Remapping the Castaway Novel: Spatial Adaptation and Identity Formation in Umberto Eco’s the Island of the Day Before

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Island of the Day Before (1996) redefines generic motifs of the castaway novel and undermines narrative authority to resist and revise fixed and one-dimensional representations of identity, as well as representations of the appropriation and domination of space and time that characterize shipwreck-literature from pre-colonial and colonial periods, the most well-known probably being Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719). As such, Eco’s postmodern representation casts doubt on the legitimacy of any single interpretation of reality as well as the existence of absolute truth. His manipulation of time and space is achieved by alternating different worlds or contexts and time periods that engender the use of intertextual strategies to emphasize the non-linear and incongruous experience of space and time. This ambivalent tempo-spatial experience creates a state of liminality in which the identity of the main protagonist becomes unstable and even hybridized. In addition, Eco’s parodic foregrounding of the cultural traits of the Baroque period functions to further complement his view on the nature of fiction as a narrative mode for revisiting, revising and recycling the past.