Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 3. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 29)
Tibor Tóth: Fiction as the 'River Between': Daniel Martin
64 TIBOR TÓT! I v- Thomas Hardy's influence 1 2 also suggests that the world to which Daniel Martin wants to return is loaded with ideological, moral, ethical and artistic dilemmas. We also should remember that return would not bring about happiness as a static condition but rather as a series of 'short lived joy' which compensates for participation in the continuous drama of 'being at home.' The protagonist of the novel has to find remedy for virtually all the wrongs that he caused through his ignorance of his own status as artist and a human being. Daniel Martin gave up genuine love out of misjudged honesty towards his friend with the result that his friendship with Anthony became the victim of false social and moral norms and expectations. The existential elements at stake are 'solved' in the course of the plot and they are supported by the possibility created by another major theme of the novel, which is the relationship between art and life. Life, that is events formulated by the plot, Anthony's approaching death and the relative impossibility of refusing a dyeing friend's last wish creates the fictional pretext or possibility for Daniel Martin to revisit the physical dimension which hosted the promise of a fuller, more human variant of life in his youth. If we interpret the novel as a set of isolated 'scenes' where the 'artificial' distance is preserved by the infidelities of the title character we may say that Anthony's death could be compared to the removal of one brick from the wall which separates the falsehood of 'adulthood' and the 'innocence in exile' of childhood. Because the 'wall' which separates these dimensions is of Dan's construction it does not 'collapse' and the process brings about an easily interpretable stream of memories. The proximity of a myth influences the course of the protagonist's spiritual 'career,' as in most of the novels of John Fowles. Art 'regained,' in its turn allows for the reformulation of human relationships and marks the end of Daniel Martin's hollow existence. The principle of chronologically identifiable and describable journey, which actually is the material equivalent of a character's spiritual journey, is relevant and consistent with John Fowles's art so we have to pay attention to his handling of this dimension in the novel as well. 1 2 Cassagrande, Peter J. 1987. Hardy's Influence on the Modern Novel. London: Macmillan Press.
