Chaos and Literary Comparison

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Chaos and Literary Comparison

Abstract: I will show how chaos is can be found in art, specifically in literature, and analyze John Hawkes's Travesty to show the similarities between literature and chaos.

John Hawkes describes the "artistic challenge" as conceiving the inconceivable. In accordance with that thought, Wallace Stevens says, "Imagination is the power that enables us to perceive the normal in the abnormal." It is arguable that chaos, deterministic disorder, is both abnormal and inconceivable to the untrained mind; even to the person accustomed to chaos, the imagination is key to his/her perception of chaos. Therefore, chaos can be found not only in nature and scientific studies, but also in art, specifically literature. This assertion can be proved most easily through an analysis of John Hawkes's Travesty.

The short novel takes place in a speeding elegant sports car. The driver, who is the narrator, refers to himself as Papa. Papa is driving his daughter and a poet and family "friend," Henri. While driving, Papa informs them that he is aware of Henri's affair with both Papa's daughter and wife, and he is going to crash the car and all of its passengers into the stone wall of a desolate farmhouse. His purpose for this violent action is not, as would be easily concluded, to get revenge--that would simply be a bonus; his real purpose is to produce art. Papa is somewhat of an artist, and he has decided that the ultimate aesthetic is produced by the melding of the automobile into a new complex array according to his mental blueprint:

One moment the car in perfect condition, without so much as a scratch on its curving surface the next moment impact, sheer impact. Total destruction. In...

... middle of paper ...

...s difficult to understand without the help of an active imagination. If imagination spurs art, then art and chaos can be easily intertwined. Hawkes has produced a story, a piece of art in itself, that incubuses chaos, but it also contains an explanation of chaos as artwork and how the two relate. Often people only see the final product of both chaos and art; it is possible and easy to forget about the process and the plan behind them.

Works Cited

Conte, Joseph M. "Design and Debris": John Hawkes's Travesty, Chaos Theory, and the Swerve.

Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Viking, 1987.

Hawkes, John. Travesty. New York: New Directions, 1976.

Hayles, N. Katherine. Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science. Ithica: Cornell UP, 1990.

Stevens, Wallace. The Collected Poems. New York: Knopf, 1954.

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