“Night-Sea Journey”
John Barth
Lost in the Funhouse
Outline
Introduction: John Barth
Lost in the Funhouse: "Oh God comma
I abhor self-consciousness.“
“Night-Sea Journey”
Introduction: John Barth
Prolific and influential metafictionist
His first few novels are existentialist dark
comedy (e.g. The Floating Opera, The End
of the Road), and his novels become longer
and more intricate (in the over-plotting track).
Literature of Exhaustion (1967)
Lost in the Funhouse (1968)
-- influenced by the revolutionary
passion of the time,
highly experimental.
Literature of Exhaustion &
Replenishment
Exhaustion:
Realism –a dead end;
Today‟s novelists need to confront the
exhaustion of realist literary techniques-- “an
artist may paradoxically turn the felt ultimacies of
our time into material and means for his work --
paradoxically, because by doing so he
transcends what had appeared to be his
refutation (71).
. . .novels which imitate the form of the Novel, by
an author who imitates the role of Author (72)”
his own novels as examples –the use of
labyrinth
Literature of Replenishment: a creative synthesis of
realism, modernism and postmodernism.
Lost in the Funhouse
Starts with “Frame Tale” -- the
Moebius Strip (《魔比斯環》) --
endless circle with a twist in the
middle. circular, self-referential
The growth of Ambrose as a sperm
a child and then his struggling with
writing and his mythic tales.
"Night Sea Journey"
Although this story is about a sperm, it
can also be interpreted as a story about
an artist or human beings in general.
Clues – p. 7; 8, 11
A swimmer-hero + a She in a night-
sea and maker of future night-seas;
1. Different interpretation of
the journey
A. the narrator – lack conviction:
"my own invention?" p. 3; p. 9; out of blind habit 5
Exhausted and dispirited. P. 3
Reflective moments –wonder, doubt and despair.
Two choices: give up and go under; embrace the
absurdity p. 5
B. Others or the group:
A common Maker N: the journey partakes of their
absurdity.
“Love! Love!” for Love ignorance of what whips
us. Dream of the Shore.
p. 4; out of interest in swimming;
p. 5; conformity
ambition for race at a younger age p. 8
1. Different interpretation of
the journey (2):
a cynic’s view
1. Father: pp. 6 -7
unconscious;
doesn‟t care;
wishes us unmade;
perverse, etc.
2. the end of the journey: extinction? --
nihilism
thousands of seas and Makers, Makers
in their own sea, pluralism pp. 7-8
The Sperm in the present
No longer scoff p. The friend
9 – purged of Our destination: a
opinions, etc. mysterious being p.
I may be the only 10 consummation,
survivor, tale-bearer transfiguration, etc.
p. 9 may have A hero stops the
been drowned; cycle, refuses her
The new emotion proffered
“immortality.”
What do you think about the ending?
The Sperm’s Decision
Not love.
some unimaginable embodiment of
myself (or myself plus Her if that‟s how
it must be)
To You: “stop your hearing against Her
song! Hate love!”
senseless love and senseless death.
Ending:
A. Personal-biological level:
End of the life of a sperm (or male ego);
sexual intercourse „may‟ not be for love;
B. Personal-Existential level:
Thinkers or doers, we don‟t know where the Shore
is or whether there is one.
There are different interpretations of the “goal” of
human life.
C. Global level:
We are in a night-sea (or many seas) producing
night-seas, which can be productive or self-
destructive.