CHRONOTOPES

Literally means Time Space to the

intrinsic connectedness of temporal and
spatial relationships that are artistically
expressed in literature.

CHRONOTOPES
Time as it were, thickens, takes on flesh,
becomes artistically visible. Likewise, space
becomes changed and responsive to the
movements of time, plot and history.
The chronotope is a place where the knots
of narrative are tied and untied.

CHRONOTOPES
Chronotopes serve for the assimilation
of actual temporal (including historical)
reality, that permit the essential aspects
of this reality to reflected and
incorporated into the artistic space of
the novel.

CHRONOTOPES
if one can decipher how a text reflects space and
time, this would be related to how space and time
are viewed in the world in which the particular
text is produced.
Initially, the term Chronotope was coined by
Albert Einstein as part of his theory of relativity.
Bakhtin brought the term into literary theory in
his Forms of Time and the Chronotope.

CHRONOTOPES
TWO TYPES OF CHRONOTOPES:
Bakhtin treats literary chronotopes in two
different ways.
1)as a way of structuring/organising/understanding a
text. This idea of the chronotope is genre specific and
hardly changes over time.
2)chronotopic motifs.

CHRONOTOPES
MOTIF CHRONOTOPE
Chronotopic motifs are to be related to specific
situations and places in texts which carry along
some sort of echo of associations. These echoes
result from frequent correlation between certain
places or situations and what tends to happen
there/then. Bakhtins chronotopes of the road
and threshold, etc

CHRONOTOPES
CHRONOTOPE OF ROAD:
The chronotope of the road associated with encounter
is characterized by a broader scope but by a somewhat
lesser degree of emotional and evaluative intensity.
Encounters in a novel usually take place on the road.
The chronotope of road is both a point of new
departures and a place for events to find their
denouement.

CHRONOTOPE OF ROAD
TEXTUAL EXAMPLES, BOOK 1:
Troops went by the houses and down the road
and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of
the tress.
-pg 1
We were off the driveway, walking under the
trees
-pg 16

CHRONOTOPE OF ROAD
TEXTUAL EXAMPLES, BOOK 3:
I walked down the damp gravel driveway
looking at the villa through the trees.
-Pg 85
I knew there were many side-roads but did not
want one that, would lead to nothing.
-Pg 104

CHRONOTOPE OF ROAD
CHRONOTOPE OF THRESHOLD:
It can be combined with the motif of Encounter
but its most fundamental instance is as the
chronotope of Crisis and Break in a life.
In literature, the chronotope of the threshold is
always metaphorical and symbolic, sometimes
openly but more often implicitly.

CHRONOTOPE OF THRESHOLD
TEXTUAL EXAMPLES, BOOK 1:
I wiped my hand on my shirt and another
floating light came very slowly down and I
looked at my leg and was very afraid. Oh, God, I
said, get me out of here.
-Pg 32
I felt something dripping. At first it dropped
slowly and regularly, then it pattered into a
stream.
-Pg 33

CHRONOTOPE OF THRESHOLD
TEXTUAL EXAMPLES, BOOK 2:
I thought, I had never seen anyone so
beautifulEverything turned over inside of
me.
-Pg 48
Six months for the projectile to encyst before
the knee can be opened safely.
-Pg 51

CHRONOTOPE OF THRESHOLD
TEXTUAL EXAMPLES, BOOK 2:
We were quiet awhile and did not talk.
Catherine was sitting on the bed and I was
looking at her, but we did not touch each other.
We were apart as when some one comes into a
room and people are self conscious. -Pg 73

CHRONOTOPE OF THRESHOLD
TEXTUAL EXAMPLES, BOOK 3:
We would make for the side road and work to
the south of the town. We all started down the
embankment. A shot was fired at us from the
side-road.
I was obviously a German in Italian uniform
they were saving their country.

CHRONOTOPE OF THRESHOLD
TEXTUAL EXAMPLES, BOOK 4:
They are going to arrest you in the morning.
Yes?
I came to tell you, I was out in the town and
heard them talking in a cafe.
-Pg 138

CHRONOTOPE OF THRESHOLD
TEXTUAL EXAMPLES, BOOK 4:
Im not worrying so much about that, I said,
as about getting into the Swiss part of the lake
before its daylight and the custom guards see
us.
Is it a long way?
Its some thirty kilometres from here.
-Pg 142