Mixing Colors, Making Designs: A. S. Byatt’s “Racine and the Tablecloth,” “Rose-Coloured Teacups,” and “Sugar”

Abstract

ABSTRACTThemes of intellectual design, decorative pattern, color stimulus, visual art, and creativity form the framework of A. S. Byatt’s Sugar and Other Stories. In “Racine and the Tablecloth,” “Rose-Coloured Teacups,” and “Sugar,” Byatt translates emotion, intellect, sense, and memory into a language of “fictionalized autobiography” that self-reflexively sheds light on her creative development. The dramatic language of Racine provides a model of intellectual design that contrasts with the embroidered pattern of a tablecloth. A retrospective vision of rose-colored teacups on a tablecloth signifies Victorian décor, implicitly compared with a still life by Matisse (cover illustration). The mixed colors of molten sugar awaken a child’s aesthetic sense in a way later associated with Van Gogh’s paintings and ekphrastically reflected in the novel Still Life. The three stories examined reveal important aspects of Byatt’s fictional art and aesthetic values.