'Eyeless in Gaza'. Reflecting the Self through Recollection

Abstract

The paper proposes a discussion upon the manner in which the self of an individual gains shape through the paths chosen by the individual’s memory. The analysis of Anthony Beavis, the main character in Aldous Huxley’s novel, Eyeless in Gaza, makes use of the intersection of the present and the past as it is outlined in the character’s mind. Aldous Huxley invites his audience to take a ‘journey’ through Anthony’s past, present and a sense of his future. The novel’s progression passes from one year to another, apparently without any chronological order or logic. All the unfolding events have a logic in the character’s mind and the readers are invited to enter Anthony’s consciousness and make judgments both as outsiders of Anthony’s experience and as viewers of an inside perspective in order to gain a better picture of Anthony’s personality, but they are also invited to make judgments upon Anthony’s choices in shaping his identity. This vision of Anthony’s self also involves a rhetorical approach to narrative as it is dealt with by James Phelan in Experiencing Fiction. Judgments, Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative (2007) and Living to Tell about It. A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration (2005), approach that highlights the intersection of three main elements: the cognitive, emotive and ethical dimensions of reading. Anthony Beavis’s self gains shape as the narrative unfolds and as the ethical position taken by the readers changes according to their responses to the narrative.