Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Doctorow, E. L. - Ann V. Miller (essay date Summer 1993)

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Ann V. Miller (essay date Summer 1993)

SOURCE: "Through a Glass Clearly: Vision as Structure in E. L. Doctorow's 'Willi'," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 30, No. 3, Summer, 1993, pp. 337-42.

[In the following essay, Miller provides a detailed analysis of "Willi," from Lives of the Poets, pointing out its psychological complexities.]

In his significant work on Remembrance of Things Past, Roger Shattuck argues that three principles of vision clarify the division of Proust's book and constitute its most fundamental structure. Borrowing his terms from film, Shattuck names these principles cinematographic, montage, and stereoscopic. The young see through only one lens: their first experience of reality, Shattuck asserts, "is cinematographic and linear,… conveying a sense of cause and effect…. Subsequently, this secure sense of predictability is disrupted when we encounter contradictions and alterations in Nature...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Wirt Williams (review date 25 September 1960)
   2. Gwendolyn Brooks (review date 10 July 1966)
   3. Stanley Kauffman (review date 5 June 1971)
   4. Joseph Catinella (review date 17 July 1971)
   5. Patrick Parrinder (review date 4 April 1985)
   6. Richard D. Beards (review date Summer 1985)
   7. Marvin J. LaHood (review date Winter 1987)
   8. Michelle M. Tokarczyk (essay date Fall 1987)
   9. John G. Parks (essay date Winter 1991)
   10. Derek Wright (essay date 1993)
   11. Stephen Matterson (essay date Winter 1993)
   12. Stephen Cooper (essay date May 1993)
   13. Ann V. Miller (essay date Summer 1993)
   14. Stephen Fender (review date 27 May 1994)
   15. John Whitworth (review date 28 May 1994)
   16. Jonathan Franzen (review date 19 June 1994)
   17. Simon Schama (review date 19 June 1994)
   18. Mark Shechner (review date 10 July 1994)
   19. Andrew Delbanco (review date 18 July 1994)
   20. William Hutchings (review date Winter 1995)
   21. E. L. Doctorow with Michelle M. Tokarczyk (interview date Winter 1995)
   22. Michael Wutz (review date Spring 1995)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright