Burn What They should Not See': Family Secrets in A S Byatt's Possession (Report‪)‬

Randolph Henry Ash in A S Byatt's Possession attempts to manipulate public memory of him by burning his personal writings. (1) Ash believes that by destroying historical evidence he is erasing all traces of his secret affair with Christabel LaMotte. His conduct raises questions regarding how people in the present approach the past: is language the only way to understand the past? Can people eliminate memories of certain events by destroying their historical records? While narrative is often thought to be the most effective way to understand the past since language transmits meanings easily (although not always accurately), not all events are described and recorded. Most of the time, events are un/intentionally wiped out, disappearing either in history or the memories of later generations. Such effacing of the past does not suggest that these events are of no importance. A large number of them are significant enough to change the lives of those living in the present. These events disappear from narratives primarily because they conflict with collective concept of the past in the process of historical and memorial production. Critics, including Elizabeth Jelin and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, point out the inevitable silence in historical and memorial narratives. Luisa Passerini and Annette Kuhn argue that silence is by no means void and futile; instead, it has power to convey messages and to influence people's understanding of events in the past. Nevertheless, silence exerts its inf luence only when it is observed and narrated. Examining A S Byatt's Possession, this paper will explore the possible ways of interpreting silences in narratives. It will also analyse how the disclosure of secrets may influence the characters' understanding of the past as well as themselves. It will argue that the past does not merely show itself in narratives; more often than not, silence reveals another level of understanding the past which history has been unable to record.