Review article

The Republic of Objects: Prolegomena to an Object-Oriented Reading of A Tour on the Prairies

Naruhiko Mikado ; Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

Abstract

This article has two purposes. First, it attempted to introduce ‘flat ontology’ and ‘withdrawal’, two of many concepts of object-oriented ontology (OOO), as effective intellectual devices to dissect a literary text, especially in order to investigate the complexity of contacts between/among various existences on a horizontal surface. Second, it examined how the narrator of A Tour on the Prairies, one of the underappreciated texts of Washington Irving, gradually begins to doubt the naive human/nonhuman binary and broadens his horizons through an encounter with another object, wild bees in this case. In conclusion, it demonstrated that, when read from an object-oriented outlook, this text proved to offer a rich world in which every single object acts and exists on its own right, and thus to entice its readers to rethink humans’ position within the ‘republic of objects’.

Keywords

Literary Criticism, American Literature; Washington Irving; A Tour on the Prairies; Object-Oriented Ontology

Hrčak ID:

230785

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/230785

Publication date:

21.12.2019.

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