Chronotope :

A central component in the modern novel is precisely time. In addition,

James Joyce’s preoccupation with time is apparent in the following quote
from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: “The past is consumed in
the present and the present is living only because it brings forth the
future” (Joyce;2011:187). As stated earlier, the experience of space in the
modern novel is of similar significance, and is a concept that gains its
meaning through the experience of the protagonist. Again, space can be
difficult to discern in a modernist novel as it can shift from one reality to
another in one instant.

Since Bakhtin is considered to be one of the most fundamental pillars for

the current study of space within narratives, the following section will be
concerned with clarifying his definition of the concept of time and space,
and its significance in relation to literary studies. Within his work with
the novel genre and the narrative, Bakhtin discovered what he believed
to be his most significant work: the dialogic interrelationship within a
novel. Through his work, he established several of his concepts,
including the term ‘chronotope’. The term covers a fusion of the concepts
of time and space, and he used it to convey the importance of their
inseparable connection within a novel. The term is composed of two
Greek words, which also illustrate the aforementioned fusion: cronos,
meaning time; and topos, meaning place. Chronotopes are therefore
temporal and spatial indicators fused together to form an
understandable whole employed to create a recognizable distinctive
characteristic for a piece of literature. Bakhtin-interested scholars have
worked with the chronotope in relation to music, paintings, sculptures,
and so on, but this thesis will only be concerned with the chronotope in
relation to literature. Bakhtin described the chronotope as being very
figurative in meaning, and, in many ways, it is a very abstract concept to
use in a literary analysis. Nevertheless, his theory on ‘Form of time and
Chronotope in the novel’ (see picture above and to the right) can be
boiled down to a distinct method applicable to more than a historical
literary analysis, for which Bakhtin mostly used the theory. His above-
mentioned essay is mostly concerned with the evolution of different
variations of the novel in Europe.
He starts with the Ancient Greek adventure novel, and ends up with the
French Renaissance writer Francois Rabelais, whom Bakhtin believed to
be one of the creators of the modern European novel. The most succinct
definition of the chronotope that is presented in the essay shows exactly
why the term is considered to be so predominantly figurative in meaning
as Bakhtin in this quote describes a concept as taking on flesh and blood:
“Thus the chronotope, functioning as the primary means for
materializing time in space, emerges as a center for concretizing
representation, as a force giving body to the entire novel. All the novel’s
abstract elements – philosophical and social generalizations, ideas,
analyses of cause and effect – gravitate toward the chronotope and
through it take on flesh and blood, permitting the imaging power of art
to do its work. Such is the representational significance of the
chronotope” (Bakhtin;2011:250).
A chronotope refers to the construction of a particular fictional world
where a narrator is intentionally situated outside the protagonist as well
as other characters, and therefore outside the story. The narrator
consequently becomes the ‘other’ instead of the ‘I’ in the story. This
‘outsideness’ (Vlasov;1995:38) is necessary, according to Bakhtin, in
order to create an objective and complete story, which is a believable
representation of reality. It creates respect for space, time, the meaning
of the story and the value thereof. For Bakhtin, this outsideness is the
most important creative tool for the author, as it allows a completely
objective total picture of the narrative that a subjective ‘I’ would never be
able to provide: “only the presence of more than one point of view
permits the hero to become ‘an aesthetically consummated
phenomenon” (Vlasov;1995:39). Bakhtin also believed that the inner
spatial forms should be consistent with the outer spatial forms. This
means that because the outer body, the outer boundaries, the outer
world, is ‘unalterable and necessarily given’ (Vlasov;1995:40), the inner
spatial forms must be as well in order to create a meaningful and
believable narrative.
Bakhtin’s chronotope is another tool for both comprehending, and
producing literary markers or indicators. Time and space are in essence
categories in which human beings perceive and structure the
surrounding world, where life itself and the work of art are unified in
one whole and are not regarded separately. According to Bakhtin, it is
crucial to note that time and space are inseparable, however
emphasizing time as the primary, since time determines parts of the
meaning of the spatial reference: “It can even be said that it is precisely
the chronotope that defines genre and generic distinctions, for in
literature the primary category in the chronotope is time”
(Bakhtin;2011:85).

In his essay, Bakhtin did not provide a clear protocol for general use of
his theory, and we must therefore extract one from his ideas. Although
figurative, Bakhtin did deliver some concrete statements, which can be
utilized in a protocol. For example, he states, with the short quote that
follows on the next page that the chronotope emerges as a concrete
representation in the novel, which means that it should be possible to
structure a clear method for applying Bakhtin’s theory in an analysis of
the primary meaning of a novel, in this case A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man. So not only can the chronotope be used to determine the
symbolic and figurative meaning of the novel, it can also be used to
determine the specific spatial and temporal characteristics, and the
significance thereof in the novel.