This is a study of the use of language in Joseph Heller's novels Catch-22, Something Happened, Good as Gold, God Knows and Picture This. Heller's fiction is characterized by self-negating sentences and logic, a repetitive story line and circular structure. Each novel concerns the relationship between people and language, but the relationship invariably is circular and inherently non-progressive. The separation between people and language, analogous to the separation between existence and expression, is the basis for Heller's thematics. / Joseph Heller is a novelist who writes about language. Heller's novels all contain or evoke a common system characterized by self-containment and self-reference. In this system, language and literature are self-referential. It is implicit within Heller's writing that literature is a self-contained, non-progressive system, and consequently, it cannot yield a conclusive resolution. The self-contained system of his novels becomes analogous for literature, language, and finally knowledge. Definitive knowledge, being a derivative of language, is impossible. Eventually, Heller's fiction allows no final resolution because of the inconclusive nature of language itself.

One aspect of Giorgio Bassani's narrative that requires to be examined is that of the narrator, the narrative voice and therefore the point of view from which the facts are narrated. The identification of these elements is fundamental because they influence the author's expressive choices, and thus determine the way in which the reader approaches the events described. / This study posits an analysis of the narrative techniques used by the author to develop Le storie ferraresi, and aims to assess the ends, partially explicit, he intends to meet.

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The work of Jacques Ferron could well be defined by a paradox: to go forward one has to revisit one's past. Indeed, in his texts, Ferron, significantly, returns to his roots---literary and political---to understand, explain, and criticize his nation which at the time was preparing for the Quiet Revolution. Assuredly, Contes du pays incerain (1962) and Contes anglais (1964) are the two works in which are found the greatest number of references to great texts of the Western literary tradition. Ferron transposes classical and traditional Culture into his own and adapts many myths, biblical texts, and folk tales. Moreover, these two collections of tales, united in 1968 under the title Contes, but still independent of each other, allow one to understand, by their titles alone, that the author describes through them his vision of the nation, a bipolar Quebec where uncertainty is opposed to Englishness. From there it is only a short step to linking the present to the past: defining uncertainty and Englishness---signs of the collections' identity, signs, ultimately, of Ferron's vision of the nation---by looking into the processes of reactualization of Ferron's literary roots. Using an approach based on John J. White's method, this thesis proposes a mythocritical reading of Ferron's Contes. This approach allows one to retrace the path the author followed to understand his society. To understand Ferron's vision of the nation developed throughout his texts, one has to go back to the author's literary sources; to know to what extent uncertainty and Englishness are opposed, one has to analyse how each collection of tales transforms and gives new meaning to the myths and legends that are the foundation of the Western culture.

The purpose of this thesis will be to substantiate the claim that Roald Dahl, the author of humorous writings for children, is simultaneously an avid creator of grotesque fiction. My argument is based on the premise that unless one views Dahl's texts in terms of their grotesque influence, critical evaluation of his work inevitably becomes reduced to a question of taste. A diachronic overview of the term "grotesque" is presented beginning with its delineation of an artistic mode in early Rome to its Rabelaisian extensions during the sixteenth century. The origins of the word are established, and its changing meaning throughout history is examined. A synchronic approach to the study follows, tracing both modern and post-modern theories of the grotesque. Of particular importance to the survey is Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World. By emphasizing the "positive, regenerating, creative" powers of laughter, Rabelais comes closest to defining the comic grotesque as embodied in Dahl's fiction. The final portion of the thesis is devoted to an interpretation of such texts as The Twits, George's Marvelous Medicine, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Dahl's treatment of character, his development of plot, and his use of language are discussed in relation to previous theories of the grotesque. A psychological defense of the genre is offered as a conclusion to the study. Ultimately, the grotesque will be viewed in its cathartic role: helping children work through feelings of oppression in a world governed by adult authority.

Leonardo Sciascia was undoubtedly a prominent figure of Italian public life due to his scathing criticism of the Mafia and of occult power. Unfortunately, most critics have relegated him to the role of mere detractor of Italy's corrupt public and private mores. We cannot deny that he did indeed fulfill this role as well; however the overall literary value of his works by far exceeds that of a statement of charges against organized crime. His literary production can be in fact interpreted as a safe haven for truth against the establishment's drive to obliterate it. This thesis aims at reasserting the true literary value of Sciascia's works. There is in fact a gateway between history and literature and Sciascia crossed it repeatedly by using the investigative essay as a weapon against historiography and the "official" version of facts. It is by this means that Sciascia attained literary craftsmanship without ever departing from his sworn moral commitment to uphold the struggle against the establishment. In this thesis we have analyzed the various literary tools of which Sciascia has made use: the prolonged metaphor, metaphoric speech and the creation of a hybrid genre, the investigative essay. Our analysis led us to some findings which we have expounded in the conclusion.

The child appears in Michel Tournier's literary work as an opposites resolving principle. These contraries are the cause of the disharmony within the protagonists: Robinson Crusoe, Abel Tiffauges and Paul Surin, the three main characters of, respectively, Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique, Le Roi des Aulnes and Les Météores. The destiny of those three heroes is to resolve this duality. The fulfillment of that destiny is characterized by its progression in time. The variation in the time dimension is actually the main characteristic of this duality with which the protagonists hâve to deal. As a matter of fact, they switch between historic and atemporal states according to regular and specific conditions. A real or symbolic child appears with angelic and solar features when the protagonists fulfill their destiny, reaching a state where neither historicity nor eternity exist. The child, to which Tournier gives a synthesizing power, represents the recovered unity, the perfect plenitude. / L'enfant, dans l'oeuvre romanesque de Michel Tournier, agit comme principe de résolution des contraires, qui sont à l'origine de la disharmonie existant chez les protagonistes: Robinson Crusoé, Abel Tiffauges et Paul Surin, les trois personnages principaux de Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique, Le Roi des Aulnes et Les Météores respectivement. Leur destinée consiste justement à résoudre cette dualité. L'accomplissement de ce destin est caractérisé par une progression à travers le temps. D'ailleurs, la dualité présente chez ces trois héros se manifeste surtout dans la variation de la dimension temporelle. En effet, ils alternent, dans des conditions régulières et spécifiques, entre un état historique et un état atemporel. Lorsque les protagonistes atteignent une sphère où ni l'historicité ni l'éternité n'existent, accomplissant de la sorte leur destin, un enfant, concret ou abstrait, apparaît sous des signes angéliques et solaires. L'enfant, à qui Tournier confère un grand pouvoir de synthèse, symbolise alors l'unité retrouvée, la parfaite plénitude. fr

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Although such prominent writers as Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Gwendolyn MacEwen have praised her work, Shulamis Yelin remains largely unknown to critics and the common reader. In three sections, this thesis attempts to rectify this situation by offering a more complete portrait of the poet and her poetry. First, it presents newly edited versions of eighty-five previously uncollected and unpublished poems spanning the length of her career. Second, in order to supply the necessary context for her work, it provides both a biographical sketch and a critical analysis of her complete poetic oeuvre. Ultimately, this thesis argues that a complicated and, at times, destructive struggle between the Real and the Ideal lies at the heart of Yelin's life and work. Tracing this theme through her various public, private, and poetic personae, it concludes that this poet represents a talented, tragic, and inspirational figure, whose rediscovery contributes a unique and powerful new voice to the Canadian literary canon.