Not a saviour of the world: dismissal of messianism in Graham Swift’s Waterland

Abstract

The article considers the highly critical handling of the British brand of messianism in Graham Swift’s novel Waterland (1983) in the light of Jacques Lacan’s concept of the phallus. The issue is approached through the figure of the narrator’s half-brother, spawned to be the saviour of the world and the narrator’s attitude towards promises of a grand future, an epitome of Graham Swift’s overall distrust of totalising narratives. The desire for a complete and final explanation is shown to be as inescapable as it is impossible to fulfil.