published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Caryl Phillips, best known as a novelist, is a versatile writer who has also written for theater, radio, television and film. His experience in writing screenplays has made a considerable impact on the texture, style, technique and structure of his novels, which display either explicitly or implicitly many visual and formal features that resemble the narrative strategies of cinema. This study explores the many ways in which the cinematic art has influenced Phillips’s writing, focusing specifically on his four major novels: The Final Passage, The Nature of Blood, Dancing in the Dark, and In the Falling Snow. The chapters of this dissertation demonstrate that Phillips’s sustained interest and work in the area of cinema have profoundly shaped his novelistic craft, which is visibly manifested in the form, style and even themes of his fiction. He has used techniques analogous to film substantially in his novels for the purpose of formal experimentation, demonstrating a filmic sensibility that contributes considerably to his uniqueness in theme, characterization and form, enriches the meaning of his texts, and enhances his writing in a great many ways. Thus a reading of his novels in relation to the language and grammar of cinema will lead to a deeper understanding of his fictional art. This thesis uses cinema as an analytical framework to demonstrate the filmic quality of Phillips’s fiction. Chapter One discusses the dynamic exchanges, interactions, and cross-influences between the novel and film, thus establishing a theoretical context for a cinematic reading of Phillips’s major novels. Chapter Two investigates Phillips’s visual imagination by analyzing how literary equivalents of various camera shots such as long shots, medium shots, close-ups, pan shots, dolly shots, tilt shots, and freeze frames are produced by his use of language. It shows that Phillips visualizes his scenes as if through a camera lens, with medium shots, as a mode of characterization, predominating in his novels and sequences of shots displaying a recurring rhythm created by a continuous switching between the long, medium and short camera-to-object distances. Chapter Three, focusing on the editing processes, examines Phillips’s adaptive use of the different types of montages: quick sequences of brief shots, metaphorical montages, repetitive montages, jump cuts, parallel montages and flashback montages. This chapter demonstrates that the construction of literary montages in Phillip’s works has contributed to the author’s visual, rhythmic and concise language style and the predominance of different montage types in the four novels results in their distinct structural features. Chapter Four studies Phillips’s use of the cinematic devices of lighting, color and sound to illustrate that the three elements are a significant and expressive part of the author’s themes and narrative techniques. The reading of Phillips’s novels in the light of cinematic aesthetics will uncover some of the unexplored aspects of his fictional style, draw attention to those formal patterns that are associated with his literary translation of filmic devices, place him in the tradition of literary modernism, and ensure a fuller appreciation of his artistic achievement. / published_or_final_version / English / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Arts

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vi, 257 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 1977

Dit het my herhaaldelik getref dat, by die beoordeling van bepaalde tipes Afrikaanse romans, deur die kritici sekere maatstawwe aangelê word wat as artistieke of literêre kriteria nie geldig, nie ter sake nie, en daarom meestal ook ontoelaatbaar is. Ek bedoel meer bepaaldelik die historiese en aktualiteitsromans: genres wat hul tematiese materiaal grotendeels betrek uit die verbye of hedendaagse "werklikheid" van die gemeenskap waartoe, in prakties alle gevalle, én die auteurs én die kritici van daardie romans behoort. Die ongeldige, slegs ten dele geldige of verkeerd gebruikte geldige kriteria vind hul oorsprong in 'n foutiewe vereenselwiging van die letterkundige kriterium "waarheid in die roman" met die aktualiteitsmaatstawwe "objektiewe werklikheid" en "oordeel oor hierdie werklikheid wat in die roman gevel word". 'n Ondersoek na die grondbeginsels van die romankritiek, die mate van ooreenkoms wat die Afrikaaner kritiek daarmee vertoon, en dus ook na die "waarheidsgehalte" van die betrokke romans self, vorm die opset van hierdie verhandeling. In die loop van die ondersoek het dit egter spoedig geblyk dat die onderwerp te wyd was, en dat dit die beste beperk kon word deur te konsentreer op 'n kleiner aantal romans binne een genre. Die keuse het geval op die aktualiteitsroman, en meer bepaaldelik op 'n negetal romans i.v.m. die "nie-blanke aktualiteit" en "rasseverhoudings in Suid-Afrika". Hierdie keuse is gedoen om twee hoofredes. Eerstens omdat die rasseprobleem veral sedert die Tweede Wêreldoorlog en meer bepaaldelik sedert die Atlantiese Oorkonde (1942) dié heersende wêreldprobleem geword het. Die rassebeleid in Suid-Afrika is derhalwe skerp in die lig gestel, met die gevolg dat Suid-Afrikaners daartoe gedryf is om hulle houding nie net in die praktyk te handhaaf nie, maar ook teoretiee en godsdienstig te verdedig. As aktualiteitsprobleem is die rassesituasie dus die interessantste en dié wat die meeste opspraak wek. Die tweede rede vir my keuae is die feit dat die kritieke oor die "romans oor rasseverhoudings", juis weens die aktualiteitstweedrag oor hierdie situasie, die volledigste voorbeeld vorm van die heersende "werklikheid"/"waarheid"-verwarring in die Afrikaanse aktualiteitsroman-kritiek. Die skripsie is in drie hoofdele verdeel: ʹn ondersoek na die waarheidemaatstaf in die kritiek, toepassing van hierdie maatstaf op romans oor die naturel en op die kritieke daaroor, en die verdere uitwerking daarvan i.v.m. romans oor die kleurling. Die nege romans wat ter sprake gebring is, mag beskou word as die noemenewaardigste kuns-en-aktualiteitspogings in hul genre, en tewens as 'n volledige aanduiding van die algemene ontwikkelingsgang van daardie genre. Die gekose volgorde van die romans dien dan ook om twee hooffaktore te omlyn: (a) die ontwikkeling van die aktualiteitsiening vanuit die idilliese plaasverband van Franz se romans, via die beperkte siening van die nie-blanke stadsproblematiek, na ʹn paging tot 'n volledige Suid-Afrikaanse probleemstelling in Rabie se Ons, die Afgod, en (b) die kunsgehalte van die betrokke romans en die mate waarin dit die draagkrag van die tendens beinvloed, en wederom die mate waarin die keuse van die tema en tendens die waarheidsgehal teen draagkrag van die romans as aktualiteitskommentare bepaal. Ons het gevolglik die romans oor die naturel, wat die eerste fase van die aktualiteitsiening behandel, in Deel II geplaas, en die romans oor die kleurling, van die staanspoor af meer problematies van aard, en as groep dié wat die mees gevorderde aktualiteitsiening vertoon in Deel III. Die slotbeskouing is ʹn kort samevatting van die mate van ontwikkeling in die Afrikaanse aktualiteitsroman oor die nie-blanke, en 'n vasstelling van die aard van die werklikheiq/waarheid-digotomie in die kritieke daaromtrent.