In
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
plays the readers understanding of fiction as an human constructed narrative
structure. He explains in the preface that the story is based on a manuscript
which was given to him by a friend describing the real incident occurred in the
fourteenth century. The reader presumes
that the book is a kind of history of fourteenth century, particularly dealing
with the incidents of local place. Hence, it is a kind of Paradox like - Paradox of Cretan Liars wherein Epimenides
claims, “All Cretans are Liars.” This statement seems to be poststructuralist
as it is self referential and contradicts itself. It has two probable answers
and both of them grounds on the assumptions – if the statement is true or the
statement is false. The statement asserts its validity and at the same time denies
its affirmation since they criticize structuralism on the ground of following a
circular chain of signs to draw the meaning, but the point of emphasis is the
poststructuralists using the same method to which they reject. Their own
meaning is based on that they criticize (self referential and self
contradicting). When we analyze The Paradox of Cretan Liars in the context of
the Name of the Rose, we find that Epimenides remark brings the lost manuscript
in the domain of both fiction and history. In fact, it raises even more
important question on narrativity forming the core of both fiction and history.
Epimenides’ statement circumscribes history into the realm of fiction as it is
probably a fictive narrative of historiographer and fiction into the domain of
history confirming facts. It becomes difficult to mark a boundary between
history and fiction as there is no way of knowing whether the presentation of
facts by Umbeto Eco to support his argument is true or false. It leaves the
reader with the two possibilities and the reader is free to decide whether the
historical accounts given by Eco to support his arguments are fictitious
historical facts based on fictive narrative or true evidences. The distinction
between fiction and history become complex when Eco creates a medieval period;
he does not uses “once upon a time” to tell a story instead uses a narration of
historiographer. He does not take the reader into the past, creates the past
for them in the present. He emphasizes on the presentness of the medieval ages
introduces reader as if they were living part of the history. The construction
of past in the present might be an imaginative endeavor; a splendid exhibit of
human faculty; a new insight into the present and the drafting of past with
possible consequences.
History and Fiction
With
the introduction of the manuscript, the writer’s position resembles that
indicated by the old Greek philosophical riddle called ‘The Paradox of theCretan Liar.’ The paradox was formulated by Eubulides in the fourth century BCE
around the primary statement –”All Cretans are liars.” The statement is self
referential and self contradicting. Epimenides is a Cretan, therefore he is a
liar and, consequently, his assertion is false. Alexandre Koyre tries to find a
solution to the problem with the help of philosophical reasoning. For him, “All
Cretans are liar” is a major proposition and “Epimenides is a Cretan” is a
minor proposition. Therefore, “All the assertions of Epimenides are false.” But
when the last proposition is taken as a major, together with “the assertion
‘all Cretans, etc.’ is an assertion of Epimenides,” entails the conclusion,-
the assertion ‘all Cretans, etc.” is false. Koyre concludes –
“Not
all the Cretans are liars, i.e., the statements of Cretans are not all and necessarily
false. We must conclude from this that there are certain Cretans who speak the
truth, i.e., that certain judgments made by Cretans are (or can be) true.
However, it does not follow there from that Cretans are always truthful, and
that all the judgments of the Cretans are true always.”
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