Intertextuality In English Literature

The term 'intertextuality' is now often used to describe the complex relationships that exist between works of literature. Originally, though, it was intended to mean much more. The basic tenets of this theory were first elaborated in Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism which “subsumes the work of major authors with that of minor figures in a multiple positional typology based on relation and difference” Literary theorist Julia Kristeva believed that there is a cohesive force in literature that connects all the various traditions, past and present. She gave that force a name 'intertextuality’ in 1966 in her essay ‘Word, Dialogue, and Novel’. In her dialogue with the texts of Mikhail Bakhtin, she argues: “Any text is constructed as a mosaic

This emerges as the most dominating trend in Earnest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and Arun Joshi’s The Foreigner. The hero, Frederic Henry of A Farewell to Arms is a foreigner, an aspiring student studying the relatively peaceful art of architecture in Rome, a self-centred American, who is forced into the bloody Italian front in World War-I simply because he "was in Italy... and I [Henry] spoke Italian" (20). He has no explanation for his joining Italian Ambulance unit and feels somewhat embarrassed on being asked about it.

The hero, Sindi Oberoi, in Arun Joshi’s The Foreigner embodies the same traits as of Frederic Henry of A Farewell to Arms. A born foreigner, only son of Indian father and a British mother, and born in Kenya orphaned at an early age, brought up by his uncle, Sindhi is a young man detached in every sense. The Leaving Kenya, he had an excellent academic career at London University followed by a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering at Boston though no special attitude for it. He has no valid reasons for joining this field; regards his choice as time pass affair taken without due

All his life was like “nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you knew that that was all there was, and the strange excitement of waking and not knowing who it was with you” (11). In the beginning, Henry is not a bit serious in his relation with Miss Barkley. He just wants to ward off the tensions of the imminent war between Italy and Austria. In their second meeting Miss Barkley anticipates his intensions, stops his advances, slaps him and hurriedly expresses her views, “I just couldn’t stand the nurse’s evening-off aspect of it”(24). Henry sensing brake-off instantly apologized her and stole the show. Though Miss Barkley slightly softened, tried to appease Henry but apprehensions still loom in her mind. She repeatedly asks Henry to assure herself about the fate of their relation, “You will be good to me, won’t you?”(25). On Henry’s part, the affair with Miss Barkley is still a sort of adjustment. He is playing an elaborate game of seduction. Instead of going to house of officers, he prefers to stay with Catherine. “I know I did not love Catherine Barkley….. nor had a idea of loving her. This is a game…….” (28). At this juncture Henry’s interest in Catherine is just sexual and