Chronotope Of Ballroom Character Analysis

Swasti 1 Swasti1

Swasti Sharma

Professor Sambudha Sen

MA previous

12 November 2014

Chronotope of Ballroom in Nineteenth century Novels and the Modern Wedding balls

Mikhael Mikhailovich Bakhtin in Dialogic Imagination (1975) defines chronotope as the "intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature". The term itself from Greek : χρόνος ("time") and τόπος ("space"), can be literally translated as "time-space.".In his essay, Forms of Time and Chronotope (1937), Bakhtin describes various chronotopes in the history of the novel and they are -

1. chronotope of the road

England in Regency era was divided into ranks and class . The highest order included royal family ,lords and great officers of the state above the degree of baronet . Next were baronets , knights and country gentlemen who owned large incomes. Only gentlemen and women with respectable background and lineage were invited at the balls.The crowd consisted of the likes of Sir William Lucas who had eared title through services to the royalty and Bennets, who belonged to the lower end of gentry. Characters are defined by incomes and fortunes ,as much as by manners and appearances. Like salons and parlors, Ballrooms were the places where opinions were formed , dialogues happened and rumors were circulated. Consider the case of Mr. Darcy was perceived as “fine figure of a man ” because he was proprietor of Pemberley , a large estate in Derbyshire and an income of ten thousand pounds a year. However, due to his “disagreeable countenance” at Meryton ball, the tide turned against him in favor of Charles Bingley who had a decent income of five thousand pounds per annum and noble

The balls occur at the beginning of both novels. In Pride and Prejudice the two significant balls happen at Meryton and Netherfield and in Anna Karenina the ball at Shcherbatskaya’s in Moscow . Behavior and expectations at such an occasion formed the backbone of the plot in both the novels. In Pride and Prejudice , the complicated mutual attraction of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy is established through their behavior towards each other at the succession of balls. In nineteenth century novels, ballroom became the space for release of passion and libido . Ballroom became inevitable for love to flourish. Wickham and Elizabeth could not marry because they had not danced with each other . Desolated Kitty in Anna Karenina felt “crushed ” because Vronsky had fallen for Anna and “she saw in her the signs of that excitement of success she knew so well herself ;she saw she was intoxicated with delighted admiration