Time and memory in the novels of Eleanor Dark
In this thesis I will demonstrate that Eleanor Dark's over-riding themes are time and memory. Time informs the structure of her novels, she juxtaposes past and present. Memory in all its aspects, personal, cultural, racial dominates both her contemporary novels and The Timeless Land trilogy. The thesis considers Dark's fiction in sequence to chart her treatment of time and memory. Simultaneously Dark was reaching into her own reservoir ofmemory and transfiguring her own experience in the characters, events and locations of her novels. In this oblique way, and through this unique form of modelling, Dark reveals little known areas of her life. Biographically Dark remains elusive; the surface events of her life are well documented but do not account for the drama of her character portrayals, the immediacy of her perceptions of the natural world, her deep intellectual responses to art, literature and politics, as well as her preoccupation with time. It is my contention that Dark's creative thrust was inwards; she developed the inner processes of memory and imagination. Time and memory cohere in her novels; under scrutiny they bring new interpretations to her work, and new insights into her life.
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