You are here

FAU Collections » FAU Research Repository » FAU College Collections » Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College » Honors Student Theses

depths of an English heart"

Download pdf | Full Screen View

Date Issued:
2008
Summary:
In Ford Madox Ford's 1915 novel The Good Soldier, John Dowell comments "I had never sounded the depths of an English heart," as he painstakingly reconstructs his "extreme intimacy" with his late wife and their two closest friends. Throughout his narrative, Dowell approaches the limits of language, struggling to connect with lost companions by bringing language into scenes of miscommunication and silence. By translating emotional impasses and wordless exchanges from memory into narrative, Dowell seems to make these wordless interactions wordful. Ludwig Wittgenstein's investigation into "private language" helps elucidate Dowell's realization that he cannot fill wordlessness with words to reconstruct his memories. If Dowell can't fill wordlessness with words, his failure to "sound the depths of an English heart" isn't a failure at all, but rather an exposition on "private language" as public language, demonstrating that misunderstandings can be our best attempts at understanding each other.
Title: "The depths of an English heart": Wittgenstinian private language in Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier.
280 views
201 downloads
Name(s): Simundich, Joel.
Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Thesis
Issuance: multipart monograph
Date Issued: 2008
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Physical Form: electronic
electronic resource
Extent: vii, 76 leaves.
Language(s): English
Summary: In Ford Madox Ford's 1915 novel The Good Soldier, John Dowell comments "I had never sounded the depths of an English heart," as he painstakingly reconstructs his "extreme intimacy" with his late wife and their two closest friends. Throughout his narrative, Dowell approaches the limits of language, struggling to connect with lost companions by bringing language into scenes of miscommunication and silence. By translating emotional impasses and wordless exchanges from memory into narrative, Dowell seems to make these wordless interactions wordful. Ludwig Wittgenstein's investigation into "private language" helps elucidate Dowell's realization that he cannot fill wordlessness with words to reconstruct his memories. If Dowell can't fill wordlessness with words, his failure to "sound the depths of an English heart" isn't a failure at all, but rather an exposition on "private language" as public language, demonstrating that misunderstandings can be our best attempts at understanding each other.
Identifier: 277000273 (oclc), 77691 (digitool), FADT77691 (IID), fau:1511 (fedora)
Note(s): by Joel Simundich.
Thesis (B.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, Honors College, 2008.
Bibliography: leaves 74-76.
Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, FL : 2008 Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subject(s): Ford, Ford Madox, 1873-1939
Ford, Ford Madox, 1873-1939
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951
Psychology -- Philosophy
Held by: FBoU FAUER
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/77691
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Host Institution: FAU

In Collections