Following the Fractal of Arcadia

Author:

Peabody, Andrea

Area of Honors:

English

Degree:

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type:

Thesis

Thesis Supervisors:

Lisa Ruth Sternlieb, Thesis Supervisor
Christopher Gervais Reed, Thesis Honors Advisor

Keywords:

Tom Stoppard's Arcadia
Chaos Theory
Fractals

Abstract:

Weaving between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia delves into the lives of young people who are desperate to find some sort of truth. Toying with time, history, and story, Stoppard creates a web of complex ideas that are difficult to decode. The play’s entangled nature may cause readers, or play-goers, to be led to take many of the character’s eloquent opinions at face value. A quick read of this short play would likewise leave most readers under the impression that Stoppard believes the academic and social scopes of our world are divided, with the humanities lying forever separate from the sciences. I argue that this is not the case. Stoppard packs incredible detail into every nook, cranny, and word of this play, causing each reading to leave readers with something new that always connects to something old, just like a fractal. In this paper, I will show how Stoppard’s play, if laid out visually, looks exactly like the fractals in Arcadia’s story, and that its meaning is far deeper than what is presented on the surface. By following said fractal, readers will see that Stoppard believes in a unified academic world and in the value of personality or “noise.” This will be demonstrated in two sections. The first, a rebuttal of Bernard Nightingale, and the second, an education of Valentine Coverly. Lastly, I conclude by asserting that while Stoppard agrees with Septimus Hodge in that lost things are found, those items, people, or concepts, will never be the same as before, for some parts will always remain adrift in time.