“Chronometer” to designate the Spatial-Temporal matrix, which governs the base condition of all narratives and other linguistic acts. The term itself can be literally translated as “Time-space”. The term is developed in Backhand’s essay, “Forms of Time and Chronometer In the Novel”. Baking in his essay says that “a literary work’s artistic unity in relationship to an actual reality is defined by its Chronometer.
He further says that “Cornerstone are the organizing centers for the fundamental narrative events of the novel. The Chronometer is the place where the knots of narrative are tied and untied. ” So, Chronometer Is a category that deals with organization of Time-Space model. It enables one to follow shifts In the presentation of the human relation to Space and Time in Literature: it functions as a force giving body to the entire novel, because the organization of time cannot be done without the implication of space organization and vice-versa.
In his essay, Baking mentions various major Cornerstone In the novel, like, the Chronometer of Encounter, which he further connects It with Chronometer of Road, as Encounters In a. Especially In picaresque novels. Usually take place “on the road” Representatives of all classes, ages, nationalities meet on road, thus their temporal and spatial paths intersect. Further, he talks about Gothic Chronometer, sub-divided into Chronometer of castle where we see historical Space and Time intersecting with each other.
In the same essay, Baking also mentions Chronometer of Salon and Parlous, and Chronometer of Threshold, where he gives theory of intertwining of spatial- temporal relation In those Cornerstone. In this paper, I would merely touch upon one more example of the spatial and temporal sequences. In Student’s “Pride and Prejudice”, the domesticity of country- side life serves as the locus of action. The country-side of London with its stagnant life is represented in “Pride and Prejudice”.
Here there are no fast-paced events, no advancing historical movement of time; Infract time rather moves In narrow circles: the circles of the day, of the month, of the persons entire life. This ‘everyday pace can be categorized under the ‘Domestic Chronometer’ which is nothing but one of the any ways in which we can organize time-space relationship. Time and Space are quite small in Pride and Prejudice. Time represented in the novel Is Just of about few months, where there is no space for past and future, though the present actions would determine future of the characters. Distance or village or Estate.
Student’s major characters move away time to time from their homes and villages as well, but it is within these settings that their future lies. The characters in the novel Just have time to find suitable partners for their marriage, ND almost all events in the novel intertwine together to get its characters husbanded and waived. The novel, “Pride and Prejudice” contains vivid and realistic pictures of the social life of the author’s time. The conventions, the manners, and the mode of living of the era are depicted in the novel in a most graphic manner. Courtship is relegated to the central position in Pride and Prejudice.
The subject is introduced by the novel’s famous opening sentence: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”. And it remains in the riverfront throughout the first chapter which is given over entirely to Mrs.. Bennett the business of whose life was to get her daughters married’. As Alistair Ductwork says that “Pride and Prejudice moves from an initial condition of potential social fragmentation to a resolution in which the grounds of society are reconstituted as the principal characters come together in marriage”.
The novel’s major plot threads are set in motion by the arrival of four strangers in the village of Emerson, and the fabric is not completed until each is married- Dairy to Elizabeth Bennett, Bentley to Jane Bennett, Hickman to Lydia Bennett and Mr.. Collins to Charlotte Lucas. “Jane Austin doesn’t force the dates and their movement on the reader’s attention, but they are there and they can be and have been worked out; they are evidently part of the basic structure which simply must be there for her to tell a story as they are primary conditions of life”, says Stuart Tape.
In Pride and Prejudice, though Austin nowhere specifies the dates of events that occur in the novel, we get this idea from the dialogues between Bentley and Jane where Bentley tells her that it has been oboe eight months that he had seen her the last time, since the 26th of November when they had met and danced together at Interfiled. Thus we get the idea that the particular ball party where Bentley and Jane met for the first time, took place on 26th of November. We see time moving at a soft pace as they meet after such a long time, that is, eight months, and no other special event occur meanwhile with any of them.
Also we are provided Just about a year of the heroine, Elizabeth Bonnet’s life, from about October to October, the year in which she becomes twenty-one. As we have discussed earlier that in Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austin makes comprehensive study of the domestic life of the people of her time, taking into consideration the theme of courtship and matrimony, and this is elaborated in the ensuing conversation of the Bennett in the very first chapter. The groundwork for courtship of young people is carefully prepared by the elders who invariably derive the utmost delight in devoting all their energies in accomplishing that design. The marriage problem is set broadly before us in this uneasy parental background, where n ill-mated couple must come to terms of the finding of mates for their five daughters”, says Dorothy Van Ghent. All the events in the novel take place in account of this theme only. As the story moves further, we come to know that an assembly is held periodically in the town of Emerson which is situated at a distance of about one by all the respectable families of the town and the neighboring villages.
This assembly provides the place where representatives of all kinds of respectable class, like gentry, middle-class or aristocracy, could share spatial as well as temporal space ender one roof. They meet, talk, dance together and even hunt for their life partners. Austin often says, “dancing is the sort of thing one might expect, that enjoyment and ability in moving with significant grace in good time in a restricted space. ” So all these parties depicted in Student’s novel provide a space, though a restricted one, “here people could have good time together. It is at this assembly, where Mr..
Bentley meets Jane and Dairy meets Elizabeth. Mr.. Bentley feels greatly attracted by Jane and his preference for Jane is noticed by everybody at the assembly, and at the beginning itself, we come to know what is going to happen in the future time. Partners for the evening and partners for life become almost indistinguishable. Another event that takes place at this assembly is that Mr.. Dairy speaks rather slightingly about Elizabeth, and that she begins to dislike him for having thus spoken. Thus we see that the elements of Pride in Dairy and that of Prejudice in Elizabeth starts working right from the beginning. The distance of the drawing-room, moreover, are the mirror of social distances outside”, comments Ductwork. We not only come across increasing distance between Dairy and Elizabeth, but also between different classes of society in the novel – between Aristocracy represented by Dairy and Lady Catherine, the gentry represented by the Bennett and trade represented by Philips and the Gardeners. The Lucas and the Bentleys seem to add movement between the spaces of these different levels of classes. But then there is lesser possibility of achieving any relevant continuity until hero and heroine of the novel are united.
We know that Dairy does not like Elizabeth because of her humble background. As the story moves further, we see that Jane is invited by Bentley-sisters to dinner at Interfiled park, where she fells ill and has to prolong her stay at Interfiled Park, Inhere she is later Joined by her sister, Elizabeth. It is at Interfiled park, where while the likeness between Jane and Bentley intensifies, Mr.. Dairy’s attitude towards Elizabeth also changes slightly. On a closer acquaintance with her, he finds her quite charming, which gives us the sense that there might develop a love-relationship between Dairy and Elizabeth in future time.
Though, Elizabeth still harbors her rejoice against Dairy. Thus we see that dinner party at Interfiled Park not only provides the space for Bentleys, Darers and Bennett to spend time together, but also becomes the space on which the future of Student’s major characters- Elizabeth, Dairy, Bentley and Jane- take a turning point, as the love-story from ball party at Emerson to dinner at Interfiled Park intensifies in case of Jane-Bentley, while Elizabeth-Darers misunderstandings seem to be lessening here, which occurred at Emerson.
Meanwhile, another character named Hickman is introduced who helps in enlarging the distanced-gulf between Elizabeth and Dairy. Though Dairy, at another ball party at Interfiled, suggests Elizabeth to avoid basing her Judgment on him on the incident of Emerson or account by Hickman, to which Elizabeth decides to again until they meet at Hanford, a new space in the novel. Outside of Mrs.. Bonnet’s imagination, however, unions are not formed so easily. Instead of receiving a proposal of marriage, Jane received a letter from Miss Bentley informing her that all the inmates of Interfiled Park were leaving London and that Mr..
Bentley was thinking of marrying Mr.. Dairy’s sister, Georgian. At Hanford, Elizabeth is proposed by Dairy, to which she rejects. Next day, she gets a letter from him and her reading through that letter marks a turning point in her attitude towards Mr.. Dairy. Her prejudice begins to crumble. Later, she visits to Pimpernel, at Dairy’s estate where she gets aware of Dairy’s intrinsically worthy character. Taken with her response to the letter, her visit to Derbyshire marks a crucial change in the direction of her critical views, where Gardeners and Dairy’s servants makes her to get acquainted Ninth true nature of Mr..
Dairy. At Pimpernel, looking at Dairy’s estates, Elizabeth also gets the idea about what her future would be with a man like him. By traveling through different spaces of the house, through rooms and park, she realizes the permanence of the estate and of her future life. As Stuart Tape says, “those Journeys became valuable only because they bring into her life not open spaces without responsibility, but the surprising impetus of pressing new times. ” So, we see that as the time passes in the novel, and as soon as there is a change in the space of the heroine, her perspective towards the hero undergoes a change.
And finally, she is in love with Dairy. By this time, she has decided to culminate Here’s and Dairy’s time and space into one. As, we as readers follow Elizabethan Journey through different spaces n the novel, we see her prejudice crumbling and Dairy’s pride becoming humbler. He leaves his ideal center and moves into the space of less perfect world. Now, he could easily remove the blind-fold from his eyes which had prevented him to see the real love between Bentley and Jane.
There has to be a compromise between past and present, of perfect material life and perfect social life. And then after the episode “here Hickman-Lydia marriage take place and the good-name of Bennett family is saved due to intervention of Dairy, Elizabethan attitude towards Mr.. Dairy changes completely and at the end, we sees her accepting the proposal of Mr.. Dairy and also Bentley comes to Interfiled and proposes marriage to Jane. And marriage of Dairy- Elizabeth takes place on the same day as the marriage of Jane-Bentley.
So the final destination is reached, that is, the marriage between hero and heroine takes place. The space of marriage-ceremony also needs to be discussed here. It is he occasion where spatial-temporal space of people intertwines together, here the space and time of the people of all the classes discussed earlier would intertwine with each other. They Join together to attend the union of two persons. This union is not only physical, but the space and time of the couple also are united together, forever.
If we talk about the historical time being represented in the novel, first we have to talk about the charge laid against Austin that she completely ignores in her domestic tales, the momentous events of 18th century England. The 18th century was an age of significant change- the French revolution, changes in the social structure etc. And the charges laid by various critics is not completely true. Though war does not forms a regiments in case of Hickman, who is a soldier and Brighton, the place where Nickname’s regiment is to move from Emerson.
Thus, Brighton represents the space Inhere historical time of the era combines in the novel. The later half of the 18th century also marked an improvement in roads and the development of faster coaches. Traveling became easier. And in Pride and Prejudice, Dairy calls covering of fifty miles of good road in more than half-a-day time s “very easy distance”, which gives us another incident of spatial-time relation where road as a space is improved and movement from one place to another takes lesser time in the novel.
Thus, the clarity of atmosphere with which Austin gives us the actions of her characters in common life in Pride and Prejudice, and in almost all her novels, makes her stories special even if they are spotted again and again in different stories. Stuart rave rightly comments, ” hers is a timeless world, where life repeats and renews itself in each well-lived individual life. And in that sense it is a spacious world.
