“The dreadful mass neighbourhood of objects” in the fiction of Janet Frame

Abstract

Janet Frame’s constant preoccupation with death, fear, failure and loneliness finds a surprisingly productive venue in relation to the difficulty of sharing space and time with things and objects. This article considers some of the consequences of reading Frame’s work in terms of the separation between things and objects as theorized by thing theory, in which things are seen as alien and resistant, prior to their being transformed into objects to which we ascribe uses, and in which we invest meanings. Dealing with things and objects will be seen to be modulated in terms related to the difficulties in defining selfhood faced by her characters within the ordinary boundaries of language and memory, evoked by Frame’s famously awkward linguistic and literary strategies. The article thus focuses on the resonances Frame’s novels establish between existing in the world and facing up to the presence of non-human and inanimate bodies.

Keywords:

• Janet Frame
• things
• objects
• memory
• representation

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank David Callahan for his input at different stages of the writing of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.