In Possession, A. S. Byatt is all a exploring the many ways in which history can be understood—or misunderstood—by those who look back on it from comfy vantage points in their own "present" days.
Throughout the novel, we watch as nineteenth-century characters come to terms with new scientific knowledge that rocks their views on natural history and the age of the Earth itself—and, at the same time, we watch as twentieth-century characters work to piece together knowledge of their nineteenth-century predecessors by sifting through those remnants of historical evidence that remain. For all of the novel's primary characters, the past isn't something that's dead and gone; it's something that continues to flicker and shimmer with life.
Questions About Memory and the Past
- By the end of Possession, what actual facts have the novel's twentieth-century characters learned about its nineteenth-century characters? What questions remain unanswered?
- In what ways are memories and historical facts preserved throughout Possession? In other words, what kinds of memorabilia, mementos, and historical documents do we see?
- Years after their affair, how do Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte remember their time together?
Chew on This
In Possession, we learn that Ellen Ash admires a passage from Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, in which Lyell writes that certain geological formations aren't "monuments of a primeval period," but are instead "part of the living language of nature" (25.156). Turns out Ellen isn't the only one who admires this image: throughout the novel, Byatt suggests that history doesn't simply show us relics of the past; it continues to breathe life into the present.
Possession isn't picky about the kinds of things that can preserve memories of the past. Throughout the novel, history is kept alive (or brought back to life) through natural landscapes and geological formations, through historical documents and objects, and through the DNA contained within people themselves.