The Events: Confounding Spacecraft—Here

Abstract

The chapter’s argument is that several elements in The Events—primarily characters, space-time and story/structure—are both carefully laid out as bounded categories and undone to produce complex confounding—hence the reference in this chapter’s title to a confounding “spacecraft” (a word used in The Events). “Bounded categories” refer to dramatic structures that are enclosed, rounded or contained. “Confounding” is the result of the undoing of the contours of categories. When these categories appear as holed, they are responding to globalization’s individualisation imperative. This confounded atmosphere is intensified by a profound dialectical interplay. Ultimately, a compelling sense of “here” emerges that might be ethically transferred on to the confounded spectator and perhaps the world.