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Immanence and Representation in W. H. Hudson's <em>Green Mansions</em>

<p>Immanence and Representation in W. H. Hudson’s <em>Green Mansions</em></p><p>Alice Sundman</p><p> </p><p>Abstract</p><p> </p><p>The study investigates the tension between immanence and transcendence in W. H. Hudson’s novel <em>Green Mansions</em>. The method in use is Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological method of bracketing that which is transcendent to the field of study (<em>epoché</em>). It is argued that there is a fundamental tension in the novel between presentation (unmodified acts of consciousness) and representation (modified acts of consciousness). The conclusion drawn from the studied evidence is that <em>Green Mansions</em> favours intimacy over remoteness, immediacy over mediation, presence over rupture, and wholeness over divisiveness. The study shows that the hero is caught in a contradiction between a culture based on representivity (a mania for picture-thinking, sign-thinking, and relation-thinking) and an immediacy of life embodied in the heroine as a pure presentation lacking any significant traces of gaps, divisions, or borders. Personified by the heroine, immanence constitutes a silent yet persisting resistance to a world-view based on representivity.</p>

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:su-37056
Date January 2009
CreatorsSundman, Siv Alice
PublisherStockholm University, Department of English
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, text

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