The Textual Plurality of “Separating”

In his short story “Separating”, John Updike illustrates the central narrative device of the text through an internal observation of the main character:  “Each moment was a partition, with the past on one side and the future on the other” (2714).  The story could be classified as a vignette; at first glance, it seems much more evocative of a scene from a larger cycle than a self-contained unit of narrative, missing key plot points at either end.  However, it is precisely this interaction of unrevealed past, unsettled present, and untold future that supports the framework of integrated experience within the text.  In “Separating”, Updike creates a textual representation of the subjective experience of a family’s separation, developing and maintaining narrative tension by presenting an ambiguous history, subverting social conventions regarding emotional condition, and not providing a resolution to the central questions raised by the story.

“Separating” begins in medias res, immediately confronting the dramatic tension within the narrative:  “All that June the weather had mocked the Maples’ internal misery with solid sunlight” (Updike 2713).  Updike presents the reader with an implied history within the context of the story and its characters, a history that is motivating the conflict described from the opening paragraph.  Throughout the story, the characters repeatedly reference the events that led up to the separation, but it is always presented in a way that raises questions as to what actually transpired to precipitate a divorce.  Richard’s relieved comment to Joan, “They never questioned the reasons we gave.  No thought of a third person” (Updike 2717), is typical of this trend within the story:  it addresses the history without clarifying it.  In this instance, Richard could either be expressing relief that the their children did not suspect the truth that one of their parents committed adultery, or that they would not have to deal with the children believing their stated reasons were only a cover.  This question of interpretation ultimately does not matter, as the story maintains a measured ambiguity.  Even the characters struggle to understand the reasons:  the story closes, “Richard had forgotten why” (Updike 2720).  There is no hidden meaning or underlying message within these hints; indeed, they exist not to reveal the author’s true intentions, but to create the illusion of those intentions and draw the reader into engaging the text, while carefully preventing the text from being critically analyzed or otherwise distilled for an essential meaning.  In this way, Updike crafts a work that is the embodiment of what Roland Barthes refers to in “From Work to Text” as “stereographic plurality” (159).  According to Barthes, “The Text is plural” (“From Work to Text” 159).  He specifically qualifies this statement as representing not simply a multiplicity of meaning or a generic ambiguity, but an “irreducible plural” of meaning:  that is, the text is not neatly separable into distinct interpretations, but must instead contain a multitude of meanings that cannot be considered independently of one another (Barthes 159).  Updike creates precisely this effect with his treatment of the history of the characters within the narrative, masterfully arranging the interwoven “tissue” (Barthes 159) of the text to construct a clearly visible history that defies analysis in its plurality.  It is evident within the text that certain events transpired which directly brought about the events of the story, but it is futile to attempt to discover the “truth” of the matter, because the objective of the text is to create an irreducible plurality.

This is not to say that within the context of the narrative, there is not a “true” history.  From the perspective of the characters, the separation was caused by specific events:  for example, adultery either did or did not occur.  The problem is that the text is deliberately opaque on the matter; therefore, the reader cannot say that one possibility or the other is more valid.  From the reader’s perspective, there are multiple meanings, all equally valid, that cannot be considered apart from one another but are mutually exclusive.  This inherent contradiction would seem to be a validation of Barthes’ statement, “Taking the word literally, it may be said that the Text is always paradoxical” (“From Work to Text” 158).  However, in this case he refers not to the common usage of ‘paradox’ but to its etymological meaning, where it represents something that is against consensus opinion or counter to conventional thinking.  Updike’s text also serves this function, presenting a situation in an unexpected and counterintuitive way:  in this case, representing the emotional impact of a separation by subverting the conventional notion of gender roles within a family structure.  In “Separating”, Richard is moved to tears while Joan responds in a reasonable, relatively dispassionate manner when addressing the matter with the children (Updike 2716), a clear inversion of stereotypical emotional expression based on gender.  This carries over into the children as well:  “The girls [took it] pretty calmly.  John flipped out” (Updike 2716); similarly, Dickie’s initial acceptance is quickly replaced by an emotional breakdown (Updike 2720).  In each instance, this reversal of convention highlights the emotional tension of the narrative.  Updike prevents the reader from glossing over the emotional weight of the experience and dismissing the responses of the characters as purely conventional by calling attention to the reactions that diverge from the consensus opinion, forcing the reader to fully confront the emotional condition of each character.  However, he manages to avoid the cliché of simply reversing a stereotype by allowing that Joan’s composure may be due to the fact that she “cried so much all spring” (Updike 2717), again referring obliquely to the mysterious history.  Using this method, Updike neatly conveys the emotional condition involved in a separation by presenting standard emotional responses in a distinctly atypical fashion.

“Separating” ends with one of these subversions, with father and son unable to process the emotional experience (Updike 2720).  Just as the history of the characters is intentionally obscured, the story does not provide a neat resolution for the plot; the reader is given no indication as to the ultimate disposition of the family.  Updike intentionally avoids addressing the outcome of the situation in order to maintain the tension of the narrative.  In this way, he essentially removes himself from the text, being careful to leave the question of resolution to the reader without interjecting an authorial decree, as Barthes describes in “Death of the Author”:  “To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signifier, to close the writing” (147).  By leaving the text open and without limit, Updike turns the dramatic tension of the story into an integral component of the Text, which, according to Barthes, extends beyond the literary work (“From Work to Text” 157).  Elements of the narrative point to reconciliation and divorce as the two possible outcomes of the situation, as plainly stated by Margaret:  “I think it’s silly.  You should either live together or get divorced” (Updike 2716).  However, neither Richard nor Joan expresses any long-term expectations beyond an indefinite period of separation.  In fact, although Richard was the one to propose the separation, he still does not feel separated on some level (Updike 2717); his explanation of the situation to Dickie and the subsequent emotional breakdown force him to realize that he “had forgotten why” (Updike 2720).  The lack of resolution within the story drives the tension created in the narrative into the persistent text.  Updike could easily have ended the story with a tidy conclusion; indeed, one of the literary strengths of the narrative is that the given information could be used to critically support either outcome, reconciliation or divorce.  Again, however, this is not the purpose of the text.  A neat epilogue to the story would allow analysis of the ambiguity present within the narrative to show how everything leads to the obvious, given conclusion; in the absence of an authorial statement, the plurality of the text spawns a plurality of outcome.  While the concluded story would be an object for inspection, the unresolved text becomes a conduit of introspection.  Since there is no “true” answer, the reader must consider the resolution in light of the plurality of the text, which leaves the possible outcomes to be, as Barthes terms it, “disentangled” but not “deciphered” (“Death of the Author” 147).  In this manner, the text allows the reader to communicate meaningfully with it by excluding the author’s authority.

The ambiguous history, subverted conventions, and lack of resolution within the story combine to allow the reader to engage a textual representation of the subjective emotional experience of separation.  Updike creates a narrative that, instead of expressing his point of view, makes room for the reader to examine his or her own perspective, which is the central argument of “Death of the Author”:  “The reader is the space on which all quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost; a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination” (Barthes 148).  Updike uses unconventional techniques to form this construct, especially when viewed in light of the social consensus regarding marriage at the time he was writing; however, when viewed from a modern perspective, the text takes on an entirely different light.  Considering that separation and divorce is pandemic in modern American culture, the problem of readers personally unfamiliar with the experience presented in the narrative is essentially gone.  “Separating” presents a unique variation on a theme that has since developed its own clichés, functioning in a way Updike could not have foreseen or intended:  the plurality of the text provides a way for any reader to identify within the narrative specific elements that correspond to his or her own experience with the dissolution of a family, while the genuine but unconventional depiction of the characters’ reactions illustrates the emotional tension that, while always present, is expressed differently in each and every case.  The story depicts an intensely personal experience in a way that allows the reader to connect it to the general experience of separation while maintaining the intrinsic individuality of the emotion.  In a narrative space where contradictory possibilities are presented as equally valid, only the reader can comprehend the text in the fullness of its plurality, understanding that it functions not to impart a meaning but to enable the reader to engage a template structure from the individual perspective that is unique to every person who relates to the experience of “Separating”.

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland.  “Death of the Author”.  Image Music Text.  Trans. Stephen Heath.  London:  Fontana Press, 1977.  142-8.

Barthes, Roland.  “From Work to Text”.  Image Music Text.  Trans. Stephen Heath.  London:  Fontana Press, 1977.  155-64.

Updike, John.  “Separating”.  The Norton Anthology of American Literature.  Vol. E.  7th Ed.  Ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Patricia Wallace.  New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 2007.  2713-20.