| dc.description.abstract | This is a thesis studying Literary Chaos Theory and its use in explicating
the novels of Michael Ondaatje. The paper concentrates on elements of Chaos
theory, such as ‘strange attractors,’ ‘bifurcation points’ and ‘self-organizing
systems.’ These elements of Chaos theory help describe many dynamics in
Ondaatje’s writings which seem almost undescribable without them. Chaos
theory explains not only the mechanics of Ondaatje’s complicated style but also
Ondaatje’s treatment of the chaos of history within The Collected Works of Billy
the Kid, Coming Through Slaughter and In the Skin of a Lion. Ondaatje rewrites
history in such a way that he almost completely excludes the voices of the
dominant elements of our social superstructure. He ignores the voices of the
privileged, particularly in In the Skin of a Lion, and instead uses a multi-layered
narrative system which is accomodating due to its complexity. Ondaatje is able to
tell the stories of the marginal people and groups in history who otherwise don’t
have a voice in the ‘official’ versions of history. He weaves the perspectives of
many marginal characters together into one history. Ondaatje’s stories are not
only inclusive, but they also show the order in chaos in their complexity. This
paper discusses how Ondaatje draws identities for his characters, out of the
Chaotic narrative, by using machine imagery as synecdochal and metonymic
identifying tropes to show his order within the Chaos. | |
