Emblem

An emblem that perfectly conveys the idea of multiplicity is the movie Inception.

emblem of Multiplicity

Specifically, the dream-within-a-dream sequences.  These are multiple levels of dreams happening at the same time, and Christopher Nolan’s vision that he shows us of the multiple levels happening is visually stunning.  It is cumulative in the sense that what happens to you in real life affects and becomes part of the other dream levels.  And again, visually the movie is stunning, and the audience has so much to look at.  Certainly too much to notice everything important the first time viewing it.  You notice new things and pay attention to different things with multiple viewings.  The story is told in layers, just like the E-Lit poem, “faith,” is revealed in layers and shows multiple levels happening.

Analogy

Set in the Revolutionary War, written during WWII, it is about both wars.

An analogy that describes multiplicity is the phenomenon that occurs when historical fiction is written.  When reading historical fiction, it is so important to be cognizant of several different layers of thought.  First, the book is about a specific time in history, perhaps a detailed account of a particular event.  The language used in the novel is from the time during which the event takes place, and each word is carefully selected.  The deeper level of meaning that a reader must consider, however, is the historical context during the time the book was actually written.

Also about the Revolutionary War, it has a VERY different message then Johnny Tremain because it is from 1974 and also about Viet Nam.

 

The novel is about the time period it was written about, but it is equally about the political and social atmosphere during the time of

The American Girl company allows for interactive historical fiction on a whole new level by providing girls with dolls from their books

publication.  In this way, historical fiction is about multiple layers of history.  You could use the rhetoric from the older time period to describe what is happening at the time of publication, just like words from the E-lit piece, “Faith” are used in multiple verses of the poem, used to say something about an earlier part of the poem and a later part.  The reader’s attention is drawn to which level he or she is supposed to be paying attention to through the use of color.  When reading historical fiction, you need to focus your attention on the different levels the work is speaking to, but it is not as obvious; context must be analysed in order to do it.

each girl is from a different time period in America, but the themes are meant to resonate with girls in the 1990s and today.

Graphics

The graphic design principle that makes “Faith” an example of multiplicity is Color.

“Color can convey a mood, describe reality, or codify information.  Words like ‘gloomy,’ ‘drab,’ and ‘glittering’ each bring to mind a general climate of colors, a palette of relationships.  Designers use color to make some things stand out (warning signs) and to make other things disappear (camouflage).  Color serves to differentiate and connect, to highlight and hide,” (71).

Each time a new layer of verse is introduced, it appears in a different color.  That is how it makes the piece cumulative: sometimes words from a previous verse will change to the new color and it becomes part of the new verse.  Each word is read when it appears in the new color, so it makes the words that need to be read stand out and brings them to the reader’s attention.  The final result is a complex poem with multiple layers of colors, some words having changed colors over the course of the poem.

E-Lit

A piece of E-literature that demonstrates multiplicity is “Faith” by Robert Kendall.

The author describes the piece as:

“a kinetic poem that reveals itself in five successive states. Each new state is overlaid onto the previous one, incorporating the old text into the new. Each new state absorbs the previous one while at the same time engaging in an argument with it. The gradual textual unfolding is choreographed to music,” (Kendall).

The poem is told in layers…reading a new verse on top of the previous verses.  In this way, it is a cumulative read, because the new, overlayed verses also utilize the verses underneath it.  The poem becomes more complex the further you get into it, and it all works together as a whole.  It also has a musical component to it, which just makes it more diverse and complex.

Faith

Calvino’s Multiplicity

Calvino draws heavily on the writings of Gadda because

“he views the the world as a ‘system of systems,’ where each system conditions the others and is conditioned by them,” (Calvino 106).

Gadda visualized the world as a knot or tangle of yarn because of its complexity.  This is evidenced by his work of varying levels of language and diverse, robust vocabulary that makes up his writing.  The trick to multiplicity is that no matter how complex the varying levels of the piece get, it is all part of a connected network of systems that functions as a whole to create a great work of literature.  For Calvino, this was blatant in Gadda’s work, especially “the episode of finding the stolen jewels” in chapter nine of That Awful Mess.

For me, multiplicity is embodied by the quintessential Modernist work, Ulysses by James Joyce.  Language is used in so many different ways in this novel, creating an extremely complex work.  On one level, language gives way to multiplicity because each chapter is told in a different form.  Chapter one is regular prose, Chapter 15 looks like a play, and chapter 17 is a question-and-answer format like the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Each chapter experiments with form in a different way, ending with the famous last chapter (“Penelope”) which is completely stream-of-consciousness with no punctuation at all.  At another level, Joyce is so diverse with the vocabulary he chooses.  He uses complex vocabulary a lot, for example:

“Had Bloom discussed similar subjects during nocturnal perambulations in the past?” (Joyce 545).

The question is simply asking: “did he talk about this in his sleep before?”  But Joyce is fitting the language to the mood of the particular chapter (the Catechism chapter) by using more elevated vocabulary.

Contrastingly, when the novel seems to call for more elementary vocabulary to create mood, he does not hesitate to use it.  In the “Penelope” chapter, where the reader is exposed to a stream-of-consciousness in Bloom’s wife’s head, there are phrases like,

“theyre such fools too you could be a widow or divorced 40 times over a daub of red ink would do or blackberry juice no thats too purply O Jamesy let me up out of this pooh,” (Joyce 633).

Some of the words in the chapter are not even real words, like “purply.”  But simpler language is how people think in their heads, so the vocabulary fits perfectly in this chapter.

Another level on which Joyce exercises multiplicity is the breadth of subjects he chooses to discuss.  While Ulysses is regarded as a classic work of literature

the best picture of James Joyce, ever.

and one of the best novels ever written, it is also the first novel to ever have the reader follow a character into the bathroom where he relieves himself.  In another chapter, Joyce writes about his character having an orgasm using language describing a fireworks display.  This kind of “vulgarity” at the time was taboo, and the novel was subsequently banned in many countries.  But it also uses flowery and complex language in other chapters, making it a novel worth studying academically.

In this way, Ulysses is the epitome of multiplicity and is the most complex, diverse novel I’ve ever read!  While being extremely varied in its style, form, and vocabulary, it all works as a whole.  It’s all connected.