The Narrator vs. The Writer

So far on this blog I have made a distinction between the narrator of Repetition and Kierkegaard, which I hope hasn't been confusing. However, I know that it does leave the question of who is narrator. Well, I wrote a paper about it for my class, and I wanted to share the basis of it. Quite simply, I believe that the narrator is really Kierkegaard. In the first half, Kierkegaard is a grumpy old man reflecting back on himself from the past. However, himself from the past is actually the young man. Then, in the second half of Repetition, Kierkegaard has found his faith and can look back with a sense of calm, and in fact the narrator seems godly. My paper is below if you think you’d want to read more.

A Transition in Narrators and a Rebirth to Faith

Søren Kierkegaard’s Repetition is perhaps his least understood work, and the greatest quandary within it concerns the identity of the narrator. In this paper, I will argue that the narrator transitions from a wizened version of the young man to God, paralleling Kierkegaard’s rebirth into faith. To do this, I will first show that the narrator begins as an older version of the young man, reflecting on himself.

After only a brief musing over what repetition truly is, the first half of Repetition begins to digress into the story of the narrator and the young man that caught his attention. This young man had become lovesick over an unnamed young woman, an event which captivated the narrator in an odd way, causing him to conspire with and console the boy in turn.  Through the relationship between the young man and his beloved, the narrator illustrates what he sees to be the impossibility of repetition caused by the inevitability of recollection. For Kierkegaard, and thus the narrator, repetition is an individual’s ability to continuously be happy with life as it is in the moment, while recollection is the habit of humans to look at the their life backwards, only recognizing a moment once it has already become a memory.

Though the narrator claims throughout Repetition to be primarily an observer, within the context of the young man he cannot help but to become involved, hinting that their relationship is more intimate than that between a scientist and a subject. In fact, the narrator even admits this, explaining his lost objectivity by stating, “a love-struck young person is such a beautiful sight that one cannot help but to rejoice in it and thus forget to observe.” (Kierkegaard, 6)* Still, this explanation for the narrator’s fascination is flimsy at best, given that his interest only grows stronger once he realizes the young man “would become unhappy . . . the young girl would as well.” (8) Thus, if the narrator’s interest did not evolve from his appreciation of the beautiful effect love had on the young man, there must be something deeper to their connection.

Surely there are many relationships that are deeper than that of an observer and his observed, but none quite explain the complete insight the narrator has into the mind of the young man. The narrator explains it simply enough when he states, “Now I understood everything.” (9) He understood from the beginning that his young companion could not hold onto his love for the girl, just as he knew, without being told, that the young man was tormented by his need to make her happy, even if it was at the cost of his own joy.

Such vivid understanding has to come from something deeper than simple compassion, rather it comes from personal experience. This is better understood when the narrator speaks of the young girl’s ignorance to the entire situation, explaining, “She suspected nothing, I believe this. It would be disturbing . . . to think that a young girl could be so vain as to be flattered by a person’s depression . . . I was once very close to discovering such a relationship.” (10) Clearly, the narrator had once been in a very similar situation, though I doubt that such a situation was very common. What is the chance then that the narrator happened to become entranced by a subject who would eventually follow the same path he had as a young man? I propose that it is highly unlikely, and that instead it is more likely that just as the young man was, “in a position to recollect his love,” (7) so too was the narrator recollecting that same lost love, for “The great advantage of recollection is that it begins with loss.” (8)

The greatest evidence of the narrator’s oneness with the young man comes when he states clearly, “You will understand now that what is of interest here is the young person . . . because I have in a way delivered him, and as the elder I am allowed to speak.” (81) The statement so clearly summarizes the narrator’s entire work, for everything outside of the young man’s drama seemed only a digression. In fact, repetition did not seem integral at all to the novel, except that it could provide the young man happiness, just as recollection served solely as the young man’s adversary to joy. The narrator explains further by saying, “My personality is a presupposition of consciousness, which must be present in order to force him out, whereas my personality could never come to the place where he arrives.” (81) This makes complete sense as the narrator cannot live in his recollection of youth, but can only cast his personality over it when telling his story and attempting to understand.

As above I have clearly argued that in the first half of Repetition the narrator is an older version of the young man, reflecting on his life, I will continue by proving that in the second half the narrator is God. Overall I will present to you that this transition parallels the change in authority over Kierkegaard’s life, from his own recollections to God.