The Loss of Self Possession

One of the main themes of Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt is the idea that while searching for the truth of a subject the researchers becomes possessed by their search. Byatt uses many characters as a vehicle for this idea, but the best character that illustrates this would be Mortimer Cropper. Mortimer Cropper is a Randolph Henry Ash scholar. Randolph Henry Ash is one of the most renowned poets in the novel. He is very famous and is an inspiration and influence to many of the poets in the modern age. Mortimer Cropper is the biggest collector and most well-known Ash scholar. He spends his live obsessed with anything having to do with Randolph Ash. From the start of the novel Mortimer Cropper is introduced as a very intimidating and possessive character. When new Ash artifacts are found and his rival Blackadder finds out of them he talks about Cropper immediately by saying “Cropper will have been through [the artifacts] with a tooth comb [already]”(Byatt 35). This shows just how possessed with his work Cropper really is. New artifacts, that no one has ever seen, of Randolph Henry Ash have been found and already it is thought that Cropper has, not only seen then but, already examined them with “tooth comb.” Jackie, Buxton writer of the scholarly article on possession What’s Love Got to Do with It? writes “Possession also exhibits a postmodern obsession with "the question of how we can come to know the past today”. The American academic, Mortimer Cropper, seeks to own the past by accumulating its material artifacts”(Buxton). This shows just how large Cropper’s obsession with Ash can be. Even a Possession scholar identifies this as worth mentioning. Cropper wants to own the past by collection thing that belonged to Ash. Cropper ha...

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...e could, even rob a grave, to get the full truth of Ash’s story he won’t be able to ever truly finish it. This makes the themes that revolves around Cropper very satirical and even funny. All his greatest efforts will never allow him to finish the story. In conclusion Byatt uses Cropper as a vehicle for the theme of research possession. She does an excellent job at doing this. The theme is completely fulfilled with Cropper. She even makes Croppers last parts in the novel make him seem desperate and an inadequate scholar. This is what makes the theme fulfilled in the story; a scholar as possessed and taken by his search will go through any kind of thing to get the full truth. Byatt even makes the whole theme funny at the end by making Croppers degrading attempt to find the whole truth worthless. He will never be able to find the end of the story, no scholar ever will.