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THE THEME OF CREATIVE IMAGINATION IN THE WORKS OF JOYCE CARY (BRITISH AFRICA)
Abstract
"All my books are part of one expression," Joyce Cary wrote in an unpublished essay, "that is, they are like different chapters in one work, shewing different angles of a single reality." This "single reality" is something Cary calls "creative imagination," which might be simply defined as both the constant search, in an ever-changing and unjust world, for ideas by which life can be given order, and for new expressions of age-old ideas which will once more bring them alive. Cary's theory of creative imagination is an attempt to explain why each person sees the world a little differently, and why, though the basic nature of the world is consistent, there is a continual revolution of ideas which causes both much of life's suffering and much of its joy. Based on Cary's notes and letters as well as on his published works, this study attempts a systematic explanation of Cary's novels and poems in the light of his theory of creative imagination. In the four novels about Africa, he stresses the relation of education and responsibility to creative imagination, and shows the results of a number of European attitudes toward the Africans. In his two novels about childhood, Cary shows children searching for useful ideas of how the world works. Three of Cary's novels are best described as family sagas; in these he shows the battles between generations caused by changing styles and new ideas. Cary's celebrated first trilogy allows him to show creative imagination as aesthetic theory as he portrays an artist in the midst of creation. One of Cary's long poems uses war as a metaphor for the world's nature, and the other is an allegory about the conflict between authority and imagination. In his second trilogy, Cary concentrates on a creative politician and the relation between liberalism and Christianity. In his last novel, Cary relates creative imagination to faith in God. Although only a few of his characters are creative in the usual sense of the word, they all use creative imagination in their attempts to find and maintain meaning in their lives.
Subject Area
British and Irish literature
Recommended Citation
CHRISTIAN, EDWIN ERNEST, "THE THEME OF CREATIVE IMAGINATION IN THE WORKS OF JOYCE CARY (BRITISH AFRICA)" (1983). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8404810.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8404810