Final thesis contents to hyperlink July 08

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Sincerest thanks must go to Pamela Nichols and Grace Musila from the Wits Writing 
Centre for offering me valuable advice on my work. My mother read various drafts of 
this dissertation and acted as advisor, proof reader and editor. Thank you for taking 
the time to offer me feedback and encouragement throughout the process. Thanks also 
to my supervisor, Mr Timothy Trengrove–Jones for his guidance and careful reading 
of different drafts of my work. 

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5 
CONTENTS 
Page 
1. INTRODUCTION 6 
2. A BACKGROUND TO BYATT’S WRITING 12 
2.1. The making of a novel and a writer: A brilliant literary mind 12 
2.2. Some misgivings surrounding postmodernism 24 
2.3. The Biographer’s Tale: An introduction to some themes in Possession 30 
3. POSSESSION: THE ENERGIES AND COMPLEXITIES OF MEANING IN 
THE TEXT
 
 
 
 
 
 
34 
3.1. Possessing Possession: an introduction to its complexities of meaning 34 
3.2. A lost vitality: The present as endless recycling of the past
41 
4. POSSESSION’S HISTORY AS CHALLENGING POSTMODERNISM 53 
4.1. Challenging postmodern theory: Reclaiming the value of the past 53 
4.2. Omissions: Traditional histories cannot tell secrets 61 
4.3. Reclaiming truth: Possession’s Postscript 61 
4.4. A trapped woman: The hidden truth of Ellen Ash’s shame 68 
5. TENSIONS IN THE WRITING PROCESS 73 
5.1. Knowledge, possession and desire: an allegory of reading 73 
6. CONCLUSION 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
84 
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY  87 

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6 
1. INTRODUCTION 
A. S Byatt’s ambivalent relationship to postmodernism is evident in two of her most 
recent novels, Possession and The Biographer’s Tale. The novels critically engage 
with postmodernism’s strengths and weaknesses, as Byatt sees them. This study 
considers her ideas about postmodernism as portrayed in the novels and a selection of 
her critical essays. It examines how her sceptical mindset has contributed to the 
creation of a complex and successful novel, Possession. The study focuses on this 
novel and uses The Biographer’s Tale as an informative backdrop to the discussion. 
The latter builds on some similar themes, and although it was written after 
Possession, provides a useful background to Byatt’s concerns about postmodernism. 
Possession is foremost a love story and a detective story, set primarily in a university 
environment. It is also one of Byatt’s most successful works. It won her the 
prestigious Booker prize in 1990 and has been made into a film, but it is also studied 
in an academic environment. Perhaps one of the secrets of its popularity is that it finds 
a balance between Byatt’s characteristic erudition and more playful, popular modes of 
fiction. Indeed, it is the only novel she has intentionally “written to be liked” (Byatt 
quoted in Jeffers 136).
Possession’s main characters are the scholars, Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey, who 
are investigating a secret love affair between two nineteenth–century poets, Randolph 
Ash and Christabel LaMotte
1
. The love affair has remained undiscovered until Roland 
chances on a copy of an unfinished letter written by Randolph in the London library, 
1
For the sake of clarity, this thesis sometimes refers to these characters as “the scholars” and “the 
poets”. 

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which sets him on an exciting journey of discovery. Roland and Maud are 
postmodern, poststructuralist scholars and their theoretical mindsets are continually 
satirised throughout the novel. Possession challenges postmodernism through a satire 
of these characters who are afraid to embrace life. Ironically, in the process of 
discovering the secret love affair they become so involved in the story that they begin 
to embrace what postmodernism undermines – they begin to invest personally in the 
importance of history, they forget the principle that there is no such thing as an error-
free text, and they fall in love, even though they see love as a “suspect ideological 
construct” (Possession 323). The metanarratives that they view, in theory, as flawed, 
begin to hold meaning for them. Investigating the secret affair allows them to suspend 
their disbelief. Similarly, although it acknowledges that our understanding of the past 
is textual, the novel’s focus is on a rich past that has many gifts for the present. In