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The aim of this study is to study the construction of literary values. I have been looking at how literature awarded with sponsored literary prizes has been reviewed in four major English and American newspapers. I have been studying the reception of literature by Ian McEwan, Hilary Mantel, Colm Tóibín and Zadie Smith between 2000 and 2012. The prizes in focus are the Man Booker Prize, the Orange prize for fiction and the Costa Awards. There seems to be an increasing number of articles related to each author after they have been awarded a prize, however with little change in the content of the reviews. The non critical articles seems to move towards a more personal angle. I have also found that critics tend to position the authors’ works in comparision to canonised authorships rather than discussing the literature as awarded.

This dissertation focuses on the return and revitalization of traditional Christian themes in contemporary postmodern novels. It offers an examination of how these themes materialize in novels written by writers who are not explicitly religious, or in novels which do not have an overtly religious focus. Some contemporary novels generate a privileged space in which the return of the religious can take place. The sacred is back, not just as a re-enchantment, but manifests itself in fundamentally new and productive ways (Ward, 2001:xv). The first matter under consideration is the fact that the co-existence of belief and unbelief is apparent in all the novels under discussion. As such, the reader as active participant in the novel is bound to be affected by these mutually inter-dependent and inextricably inter-connected sides of a coin. The themes of providence, sacrifice and the miraculous become evident in John Irving‟s A prayer for Owen Meany while the themes of sin, guilt and redemption feature in Ian McEwan‟s Atonement. Secondly, the study compares two novels that deal with the same supernatural phenomena, namely visions, faith healing and stigmata. Jodi Picoult is a non-believer and is the author of Keeping Faith, while Ron Hansen is a devout Catholic who wrote Mariëtte in ecstasy. These works, on the one hand, create a space for supernatural phenomena even though fiction cannot prove the reality of their existence. Postmodern people seem to have a definite longing for the miraculous and these novels seem to satisfy that yearning. On the other hand, both novels portray disbelief in the miraculous while subtly allowing room for characters or readers in a liminal space between belief and disbelief. The theories of Jean François Lyotard and specifically his notion of “incredulity towards metanarratives” provide a framework to explore this matter. Lyotard proposes “petit recits” or many small stories instead of the grand narratives. He contends that there is no objective knowledge and that narrative and scientific knowledge are subject to legitimization. The Christian story therefore needs no scientific basis as justification, which means that it is being newly considered after the mistrust created during the Enlightenment period. Gianteresio Vattimo‟s ideas on the role of religion in contemporary life and the possible convergences of postmodernity and the Christian faith also come into play. He advocates weak thought as opposed to strong thought and sees caritas (charity or neighbourly love) as essential. This concept of weak thought allows for plurality and tolerance. Vattimo sees Christ‟s kenosis (self-emptying) as essentially linked to a secularization in which humankind needs to retrace the path to the original Biblical message of love. Emphasis is on a non-doctrinal, anti-dogmatic spirituality and this manifests in the novels discussed. This study employs diverse reader-response theories to gauge the reaction of the reader to texts containing Biblical themes and supernatural phenomena. Stanley Fish‟s interpretive communities and Wolfgang Iser‟s implied reader are helpful and Michael Edwards‟s pattern of sin, the fall and redemption is of particular interest to this dissertation. Edwards believes that most novels, whether written by religious or non-religious writers, follow this pattern. Readers find themselves either on the side of the believing or unbelieving camp in the novels discussed. However, many readers may hover in the liminal space between belief and unbelief. Interpretation depends on many factors that constitute the world view of the reader, hence the plurality of interpretations. / MA (English), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This dissertation focuses on the return and revitalization of traditional Christian themes in contemporary postmodern novels. It offers an examination of how these themes materialize in novels written by writers who are not explicitly religious, or in novels which do not have an overtly religious focus. Some contemporary novels generate a privileged space in which the return of the religious can take place. The sacred is back, not just as a re-enchantment, but manifests itself in fundamentally new and productive ways (Ward, 2001:xv). The first matter under consideration is the fact that the co-existence of belief and unbelief is apparent in all the novels under discussion. As such, the reader as active participant in the novel is bound to be affected by these mutually inter-dependent and inextricably inter-connected sides of a coin. The themes of providence, sacrifice and the miraculous become evident in John Irving‟s A prayer for Owen Meany while the themes of sin, guilt and redemption feature in Ian McEwan‟s Atonement. Secondly, the study compares two novels that deal with the same supernatural phenomena, namely visions, faith healing and stigmata. Jodi Picoult is a non-believer and is the author of Keeping Faith, while Ron Hansen is a devout Catholic who wrote Mariëtte in ecstasy. These works, on the one hand, create a space for supernatural phenomena even though fiction cannot prove the reality of their existence. Postmodern people seem to have a definite longing for the miraculous and these novels seem to satisfy that yearning. On the other hand, both novels portray disbelief in the miraculous while subtly allowing room for characters or readers in a liminal space between belief and disbelief. The theories of Jean François Lyotard and specifically his notion of “incredulity towards metanarratives” provide a framework to explore this matter. Lyotard proposes “petit recits” or many small stories instead of the grand narratives. He contends that there is no objective knowledge and that narrative and scientific knowledge are subject to legitimization. The Christian story therefore needs no scientific basis as justification, which means that it is being newly considered after the mistrust created during the Enlightenment period. Gianteresio Vattimo‟s ideas on the role of religion in contemporary life and the possible convergences of postmodernity and the Christian faith also come into play. He advocates weak thought as opposed to strong thought and sees caritas (charity or neighbourly love) as essential. This concept of weak thought allows for plurality and tolerance. Vattimo sees Christ‟s kenosis (self-emptying) as essentially linked to a secularization in which humankind needs to retrace the path to the original Biblical message of love. Emphasis is on a non-doctrinal, anti-dogmatic spirituality and this manifests in the novels discussed. This study employs diverse reader-response theories to gauge the reaction of the reader to texts containing Biblical themes and supernatural phenomena. Stanley Fish‟s interpretive communities and Wolfgang Iser‟s implied reader are helpful and Michael Edwards‟s pattern of sin, the fall and redemption is of particular interest to this dissertation. Edwards believes that most novels, whether written by religious or non-religious writers, follow this pattern. Readers find themselves either on the side of the believing or unbelieving camp in the novels discussed. However, many readers may hover in the liminal space between belief and unbelief. Interpretation depends on many factors that constitute the world view of the reader, hence the plurality of interpretations. / MA (English), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

本論文研究伊恩．麥克尤恩的《贖罪》、《愛無可忍》及《星期六》這三部小說中的同情與想像力。第一章仔細爬梳亞當．史密斯的哲學文本《道德情感論》，並闡述幾個重要概念如同情與想像力、公正觀察者的角色、同情與戲劇性質、及同情與敘事。第二章運用史密斯的同情與想像力的概念來檢視《贖罪》這部小說，並指出布萊妮最初反映了史密斯式的同情概念，但在她贖罪的過程中，她實踐了自我反省及自我批判的另一層次的同情。第三章從演化、利他主義及同情的觀點來閱讀《愛無可忍》這部小說。敘述者喬．羅斯所面臨的拯救小孩及保存自己性命的道德兩難彰顯出利他行動與利己行為間的衝突。本章以史密斯的同情概念來解釋小說中約翰．羅根的利他主義，並呈現出同情與利他行為的關連性。本章指出同情並非完全是利他的情感展現，同情實際上包含了利己與利他的動機。第四章檢視《星期六》中同情與敘事的關係，並闡述貝羅安對其病人泰勒伯的同情與泰勒伯透過口述去敘述其在伊拉克所遭遇的苦難具有關連性。本章並分析貝羅安在聆聽黛絲朗誦馬修．阿諾的多佛海灘詩集時所展現的同情與想像力。本章最後聚焦在貝羅安對巴克斯特的同情，並指出貝羅安對巴克斯特的仁慈實際上強化了同情者與被同情者之間微妙的權力關係。 / The dissertation aims to study the concept of sympathy and imagination in Ian McEwan’s three novels Atonement, Enduring Love and Saturday. In the first chapter, Adam Smith’s philosophical text, Theory of Moral Sentiments, is carefully scrutinized. The chapter includes several key ideas such as sympathy and imagination, the role of the impartial spectator, sympathy and its theatrical quality, and sympathy and narratives. In the second chapter, I use Smith’s concept of sympathy and imagination to examine McEwan’s Atonement and propose that Briony’s sympathy at first reflect Smith’s model of sympathy, but in the process of her atoning for her crime, Briony achieves a new level of sympathy which is more self-reflected and self-critical. Chapter Three reads Enduring Love from the perspective of evolution, altruism and sympathy. The narrator Joe Rose’s moral dilemma between saving the child and preserving his own life dramatizes the conflict between altruistic actions and self-interested behaviors. Smith’s idea of sympathy is employed to account for John Logan’s altruism and the connection between sympathy and altruistic acts is then presented. The chapter shows that sympathy is not an other-oriented emotion but a sentiment that contains both self-interested and other-interested motives. Chapter Four looks at the relation between sympathy and narratives, and demonstrates how Perowne’s sympathy to his patient Taleb is related to Taleb’s oral report of suffering in Iraq. It then analyzes Perowne’s sympathy and imagination during Daisy’s recitation of Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach. The final section focuses on Perowne’s sympathetic sentiments to Baxter, arguing that Perowne’s benevolence to Baxter only highlights the subtle power relationship between the sympathizer and the sympathized.

This thesis provides a theory of exceptional sex through close readings of contemporary novels by male British and American writers. I take as my overriding methodological approach Giorgio Agamben’s theory of the state of exception, which is a juridico-political state in which the law has been suspended and the difference between rule and transgression is indistinguishable. Within this state, the spatiotemporal markers inside and outside also become indeterminable, making it impossible to tell whether one is inside or outside time and space. Using this framework, I work through narratives of sexual interaction – On Chesil Beach, Gertrude and Claudius, Sabbath’s Theater, and The Act of Love – to conceptualise categories of sexual exceptionality. My study is not a survey, and the texts have been chosen as they focus on different sexual behaviours, thereby opening up a variety of sexual exceptionalities. I concentrate on male writers and narratives of heterosexual sex as most work on sex, time and space is comprised of feminist readings of literature by women and queer work on gay, lesbian or trans writers and narratives. However, in the Coda I expand my argument by turning to Emma Donoghue’s Room, which, as the protagonist has been trapped for the first five years of his life, provides a tabula rasa’s perspective of exceptionality. Through my analysis of exceptionality, I provide spatiotemporal readings of the hymen, incest, adultery, sexual listening and the arranged affair. I also conceptualise textual exceptionalities – the incestuous prequel, auricular reading and the positionality of the narrator, the reader and literary characters. Exceptional sex challenges the assumption in recent queer theory that to be out of time is ‘queer’ and to be in time is ‘straight’. Furthermore, exceptionality complicates the concepts of perversion and transgression as the norm and its transgression become indistinct in the state of exception. In contrast, exceptionality offers a new, more determinate way to analyse narratives of sex.