Synopsis The aim of the thesis is to analyse the category of the narrator in a detective story. This category can be considered firstly as an independent textual element and secondly in its connection to the plotline. In the structure of detective stories, apart from fabula and sujet, we can discern two mutually influential plotlines. One of them is the story of the crime (past), the other is the story of the reconstruction (investigation of the crime). The way they approach each other on different levels (the setting, characters) helps us to understand the structure of the whole story. The reader can actualize the narrative also thanks to the mediator, the mediator between the text and the reader being the narrator. In the detective story Distant Star the narrator is unreliable, which expresses itself in different ways. The unreliability is supported by the fact that it is a subjectivized narration of a character who can be identified as the narrator. 'The narrator - character' does not have a single focalization in this story. He comments (e.g. by use of brackets) upon his previous stands. The point of view of the narration changes along with the character. 'The narrator - character' can at the same time be considered as the author's alter ego. We may encounter the author himself thematized in the text...

This thesis analyses the function of the detective in Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz. I argue that the modernist metropolis Berlin challenges the way in which crimes are solved by complicating the process of identifying those responsible for them. The ambivalence of life makes it impossible to get to the truth of crime. This ambivalence, partly created by the urban context, leads to the reinvention of the role of the detective. No longer located in the individual, the function of the detective is shared among author, narrator, protagonist, reader, and the city, whereby the protagonist Franz Biberkopf (on the intra-textual level) and the reader (on the extra-textual level) are the major players. However, neither Biberkopf nor the reader succeeds in this process, but are forced to accept the solution suggested by the text. The thesis adopts a narratological approach in analysing the narrative processes of veiling and unveiling facts and circumstances. It demonstrates how Biberkopf’s specific perception of urban space and his attempt to give it a particular shape in his imagination, as well as the complex relationship of story and discourse in the novel, contribute to the obfuscation of fact and fiction. / Thesis (Master, German) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-17 10:47:07.25

Die term speurverhaal impliseer ’n spesifieke soort verhaal of genre, tradisioneel triviaalliteratuur of ontspanningslektuur, met spesifieke kodes en konvensies. Enige konvensies is egter aanpasbaar en die grense tussen hoë kuns en populêre kultuur is vloeibaar, sodat dit moontlik is dat daar wel ʼn vertakking of subgenre wat die literêre speurverhaal genoem kan word, kon ontwikkel het. Die doel van hierdie verhandeling is om die volgende navorsingsvrae te beantwoord: Is daar wel speurverhale wat as literêre speurverhale gekategoriseer kan word? Indien nie, waarom word die kodes van die speurverhaal as narratiewe strategie gekies vir sekere romans? Wat is die verskille en ooreenkomste tussen die tradisionele speurverhaal en die sogenaamde literêre speurverhaal? Die verskynsel word ondersoek word deur twee romans wat moontlik as literêre speurverhale geklassifiseer kan word, nl. Een vir Azazel (Leroux, 1984) en Die boek van toeval en toeverlaat (Winterbach, 2006), te vergelyk met twee tradisionele speurverhale, nl. Reuk van die dood (Mouton, 2008) en Plaasmoord (Brynard, 2009), aan die hand van sekere struktuurelemente, nl. spanningslyn, plot, intrige, karakterisering, verteller, vertellersperspektief, tyd, en ruimte. ENGLISH : The term detective story indicates a specific kind of story or genre, traditionally recreational and light reading, with specific codes and conventions. However, any set of conventions are pliable and the boundaries between recreational and high art are fluid and constantly shifting. It is therefore possible that a subgenre of the detective story that can be called the literary detective story could have developed. The goal of this dissertation is to answer the following research questions: Are there detective stories that can be categorised as literary detective stories? If not, why is the detective element chosen as a narrative strategy for some novels? What are the differences and similarities between the traditional detective story and the so called literary detective novel? / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Afrikaans / unrestricted

Este estudo consiste em uma análise dos elementos e estratégias constitutivos da prosa de Antonio Tabucchi, especificamente observados no romance Notturno Indiano. O romance apresenta-se sob a forma de uma viagem em busca de alguém que se perdeu na Índia, sugerindo uma questão policial. A questão policial será enfocada em consonância como o método investigativo, que se insinua por todo corpo textual, e a sua relação com o desvio de um capítulo. Margeado pela reversão entre ficção e crítica este romance breve afirma-se como referência ilusória que mascara, mas não esconde, as outras vozes que se insinuam na narrativa / The present study is an analysis of the elements and strategies which constitutes Antonio Tabucchi\'s prose, specifically observed in the novel Notturno Indiano. The novel\'s plot is about a journey in which a search for somebody who got lost in India suggests a detective question. This detective story will be treated in consonance with the investigative method which is insinuated through the whole text, and its relation with the deviation of a chapter. Framed by the reverse between fiction and criticism, this short novel shows itself as an illusory reference that masks but does not hide the other voices which insinuate themselves into the narrative

This thesis examines the preoccupation with the relationship between history and fiction present in the work of Leonardo Sciascia and Jorge Luis Borges. By means of different narrative strategies, both authors underscore the narrative elements that underpin any reconstruction of the past, and in this way they link the process of reconstruction of past events to the process of rewriting of a literary work. They emphasise, however, that whereas the literary work can be enriched by multiple rewritings, multiple reconstructions of the same real past event risk threatening its truthfulness. This thesis investigates the different ways in which Borges’s and Sciascia’s works intersect, across three narrative forms: the detective story, the historical essay (inchiesta or ‘enquiry’ for Sciascia) and the historical fiction. The analysis of Sciascia’s texts starts from a focus on the structural similarities with the work of Borges in the detective story, paying particular attention to Il contesto (1971), Todo modo (1974), and Il cavaliere e la morte (1988). It then moves on to Sciascia’s inclusion of fragments of Borges’s texts in two of his inchieste, L’affaire Moro (1978) and Il teatro della memoria (1981). The last chapter of the thesis proposes a metafictional reading of Sciascia’s historical novel Il Consiglio d’Egitto (1963), in the light of the comparisons with Borges’s work undertaken in the previous chapters. The two key aims of this thesis are to show (1) that studying the ways in which Sciascia integrates Borges’s texts in his own writing allows a deeper understanding of Sciascia’s texts, but also underscores traits in Borges’s which might have been downplayed by previous criticism of his work, and (2) that reconsidering in the light of this understanding a number of Sciascia’s other texts where Borges’s influence is not explicit allows us to identify a preoccupation with regards to the relationship between history and fiction shared between both authors.

Este estudo consiste em uma análise dos elementos e estratégias constitutivos da prosa de Antonio Tabucchi, especificamente observados no romance Notturno Indiano. O romance apresenta-se sob a forma de uma viagem em busca de alguém que se perdeu na Índia, sugerindo uma questão policial. A questão policial será enfocada em consonância como o método investigativo, que se insinua por todo corpo textual, e a sua relação com o desvio de um capítulo. Margeado pela reversão entre ficção e crítica este romance breve afirma-se como referência ilusória que mascara, mas não esconde, as outras vozes que se insinuam na narrativa / The present study is an analysis of the elements and strategies which constitutes Antonio Tabucchi\'s prose, specifically observed in the novel Notturno Indiano. The novel\'s plot is about a journey in which a search for somebody who got lost in India suggests a detective question. This detective story will be treated in consonance with the investigative method which is insinuated through the whole text, and its relation with the deviation of a chapter. Framed by the reverse between fiction and criticism, this short novel shows itself as an illusory reference that masks but does not hide the other voices which insinuate themselves into the narrative

In this dissertation Lebopa' s two short stories entitled Ntlo ya monna yo mongwe and Bomahlwabadibona are compared with each other. Groenewald is the first person to have pointed out the importance of these two detective short stories. By doing this he also pointed out the importance of Lebopa as a Sepedi author. The named two short stories have never been examined comprehensively. It was therefore decided that they would be compared to each other in this study. The study begins with a description of the concept 'detective story'. Stewart (1980: 12) states that this type of story deals with an investigator who tries to unravel a mystery. The Boileau - Narcejac and Groenewald classifications of these types of stories also receive attention. The Groenewald classification is used in this dissertation. Strachan and Mojalefa's opinion that a literary work consists of three levels forms the basis of the model used to analyse the short stories. Mojalefa refers to these three levels as 'content level', 'structure level' and 'style level'. 'Topic' and 'theme' are two basic concepts in this investigation. 'Topic' is relevant on a content level while 'theme' is important on a structure level'. The two stories were not analysed stylistically. The content of a text consists of four elements, namely characters, events, time and space, and the study of content concentrates on these four elements. Two main figures who are involved in a conflict with each other are identified in the investigation. The events are divided into three categories. The first category contains basic events and is exclusively determined by the topic. The second and third categories respectively contain relevant and coincidental events. The 'time' concept is subdivided into 'point of time' and 'lapse of time'. 'Place' includes amongst other things, 'geographic', 'socio-cultural' and 'symbolic place'. The analysis of the structural level relies heavily on the 'mini-framework' concept which involves the microstructure of a work. Attention is devoted to the title. Hereafter the investigation focused on the different parts of the structure i.e. the exposition, the development, the climax and the resolution. The structural analysis concentrates mainly on the author's use of literary techniques. The concept 'technique' is defined and the following techniques from Ntlo ya monna yo mongwe and Bomahlwabadibona are identified and discussed: repetition, shifting, frequency, dramatic irony, omission, focus, complication and deceit. The investigation is a functional analysis and not a taxonomic one, which means that the ways in which the techniques function also receive attention. The comparison between the two short stories reveals that they belong to two different kinds of detective stories. In Ntlo ya monna yo mongwe the unravelling of the mystery receive the most attention. In Bomahlwabadibona those events which gradually expose the cruelty of the antagonist and which deal with his punishment are most prominent. This is in accordance with Dresden and Vestdijk's description of the English and American detective story respectively. The positions of Ntlo ya monna yo mongwe and Bomahlwabadibona in relation to the rest of the Sepedi narrative genre is then precisely indicated. The concluding chapter is a summary. At the end of this chapter a brief allusion is made to Dresden and Vestdijk's opinion that the detective story is a modern fairytale. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / African Languages / unrestricted

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:46:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Adriana Pereira de Jesus.pdf: 1509187 bytes, checksum: cb8a189af573e9e368a1b3d7db83853f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-02-11 / Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa / The present work is intended to study the detective story, a literary genre that stimulates the young and adult readers curiosity from the first to the last page of the book. We developed a study about this genre using books for children and young adults that identify themselves with the stories, the characters and the adventures. We analyzed the mystery narrative construction in the children s universe, from the novels O caso da estranha fotografia (1977), by Stella Carr; Berenice detetive (1987), by João Carlos Marinho; and Droga de Americana! (1999), by Pedro Bandeira. These writers stories were created with children and young adults in the role of investigators. During the analysis, we emphasized the characterization of the members from the different young adults and children groups and their actions as detectives. In the first chapter, we focused the detective stories in general and their evolution. The second chapter discusses the literature for children focusing in the writers of the works mentioned above. During the two last chapters, we analyzed the three books and the structure of the detective stories for children and young adults. / O objetivo do presente trabalho é estudar o romance policial, um gênero literário que instiga a curiosidade do público jovem e adulto desde a primeira até a última página de um livro. Desenvolvemos um estudo desse gênero em obras voltadas para o público infanto-juvenil que se identifica com as histórias, personagens e aventuras. Analisamos a construção da narrativa policial no universo infantil dos romances O caso da estranha fotografia (1977), de Stella Carr; Berenice detetive (1987), de João Carlos Marinho; e Droga de Americana! (1999), Pedro Bandeira. As obras desses autores foram construídas com crianças e adolescentes no papel de investigadores. Na análise, enfatizamos a caracterização dos integrantes dos diferentes grupos de jovens e crianças e suas atuações como detetives. Para tanto, o trabalho foi dividido em quatro capítulos. No primeiro capítulo, destacamos o romance policial em geral e sua evolução. O segundo capítulo discute a literatura infantil com foco nos autores das três obras mencionadas. Nos dois últimos capítulos, analisamos as três obras e a estrutura do romance policial infanto-juvenil.

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar uma leitura do conto The Murders in the rue Morgue, do escritor norte-americano Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), do ponto de vista de sua relação com seu contexto histórico de produção. Uma parte essencial desta pesquisa foi o estudo da fortuna crítica do escritor, a qual em grande parte ocupa-se em fazer leituras da obra de Poe como objeto de ideologia, destacado de uma realidade sócio-histórica e do lugar do escritor como trabalhador. A discussão feita aqui sobre esta parte de sua fortuna crítica aponta alguns mecanismos por meio dos quais a crítica desvia a atenção da leitura da obra de Poe para questões de ordem puramente formal ou mesmo biográfica. O estudo do contexto histórico em que viveu Poe, bem como de material crítico que estabelece relações entre tal contexto e sua obra, fornece fundamentação importante para a leitura do conto aqui apresentada, a qual visa a evidenciar a configuração de contradições históricas dentro da forma literária. Posicionando Edgar Allan Poe em seu devido lugar histórico, é possível compreender como a forma do conto de detetive sedimenta tais contradições, revelando os esforços do escritor em lidar com o material sócio-histórico disponível, conforme a leitura de The Murders in the rue Morgue feita aqui busca demonstrar. / The objective of this research is to present an analysis of the North American writer Edgar Allan Poes short story The Murders in the rue Morgue, from the perspective of its relations with its historical context of production. A central part of this research was the study of the critical material produced about the author and his work, whose major interest, in general, is to analyze Poes work as an object of ideology, detached from a social historical reality and from the writers position as a worker. The discussion presented here about this part of the criticism indicates some mechanisms through which criticism distracts the attention from the reading of Poes work to questions of merely formal or biographical order. The study of the historical context in which Poe lived, as well as that of critical material which establishes relations between this context and his work, provides important basis for the analysis of the short story presented here, which aims at demonstrating the representation of historical contradictions inside the literary form. Positioning Edgar Allan Poe in his historical place, it is possible to understand how the form of the detective story is related to these contradictions, revealing the writers efforts to deal with the social historical content available, as the analysis presented here intends to show.

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar uma leitura do conto The Murders in the rue Morgue, do escritor norte-americano Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), do ponto de vista de sua relação com seu contexto histórico de produção. Uma parte essencial desta pesquisa foi o estudo da fortuna crítica do escritor, a qual em grande parte ocupa-se em fazer leituras da obra de Poe como objeto de ideologia, destacado de uma realidade sócio-histórica e do lugar do escritor como trabalhador. A discussão feita aqui sobre esta parte de sua fortuna crítica aponta alguns mecanismos por meio dos quais a crítica desvia a atenção da leitura da obra de Poe para questões de ordem puramente formal ou mesmo biográfica. O estudo do contexto histórico em que viveu Poe, bem como de material crítico que estabelece relações entre tal contexto e sua obra, fornece fundamentação importante para a leitura do conto aqui apresentada, a qual visa a evidenciar a configuração de contradições históricas dentro da forma literária. Posicionando Edgar Allan Poe em seu devido lugar histórico, é possível compreender como a forma do conto de detetive sedimenta tais contradições, revelando os esforços do escritor em lidar com o material sócio-histórico disponível, conforme a leitura de The Murders in the rue Morgue feita aqui busca demonstrar. / The objective of this research is to present an analysis of the North American writer Edgar Allan Poes short story The Murders in the rue Morgue, from the perspective of its relations with its historical context of production. A central part of this research was the study of the critical material produced about the author and his work, whose major interest, in general, is to analyze Poes work as an object of ideology, detached from a social historical reality and from the writers position as a worker. The discussion presented here about this part of the criticism indicates some mechanisms through which criticism distracts the attention from the reading of Poes work to questions of merely formal or biographical order. The study of the historical context in which Poe lived, as well as that of critical material which establishes relations between this context and his work, provides important basis for the analysis of the short story presented here, which aims at demonstrating the representation of historical contradictions inside the literary form. Positioning Edgar Allan Poe in his historical place, it is possible to understand how the form of the detective story is related to these contradictions, revealing the writers efforts to deal with the social historical content available, as the analysis presented here intends to show.