METAPHORICAL ANALYSIS OF TEMPORALITY: TOM STOPPARD’S ARTIST DESCENDING A STAIRCASE UNDER THE LIGHT OF PAUL RICOEUR’S NARRATIVE THEORY

Among contemporary British playwrights who are mainly obsessed with the issue of time, Tom Stoppard applies time-based techniques in most of his works. His play, Artist Descending a Staircase, which deals with the definition of art and artist, is chosen to be studied. Based on Paul Ricoeur's 'narrative time' theory, which focuses on the relationship between narrativity and temporality, this study intends to analyze how narrativity works in terms of temporality in this play. For this purpose, Stoppard's rhetorical structures, mainly encompassing binary opposition, two-faceted characters of the old and young, as well as metaphorical conceptualization, are taken into account to examine which layer of time is Stoppard's focal perspective from which he offers his own outlook. The play's incidents are interpreted, applying Ricoeur's theory of memory and forgetting through time flashbacks with a hermeneutic understanding. This becomes defensible through a modern hermeneutic circle by which the meaning is created out of textual signs. The circular method is justified because the signs are considered the parts to reach the totality of the social context. Considering Ricoeur's metaphor of time, the illustrated concepts of art are analyzed following the way Stoppard reveals time. Since time resides in the narrative, the approach taken in this study is narratological, and it concentrates on temporality in the narrative.

Keywords:

narratology , narrative time , memory , forgetting , hermeneutics