Concepts of Identity in A. S. Byatt’s Tetralogy

Abstract

Like Possession and The Biographer’s Tale, the four novels in Byatt’s tetralogy are equally concerned with exploring the notion of identity. The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman discuss two fundamentally different concepts of individual identity. The first concept, which can be described as narrative identity, is represented by the character of Frederica Potter, who is one of the protagonists in the tetralogy. Frederica is characterized — as indeed are all the members of their family except for Marcus — as verbally gifted and well-educated in literature.1 She establishes her identity through narration and she conceives of her life as a story. As a child she used to sketch her future ‘by telling herself an endless tale’ (SL, p.821; emphasis added). She furthermore regards her unsuccessful marriage as a ‘narrative [that] redefines and changes her’ (TBT, p.282; emphasis added); and she realizes that her divorce hearing changes ‘the story of her life’ (TBT, p.519; emphasis added).2 Thus, Frederica represents ‘a concept of identity which can be described, in a phrase used by Paul Ricoeur, as a narrative unity of a life’ (Ricoeur, 1992, p.178).3 Establishing narrativity as a central element of his philosophy of identity, Ricoeur supports the narrative paradigm generally accepted among identity theorists of various disciplines.4