Abstract
The essay addresses issues of existence and time in John Updike´s short story, “The Music School”, which was published in 1966 in a short story collection by the same name. While waiting for his daughter in a music school, the writer Alfred Schweigen reflects on the complexities of life, describing his thoughts and impressions. In his everyday dealings with reality, by way of contrasting materiality to immateriality he attempts to make sense of existence as it comes into view. Especially, time not so much as an objective category but as a matter of subjective experiencing is an important aspect. Time as a musical category of rhythm, and as rhythm of life and of transience, is a topos the narrator makes a draft on, approaching an existential view of real-world issues through life philosophy. Some others of Updike´s stories of the sixties make for a thematic kinship, so that it becomes obvious that existence in reference to time provides a point of departure to gain insight into being.
Highlights
The essay addresses issues of existence and time in John Updikes short story, “The Music School”, which was published in 1966 in a short story collection by the same name
“What American short-story writers have always offered is a vision of life that must transcend reportage with metaphor (...).” [1] “Die Short Story soll dem Leben aehnlich sein, das vielfach undurchschaubar ist und keine eindeutigen, endgueltigen Antworten kennt.” [2] A basic topos of the American short story in the twentieth century can be traced to the specific American experiencing of life and reality which can be described as of a young people being in a strange country
John Updikes short story, “The Music School”, from the 1966 short story collection that goes by the same name is an excellent example for that static episode narrative
Summary
The essay addresses issues of existence and time in John Updikes short story, “The Music School”, which was published in 1966 in a short story collection by the same name. [10] In “The Music School”, the protagonist draws on these topics mostly in a reflecting way, or in a reminiscing fashion, skipping to and fro time. [11] This fits the story well, since the protagonist, Schweigen, almost hot-swaps between time levels, mediating his thoughts in an ambivalent way, yet in their complexity approaching some wholeness of gestalt.
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