Shaping the Self. Framing and Gazing in Raymond Carver’s Short Stories and Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman.

Abstract

Drawing on the visual qualities of Raymond Carver’s fiction, this work focuses on the construction of the self as a by-product of two of the fundamental structuring principles of Carver’s short stories, that is framing and gazing, which contribute to the voyeurism and dissociation of characters who, in trying to break free from their physical, emotional, and psychological constraints, have to embark on a journey toward the discovery of their selves that cannot be disentangled from their relationship with others. Broadening the discussion to include theatre and cinema, then, this study will consider how frames and gazes function in the wider cultural background of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), a movie in which the dynamics of the looks operate at different levels and across different media. This interdisciplinary approach will lead back to the central issue of the shaping of the self that will here be moved from the characters’ level to the reader/audience’s level, so as to highlight the ways in which the onlookers engage with the otherness on the page, the stage and the screen, thus starting a dialogue that will actively shape their own construction of the self.