Epäkerrotun mahdollisuuksia Elina Hirvosen romaanissa Että hän muistaisi saman

• Heta Marttinen Jyväskylän yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74861

Abstract

The possibilities of the disnarrated in Elina Hirvonen’s novel When I Forgot

Anna, the character-narrator of When I Forgot (2005), a debut novel by Elina Hirvonen, spends the present-day of the novel sitting in the cafés and remembering the past. She works through some traumatic events and embarrassing situations, and speculates what could have happened. Her unrealized desires, fantasies etc. constitute what Gerald Prince calls the disnarrated. As delineated by Prince, the disnarrated refers to those events that remain unrealized though they are given as possible or actual elements of the narrative. It can fulfill various functions of which the present article examines its possibilities as a characterization device and a thematic instrument in Hirvonen’s novel.

By revealing the deepest hopes, desires and expectations of the characters, the disnarrated functions as an important characterization device. It expresses their feelings and reactions in different kinds of situations, and their somewhat inconsistent attitudes towards themselves and the whole world. The article also points out that the novel’s central thematics motivates the disnarrated. Anna will forget or at least suppress her memoirs, so it becomes natural to sketch alternatives to the actual events. Moreover, the article examines the two key motifs of Hirvonen’s novel, the mirror and the window, and their relation to the disnarrated. Like the disnarrated as a narrative element, the mirror reveals the characters alternatives and possibilities that are included in their lives.