Postmodern Anxiety and the Neo-Victorian Dialogue with the Other in Graham Swift’s Ever After

Abstract

ABSTRACT Graham Swift’s Ever After offers a literary treatment of the existential trauma that Darwinism has brought about in the nineteenth century. Further as part of the neo-Victorian sub-genre, Swift’s work intertwines this trauma with the anxieties characterising the twentieth century present of the novel. Swift charts two journeys which ultimately fail to culminate in a “happily ever after”, due to the impact of Darwinism in one case and the struggle against postmodern existential anxiety in the other. The novel juxtaposes the predicaments of two fictional characters and renders one’s apostasy in the past as a possible means for the protagonist’s attempt to cathartically release his pent-up feelings in the present. Our essay explores how the comparative equation between the two persons belonging to different eras in the novel corresponds to Emmanuel Levinas’ conception of the “other” as a significant factor in the assertion of the “self”.