“A Heart to Speak of”: Authorial Sacrifice in Janet Frame’s “Jan Godfrey” and Other Texts

Abstract

This essay examines Janet Frame’s “Jan Godfrey” with a view to demonstrating that its author-figure writes a story that is not a story as long as she hesitates to grant her (re-)created Other full access to the speaking position she occupies. The idea explored in “Jan Godfrey,” that non-stories of avoidance are in fact narratives of ontological decimation will, then, be shown to tie in with Frame’s belief that true art occurs at the edge of non-being.