Final thesis contents to hyperlink July 08

 
Possession embraces postmodernism’s capacity for experimentation but treads 
carefully around its values. Although the novel is aware of the difficulties of 
discovering history and the postmodern theories about our limits of knowledge, it still 
endorses the value of striving for that past. What Byatt shows is that she is more 
interested in exploring the ways that history can be told than the ways it cannot. In 
Possession, history is no longer an endless simulacrum of meaningless images but a 
partly recoverable text that has valuable lessons for those who are open to them.
 
Possession’s excavation of the past is concerned with reaching to the substance, rather 
than being content with the surface, of that past. It restores the value of historical 
knowledge by showing the better life the scholars enjoy because they are in touch 
with that knowledge. A fictional history, the novel is able to disclose secrets that are 
not available through official records, encouraging an empathetic connection with the 

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historical characters. Possession celebrates the capacity of fiction to offer hard truth, 
expressing Byatt’s commitment to reclaiming meta-narratives.
With touches of irony, Possession satirises the dullness of its postmodern characters’ 
lives, particularly compared to their Victorian counterparts - the dead who are far 
more alive than the living. The scholars are invigorated by the study of the past. As 
they learn more, they become possessed by a desire for knowledge that is fundamental 
and so strong that it undercuts their postmodern mindsets. They suspend their 
scepticism as they reach for knowledge and history.
Juxtaposing the campus novel genre and the genres of medieval, modern and 
nineteenth century romance, Possession explores the possibilities of these fictional 
styles. The novel is at times self-consciously tedious, pointing to the dullness of 
postmodern fiction that is dominated by theory and theoretical stances. The novel 
restores a balance of humanism into a mode of fiction that is becoming increasingly 
intellectual. Possession is not simply about battles of ideas, but rather about the life of 
people whose worlds revolve around words, reading, writing and history. Possession 
and The Biographer’s Tale question the possibility of a ‘readable’ novel in a 
postmodern age, asking the professional reader what it is they are looking for in a 
work of fiction. 
 
Possession is a meronymic novel that blends contradictions in styles and types to 
offer a coherent, pleasing whole. It provides the readers with closure that eludes them 
in real life, using romance that allows more than one happy ending. Justice is meted 
out to the characters, where the ‘bad guys’ get their come-uppance, and the ‘good 

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guys’ find the treasure they have been searching for. Although this is distinctly 
unrealistic, it is pleasurable for both reader and character to achieve this kind of 
closure. The resolution the postscript provides fulfils the readers’ curiosity to know 
what happens. It brings the novel to an ending, offering a fragment of hard truth that 
is immensely satisfying and pleasurable for the readers as well as emotionally 
affective. Possession plays with the idea that “the pleasure of fiction is narrative 
discovery” (“Introduction” xiii), inviting the reader to travel on the journey of 
discovery and allowing them to know all. Possession offers the reader balance in an 
unbalanced world, celebrating the capacity of a fictional text to offer closure and the 
pleasures of happy endings. The novel offers readers and characters an opportunity to 
escape into a world outside of themselves.