TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER SEVEN
and Druca knjica seoba. the characters search for a
sense of beine-in-time, but their search is expressed in
relation to conflictine views on time and the values
which time represents.
Time in Seobe is represented
in symbolic form.
The star and Russia appear to Vuk as
powe~ful
and compelline sumbols of a utopian futu~e
whe~e he will live his life as a Se~b. These sumbols
a~e unde~pinned fo~ him bv the p~omiseof his fathe~
that the Serbs will~etu~n
home as victorious soldiers.
Howeve~, as that p~omise becomes impossible to fulfil,
the symbols are t~ansformed and ~eady to accept new.
meanines. Vuk is able to create and ~eformulate his own
position within past. present and future by imposine and
manipulatine the symbols of beine-in-time with which he.
identifies. Thus. the promise of the father becomes for
Vuk a promise that he too can become the father.
The
meanines of the symbols are bound bV the military
tradition. the national relieion ..
and the pat~iarchal
culture in which he lives.
He is able.to brine to bear
on the chaos of expe~ience a cultu~al code, from which
his wite, Dafina •. ie excluded.
Vuk is able to consider
his eelf as part of reee"erat.ive cycles, whereas,
sienificantly. Dafina.' e destinY is considered as
continual decay until death.
She is submitted to the
flow ot time represented bv the river. in which she
symbolically d~owns.
She has no control. ove. events,
time, or imaees Of self, and ie excluded trom the
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