The floating symbol: Karen Blixen’s “Tempests” as metaprose

Abstract

The article explores the relationships between the work of art (the text) and its author, on the one hand, and the text and its reader, on the other, as they appear to be implied by the main characters’ actions and fates in Karen Blixen’s story “Storme”/“Tempests” (Skæbne-Anekdoter/Anecdotes of Destiny, 1958). It is claimed that this story, just as numerous other texts by Karen Blixen, such as “The Dreamers” (Seven Gothic Tales, 1934) or “The Blank Page” (Last Tales, 1957), constitute an original narrative parallel to the reader-response theories of the second part of the 20th century. The story reveals itself as such, which promotes the ambition of the text to exist independently of the author’s intentions and shows its ability to change when confronted with the individual reader. The analysis provided in the article also draws attention towards the reader’s obligation, which appears to be implied on the metafictional level of “Tempests”, that is to respect the openness of the text — its right to resist final interpretations.