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Why is “history” such a central theme in the novel Waterland
is more truthful to the way our minds actually deal with time. Memory does not work in sequence, it can leap to and fro and there’s no predicting what it might suddenly seize on. It does not have a chronological plan. Nor does life, otherwise the most recent events would always be the most important.
The amalgamation of genres mixes here with the Joycean monologue. Joyce’s seminal novel Ulysses charts the epic narrative of one day in the life of a single man, there history has no beginning or end, but history makes the man. History essentially makes a man who he is by offering him a sense of identity and experiences to relate and learn from. In Waterland, Dick is the character who has no perception of past or present, he has no sense of history and consequently he is the most simple and one-sided character, until of course he discovers the importance of history. Waterland is more concerned with the history of events, with facts, and with the history of circumstance.
History in Waterland covers both the history of a family and of a particular place and more ‘official’ and popular history, which Crick is employed to teach. By comparing the two in terms of events, the personal history is over-shadowed by the larger world history of wars and revolutions. So, dwelling on the idea of personal history in the novel could be an attempt to emphasize the insignificance of the individual in comparison to world events, or which is more likely to emphasize the importance of the individual. Because when we compare the two in terms of significance to the individual and not to society personal history has the opportunity to over-shadow the other more wide reaching discipline. One of the many points Swift tries to call attention to in Waterland is that history gets its importance through its shaping of the individual.
The importance of history in explaining and understanding change in human behaviour is no mere abstraction. History is indispensable to understanding why changes occur. History, then, provides the only extensive materials available to study the human condition. It also focuses attention on the complex processes of social change, including the factors that are causing change around us today. Here, at base, are the two related reasons many people become enthralled with the examination of the past and why our society requires and encourages the study of history as a major subject.
These two fundamental reasons for studying history underlie more specific and quite diverse uses of history in our own lives. History well told is beautiful. Many of the historians who most appeal to the general reading public know the importance of dramatic and skilful writing—as well as of accuracy. Biography and military history appeal in part because of the tales they contain. History as art and entertainment serves a real purpose, on aesthetic grounds but also on the level of human understanding. Stories well done are stories that reveal how people and societies have actually functioned, and they [next page]