Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 64-65)

Numerous studies have pointed to the historiographic and metafictional aspects of Ian McEwan’s and Graham Swift’s fiction, although few have examined the connections between McEwan and Swift. This study develops from that work by proposing that McEwan’s and Swift’s fictions explore similar themes, beyond those of just history and metafiction. By situating McEwan and Swift as postmodern writers who are strikingly intertextual, in the sense initially coined by Julia Kristeva, this study will show that both authors are deeply concerned with the violence of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and the role that violence has played in the failure of metanarratives, as well as the resulting terror subjects face as they seek replacements for the personal authenticity, legitimacy, and meaning once provided by totalizing metanarratives. This study also illustrates that McEwan and Swift recognize the persistence of the metanarrative of science, as well as the psychic violence inherent in trying to replace metanarratives with received literary traditions. By developing on these ideas, this thesis argues that McEwan and Swift are actively engaged not only in exploring the anxiety subjects face as they realize there is nothing left upon which they can base their personal legitimacy, but also that the authors are suggesting there is no easy replacement for the lost, albeit fictitious, authenticity once situated in metanarratives and received genres. Finally, this paper will demonstrate that while these two contemporary novelists significantly problematize narrative and narrative frameworks, McEwan and Swift ultimately convey only one sure method to cope with the mourning and terror of the postmodern condition: continue writing.

Numerous studies have pointed to the historiographic and metafictional aspects of Ian McEwan’s and Graham Swift’s fiction, although few have examined the connections between McEwan and Swift. This study develops from that work by proposing that McEwan’s and Swift’s fictions explore similar themes, beyond those of just history and metafiction. By situating McEwan and Swift as postmodern writers who are strikingly intertextual, in the sense initially coined by Julia Kristeva, this study will show that both authors are deeply concerned with the violence of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and the role that violence has played in the failure of metanarratives, as well as the resulting terror subjects face as they seek replacements for the personal authenticity, legitimacy, and meaning once provided by totalizing metanarratives. This study also illustrates that McEwan and Swift recognize the persistence of the metanarrative of science, as well as the psychic violence inherent in trying to replace metanarratives with received literary traditions. By developing on these ideas, this thesis argues that McEwan and Swift are actively engaged not only in exploring the anxiety subjects face as they realize there is nothing left upon which they can base their personal legitimacy, but also that the authors are suggesting there is no easy replacement for the lost, albeit fictitious, authenticity once situated in metanarratives and received genres. Finally, this paper will demonstrate that while these two contemporary novelists significantly problematize narrative and narrative frameworks, McEwan and Swift ultimately convey only one sure method to cope with the mourning and terror of the postmodern condition: continue writing.

Numerous studies have pointed to the historiographic and metafictional aspects of Ian McEwan’s and Graham Swift’s fiction, although few have examined the connections between McEwan and Swift. This study develops from that work by proposing that McEwan’s and Swift’s fictions explore similar themes, beyond those of just history and metafiction. By situating McEwan and Swift as postmodern writers who are strikingly intertextual, in the sense initially coined by Julia Kristeva, this study will show that both authors are deeply concerned with the violence of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and the role that violence has played in the failure of metanarratives, as well as the resulting terror subjects face as they seek replacements for the personal authenticity, legitimacy, and meaning once provided by totalizing metanarratives. This study also illustrates that McEwan and Swift recognize the persistence of the metanarrative of science, as well as the psychic violence inherent in trying to replace metanarratives with received literary traditions. By developing on these ideas, this thesis argues that McEwan and Swift are actively engaged not only in exploring the anxiety subjects face as they realize there is nothing left upon which they can base their personal legitimacy, but also that the authors are suggesting there is no easy replacement for the lost, albeit fictitious, authenticity once situated in metanarratives and received genres. Finally, this paper will demonstrate that while these two contemporary novelists significantly problematize narrative and narrative frameworks, McEwan and Swift ultimately convey only one sure method to cope with the mourning and terror of the postmodern condition: continue writing. / Graduate Studies, College of (Okanagan) / Graduate

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Le présent travail s'attache à envisager le thème de la réconciliation avec le passé à l'ère postmoderne chez Graham Swift. Il s'agit d'envisager ce dernier thème en relation d'une part avec les métamorphoses des personnages (un des sens à donner aux métamorphoses de l'histoire dans mon titre) et d'autre part avec celles de l'histoire et du temps. Les aléas psychanalytiques de l'identité, les rapports de l'être à l'histoire et au temps sont analysés. S'il n'est pas vraiment question de statuer sur la réussite d'une telle réconciliation, on examinera ses stratégies et notamment quelques uns de ses versants narratifs. L'échelle individuelle est envisagée dans son aspect métonymique. / This work examines how Graham Swift's works tackle the issue of a potential reconciliation with the past. Reconciliation will be analysed together with the character's metamorphoses over time (one of the meaning that has to be given to the metamorphoses of history in my thesis's title) and the fictional transformations of time and history. The psychoanalytic evolutions of identities and the relationships of the characters with time and history will be studied. If it is difficult to precisely assess the success of reconciliation, we will focus on some of its underlying strategies and narrative treatments. The individual level will serve as a model for the collective level.

This diploma thesis focuses primarily on the relation between inner and outer landscape in postmodern fiction, i.e. on specific concepts of individual fictional spaces and the ways in which they resonate with the protagonists' means of perception. As a particular starting point, these four works are used: Trýznivé město by D. Hodrová, Pravěk a jiné časy by O. Tokarczuková, Země vod by G. Swift and prose collections Fikce and Alef by J. L. Borges. In the diploma thesis, the term "inner landscape" refers to a spectrum of concepts connected with the theme of subjective perception, among which the most important are topics of recollection and descending into deeper layers of the space - i.e. to the symbolical or mythical layer - and, thus, deeper to understanding one's identity. Therefore, a crucial part of the diploma thesis is to grasp characteristic features of individual fictional worlds and to interpret them in relation to perception and identity of characters. This interpretation is based on the definition of individual topoi and dominants as well as on the presupposition of the vertical structure of the works which implies merging of different time, space and conceptual levels. In the diploma thesis, the dynamic aspect is accentuated so the attention is paid to the protagonists' moving through...

Graham Swifts novel Last Orders has yet to be viewed as containing carnivalesque elements as defined by Mikhail Bakhtin in Rabelais and His World. Through the examination of Bakhtins theory of the carnivalesque and through a corresponding close reading of Last Orders, this article details the carnivalesque nature of the locations visited by the characters in the narrative, of the grotesque incidents that occur in these locations, and of the narrative style and structure of the novel itself.

Despite his own conservative values, D.H. Lawrence writes sexually liberated female characters. The most subversive female characters in Lawrence’s oeuvre are the Brangwens of The Rainbow. The Brangwens are prototypical models of a form of femininity that connects women to Nature while distancing them from society; his women are cast as monsters, but are strengthened from their link with Nature. They represent what I am calling the Lawrentian-Woman. The Lawrentian-Woman has proven influential for contemporary British authors. I examine the Lawrentian-Woman’s adoption by later writers and her evolution from modernist frame to postmodern appropriation. First, I look at the Brangwens. They establish the tropes of the Lawrentian-Woman and provide the base from which to compare the model’s subsequent mutations. Next, I examine modern British writers and their appropriation of the Lawrentian-Woman. The Lawrentian-Woman’s attributes remain intact, but are deconstructed in ways that explore women’s continued liminality in patriarchal society.