International Journal Of Literature And Languages
17
https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ijll
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue07 2025
PAGE NO.
17-18
10.37547/ijll/Volume05Issue07-05
Emplotment, Ideology, And the Transatlantic Metaphor
in
Colum Mccann’s Transatlantic
Rakhimova Shakhnoza
MA in Literary Studies: English Literature, Bukhara State University, Uzbekistan
Received:
11 May 2025;
Accepted:
07 June 2025;
Published:
09 July 2025
Abstract:
This article examines Colum McCann’s TransAtlantic through t
he theoretical frameworks of Fredric
Jameson and Hayden White, focusing on how historical narrative is constructed, ideologically coded, and
symbolically charged within a postmodern literary context. By applying Jameson’s model of the three interpretive
ho
rizons, historical, social, and political, the study explores the novel’s fragmentary structure, the role of
ideological subtexts, and the symbolic function of narrative form. The analysis demonstrates how McCann’s
depiction of real and fictional figures across different time periods generates a transhistorical dialogue, in which
the metaphor of the “transatlantic” serves as a narrative and conceptual connector. White’s theories of
emplotment and tropology further reveal how historical events are aestheticized and reframed within fictional
discourse. Ultimately, the article argues that TransAtlantic enacts a complex negotiation between history and
fiction, offering a multilayered reflection on memory, identity, and the representational challenges of narrating
the past.
Keywords:
Historical narrative, emplotment, postmodern historiography, ideology, symbolic act, transatlantic
metaphor, memory and fiction.
Introduction:
This article examines TransAtlantic
through the theoretical frameworks of Fredric Jameson
and Hayden White, focusing on
the novel’s narrative
construction, ideological subtext, and symbolic
dimensions. By applying Jameson’s model of the three
interpretive horizons: historical, social, and political, we
seek to reveal how McCann structures historical
meaning and engages in what Jameson terms a
“symbolic act.” White’s typology of emplotments and
tropes further assists in analyzing how historical events
are narrativized and aesthetically reframed within the
novel. Central to our analysis is the metaphor of the
“transatlantic”
itself, not only as a geographical
connector but as a narrative and conceptual device that
underpins the novel’s logic of continuity and rupture.
Through this theoretical lens, the article demonstrates
how TransAtlantic functions as a multilayered narrative
in which history is not merely depicted but mediated,
reconstructed, and symbolically recharged. This
approach enables a deeper understanding of the
novel’s engagement with memory, identity, and
historical consciousness, while also situating it within
broader debates about the role of fiction in
representing the past.
METHOD
The novel TransAtlantic by American writer Colum
McCann, published in 2013, received wide acclaim from
literary critics and readers alike, thanks to its
complexity, deep symbolic meaning, and the
intertwining of historical context with personal
experiences. Fragmentary in its narrative structure, the
novel is composed of three parts and spans the period
from 1845 to 2012. It presents, in a non-linear and
fragmented fashion, historical events such as the
American Civil War (1861
–
1865), the Great Famine in
Ireland (1845
–
1852), the transatlantic flight of Alcock
and Brown (1919), Frederick Douglass’s journey to
Ireland (1845
–
1846), the Northern Ireland conflict, and
the Belfast Agreement (1998). Alongside these,
McCann creates fictional characters such as Lily
Duggan, her daughter Emily, granddaughter Lottie, and
great-granddaughter Hannah, who loosely connect
these events into a broad transatlantic mosaic. The
novel’s extensive themati
c range invites multiple
International Journal Of Literature And Languages
18
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International Journal Of Literature And Languages (ISSN: 2771-2834)
interpretations, yet it is our view that its historical and
cultural subtext forms the key to decoding the work.
The use of Jameson’s and White’s theories for
interpreting TransAtlantic.
Analyzing the novel through the lens of Fredric
Jameson’s and Hayden White’s theories requires a
detailed interpretation of many aspects of the text,
including the type of emplotment, the tropes used, and
their reading across Jameson’s three interpretive
horizons. First, it is worth noting that the novel
presents several narrative lines, particularly three
involving historical figures, which are not provided in
chronological order and appear disconnected, along
with the narratives of three fictional women who
indirectly weave the novel into a unified transatlantic
tapestry. In our view, this form of narration, when
examined through Jameson’s historical horizon,
focused on genre, style, and structure, reflects the
novel’s broad thematic scope. In TransAtlantic, the
reader encounters various issues through specific
characters: for example, the problem of migration and
overcoming hardship is explored through the stories of
Lily and her children, as well as George Mitchell; the
theme of freedom and hope for a new life is
represented in the figure of Frederick Douglass; life
transitions and their impact on the individual are
depicted through Alcock and Brown.
However, it is the concept of the “transatlantic” itself,
we argue, that serves both as a metaphor unifying the
various narrative lines and as a driver of change within
the novel. The schematic timeline of the novel reveals
that at its center stands the idea of the transatlantic,
emphasized by the statement that “the distance was
finally torn” [McCann 2013:25]. While interpretation
through the historical horizon reveals the structure of
the narrative and its influence on the understanding of
the novel’s themes and ideas, analysis through the
social horizon allows us to see how broad issues are
conveyed through specific ideologemes, made visible
through particular tropes and episodes in the
characters’ lives. Finally, when viewed through the
political horizon, we examine how the archetypal plot,
or emplotment, reveals the text of the novel as a
symbolic act.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
exemplifies a narrative strategy that resists linear
historiography and instead offers a fragmentary,
layered representation of the past, where personal and
collective histories intersect across temporal and
geographic boundaries. Interpreting the novel through
Fredric Jameson’s three interpretive horizons allows
for a deeper understanding of its structural complexity,
ideological resonances, and symbolic function. The
historical horizon highlights the formal organization of
the narrative and its genre hybridity; the social horizon
uncovers the ideologemes embedded in individual
stories; and the political horizon situates the novel as a
symbolic act that reflects and reconfigures historical
consciousness. Hayden White’s theory of emplotment
and tropes further illuminates how McCann transforms
historical facts into narrative forms that carry
interpretive and affective weight. The recurring motif
of the transatlantic, both as metaphor and narrative
axis, serves to bind disparate episodes and figures,
while also marking moments of rupture, displacement,
and transformation. McCann’s fictional women,
particularly Lily Duggan and her descendants, operate
as
connective
tissue
within
the
novel’s
transgenerational
structure,
emdiving
both
continuity and change. Ultimately, TransAtlantic
functions not as a chronicle of events but as a
meditation on how histories are remembered,
transmitted, and reimagined. Its narrative form enacts
a critical engagement with memory and historiography,
foregrounding the role of literature in shaping the
afterlives of historical experience.
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