pairs but mine is not an either/or world. / Mine is an and + and world”
(206). This is also why Desiderio’s journey takes him through extravagantly fantastic
realities. To cite Bonca, this is a journey “through the externalized collective uncon-
scious of a hugely repressed society.”
Another ontological quasi-contradiction worth noting inheres in the figure of
the diabolical Count. The Count, if one can trust his words, is his own antithesis
(135; the claim is not logically viable, cf. the identity principle), an absolute negation
that does not, he explains, imply any kind of affirmation (123), so that between
him and the world there is a relation of contradiction. “He claimed he lived only to
negate the world,” as Desiderio reports (123). Logically speaking also this argument
is fallacious – to be the absolute negation of reality the Count would need to be non-
existent rather than evil, a negative state of affairs. There are some suggestions of
this non-existence in the text (e.g. when the Count claims only he exists, Desiderio
feels negated and begins to disappear, 148; Albertina claims that the Count’s “slight-
est gesture created the void he presupposed,” 165; and allegedly when engaged in
sexual activities, the Count “released a force that was the opposite of energy, a de-
vitalizing force,” 168), but the sense of the Count’s wickedness (cf. the description
of the satisfaction he derived from torturing people, 126-27) is much stronger than
that of his absence.
There is also an external contradiction entailed in the novel’s constant exaggera-
tion of the power of human imagination. The peepshow proprietor (a former professor
of Doctor Hoffman) claims that “[t]o express a desire authentically […] is to satisfy
it categorically” (110) and admonishes Desiderio, “Objectify your desires!” (110).
Albertina, Hoffman’s daughter, quotes a parable: “One night, Yang Yu-chi shot what
he thought was a wild ox and his arrow pierced a rock up to the feathering because
of his passionate conviction the rock lived” (167). Doctor Hoffman himself preaches
that “everything it is possible to imagine can also exist” (97) and “to desire is to be”
(211). The Count indeed can organize reality by the power of his desires (cf. e.g. the
Pirates of Death episode – the pirates, who attack the ship, kill the whole crew and then
drown in the storm, are invented by the Count, 148-54, 167). Interestingly, Desiderio
and Albertina (the protagonist and his beloved) only suspect that their subconscious
dreams have come true after they have been brutally raped – Desiderio by the nine
Moroccan acrobats and Albertina by all the male Centaurs of the village. Most of the
279—
time, however, their lives seem subordinate to other people’s desires (the Count’s and
Hoffman’s), or so Desiderio presumes. Irrespective of whose desires are realized in the
novel’s fictional reality, they are with very few exceptions (of shadows falling awry and
the like) repulsive and horrible.
There are also many verbal quasi-contradictions, apart from the self-declaration of
the Count cited above. There is the notion of “synthetic authenticity” (103; the phrase
refers to the authenticity of the reality materialized on the basis of desires, cf. also
Mendoza’a theory that “if a thing were artificial enough, it became genuine […],”
110), or of the “regime of total liberation” (38; the phrase reveals the hypocrisy of
Doctor Hoffman). There is also Hui Shih’s paradox recounted by Albertina, “The
South has at once a limit and no limit,” which is meant to capture the essence of
love (love is allegedly like the South, 202). There is, next, the enigmatic phrase with
which Hoffman greets his daughter: “I go to the city tomorrow and arrive there
yesterday,” and Albertina’s response: “Yes of course […]. Because the shadow of
the flying bird never moves” (199; both become meaningful to Desiderio, when he
understands that “tomorrow” Hoffman intends to gain total control of the world,
time and space included). There is also the Minister’s of Determination sinister par-
able: “A man made a pact with the Devil. The condition was this: the man delivered
up his soul as soon as Satan had assassinated God. ‘Nothing simpler,’ said Satan and
put a revolver to his own temple” (38). The paradox (contradiction) is resolved when
the Minister explains that in his world there is no difference between God and Satan
(39), which means that no contradiction arises when one assigns to one person both
roles (God and Satan are interpreted in the text as roles).
A metafictional contradiction inscribed in the structure of Carter’s book, is also
detectable, though it is much less glaring than in Albert Angelo or House of Leaves. In
particular, the novel’s use of parody, grotesque and intertextual allusion has meta-
fictional undertones. The allusions, in particular, are highly conspicuous. For exam-
ple, when describing the habits of the Centaurs who imprison him and Albertina,
Desiderio explains, “because they were men, they had many words to describe con-
ditions of deceit; they were not Houyhnhnms” (187).21
21  Though Punter suggests that the novel “attempts a subversion of narrative, on
the grounds that narrative is itself ideological in form, even before we begin to
consider its content; […] that narrative attempts to bind together and naturalize
280— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
Most important, however, for the overall meaning of the novel might be the
contradictions inherent in the extra-textual social reality that the novel attempts
to deconstruct. As Kamionowski explains, by deconstructing myths, symbols,
images and archetypes that belong to what Carter views as “the inherently patri-
archal cultural heritage of Western society,” she tries to promote feminist ideas.
Deconstruction means exposing contradictions present in these elements, so as to
prove that they are artificial, contingent constructs.22 If the project succeeds, the
elements can be given new meanings and thus re-shaped (153). Our tradition, as
Carter’s fiction shows, is “overcoded with arbitrary – often mutually exclusive – mean-
ings, and as such, turns out to be inherently self-contradictory” (Kamionowski 155).
Two examples from Kamionowski’s analysis of the book can illustrate the novel’s strat-
egy: the city (governed in the novel by the Minister of Determination) and the castle
(Doctor Hoffman’s fictional abode). The city, which seems to be a place of peace and
safety, turns out to be a place of confinement, violence and disorder (85-87). The
castle of Doctor Hoffman, when Desiderio arrives at it, loses it “mythical, ominous
character,” and turns out to be merely a mansion surrounded by a Disneyland-like
garden (81). Commenting on castles in Carter’s fiction in general, Kamionowski
notes that they are never safe places of “peace and warmth,” but places of atrocities
and imprisonment identifiable with the patriarchal order (78-79).
Deconstruction achieved by exposing the self-contradictory nature of an item
is perhaps in the novel more spectacular in the case of Hoffman’s fight with the
Minister, or the dream of love embodied in Albertina. The novel’s other major
the disunited subject and that this attempt is made at the service of special soci-
etal interests” (213), his argument does not seem quite convincing, considering
how seductive Desiderio’s adventure tale is. Gamble in turn notes the narrator’s
self-awareness (110), but this self-awareness in an old-age politician and national
hero, trying at the end of his life to tell the story of his dramatic involvement in
the defence of the rational order, is well justified and need not undermine the
reader’s suspension of disbelief.
22  Cf. the distinction the novel makes between the real world of nature and the
ontologically fragile world of human desires: “Ocean, forest, mountain, weather
– these are the inflexible institutions of that world of unquestionable reality
which is so far removed from the social institutions which make up our own
world that we men must always, whatever our difference, conspire to ignore
them. For otherwise we would be forced to acknowledge our incomparable in-
significance […]” (161).
281—
deconstructive strategy consists in comparing and contrasting various societies (of
the River People, the Puritans, the Pirates of Death, the Cannibals and the Centaurs
– their social structure, religious rites and beliefs, language, sexual habits and forms of
legalized exploitation). In particular, the novel shows that various ideologies serve to
protect the same model of power relations based on violence and exploitation. All in
all, Sarah Gamble’s belief in the novel’s “radical deconstruction of the cultural status
quo” (109) seems well justified.
As regards the novel’s fictional reality, the reader who reaches the end of the tale
may well feel disillusioned. Doctor Hoffman’s promise of liberated fantasy turns
out to be another form of tyranny (lovers who produce eroto-energy, which propels
the desire machines, are like slaves, who copulate non-stop till they explode, though
admittedly they are volunteers, 213-15). Hoffman himself is an apathetic man, living a
very unimaginative life in seclusion (his devotion to the dead wife whom he pretends
is alive seems to be the only, morbid, trace of fantasy about him). The Minister of
Determination is a moral relativist (cf. the parable about Satan and God), fascinated
with the idea that “a societal structure is the greatest of all the works of art that man
can make” (35). The horrors of the world of desires include rape, murder, torture
and all kinds of cruel and meaningless violence. The Minister’s police state with its
Veracity Inspectors and the Police of Determination (“who looked as if they had
been recruited wholesale from a Jewish nightmare,” 22), and his project of catalogu-
ing all the subjects (once the real, i.e. the “logically viable,” constructed on the basis
of the empirically observable in the city, is listed, the Minister, in control of the City,
will be able to resist Hoffman, 23-24) seems likewise unenticing.23 To cite Punter, it
is a world of “apparent institutional order and totalitarian conformism” (213).
Facing the choice between “a barren yet harmonious calm and a fertile yet ca-
cophonous tempest” (207), Desiderio opts for the former. But the decision is hard for
him, also for personal reasons: it means the loss of Albertina, his heart’s only desire.
Interestingly, there is a kind of conflict between this decision of the narrator and the
implied author’s standpoint, expressed in the novel’s epigraphs, which, to cite Bonca,
“invoke the excitement of lawlessness, chance, and liberation,” the novel’s dominant
23  At one point Desiderio wonders whether the Minister’s tests of reality (which
included a trial by fire) are not based on the principle “[…] I am in pain, there-
fore I exist […]“ (22).
282— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
convention of the “surreal picaresque” and its fanciful style (Bonca).24 The dissonance
is perceptible even though on the whole, as noted by Aidan Day, Desiderio does not
seem an unreliable narrator; on the contrary “he represents and articulates a posi-
tion which is close to, though perhaps not exactly identical with, Carter’s own” (79).
Perhaps the contrast serves to emphasize the loss involved in the choice. Strict, rational
order, deprived of fantasy and freedom, when contrasted with the tyranny of a mad-
man who legitimizes all kinds of cruel exploitation and sexual perversions, is a lesser
evil. This is how some critics read the novel, as recommending the need for a certain
rational restraint of desire in a civilized society (Schmidt 73; Day 90).
On the whole, the novel offers a bitter, disillusioned view of mankind, where
love remains the dream of a sexual pervert, the Count, a dream that he does not
make come true: “[t]he death-defying double somersault of love,” is the one thing
he does not condemn (124). Also, Desiderio’s affair with Albertina cannot easily
be taken as proof that love exists, since they manipulate each other in pursuit of
their own desires, and ultimately are subordinate to others: Albertina follows the
commands of her father, Desiderio works for the Minister of Determination and
both are temporarily controlled by the Count’s desires. Reality is organized by those
in power, who keep others in submission by means of physical force, state ideology,
religious indoctrination, or cultural myths (cf. the sleeping beauty myth). But the
subconscious (the natural part of man, as opposed to the super-ego) cannot be relied
on either: it is egocentric and destructive, inhabited almost exclusively by perverse
dreams of sexual, masochistic torturing. As Ricarda Schmidt explains, it is shown in
the novel that the fulfilment of desire is undesirable, as it would involve necrophilia,
incest, sadism, rape, cannibalism, murder, and sexual violence (56-61). There is then
no place of refuge, in either the conscious or subconscious worlds. Hopefully, there
might be a contradiction or at least some incongruity between the novel’s one-sided,
deeply pessimistic view and the truth about human societies (there definitely is one
between the novel’s view and the contemporary default view on the matter).
To sum up, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman uses contradictions in a
variety of ways, but the most important seem to be those that serve to better bring
24  The style might be ascribed to Desiderio, since as the narrator he is in control of the
language of his tale, but readers of Angela Carter may well associate the style they
know so well from her other works with the author.
283—
out the problematic nature of social reality. The power of human desire is exag-
gerated so as to show that social reality is by and large created by men in power,
according to their desires. The theme of the real vs. the fantastic (imaginary) is in
the novel subordinate to the theme of power.
9. 4 M i d n i g h t ’ s C h i l d r e n b y S a l m a n
Rushdie: contradictions and history
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) is a famous example of historiographic metafic-
tion. It is also a book well known for its use of magic realism. Correspondingly, the
discussion of contradictions inherent in the book will first focus on the historical
context, the unreliable narrator and his erroneous view of Indian history, but will
also include contradictions that are part of the book’s use of “magic.”
Saleem Sinai, the novel’s narrator, aims to tell the history of India, but is quite
unperturbed by the mistakes he commits. He misinforms his narratees about the date
of Gandhi’s death, reports his own mistake and defiantly announces that he will not
correct it (229-30). The whole incident seems to highlight the narrator’s liberty, his
imaginative power that need not respect the truth about reality, since he is engaged
in the vital task of reviving the nation with a new myth. Saleem is thus a narrator
whose reliability seems doubtful.25 In “‘Errata’: or, Unreliable Narration in Midnight’s
Children,” Rushdie himself enumerates other such errors. For instance, Saleem states
that it was Jagjit Singh Arora, not General Sam Manekshaw, to whom the Pakistan
Army surrendered; trains from Delhi to Bombay do not go through Kurla; Ganesha
is supposed to have written down the Mahabharata, not the Ramayana (22). Saleem,
however, as Rushdie explains, is neither stupid nor confused (23). Most errors Saleem
makes are fully intended by the author.26 This is so because the book is not a story
25  Some contradictions which confirm Saleem’s uncertain reliability do not involve
the default model of reality (they are internal), as in the case of his false report
on Shiva’s death. First the narrator presents a detailed account of Shiva’s death,
then admits this was an “out-and-out” lie told out of fear (616-17, 619). The false
information (and contradiction) result in this case, if Saleem may be trusted, from
his involvement in the tale.
26  Some of Saleem’s errors, however, are the real author’s errors. As Rushdie ad-
mits, “the novel does contain a few mistakes that are mine as well as Saleem’s.
One is to be found in the description of the Amritsar massacre, during which
I have Saleem say that Dyer entered the Jallianwala Bagh compound followed
284— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
of India’s past (though this was Rushdie’s original intention), but a study of how a
nation’s history is reconstructed: “So my subject changed, was no longer a search for
lost time, had become the way in which we remake the past to suit our present pur-
poses, using memory as our tool” (24). The contradictions in the book thus corre-
spond to the contradictions committed by historians in their work – historians, who
(like Saleem) are not disinterested (Saleem for one wants to retrieve the meaning of
his life): “The small errors in the text can be read as clues, as indications that Saleem
is capable of distortions both great and small. He is an interested party in the events
he narrates” (24). Historians (like Saleem) sometimes have to rely on their fallible
memories and Rushdie suggests that personal memories, even when erroneous, pos-
sess a kind of personal value that makes them seem superior to an objective account
of the past (24-25). Finally, some errors, Rushdie explains, are there to put the reader
on his/her guard: they indicate that Saleem does not deserve the reader’s unreserved
confidence (25). In conclusion, Rushdie states, “History is always ambiguous. Facts
are hard to establish, and capable of being given many meanings. Reality is built
on our prejudices, misconceptions and ignorance as well as on our perceptiveness
and knowledge. The reading of Saleem’s unreliable narration might be, I believed,
a useful analogy for the way in which we all, every day, attempt to ‘read’ the world”
(25). “[W]rongness feels right” is how Rushdie comments at one point on both his
own and Saleem’s error (“‘Errata’” 23). Contradictions are meaningful. More than
that: as Midnight’s Children illustrates, they can be used to correctly represent those
aspects of (social) reality (in particular, human attempts to reconstruct the past) that
involve contradictions.27
It is not only the narrator’s propensity for factual errors that gives rise to con-
tradictions. His conduct towards his audience – Padma and “you,” the narratee-
potential-reader – is also not entirely consistent. As Grzegorz Maziarczyk notes, in
trying to impress the latter, Saleem frequently interrupts his tale, assuring the narra-
tee-potential-reader of its authentic value in meta-comments, which, however, imply
that he is the creator of the tale: “Hence, Saleem’s activity seems to be propelled
by ‘fifty white troops.’ The truth is that there were fifty troops, but they weren’t
white” (23).
27  Even so, some readers (e.g. Ronny Noor) took the book as a historical novel and
listed Rushdie’s mistakes.
285—
by two mutually exclusive desires. On the one hand, he wants his narrative to be
treated as a transparent reflection of reality; on the other, he stresses that it is a work
of art” (167). The same conflict is visible in Saleem’s self-defeating narrative posi-
tion. As Maziarczyk explains, Padma, an illiterate woman, is easy to please, whereas
the narratee-potential-reader’s literary tastes are more sophisticated (163-70). Saleem
“would like his text to be read simultaneously in two incompatible ways: one em-
bodied in Padma, treating his narrative mostly, although not completely, as a reflec-
tion of reality […], and the other in the ‘more discerning audience,’ which is aware
of the functioning of fiction and which treats his novel as literature” (Maziarczyk
169). Such conflicts between objectives, in terms of the definition adopted here,
do not count as artistic contradiction. Also, to be interpreted as mutually exclusive
statements This is a true story and This is a work of art would demand the assump-
tion that a true story and a work of art are mutually exclusive categories. Problematic
contradictions of a similar kind may also be found in the narrator’s manipulation
of the narratee. By showing the narratee-potential-reader how he can manipulate
Padma, Saleem seems to undermine his own moral authority, but Maziarczyk sug-
gests that by admitting to this malpractice, the narrator might be trying to win the
other narratee’s trust (168-69). The contradiction might be found between various
meanings of Saleem’s trick: by communicating the idea I can manipulate other people,
but because I confess my fault, you can trust me, Saleem manipulates the narratee-potential-
reader; the true meaning of his conduct seems to be quite different: I can manipulate
you; you cannot trust me. Saleem is not trustworthy after all, the first statement being
patently false (all on the assumption that Saleem’s action is indeed a ploy). There is
also a contradiction inscribed in Saleem’s constitution: though he keeps the reader
company throughout the novel and is never declared by the author to be a construct,
yet standing for both the narrative and the Indian nation, as he does, he cannot but
be an artificial construct.
The most spectacular contradictions of Midnight’s Children, however, are conjured
up by means of the magic-realism convention. Magic realism, to cite Wendy B. Faris,
is a convention in which “realism and the fantastic [are combined] in such a way that
magical elements grow out of the reality portrayed” (163). This magic is “something
we cannot explain according to the laws of the universe as we know them” (167); in
fact, “[i]rreducible magic often means disruption of the ordinary logic of cause and
286— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
effect” (168). This fantastic element is an obvious source of contradictions between the
fictional and the extratextual reality or, more precisely, their models. In Rushdie’s book
some of these contradictions are directly related to the novel’s historical theme. One
example, cited by McHale, features “the historical Sanjay Gandhi [who] replicates or
clones himself many times over, his features appearing on every one of the Sanjay
Youth volunteers (whose duties during the Emergency involved promoting steriliza-
tions and vasectomies)” (Postmodernist Fiction 89). The most conspicuous example
concerns midnight’s children, all gifted with miraculous properties, born during
the first hour of India’s independence (15 August 1947), who represent their new-
born country – its promise at first and later its destruction. It is in this context that
McHale considers the ethical aspect of this presence of fantasy in a historical book
or, in other words, of the contradiction between Rushdie’s self-invented and the
true accounts of the Indian past (for it is not true that the 1976 State of Emergency
was directed by Indira Gandhi against midnight’s children). McHale claims that
although this may seem to be “a betrayal” of the “record of real human action and
suffering,” one should bear in mind that we cannot be certain “that the historical
record reliably captured the experience of the human beings who really suffered and
enacted history.” Books such as Midnight’s Children express the possibility that official
history may entail an element of fiction (Postmodernist Fiction 95-96).28
However, not all contradictions presented via magic realism in Rushdie’s novel
are engaged in re-writing history. It is rumoured that Naseem can enter the dreams of
her daughters, whom she wants to control (52); depending on its pitch, the humming
of Mian Abdullah can cause either a toothache or an erection (55); Saleem as a child
does not blink (170-71); overfed fish explode “in little clouds of scales and undigested
28  Hutcheon also finds contradictions in the novel and relates them to its concern
with history, but she understands them in terms of unresolved conflicts of op-
posing forces. Thus, in the novel the belief in the coherence of history, narrative
and self, cherished by liberal humanism (attractive but illusory) contradicts the
postmodern perception of multiple, contradictory, decentred selves, stories and
histories. Another prominent conflict involves the attempt to restore the past,
while questioning the authority of any narrative in this respect (all narratives
being politically committed and subjective). In Midnight’s Children the narrator’s
body (representing India) disintegrates, his attempt to tell Padma the history of
India results in a chaos of clearly invented personal narratives, and his own self
turns out to be infinite (esp. 94, 117-18, 129, 161-64).
287—
fish-food” (175); the clothes for children sewn by Aunt Alia are permeated with her
negative emotions – bitterness, resentment and jealousy (214); hashish drifting in the
air, when the flowers are ripe, induces in people a state of intoxication (449); the jungle
plays a trick on the four Pakistani soldiers: when they make love with the women of
their fantasies, they become transparent, their dream-life evaporating (512); charmed by
music, cobras tie themselves in knots (562). As noted by Barbara Klonowska, Rushdie’s
novels are “full of fantastic, unusual, improbable or simply impossible events” (117).
Most instances of this kind of magic realism, defying common-sense knowledge
of extratextual reality in Rushdie’s novel, show strange powers of human beings,
though, as Klonowska points out, the powers often remain beyond their owners’
control and have destructive effects on their lives (139-43). In general, “the magic
in Rushdie’s fiction is not enchantment: more often than not, it is monstrosity and
horror, brought about by inscrutable forces” (155). While the meaning of the fantastic
elements is on the whole metaphorical, they illustrate various hindrances the characters
try to overcome in the struggle of their lives (Klonowska 156-57).
The contradiction between the model of fictional and empirical realities is not
the only kind typical of magic realism. Texts which employ the convention of magic
realism often place together two realms that are perceived as mutually exclusive:
“We experience the closeness or near-merging of two realms, two worlds,” for ex-
ample the worlds of the living and the dead (as is the case in Midnight’s Children), or
of fact and fiction (Faris 172-73). The combination of children and politics in the
novel might serve as another example (cf. Midnight’s Children 352-56). This kind of
contradiction might also be perceived as internal, if the two realms are presented in
the work as mutually exclusive.
Yet another source of contradictions in magic realism is the literalization of
metaphorical expressions. Faris speaks of “a particular kind of verbal magic – a
closing of the gap between words and the world, or a demonstration of what we
might call the linguistic nature of experience” (176): words materialize. A case in
point might be the snakes and ladders in Rushdie’s book (cf. “Climb a ladder (or
even a staircase) and you find a snake awaiting you,” 357). However, one might argue
that words can have both literal and figurative meanings and they need not (content-
wise) exclude each other – the snakes and ladders, in particular, can be a game and
can be real objects, as well as symbols of prosperity and failure in life; usually the
288— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
context specifies the meaning which comes to the foreground. The perforated sheet
(through which Saleem’s grandfather, a doctor, comes to know his future bride,
being able to examine only a small portion of her body visible through the hole),
on the other hand, might serve as an example of a concrete object which gains
metaphorical meaning and is used later in the book in the two ways (an example of
metaphorization of the literal, so to speak). As above, even if in some contexts the
meaning of the perforated sheet might waver between literal and figurative, the relation
between the two need not, content-wise, involve mutual exclusion. However, be-
cause of such figurative-literal meaning oscillations and for other reasons, in magic
realism, as Farris points out, the recipient’s experience may involve contradictory
interpretations: “The reader may hesitate (at one point or another) between two
contradictory understandings of events” – the hesitation often involves assigning to
an incident the status of miracle or a character’s hallucination (171). In more general
terms, the figurative-literal meaning oscillations, especially if prominent, produce a
metafictional effect, and as such entail mutually exclusive meanings.
Finally, the magic-realism convention is often used to “question received ideas
about time, space, and identity” (Faris 173). This aspect of magic realism, with its
contradictions, can also be found in Rushdie’s novel. The definition of the self of-
fered by Saleem is far from consistent with the default definition with its emphasis
on individuality, relation to subjective life experience and agency: “Who what am
I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have
been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-
in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve
gone which would not have happened if I had not come” (535). However, this kind
of collective interpretation of the self may be typical of Indian culture, as contrasted
with the West, and if so there might be no contradiction between the novel’s view
of the self and the self’s default (Indian) model. The contradiction might also be
explained away by indicating that the passage refers to the nation, since in the book
Saleem represents India.
It might also be argued that the convention of mixing the realistic with the magical
is itself self-contradictory. To quote Anne C. Hegerfeldt, these are two “traditionally
incompatible modes” (302). But in fact, the realistic and the magical are no more than
different means of expression that rarely go together but do not exclude each other.
289—
This is actually revealed by magic realist fiction: “Magic realist texts strikingly show
that, far from being mutually exclusive, magical and rational-empirical modes of
thought may well co-exist not only in one and the same society, but also in one and
the same individual” (Hegerfeldt 314). Hegerfeldt puts much emphasis on the cogni-
tive value of the convention. In particular, the fantastic elements in magic realism, she
explains, serve to render the experience of living; they are related to reality and appear
in connection either with those aspects of reality that impress people as unreal and un-
natural (mainly modern technological inventions or the evil cruelty of man) or with the
magical mode of thinking, which though irrational and not appreciated in the Western
world, remains highly popular (people have a disposition to perceive causal connec-
tions where no such connections obtain and to doubt that objects are permanent). The
convention is also highly self-conscious, and so its epistemic message concerning the
provisional and constructed character of all knowledge (magical thinking and story-
telling included) is often explicit (271-347). This “defence” of magic realism also helps
appreciate the role of contradictions, which the convention entails. Attractive to most
readers, the convention challenges them to search for meaning of a complex mode of
representation.
Summing up, contradictions involved in the misrepresentation of Indian his-
tory in Midnight’s Children serve to present faithfully the process of reconstructing
the past, which often results in mutually-exclusive accounts. Some contradictions
introduced in the text within magic realism contribute to the historical theme; oth-
ers serve, among other things, to present reality in a way that appeals to the reader’s
imagination. Though McHale believes that there is so much of it that “the miraculous
comes to appear routine” (Postmodernist Fiction 77), it does not lose its charm (though,
as noted above, the magical is sometimes horrifying). Finally, Rushdie’s novel, to cite
Klonowska, is a book about “the creating of reality via fiction” (120). Whether with
reference to the past or the present, the magical elements (with their contradictions)
serve in the tale to show the extent to which the human social environment depends
on human subjective experiences, imaginative life included.
290— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
9. 5 W a t t by Samuel Beckett:
contradictions and the theme of God
Beckett is regarded as either a modernist or postmodernist novelist and there are
good reasons for both classifications. Watt in particular seems liable to both episte-
mological and ontological interpretations (where the former, as argued by McHale,
is typical of modernist and the latter of postmodern texts),29 and the postmodern
classification is widely accepted, although the date of the novel’s composition – 1941-
1944 (Kędzierski, “Długie i marniejące przypuszczenie” 512) – anticipates the be-
ginning of the postmodern period. This duality of the novel, interesting in itself, has
important consequences for how contradictions related to the novel’s God-figure
can be interpreted, as I explain later.
Many critics agree that one of the novel’s themes is theistic belief (other themes
include human cognitive limitations, language, human isolation and the person’s re-
lation to his/her body). The novel’s presentation of God, however, is most unusual.
It is Mr Knott who in the novel is the God-figure30 and in contrast to the standard
attributes of the Absolute (transcendent, perfect, omnipotent, omniscient) as well as
in contrast to the Christian concept of God (the creator and redeemer of the world,
identical with love),31 Mr Knott is immanent (Watt needs to take a train and then a
29  This duality of Beckett’s novel has been analyzed by Gustav Verhulsdonck (cf.
“[…] Watt can be seen as operating from the threshold of the aesthetic princi-
ples of modernism and postmodernism, by displaying the modernist desire to
make sense, through the human consciousness, of a world that is essentially
unknowable, while also displaying the post-modernist self-reflexive notion of
the futility of such a quest in fiction […].” (As can be seen, Verhulsdonck’s inter-
pretation of postmodernism does not entirely coincide with McHale’s).
30  Some critics choose different interpretations, e.g. for John Wall, Mr Knott is a
“metaphysical notion of negativity” (543-44, 551), while for Jonathan Boulter
he is “the novel’s central image of absolute alterity or Otherness” (103). Such
readings, however, seem to ignore the passages of the text which explicitly state
that Watt’s purpose in serving Mr Knott is religious (cf. Fletcher 81), as well as
multiple references to religious subject-matter scattered throughout the book
(e.g. the figure of Mr Spiro, the editor of the Crux, a “popular catholic monthly”
27-29, or the episode in the asylum when Watt and Sam feel they behave like
God, 156.).
31  As William Wainwright explains, God is usually perceived by theists as “om-
nipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, and all good.” Furthermore, within the
Christian tradition it is common to attribute some “metaphysical” properties
291—
short walk to reach Mr Knott’s household), contingent (Mr Knott needs witnesses
so as not to cease to exist), out of touch with reality (Mr Knott is isolated in his
establishment, unable to make contact even with his servants, and possibly ignorant
of himself32), a heavy burden on his environment (being “quite incapable of look-
ing after himself,” as Arsene points out, 58, Mr Knott needs the assistance of his
servants to get dressed, to eat, to go to sleep, and so forth), indifferent to the world
(his most characteristic behaviour consists in blocking his mouth, nose, eyes and
ears with his fingers, 212), changeable in his appearance (147, 209-11) and possibly
mortal (as noted by Fletcher, 70, Mr Knott, according to the material presented in
the Addenda, is – to use Watt’s expression – “serial, in a vermicular series,” 253).
Finally, and most dramatically, Mr Knott – the novel’s God – is pure negation.
The character’s name speaks for itself – he is, to quote György Dragomán, “notness
incarnate,” but he is also God: “a negative god, the great Nothing of which noth-
ing can be predicated” (Fletcher 86). The concept of God in Christian Thomistic
tradition is that of the only non-contingent being whose essence equals existence.33
Watt’s belief that in Mr Knott’s establishment “all presence was significant, even
though it was impossible to say of what […]” (131) seems to be a mocking reference
to this very theory (cf. also Arsene’s self-contradictory expression “that presence of
what did not exist,” apparently referring to Mr Knott, 45).34
Also in terms of God’s moral character, the novel contradicts the standard belief
that God is benevolent, though this time there is a strong suggestion that the image
of a cruel God is Sam’s and Watt’s personal belief. The two characters feel they
to God, namely, “simplicity, timelessness, immutability, and impassibility.” The
last one, impassibility (God’s being in principle independent of anything and un-
affected by anything), however, conflicts with compassion (entailing an ability
to suffer), which is yet another feature commonly ascribed to God (not only in
Christianity). Incidentally, this is not the only problematic − i.e. possibly giving
rise to contradictions − issue entailed in the standard image of God discussed
by Wainwright (“Concepts of God”).
32  “And Mr Knott […] of himself knew nothing,” is Watt’s conjecture (202-03).
33  See e.g. Étienne Gilson (107-20) or Stefan Swieżawski (83-89). Apparently
Thomas was the first Christian philosopher to put forward this interpreta-
tion even though, as he also argued, various biblical texts seem to invite it
(Swieżawski 87-88).
34  Kędzierski speaks here of “empty transcendence” (Posłowie 235, 246).
292— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
resemble God most closely when for fun, taking advantage of their power, they kill
defenceless animals (cf. “And then we would sit down in the midst of them, and
give them [the rats] to eat, out of our hands, of a nice fat frog, or a baby thrush. Or
seizing suddenly a plump young rat, resting in our bosom after its repast, we would
feed it to its mother, or its father, or its brother, or its sister, or to some less fortunate
relative. / It was on these occasions, we agreed, after an exchange of views, that we
came nearest to God,” 155-56).
Neither can the effect of man’s encounter with God on man be defined in the
usual terms of redemption, relief, reassurance as to the meaning of life, or restora-
tion of justice, to name but a few.35 On the contrary, the encounter with God is
shown to have fatal consequences for man. Prior to visiting God, as John Fletcher
points out, Watt has no problems with meaning; it is only after his stay in Mr Knott’s
household that Watt “reaches the plenitude of his exile from the world of men” (78)
and “the disastrous crumbling of his faculties of cognition” takes place (82). Watt
goes to serve God hopeful, only to be devastated by the experience (“Of nought. To
the source. […] To him I brought. This emptied heart. […] Abandoned my little to find him,”
166, Watt speaks here backwards); as a result, a broken man, he remains confined to
an asylum (as noted by Fletcher 78-79, 82-87, and Kędzierski, “Długie i marniejące
przypuszczenie” 533-34).
The novel thus contradicts the common view of God as regards the basic di-
vine attributes, God’s moral perfection and beneficial impact on man. The novel’s
contradictions inscribed in the image of God are, however, not only external (i.e.
operating between the novel’s and the default images of God) but also internal
(located entirely inside the text).
To begin with, the novel seems to emphasize the lack of logical coherence
involved in the notion of an omniscient and omnipotent being. This is visible in
Watt’s speculations concerning Mr Knott’s involvement in the scheme regulating
35  The novel reminds the reader of this promise usually attached to God: “But to
Mr. Knott, and with Mr. Knott, and from Mr. Knott, were a coming and a being
and a going exempt from languor, exempt from fever, for Mr. Knott was har-
bour, Mr. Knott was haven, calmly entered, freely ridden, gladly left.” However,
this turns out to be neither Watt’s experience – “Not that Watt felt calm and free
and glad, for he did not, and had never done so” (135) – nor, as far as the reader
can ascertain, anyone else’s enjoying Mr Knott’s company.
293—
the disposal of the leftovers from his meals. The list of Watt’s conjectures includes
some variants which are patently absurd, for example, “Mr. Knott was responsible
for the arrangement, and knew that he was responsible for the arrangement, but did
not know that any such arrangement existed, and was content” (89, cf. also other
variants 89-90). God’s need not to have any needs, i.e. God’s absolute independence,
is also presented as paradoxical. Witness the following passage: “For except, one,
not to need, and, two, a witness to his not needing, Knott needed nothing, as far as
Watt could see” (202).36 Another contradiction, noted by Fletcher, obtains between
the image of Mr Knott’s permanence implied in the main text (“In what seems an
infinite series of servants, dogs and dog-keepers, one taking over the functions of
his predecessor and then surrendering them to his successor, Mr. Knott appears to
be the only permanent and unchanging element,” 70) and the information about Mr
Knott being replaceable: “In the addenda section […] there is a passage which tells
of Arthur’s meeting in the garden with an old man who implies that there was once
a time when even Mr. Knott was not. For the old man can remember Mr. Knott’s
father, and he mistakes Arthur for the present Mr. Knott” (Fletcher 70). This last
contradiction seems to expose the human mind’s difficulty in conceiving of a time-
less being37 (as well as, possibly, of the image of the Trinitarian God composed of
three persons, the Father and the Son included). Thus, God presented in Beckett’s
novel both knows and does not know, has a need of not having any needs,38 and is
both timeless and temporary.
Conversely, one might argue that some contradictions involved in the Christian
image of God are solved in the novel. Some Christians find it difficult to reconcile
36  Nota bene, the final phrase makes it clear that the statement enjoys a low epis-
temic status, being merely Watt’s impression. At the end of the passage it is
again clearly re-stated that the passage presents only Watt’s “conjectures” (203).
37  Cf. also Arsene’s rumination on God’s eternal nature: “And yet there is one who
neither comes nor goes, I refer I need hardly say to my late employer [Mr Knott],
but seems to abide in his place, for the time being at any rate, like an oak, an
elm, a beech or an ash, to mention only the oak, the elm, the beech and the
ash, and we nest a little while in his branches. Yet come he did once, otherwise
how would he be here, and go sooner or later I suppose he must, though you
wouldn’t think it to look at him” (57).
38  Strictly speaking, this feature of Mr Knott, though somehow paradoxical, is not
self-contradictory.
294— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
God’s goodness and omnipotence with the presence of suffering in the world, es-
pecially when the suffering cannot easily be interpreted as a kind of punishment
for man’s transgression of divine law. Likewise, they find it hard to understand that
God may be omniscient and yet let human beings be truly free in their actions.
Theologians and philosophers have tried to show that such contradictions can be
explained, but it does not seem obvious that they have succeeded. Beckett’s novel
“solves” these contradictions by showing that Mr Knott knows next to nothing
about the world and does not wish to acquire any knowledge on the subject – hence
he does not constitute a threat to human freedom. Furthermore, he does not love
anybody and is impotent – two reasons why his existence does not conflict with
human suffering.
The above analysis of the novel’s contradictions shows that they involve mostly
two modes of artistic communication: verbal statement and presentation via fic-
tional reality. As regards their location in the narrative, the contradictions belong,
above all, to the story. The novel, though extremely experimental39 – witness the
metafictional element most visible in the use of footnotes (cf. Dragomán’s analysis)
or the Addenda40 – also employs the mode of allegory (which is not rare among
postmodern narratives). Though Beckett is known to have declared allegory out-
dated (qtd. in Pilling 38), as John Pilling argues, in Watt he does make use of the
convention (38) – so that the meaning of the novel can by and large be identified
with the allegorical meaning of the story. The experience of the characters is also
subjected to verbalized reflection in the novel so that God-related contradictions
are also to be found in the domain of narration, but (interestingly) to a lesser extent
in the novel’s construction (in the domain of the text). As regards their dynamics,
the contradictions related to God remain unresolved within the book. The task of
resolving them is left to the reader.
The reader can try to resolve the contradictions in two main ways. Using the
modernist key, the reader will reach the conclusion that God is unknowable, that in
trying to depict God, man has no choice but to reduce God to human stature, which
39  So much so that Pilling is actually uncertain whether the book should be called
a novel (39).
40  This and other self-subverting and auto-referential aspects of the text are dis-
cussed in detail by Rónán McDonald (80-87).
295—
of course deprives God of godliness (cf. “For the only way one can speak of nothing
is to speak of it as though it were something, just as the only way one can speak of
God is to speak of him as though he were a man, which to be sure he was, in a sense,
for a time, and as the only way one can speak of man, even our anthropologists have
realized that, is to speak of him as though he were a termite,” 77). This means that
God is not self-contradictory, that contradictions merely signal errors of the human
mind. Marek Kędzierski reads the book in this way: as an exploration of various
ways in which language prevents people from coming to know reality, while offer-
ing them the illusion that this is possible. This, in particular, is how he reads Watt’s
failure to come to know God (“Długie i marniejące przypuszczenie” 536-37). The
novel, in his opinion, is concerned, above all, with the “nothing of language” (cf.
“Nic języka,” 536). If, however, the novel is interpreted in the postmodern key, the
contradictions involved in God’s image will be read as suggesting that God is merely
a human construct, otherwise absent from human experience; thus Fletcher calls Mr
Knott a “phantom” whom “we clutch at […] in our frenzy to know, to hope, to be-
lieve,” who does not really exist (88). Contradictions, given this approach, dismantle
the concept of God, suggesting that God is a cultural construct, not a transcendent
being. Also the novel’s resolution of the contradictions which, according to some
believers, are part of the Christian concept of God is meaningful. It might be read
as suggesting that God need not be all powerful, all knowing and full of love for
man. It is after all possible to imagine a god who does not possess these qualities.
There are other possibilities. Kędzierski, for example, suggests that it is Beckett’s
epistemic strategy (used also elsewhere and with reference to other objects) to pre-
sent something through its opposite: “Defining with reference to the opposite or
the reverse, the author makes a means of cognition out of a reversal of its value.
He makes us discern the essential character of an object in its negative altera pars
evoked in its Beckettian presentation” (“Okolice nienazywalnego”). Contradictions,
in other words, might be part of the novelist’s method of introducing the theistic
theme rather than his statement on the subject. Alternatively, the contradictions
involved in the concept of God might be explained away as a reflection of mental ill-
ness afflicting humans. The text itself offers a relevant suggestion: “And he himself
Watt was he not perhaps slightly deranged? And Mr. Knott himself, was he quite
296— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
right in his head?” (122). Indeed, some critics read the text as a study of madness –
the self-contradictory image of God being one of its symptoms.41
It seems, however, justifiable to abide by those interpretations which try to relate
contradictions to the theme of God. Presenting a view of God as either unknown
to man limited by language, or as created by man, and in either case apparently
non-existent, could not be as successfully accomplished without some recourse to
contradictions. Were an author merely to straightforwardly submit the view for the
reader’s consideration, it would fail to make an emotional and intellectual impact
comparable to Beckett’s novel.
Finally, one should note that the reader may refuse to agree with Beckett.
Indicating that God is unknowable (people try to make sense of reality by means
of language but when they are confronted with transcendence, their language fails
them) and that what people take for God may well be a product of their invention
does not prove that God does not exist, as the novel, albeit with regret, implies.42
Incidentally, the use of contradictions when speaking of God need not be related
only to the postmodern convention. In the history of theology there is, for exam-
ple, the famous coincidentia oppositorum concept of God (in whom opposing qualities
meet) offered in the 15th century by Nicholas of Cusa, or the 20th-century dialectical
theology of Karl Barth, which consists in negating each statement about God.43 It
seems that the very nature of the absolute being makes people (philosophers and
theologians, as well as artists) resort to contradictions.
***
The five case studies of novels which make original use of contradictions in diverse
thematic contexts show how the meaning of contradictions may change depending
41  Cf. Benjamin Keatinge’s analysis of the novel’s use of language to represent
mental disorder of its protagonists. Watt, according to Keatinge, is out of touch
both with the world and his own self, and uses language as if language did not
relate to reality. Also Mr Knott and other characters suffer from this kind of
epistemic confusion induced by insanity (92-95). Cf. also Boulter (98).
42  Cf. Peter Brook’s impression that Beckett’s denial is devoid of satisfaction, that
it is born out of his desire for affirmation (qtd. in Kędzierski, Posłowie 233).
43  As Karol Karski explains, for Barth the only way to speak of God is by com-
bining thesis and antithesis, which however, are never unified in any synthesis;
and it is the negative statement which out of respect for God should be given
priority (35-36).
297—
above all on the author’s choice of subject-matter, use of narrative techniques (e.g.
metafiction, magic realism or allegory) and interpretation of reality. This chapter
brings to an end the second part of the book containing analyses of contempo-
rary fiction. The postmodern House of Leaves testifies to the variety of contradic-
tions available to narrative fiction and skilfully employed in postmodern narrative.
The subsequent comparison of realism, modernism and postmodernism confirms
that, though contradictions may be found in pre-postmodern narrative, they make
(especially in realism) only occasional appearances, take less spectacular forms (in
particular, glaring contradictions of the fictional ontological variety and all kinds
of metafictional contradictions are absent), and have more limited impact on the
novel’s cognitive capacity. The contemporary prominence of contradictions might
be explained with reference to postmodern art’s concern with products of the
human mind such as tales (cf. Emotionally Weird), the national myth (cf. Midnight’s
Children), the idea of God (cf. Watt), and forms of social life (cf. Infernal Desire Machines
of Doctor Hoffman), as well as representations and interpretations (cf. House of Leaves),
the human subconscious experience (cf. The Unconscoled and Infernal Desire Machines),
one’s system of beliefs (cf. Life of Pi), and one’s emotional life (cf. Flaubert’s Parrot).
Obviously other explanations of the current popularity of contradictions are also
possible (see the Conclusion, below). The functions of contradictions − illustrated
(in Chapter Eight) with Life of Pi, The Unconsoled and House of Leaves and exemplified
also by the novels discussed in the present chapter − include thematic, heuristic,
aesthetic and auxiliary ones.
Most importantly, all the analyses seem to confirm the idea that contradictions
do not necessarily prevent an artwork from presenting a coherent message; in fact
they may enrich the work’s meaning and its cognitive potential. The five novels by
Johnson, Atkinson, Carter, Rushdie and Beckett discussed above could not possibly
convey the same ideas, offer the reader the same vicarious experience and, more
generally, could not have comparable cognitive value if their authors did not choose
to use contradictions. Since the analyses presented here are limited to eleven titles,
the detailed conclusions drawn on their basis can only be tentative; at the same time
the analyses clearly indicate that the phenomenon of contradiction in postmodern
fiction cannot be denied or dismissed as insignificant.
298— Contradictions in various thematic contexts
 Conclusion

The present study of contradictions in art in general and the postmodern novel in
particular sought to examine their defining features and forms, analyze their func-
tion in the context of art’s cognitive theory, consider how they might affect both
the recipient’s choice of interpretive strategies (conferring coherence vs. exposing
contradictions) and the procedure of falsifying interpretive hypotheses in the stud-
ies of art, as well as investigate the prominence of contradictions in the postmodern
convention. This is why the analytical part of the book is confined to postmodern
English-language fiction, but the theoretical chapters on the cognitive theory of
art, artistic contradictions, and their impact on scholarship adopt, on the whole, a
broader perspective. In the most general terms, the present study appears to confirm
the thesis that contradictions, defined as conjoined mutually exclusive meanings,
possessing the form of, or translatable into, statements bearing logical value, in-
herent in an artefact, feature in various kinds of art and manifest themselves in a
variety of ways. All the more specific conclusions, presented in detail below, should
be taken as much more hypothetical and in need of further research. The subject of
artistic contradictions is as immense and complex as it is fascinating, and I am not
sure that the present book has met the challenge of detailing them.

Th e p ost m o d er n a rt o f (s el f -)c o nt r a d i ct i o n s
Though artistic contradictions can be found in other periods too, their contempo-
rary position seems exceptional. Many theorists of postmodernism have noted their
prominence in postmodern art and, in particular, the novel. The studies of Waugh
(Metafiction), McHale (Postmodernist Fiction) and Hutcheon (Poetics of Postmodernism) pro-
vide relevant evidence. Though each relates contradiction to a different concern of
300— Conclusion
postmodernism – metafiction (the manifest self-awareness of art), ontological prob-
lems, and the deconstruction of social constructs previously taken for hard reality,
respectively – they all imply some correspondence in the use of contradiction be-
tween art and deconstructive practice in literary theory. Both the postmodern artist
and the deconstructionist examine texts, artefacts, interpretations, and social reality
and demonstrate their contradictory character, thereby exposing their verbal (tex-
tual) and artificial status. Thus, the omnipresence of contradictions in postmodern
fiction might derive from this art’s metafictional awareness, ontological dominant,
socio-political programme of disenchantment and the impact of deconstruction and
Derrida’s metaphysics. These, however, are not the only ways of explaining the pre-
sent popularity of contradiction in art.
In the essay “The Three Stages in the History of the Novel – Realism,
Modernism and Postmodernism: A Reflection of the Evolution of Reality in Karl
Popper’s Model of the Three Worlds,” I suggested that postmodernism might be
defined as occupied with Popper’s world 3 (or, to be precise, man’s interactions with
world 3). This definition might also help explain why contradictions are so preva-
lent in postmodern art: the man-made world 3 may easily contain contradictions.
Worlds 1 and 2 (the natural environment and the human mind, respectively), which
constitute the primary interest of realism and modernism, the two other conven-
tions popular in modern narrative, are less conducive to contradiction. In other
words, contradictions feature naturally in art concerned with culture and the human
creation and reception of – indeed all kinds of interaction with – culture. It is also
possible to explain the popularity of contradictions in postmodern art as related to
(1) its interest in all kinds of severe mental disorders (cf. Teske, “Sanity, Neurosis
and Psychosis in the Modern History of the English Narrative”), (2) its fascination
with the categories of fiction and reality (as noted in Chapter Nine and elsewhere,
the contradictions resulting from ascribing both fictional and real predicates to one
subject might be apparent if the two categories, once taken as mutually exclusive,
are reinterpreted as coincident; cf. Waugh, Metafiction), (3) its dedication to cognition
(postmodern art is more aware of its cognitive potential than its predecessors and
hence more willing to experimentally test new ideas, whose presentation may entail
contradictions). Additionally, some scholars interested in postmodern art, clearly
inspired by the Hegelian and/or Marxist dialectic, interpret contradiction as thesis
301—
and antithesis of, above all, social forces permanently engaged in a dynamic conflict;
this may also apply to some postmodern artists and artefacts.
Whatever its causes (and most probably many factors are at work) the popularity
of contradictions in postmodernism can hardly be denied. It can also hardly be de-
nied that they adopt a variety of forms. Taking advantage of the typology of contra-
dictions proposed in the book with reference to art (in Chapter Three) and narrative
(in Chapter Six) one might say that postmodern contradictions exemplify all kinds
of nonfictional, fictional (quasi-logical, quasi-ontological, quasi-psychological) and
metafictional types (the criterion for this typology being art’s mode − nonfictional,
fictional and metafictional), as well as verbal, representational and formal categories
and their diverse combinations (the criterion being art’s mode of expression − lan-
guage, model of reality and form).
Though it is important to appreciate the prominence and innovative use that
postmodern art makes of contradictions, one should not forget that contradiction
in art is a perennial phenomenon. In the final account it seems to be related to the
human mind that art explores, and derivative of the human mind that is art’s source.
Admittedly, in the pre-postmodern novel (when contrasted with, for example, pre-
postmodern poetry) contradictions were neglected, possibly because of the novel’s
determination to be more rational, empirical, even critical and sceptical than other
kinds of art (cf. Watt and Lodge). Nota bene, contradictions do not really seem to
detract from the novel’s cognitive potential.
C o g n i t iv e t h e o r y o f ( s e l f - ) c o n t r a d i c t o r y a r t
Art can be interpreted as, among other things, a cognitive enterprise, aiming to
explore human mental experience. Contradictions are far from irrelevant in this
context. In some cases – when an artefact, taken as a store of knowledge, contains
false information (which the recipient may mistake for true) or when its contradic-
tions are so many and nonsensical as to render the work unintelligible – they may be
epistemically harmful; but this need not be so. On the contrary, contradictions may
well be part of art’s cognitive strategy, as exemplified by the analyses of the novels
presented in Chapters Seven, Eight and Nine. Often memorable and conspicuous,
contradictions lie at the heart of art’s ability to challenge recipients with fanciful
ideas and experimental experience, and thus help people enrich their life experience
302— Conclusion
and re-consider their view of reality and themselves. In particular, contradictions
help pose provocative questions, stage experiments and question schematic re-
sponses. Confronted with mutually exclusive ideas, the human mind suffers from
cognitive dissonance. Seeking relief from the discomforting experience, the mind
tries to make sense of contradictions and restore consistency.
In many cases contradictions, apart from generally prompting the recipient’s
cognitive activity, may be said to indicate a problematic issue that needs to be re-
examined. In other cases contradictions may be related to specific themes, such
as the confused mind of a mentally-ill person, the paradoxical nature of human
concepts of God, or the schematic view of reality interpreted in terms of binary
oppositions of categories such as fiction and reality. On a larger scale, contradictions
may disclose the work’s artefactual character, undermine the authority of the artist,
playfully invite the recipient to a game and partly transfer the role of creator from
artist to recipient, all of which may help increase the recipient’s awareness of art and
its role in human life. Especially if multiple and conspicuous, contradictions also
convey a discordant view of life or the human mind, at times an image of the world
(built on irresolvable oppositions) in the process of being deconstructed, as well
as expressing epistemic scepticism. But it is also worth noting that contradictions
in art may serve to convey contradiction-free ideas (cf. the discussion of Flaubert’s
Parrot and House of Leaves). Taking advantage of the categories tentatively introduced
in Chapter Eight, one might say that some contradictions perform the thematic
function (if they are directly related to the theme or overall meaning of the work);
others, the heuristic function (if they help the recipient reconstruct the meaning of
the work); while still others contribute to the artefact’s aesthetic effect or perform
an auxiliary role without being in any direct or significant way involved in the work’s
cognitive function.
In Chapter Two the two contexts of cognition – discovery and justification –
were introduced into the discussion of art’s cognitive capacity. Arguably, art oper-
ates by and large in the context of discovery. The ideas art offers may sometimes
be somehow justified in artefacts themselves, but more often such justification is
located in the sphere of aesthetic experience or beyond it. Contradictions on the
other hand are epistemically harmful in the context of justification. This might help
303—
explain why contradictions in art do not seem to have a negative impact on art’s
epistemic status.
All the same, some novels discussed in this book might be considered epistemi-
cally controversial on account of their use of contradictions. In Albert Angelo, for ex-
ample, the thesis that telling stories is telling lies appears to be erroneous (contradic-
tory with the default model of reality). However, Albert’s story, which is supposed
to justify the thesis, may be taken to (correctly) falsify it, thus solving the epistemic
problem. Nota bene, also works which do not falsify the apparently mistaken ideas
they propose, so long as these ideas are not taken by the reader as true, may perform
a cognitive role. In Midnight’s Children, in turn, some facts recognized in the official
version of India’s history (such as the date of Gandhi’s death) are intentionally mis-
represented. If this is taken to problematize the truth value of the official version of
(Indian) history, the epistemic result can hardly be deplored. If the strategy is read
as suggesting that all narrations about the past are equally manipulative and worth-
less, and this idea is taken by the recipient as true, the strategy may be regarded as
epistemically harmful. The risk seems to inhere not in Rushdie’s novel as such but in
the act of its interpretation, and this kind of risk is perennial in art. Works that make
no significant use of contradictions may also be liable to misinterpretations and
interpretations which seem to contain propositions about reality of doubtful value.
Though the cognitive function of art hinges on the experience the work may
provoke in the recipient of art and on the conclusions that the recipient may draw
as a result of this experience, and so does not depend entirely on the truth of be-
liefs contained in the work, the question of truth, in particular, the truth value of
artistic statements, must not be neglected. Apparently people find the question of
truth relevant to their experience of art, even when this art operates in the mode
of fiction. This relevance of truth is also a sine qua non of any discussion of artistic
contradictions. If truth were not relevant to art, if artistic statements (fictional and
nonfictional) were devoid of truth value, the concept of contradiction (in either the
strict logical or colloquial formulations) would not apply to art.
Contradictions between the artist’s initial project and the created work of art
(possible in the process of creation) and those between the recipients’ initial inter-
pretations and the work of art (frequent in the process of art reception) may also
contribute to the cognitive dimension of aesthetic experience. By indicating faulty
304— Conclusion
elements, these contradictions may be said to, on the one hand, help the artist create
a work that corresponds to his/her artistic vision, and, on the other hand, help the
recipients find the intended or plausible meaning of the work. Finally, contradic-
tions between the recipients’ view of human experience and the view offered by the
artefact might provide them with an opportunity to reconsider and, possibly, revise
their view. Also contradictions between various recipients’ reactions to an artefact,
once they are identified and subjected to critical reflection, might bring cognitive
benefits. In particular they might help people appreciate the diversity of reactions
that a given artefact might evoke. All these issues have not really been the subject of
the book, whose focus falls on contradictions inherent in artefacts, not in aesthetic
experience, but it is important not to leave them entirely out of the picture. All in
all, contradictions in artworks need not diminish the works’ cognitive value, though
they may well interfere with the educational function of some of them. Indeed, it
appears that contradictions are part of art’s cognitive strategies.1
It follows that postmodern art need not be considered irrational on account of
its contradictory character. Like all art, it is both rational and irrational. The sphere
of human artistic creativity allows irrationality (which is otherwise rarely welcome
in civilized social life). Firstly, art may be taken to explore the spheres of human
experience that are irrational (emotional, subconscious, intuitive, pre-verbal experi-
ence). Furthermore, the moment of exploration (the creative act or the reception
of the artefact) is holistic – it engages all the cognitive faculties of human beings
(including emotions, intuition, sensations). All this does not mean that art is purely
irrational: entirely free from reason’s control. A common definition of rational
cognition demands that this cognition should be intersubjectively communicable
and verifiable (cf. Stępień 48, Ajdukiewicz, Zagadnienia i kierunki 71-72); rationality
can also be identified with criticism, or anti-dogmatism (cf. Popper; Kołakowski
“Nieracjonalności racjonalizmu” 143-50). Though some areas of artistic experience
may fail to meet these criteria, this does not seem to be true of art in its entirety.
1   This seems as much as can be done in the present research project to present
the cognitive significance of contradictions. The basic cognitive mechanism
of art (discussed in Chapter Two), because it operates in the aesthetic act, not
in the artefact itself, cannot be examined within the framework adopted here.
Different methods of analysis, focused not on the artefact but on the recipient’s
reaction, would be needed for that purpose.
305—
Even if the context of justification in works of art is less prominent than the context
of discovery, the encounter with the work is usually accompanied and/or followed
by a moment of (critical) reflection. There is also art criticism, mostly rational. Under
the circumstances the presence of contradictions in art, postmodern or otherwise,
does not seem to diminish either art’s cognitive potential, or its partly rational char-
acter. Postmodern art might, on the other hand, on account of its formal complexity
and the difficulty of its subject-matter, demand greater experience, attentiveness and
critical awareness on the part of the recipient.
Inter pr e t i n g (s el f -)c o nt r a d i cto r y a rtefacts
Till the mid-twentieth century, acting on the assumption that the work of art, though
it may contain some incompatibilities, is in its overall meaning coherent, scholars
searched for this meaning. Even now, integrating data seems to be the spontaneous
impulse of uninformed recipients of art. But ever since the rise of deconstruction
the interpretive principle of coherence cannot be taken for granted: Derrida and de
Man demonstrated that one may approach the text with the intention of exposing
its inner contradictions. The need to justify the principle of coherence has become
especially urgent with reference to postmodern works of art which often abound in
contradictions.
One can argue that an artefact, as the product of man, a (relatively) rational being,
meant for other beings of that kind, should in principle be intelligible, though there
might be exceptions, such as works produced by artists in a state of severe mental
disturbance or meant to evoke such impression, or else probing the phenomenon of
madness. Also, if art is, inter alia, a cognitive enterprise, then it cannot in principle
be devoid of sense, though it may by all means include contradictions. An analogical
argument may be formulated within the communicative theory of art. Far from
proving anything, such arguments provide some support for the default assump-
tion of an artwork’s intelligibility and the recipient’s choice of coherence-conferring
strategies, without denying the presence and significance of artistic contradictions.
The scholar’s position is slightly different. Recognizing the superiority of the
interpretive principle of coherence over the competitive principle of contradiction
seems to be a necessary condition of any rational inquiry into art. Rational examina-
tion of culture demands also the assumption that its objects are intelligible, though
306— Conclusion
with reference to some artefacts this assumption may prove erroneous. Derrida’s
scepticism, though supported by, among other things, his analysis of contradic-
tions present in discourse, is ultimately a consequence of his metaphysics. Though
neither its truth nor falsehood can be conclusively proved, the progress of science
seems to undermine Derrida’s position. A fair rational attitude – and there are also
ethical reasons behind the choice of rationality2 – might consist in being sensitive to
contradictions in art and their possible meanings (Derrida’s metaphysics included),
while refraining from drawing radically sceptical conclusions.
In the final account, the choice of the interpretive method is related to the ques-
tion of the rationality, i.e. non-contradictoriness, of reality. When a deconstruction-
ist (or a poststructuralist), convinced that the textual reality is inconsistent, reads
a text, s/he does not aim to synthesize the meaning, or reconstruct the author’s
thought, but to demonstrate that discourse (whether artistic or otherwise), since
it is disconnected from extra-linguistic reality, instead of rendering any reality ad-
equately – an impossible project − loses itself in never-ending contradictions of
linguistic (textual) reality. When a structuralist reads the text, the situation is dif-
ferent: certain that reality (reflected by language and texts produced by its means)
is, by and large, consistent, s/he aims to find the objective meaning of the text – its
statement on reality; encountering a contradiction, s/he may interpret it as an error
(a sign of epistemic defeat) or, especially if the text is artistic, part of its cognitive
strategy. It is by adopting one or the other of these two competitive views of reality
(deconstructionist and structuralist) that the artist in the creative act and the recipi-
ent in the act of the work’s experience and interpretation can decide what artistic
contradictions mean to them.
This discussion of the deconstructionist reading, might be the right moment
to recall once again the affinity between the aesthetics of postmodernism and the
practice of deconstruction: both make much use of contradiction to, among other
2   Although being rational should not be seen as a solution to all evil (cf.
Kołakowski, “Nieracjonalności racjonalizmu” 114-38), neither should its value
in social life be denied – reason seems the most reliable of human cognitive fac-
ulties (Ajdukiewicz, Zagadnienia i kierunki 74-75). In science (including scholarly
studies on art) the choice of rationality seems obligatory. For a survey of various
interpretations of scientific rationality, see Monika Walczak’s Racjonalność nauki
[The Rationality of Science].
307—
things, clear away some misconceptions (especially as regards contingent, malleable
concepts taken as absolute), as noted by various authors. It is also important to note
the differences. Derrida was in the first place concerned with metaphysics (his aim
was cognitive); postmodern fiction, by contrast, is in the first place concerned with
social life (its aim is cognitive, though political commitment is often also involved).
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Carter might be taken as a work that
attempts to deconstruct the notion of social order, Albert Angelo by Johnson aims
to dismantle the notion of story-telling, while Beckett’s Watt reveals contradictions
inherent in the notion of God. Such use of the technique of deconstruction does not
automatically imply epistemic scepticism.
Falsification of i n t e r p r e t iv e hypotheses about self -
contradictory art
There is no single, unanimously accepted theory of science explaining how it works.
It is sometimes argued now that there is no one method of science either. Even so,
many explanations refer to some kind of falsification procedure. The procedure
helps the scientist to eliminate faulty theories. On the assumption that the object
under investigation is non-contradictory, if the theory entails a logical contradic-
tion, the scientist may be certain that a mistake has been made. When applying the
procedure in the field of the humanities, however, one must make allowance for the
possibility that contradictory interpretations result from ambiguous (contradictory
or indefinite) artefacts.3 The procedure of falsification is thereby complicated.
To solve the ensuing methodological difficulties when falsifying an interpretive
hypothesis in the humanities, one needs first to check whether the contradiction,
rather than signifying an error, might not simply be derivative of the ambiguous
work of art. As regards indefinite artefacts, it suffices when the scholar formulating
interpretive hypotheses remembers to ascribe to them a highly tentative status, re-
flecting the faint textual evidence that supports them – the contradictory interpreta-
tions will then be formulated in the conditional mode. Otherwise, when declaring
(self-)contradictory interpretations falsified, one needs to make sure that the artefact
3   This also means that there may be possibly true contradictory interpretations of
one artefact. This may happen if the artefact itself is contradictory or indefinite
and each interpretation is faithful to one of its meanings.
308— Conclusion
is not the original bearer and thus the source of these contradictions. Only when this
possibility has been excluded is it possible to regard the contradictory hypothesis as
falsified. In brief, though the procedure of falsification in the humanities, especially
in the disciplines concerned with art, becomes more complicated on account of the
possible contradictory character of artefacts, it does not seem to be invalidated.
The above conclusions should be taken as provisional, since instead of the strict
logical notion of contradiction, the much less restrictive colloquial notion has been
used in the book when discussing art. If one were to apply the logical definition,
the phenomenon of artistic contradictions would be radically minimized, so that
the problem they might constitute for the humanities would become academic.
Presuming that art operates in the mode of supposition, rather than assertion, which
is another option worth considering, instantaneously solves the problem of contra-
dictions violating the non-contradiction principle, as they automatically disappear.
In the present study these solutions have not been adopted. It seems reasonable to
assume that artists and art recipients, familiar with the colloquial notion of contra-
diction, apply this notion when in contact with art and, when having suspended their
disbelief, they get engaged (also intellectually) in the fictional worlds as if they were
real, which means, inter alia, subject to the rules of logic known from everyday life.
In everyday life to declare two mutually exclusive sentences to be true, violates the
rules of common sense and classical logic. In other words, colloquial contradictions
in art seem to constitute in epistemic terms a problem analogical and comparable to
logical contradictions.
***
To sum up, apparently there are good reasons behind the innovative use that post-
modern art makes of contradictions; their presence does not negate the possibility of
art’s cognitive theory; it does not disqualify the interpretive principle of coherence
(though it demands that its choice be justified); it does not prevent the scientific
character of the humanities (as falsification might be applied to interpretive hypo-
theses of artworks exhibiting contradictions).
Human life experience sometimes appears to be unintelligible, meaningless or
devoid of coherence (order, harmony, structure). Being concerned with human life,
art cannot ignore this experience. But when it reappears in an artefact, this raw
experience is transformed in a creative effort of human consciousness. As a result it
309—
gains some aesthetic form, which entails some kind of order. (Although this element
of form is inevitable in art, in most artefacts it is introduced deliberately for the sake
of the work’s aesthetic value or comprehensibility). Even when art’s form is meant
to express the formlessness of experience, i.e. when order might be imperceptible
or absent, art will not be entirely devoid of meaning: the meaning will be inherent
in the artist’s act of refusal or failure to provide neat form in the work in question.
Within art’s cognitive function, contradictions, for all the benefits they bring,
may constitute an emotional and intellectual challenge. This experience, should the
recipients become aware of it, might let them appreciate their need for coherent
meaning. Deconstruction reads the situation differently, suggesting that one should
not persevere in a futile quest, but admit that the coherent meaning is not there to
be found. Postmodernist aesthetics complicates the situation by multiplying contra-
dictions (ontological contradictions inherent in fictional worlds included), in effect
sometimes leaving the recipient at a loss.
One might wonder whether the tension between contradiction (paradox, in-
compatibility, etc.) inherent in the artefact and the recipient’s sense of the missing
coherence might not be the driving force of the aesthetic experience. A version of
this hypothesis may be found in John Dewey’s theory of art. For Dewey, aesthetic
experience celebrates unity because in a world ridden with conflicts unity may only
be achieved for a brief moment when disruption is overcome. But this means that
disruption, ruptures and conflicts are also needed. As Dewey explains, “Since the
artist cares in a peculiar way for the phase of experience in which union is achieved,
he does not shun moments of resistance and tension” (15). In a way they make the
“moment of passage from disturbance into harmony [which] is that of intensest
life” possible (17, cf. also 13-17; cf. Shusterman’s discussion 32-33). In this context
contradictions, like gaps and incongruities, might be taken to spell a disturbance,
signify crisis and disorder, without which art would not be possible.
Confronted with all kinds of artefactual contradictions, some made in earnest,
others to be taken as playful, the recipient might come to realize that contradictions
are present in the social reality (the primary environment for most human beings)
for the simple reason that this reality is man-made. The recipient might thus extend
the idea inscribed in contradictory artefacts to life. If contradictions are man-made,
310— Conclusion

they are explicable as such (i.e. as man-made), and need not imply that human exist-
ence is either absurd or unintelligible, unless people choose to make it so.

The auth o r’s a p o lo g ies

The problem of contradiction is a complex one, hence the need to use language
very precisely. The effort to retain terminological clarity weighs down on the style
of the book. Sadly aware of the fact, the author requests the reader’s kindhearted
understanding, apologizing at the same time for any verbal complexities that might
have been avoided.
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 Index

A Barnes, Julian 20, 56, 57, 117, 127, 130, 132, 205,
211, 219, 220, 221, 223, 260
Acord, Sophia Krzys 77 Barry, Peter 15, 31, 51, 126, 147, 148, 179, 182,
Adelman, Gary 231, 232 183, 184, 185, 189, 246
Ajdukiewicz, Kazimierz 78, 79, 80, 95, 124, 304, Barth, John 47, 162, 164, 166, 195
306 Barth, Karl 296
Alber, Jan 37, 38, 39, 40, 50, 51, 66, 103, 127, Barthelme, Donald 164, 195
128, 130, 150 Barthes, Roland 16, 46
Allen, Barry 145 Baumgarten, Alexander 54
Altieri, Charles 49 Bausch, Pina 187
Amis, Martin 39 Beardsley, Monroe C. 138
Amsterdamski, Stefan 72 Beckett, Samuel 7, 20, 41, 42, 43, 103, 104, 120,
Andersen, Beth 264 128, 162, 163, 164, 167, 204, 215, 232,
Aneau, Barthélémy 41 243, 259, 290, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297,
Aristotle 54, 89, 93, 96 307
Arnold-Baker, Charles 213 Bednarski, Aleksander 110
Arora, Jagjit Singh 283 Beethoven, Ludwig van 59, 60, 109, 238
Atkinson, Kate 20, 226, 259, 264, 265, 297 Bell, Clive 64
Augustine 147 Belletto, Steven 237, 241
Benedict, Helen 266
Benveniste, Emile 174
B Benzon, Kiki 236
Bergson, Henri 73
Bach, Johann Sebastian 56, 78
Berkeley, George 99
Bakhtin, Mikhail 27, 28, 64
Berlatsky, Eric 220
Bal, Mieke 150
Bernard, Catherine 77
Balbus, Stanisław 26, 27
Bettelheim, Bruno 56
Balcerzan, Edward 25, 26, 30, 31, 50, 51, 119
Blackmore, Susan 274
Bannig, Charles L. 47, 49
Bocheński, Józef Maria 96
Banville, John 205
Bonca, Cornel 276, 278, 281, 282
Barker, Pat 205
BonJour, Laurence 146
332— Index 333—

Booth, Wayne C. 138 Coover, Robert 38, 103, 164, 167, 194 Dűrer, Albecht 54 Frost, Mark 62
Borges, Jorge Luis 39, 136, 193 Cortàzar, Julio 167 Dutton, Denis 54, 58, 68, 76, 89, 149 Fuentes, Carlos 167, 204
Borkowski, Ludwik 106 Cox, Katharine 240 Dyer, Reginald Edward Harry 283 Furlani, Andre 41, 42, 43, 51, 103, 130, 132
Borowiecka, Ewa 54, 55, 63, 64, 65, 72, 74, 75, Croce, Benedetto 54
76, 77, 88, 102, 103 Culler, Jonathan 68, 69, 127, 146, 151
Boulter, Jonathan 290, 296
E G
Bradbury, Malcolm 91
Brandt, Per Aage 46, 47, 50
D Eagleton, Terry 35, 50, 204 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 54, 77
Eco, Umberto 12, 37, 63, 67, 84, 85, 86, 118, Gamble, Sarah 276, 280, 281
Brautigan, Richard 104, 164, 195
Da Costa, N. C. A. 99 130, 147, 153, 154, 155, 156, 168, 169, Gandhi, Indira 286
Breton, André 46
Daiches, David 204, 263 231 Gandhi, Mahatma 283, 303
Brînzeu, Pia 12
Dali, Salvador 78, 109 Elgin, Catherine Z. 74 Gandhi, Sanjay 286
Britton, Karl 102, 130
Danielewski, Mark Z. 19, 114, 144, 155, 179, Eliot, George 29, 90 Gellner, Ernest 150
Bronk, Andrzej 53, 69
181, 182, 183, 187, 189, 192, 193, 197, Ellis, Bret Easton 74, 173, 187 Genette, Gérard 190
Brook, Peter 296
200, 226, 229, 236, 242, 243 Empson, William 31, 32, 33, 34, 46, 50, 51, 115, Gerberding, Daniela 219
Brooks, Cleanth 31, 34, 50, 51
Dante Alighieri 59, 163 131, 140 Gilson, Étienne 291
Brophy, Brigid 162
Davey, Nicholas 77 Escher, M. C. 29, 44, 98, 101, 115 Gołaszewska, Maria 76
Bullough, Edward 58
Davies, Stephen 101, 103, 130, 137, 139, 140, Ewing, A. C. 146 Golding, William 164, 195
Bunin, Ivan 26
141, 143, 155 Gombrich, E. H. 60
Butler, Christopher 85, 146
Dawson, Conor Michael 236, 237 Gomringer, Eugen 187
Day, Aidan 276, 282
F Gould, Glenn 56
C de Crenne, Helisenne 41
Fairbanks, A. Harris 231, 232
Gregory, Sinda 192
Defoe, Daniel 132 Grobler, Adam 150, 152
Faris, Wendy B. 285, 287, 288
Cage, John 187 de Lauretis, Teresa 174 Guattari, Félix 176
Fauré, Gabriel 43
Calvino, Italo 167, 194 Deleuze, Gilles 176 Guignery, Vanessa 219
Feagin, Susan L. 137, 138, 139
Caraher, Brian G. 25, 26, 28, 29, 44, 45, 46, 47, de Man, Paul 31, 147, 149, 247, 250, 251, 252, Gutowski, Piotr 65, 66, 67, 112, 186
Fellini, Federico 192
48, 50, 103, 131, 143, 145 253, 305 Gutting, Gary 15, 51, 96, 230, 247, 252, 253, 255
Feyerabend, Paul 72
Carroll, Lewis 132, 187 Derrida, Jacques 13, 15, 17, 21, 28, 51, 68, 69,
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 46
Carter, Angela 20, 122, 215, 226, 259, 276, 279, 143, 147, 161, 168, 170, 174, 229, 230,
280, 282, 297, 307 233, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 252, 253,
Fiedler, Konrad 54 H
Fielding, Henry 90
Cervantes, Miguel de 193 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 274, 275, 300,
Figes, Eva 20, 109, 205, 211, 215, 262 Haack, Susan 101, 103, 104, 146
Chagall, Marc 109, 187 305, 306, 307
Fish, Stanley 46, 68, 69 Hafley, James 128
Chalmers, Alan 152, 153 Dewey, John 56, 57, 69, 309
Flaubert, Gustave 20, 117, 127, 132, 205, 211, Hamann, Richard 58
Chalmers, David 95 Dickens, Charles 90
219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 297, 302 Hamilton, Natalie 237, 239
Cherniak, Christopher 105 Doležel, Lubomir 37, 41, 86, 87, 118, 130, 168
Fletcher, John 290, 291, 292, 293, 295 Hansen, Mark B. N. 242
Chernyshevsky, Nikolay 54 Donne, John 34
Fokkema, Douwe 165 Hardy, Thomas 90
Chopin, Frédéric 66, 99 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 27, 28
Foucault, Michel 169, 174 Harris, Wendell V. 29, 30, 50, 126, 131, 231
Christie, Agatha 151 Doyle, Arthur Conan 83, 101
Fowles, John 59, 104, 164, 167 Hartman, Geoffrey 46
Churchill, Caryl 39 Dragomán, Ggyörgy 291, 294
Frege, Gottlob 82 Hartmann, Stephan 65
Clark, Mili N. 49 Du Camp, Maxime 220, 223
Freud, Sigmund 29, 48, 49, 274 Hassan, Ihab 170
Colet, Louise 222 Duchamp, Marcel 66, 109, 187
Frey, James 187 Hawthorn, Jeremy 67, 146
Connor, Steven 176, 177, 178 Duncan, Rebecca 142, 143
Friedrich, Judit 221 Hayles, N. Katherine 183, 198, 239
Conrad, Joseph 130 Duns Scotus 97
Frigg, Roman 65 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 46, 49, 50, 97
334— Index 335—

Hegerfeldt, Anne C. 288, 289 Januszkiewicz, Michał 80, 82, 88 Leonardo da Vinci 54 Melville, Herman 48, 49
Heidegger, Martin 28, 29, 46, 50, 66, 77, 143, Jaśkowski, Stanisław 94 Leśniewski, Zdzisław 95, 124 Mersmann, Hans 100
165, 257 Jencks, Charles 169 Lessing, Doris 162 Meyer, Robert K. 99
Heintz, John 84, 87 John, Eileen 72, 73, 76, 77 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 17, 65, 247, 248, 249, 250 Meyer, Sandra 265, 272, 273
Hemmingson, Michael 237 Johnson, B. S. 20, 61, 122, 163, 187, 259, 261, Lewis, Barry 175, 176, 178, 190, 231 Michael, Leonard 103, 104
Hennequin, Emile 26, 56 262, 263, 297, 307 Lewis, David 12, 84, 87, 101, 103, 118, 130 Michalczyk, Ewa 276
Henze, Donald F. 101, 102 Johnstone, Henry W. Jr. 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, Lodge, David 76, 91, 103, 111, 112, 122, 132, Michelangelo Buonaroti 59
Heraclitus 93, 96 104, 126, 129, 130 161, 162, 190, 205, 207, 263, 301 Mingers, John 66
Herbert, George 32 Josipovici, Gabriel 190, 205 Looby, Robert 45, 120 Mitchell, David 205
Herman, David 35 Joyce, James 187, 195 Lotman, Yuri 65 Montesquieu 251
Hesiod 47 Lowe, E. J. 79 Moynihan, Robert 147
Hirst, Damien 109 Lutostański, Bartosz 39 Műnsterberg, Hugo 58
Hofstadter, Douglas 190
K Lynch, David 62
Hołówka, Teresa 104, 107 Lyotard, Jean-François 172, 176, 204
Homer 54, 124
Kafka, Franz 204, 231, 232
Łukasiewicz, Jan 93, 94, 95, 96, 98
N
Kamionowski, Jerzy 276, 277, 280
Horwich, Paul 80
Kant, Immanuel 49, 96, 254 Nabokov, Vladimir 47, 164, 195
Howard, Roger 35
Hrushovski, Benjamin 86
Karski, Karol 296 M Nagel, Thomas 60, 95
Keatinge, Benjamin 296 Nęcka, Edward 53, 71
Hui Shih 279
Keats, John 32 Mackrell, Judith 263 Newman, Charles 169
Husserl, Edmund 95
Kędzierski, Marek 290, 291, 292, 295, 296 Magritte, René 109, 115 Nicholas of Cusa 296
Hutcheon, Linda 12, 13, 19, 25, 44, 45, 50, 145,
Keen, Suzanne 37, 130 Major, Clarence 168, 195 Nicol, Bran 13, 74, 177, 178
161, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175,
Kelman, James 205 Manekshaw, Sam 283 Nielsen, Henrik Skov 37, 38, 186, 187
176, 177, 178, 204, 205, 226, 257, 259,
Kelman, Stephen 243 Mansfield, Katharine 215 Nietzsche, Friedrich 46, 96, 165, 257
273, 286, 299
Kielian-Gilbert, Marianne 44 Marciszewski, Witold 12, 100, 103, 118 Noor, Ronny 284
Klee, Paul 29, 44, 66 Margolis, Joseph 139 Norris, Christopher 17, 31, 51, 96, 97, 214, 253,
I Klonowska, Barbara 287, 289 Markiewicz, Henryk 63, 82, 83, 91, 143 256
Kołakowski, Leszek 96, 187, 304, 306 Markowski, Michał Paweł 80 Novalis, Friedrich 54
Ingarden, Roman 54, 63, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 98, Korthals Altes, Liesbeth 36 Martel, Yann 20, 21, 62, 120, 142, 226, 229, 234, Novitz, David 72
116 Kowalski, Zdzisław 95 242 Nünnig, Ansgar 36
Innes, Charlotte 231 Kripke, Saul 48 Massey, Irving 45, 46 Nussbaum, Martha C. 77
Iser, Wolfgang 68 Krylov, Ivan 26 Materna, Pavel 97
Ishiguro, Kazuo 20, 61, 205, 226, 229, 230, 231, Kubrick, Stanley 231 Maziarczyk, Grzegorz 284, 285
232, 233, 242 Kuhn, Thomas 47, 72 McCaffery, Larry 175, 181, 192
O
Iversen, Stefan 37 Kuhns, Richard 48, 49, 50, 51 McDonald, Rónán 294
O’Brien, Flann 107, 120, 201
Kundera, Milan 91 McEwan, Ian 77
Olson, Barbara K. 113
McHale, Brian 11, 19, 25, 37, 86, 87, 104, 118,
J 128, 161, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170,
Olsson, Erik J. 146
L 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 190, 191, 194,
O’Neill, Patrick 179, 200, 205
Jack the Ripper 155 Ossowski, Stanisław 55, 57, 58, 59, 70, 77
195, 200, 203, 205, 242, 273, 276, 277,
Jahn, Manfred 35 Lacan, Jacques 174
286, 289, 290, 299
James, Henry 90, 143 Langer, Susanne K. 54, 76, 100
Meinong, Alexius 98
James, William 47 Lavocat, Françoise 40, 41, 51, 132, 150
Meister Eckhart 96
Jameson, Fredric 176 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm  37, 96
336— Index 337—

P Richmond, Sheldon 61 Shell, Marc 49 V

Ricoeur, Paul 272 Shusterman, Richard 56, 57, 68, 77, 309
Pacioli, Luca 54 Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith 17, 127, 146, 150, Siemon, James R. 46, 47 Van Gogh, Vincent 61, 143, 155
Parker, Ian 211, 235 151, 179 Slater, B. H. 97 Vasiliev, Nicolai 96
Parmenides 93 Robbe-Grillet, Alain 118, 195, 204 Slocombe, Will 191, 236, 239 Verhulsdonck, Gustav 290
Pascal, Blaise 102 Roberts, Ryan 219 Smith, Zadie 205, 214 Vonnegut, Kurt 162, 164, 194
Paul, Jean 54 Robinson, Richard 231 Socrates 54
Pavel, Thomas 86, 97 Rodin, Auguste 187 Solomon-Godeau, Abigail 35
Pelc, Jerzy 79, 82, 83, 84 Rogers, Kara 65 Sontag, Susan 77 W
Perry, Menakhem 151 Rorschach, Hermann 58 Spark, Muriel 104, 166, 195
Wainwright, William 290, 291
Pettersson, Torsten 138, 139, 143 Rorty, Richard 68, 69 Stecker, Robert 135, 137, 139, 140, 143, 144
Walczak, Monika 306
Phelan, James 66 Rosner, Katarzyna 64, 81, 82, 102 Stefanescu, Maria 142, 143, 155
Wall, John 290
Phillips, Edward R. 43 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 250, 251, 252 Sterne, Laurence 201
Wall, Kathleen 40, 41, 42, 51, 132
Picasso, Pablo 133 Routley, Richard 99 Stępień, Antoni B. 53, 60, 304
Walsh, Dorothy 76
Piero della Francesca 54 Rowling, J. K. 20, 67, 81, 205, 211, 213, 215, 224 Stravinsky, Igor 44
Watt, Ian 91, 205, 301
Pilling, John 294 Różewicz, Tadeusz 45 Strawson, P. F. 82
Waugh, Patricia 11, 19, 25, 73, 103, 119, 120,
Pisanty, Valentina 153, 154 Ruch, Allen B. 236 Stróżewski, Władysław 54
128, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 168, 174,
Plato 49, 54, 83, 96, 99 Rushdie, Salman 20, 123, 126, 167, 205, 259, Sukenick, Ronald 167
175, 177, 178, 181, 192, 194, 195, 200,
Plekhanov, Georgi 74 283, 284, 286, 287, 288, 289, 297, 303 Suleiman, Susan Rubin 276
203, 205, 220, 226, 244, 259, 273, 299,
Plotinus 55, 96 Russell, Bertrand 48, 98, 100 Sutherland, Ian 77
300
Poczobut, Robert 11, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, Ryan, Marie-Laure 35, 37, 86, 87, 129, 130, 150, Swieżawski, Stefan 291
Weitz, Morris 74, 75, 81
104, 105, 124 157, 219 Swift, Graham 63, 76, 77, 116, 158, 177
Welsh, Irvine 243
Pogorzelski, Witold A. 97 Ryf, Robert S. 261, 262 Swirski, Peter 60, 90
Wheeler, Kathleen 215
Polataiko, Taras 62 Szubka, Tadeusz 80, 97
White, Hayden 174
Pope, Alexander 32
S Wilde, Alan 169
Popper, Karl R. 11, 14, 20, 53, 59, 72, 73, 75, 77,
T Wilson, Catherine 76
98, 99, 129, 149, 152, 208, 300, 304 Sandler, Sergeiy 241 Winterson, Jeanette 57, 127, 205
Posner, Richard A. 58 Saussure, Ferdinand de 17 Tansey, Mark 44, 45 Witkiewicz, Stanisław 54
Priest, Graham 16, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 103, Schapiro, Meyer 143 Tatarkiewicz, Władysław 54, 56, 58 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 41, 42, 43, 96, 257, 272
107, 114, 116, 257 Schickore, Jutta 72 Teske, Andrzej 58 Woleński, Jan 72
Przełęcki, Marian 57, 64, 72, 75, 80, 82, 88, 102, Schmidt, Ricarda 276, 282 Tew, Philip 263 Wolf, Werner 142
103 Scholes, Robert 17, 258 Thielemans, Johan 261 Wood, James 214
Punter, David 276, 279, 281 Schopenhauer, Arthur 55 Thomas Aquinas 96, 291 Woolf, Virginia 41, 42, 91, 113, 128, 215
Pynchon, Thomas 166, 169, 204 Schorer, Mark 91 Thomas, D. H. 171 Wordsworth, William 34, 46, 48, 54, 103
Scott, Walter 90 Thomas, Dylan 15 Wright, Crispin 80
R Scruggs, Charles 104 Thorpe, Denis 187 Wygotski, Lew (Vygotsky Lev) 25, 26, 27, 50, 58,
Searle, John R. 81, 83 Todorov, Tzvetan 162, 275 130, 145
Rasmussen, Mikkel Bolt 35 Sebold, Alice 39 Tolstoy, Lev 83 Wyspiański, Stanisław 143
Reitano, Natalie 231 Sehgal, Tino 78 Trendelenburg, Friedrich Adolf 97
Rembrandt van Rijn 66 Sermonti, Giuseppe 153, 154, 156 Twain, Mark 47
Richards, I. A. 48 Shaffer, Brian W. 231, 232
Richardson, Brian 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 50 Shakespeare, William 26
338— Index

Y
Young, Gayle 78

Z
Zacharek, Stephanie 264
Zeno of Elea 44, 93
Zgorzelski, Andrzej 67, 68, 69, 138
Ziembiński, Zygmunt 89
Ziemińska, Renata 71