Opening Possible Worlds: the Application of the Tool of Network Theory to the Short Stories by Bitė Vilimaitė

Abstract

The main aim of the article is to discuss the validity of the Network Theory suggested by Franco Moretti and the possibility of applying it while analyzing short stories. There were two main tasks to be fulfilled – to describe briefly the main statements of Network Theory applied to literature and after the analysis of the texts using the theoretical tool suggested by Moretti to reveal the main features of the prose texts by Lithuanian writer Bitė Vilimaitė (1943–2014), who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of the short story in Lithuanian literature. The examples of the texts for the analyses have been chosen randomly from Vilimaitėʼs selection of the short stories “The Sun of the Fern-grove” (Papartynų saulė, 2002). The networks of the plots of three texts have shown that Vilimaitė uses symmetric and asymmetric schemes, which are being strengthened by specific vertices without any edges. The schemes of the plot help to concentrate on particular characters and analyze their actions or intentions closer, and the vertices without any edges (as an old woman, several witnesses or two dogs in analyzed texts) can be treated as particular starting points for potential stories, which could be developed in the context of the main narrative. Such vertices stipulate an assumption that Vilimaitė uses Hemingway’s principle of iceberg; subsidiary characters (or vertices without the edges in the schemes) are vivid enough to create concrete associations, form a particular background for the vertices with edges (the characters, which are related between themselves by verbal or non-verbal communication) and enrich the scale of possible reactions of the reader.