Narrative methods and social contexts in the novel of dislocation.
Date
1990
Authors
Baxter, Gisele Marie.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Dalhousie University
Abstract
Description
This dissertation treats fiction which depends on a crisis in the relationship of the protagonist to his or her environment. The forms of dislocation examined vary in type but always involve an awareness of and inability to reconcile disparate yet simultaneous elements of existence. I am concerned with narrative devices used to relate protagonists to their social contexts. While my textual examinations are more formal than polemical in nature, my treatment of narrative methods is grounded in the social and cultural contexts they imply.
Chapter One contrasts D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo and Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano. Each novel has as its protagonist a man whose self-imposed exile (resulting from his experience of the First World War) reflects a dislocation arising from a fragmented perception of himself, of his personal commitments (especially his marriage) and of global realities.
Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children is the subject of Chapter Two. All three protagonists of this novel experience dislocation within their large yet isolated family, as well as in their unsuccessful attempts to join other social or cultural groups.
Chapter Three examines George Orwell's Coming up for Air and Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy. For both writers, the Second World War represents the rise of a modern age which threatens traditional sources of meaning. The protagonists' awareness of this development leads to a crisis in perception which precludes genuine integration in the social mainstream.
Chapter Four treats three novels (A Start in Life, Providence and Hotel du Lac) by Anita Brookner, whose explorations of the loneliness of intelligent, apparently successful women form the most intensely personal narratives in my analysis.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1990.
Chapter One contrasts D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo and Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano. Each novel has as its protagonist a man whose self-imposed exile (resulting from his experience of the First World War) reflects a dislocation arising from a fragmented perception of himself, of his personal commitments (especially his marriage) and of global realities.
Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children is the subject of Chapter Two. All three protagonists of this novel experience dislocation within their large yet isolated family, as well as in their unsuccessful attempts to join other social or cultural groups.
Chapter Three examines George Orwell's Coming up for Air and Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy. For both writers, the Second World War represents the rise of a modern age which threatens traditional sources of meaning. The protagonists' awareness of this development leads to a crisis in perception which precludes genuine integration in the social mainstream.
Chapter Four treats three novels (A Start in Life, Providence and Hotel du Lac) by Anita Brookner, whose explorations of the loneliness of intelligent, apparently successful women form the most intensely personal narratives in my analysis.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1990.
Keywords
Literature, Comparative., History, Asia, Australia and Oceania., Literature, English.