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Narrative Accidents and Literary Miracles
- Philosophy and Literature
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 35, Number 1, April 2011
- pp. 65-78
- 10.1353/phl.2011.0005
- Article
- Additional Information
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When I crash my car, it may be an accident, but when Daisy Buchanan crashes hers, it is something else. The distinction has nothing to do with our varying intentions; it is simply that her accident occurs within the carefully-designed world of narrative. Working with car crashes, stray shootings, and train wrecks, I show how difficult it is to find genuine accidents in literature and how that bare fact limits the insight of historical criticism.