ABSTRACT
In Penelope Lively's postmodern novel The Photograph, an archeologist—fact-finder by trade and temperament—is thrown into a loop when he discovers a photograph of his wife Kath in an intimate posture with his brother-in-law. Penelope Lively introduces "the butterfly effect", as meteorologist Edward Lorenz termed it, into her who-dunnit novel. The initial dismissal of Kath as a social butterfly is corroborated by others who "knew" her. Kath's butterfly-like flittings and flappings and transparency and randomness appeared "simply" chaotic to those who supposedly loved her. Lorenz wittily described the butterfly effect as "order" masquerading as chaos, implying that the eye sees only what it wants. Ironically, the scientists and trained professionals in Kath's world, like her sister Elaine and husband Glyn, were wedded to optical truth value. By employing objectivity and detachment and the study of parts, these scientists of the old school applied their methods as if a person is a static structure.
