Free Associations in the Short Story Chocolate by Graham Swift
Free Associations in the Short Story Chocolate by Graham Swift
Author(s): Irina-Ana DrobotSubject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Social Sciences, Language and Literature Studies, Psychology, Studies of Literature, Social Philosophy, Social psychology and group interaction, Social Theory, Theory of Literature
Published by: Editura Pro Universitaria
Keywords: active reader; psychoanalysis; daydreams; stream of consciousness;
Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the short story Chocolate from the volume Twelve Post-War Tales by British author Graham Swift is built by relying on free associations centered on the word in the title. Dermot begins telling a story to his friends at the Skinners' Arms over their drinks about a girl he had known and whose job had to do with chocolate. The word chocolate leads him to play upon words based on his free associations with chocolate, including the image of the girl coated in chocolate, the girl being sweet just like chocolate, and the way he had met her as a waitress when he ordered a cup of tea and how she offered him a slice of chocolate cake. Free associations mean that the story is not told in chronological order, a usual way of storytelling in Modernist, Postmodernist, and after Postmodernist times.
Journal: Crossing Boundaries in Culture and Communication
- Issue Year: 16/2025
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 24-35
- Page Count: 12
- Language: English
