MAKING AN ELEPHANT BY GRAHAM SWIFT: EMOTIONAL REACTIONS TO EXTERNAL REALITY
MAKING AN ELEPHANT BY GRAHAM SWIFT: EMOTIONAL REACTIONS TO EXTERNAL REALITY

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of the present paper is to look at the essay Making an Elephant by Graham Swift from the point of view of connections between external and internal realities. Various objects, places, and landscapes are connected by Swift to the memories of his father and of his relationship to him. The father is presented in the larger family context and life. Physical, concrete objects are there as substitutes for the loss of the loved person, at least to some extent. Free associations help create the connection between objects, emotions, and perceptions of the relationship with loved persons. Through reader response criticism, we can understand that readers can not only emotionally relate to the experience of the author, but they can also start making free associations themselves with their memories of Swift’s other works. Their minds work in the same way as Swift’s in this essay, since they can remember similar elements such as objects invested with emotional meaning in his fiction.

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