Thesis (M.A.)--University of the Witwatersrand, 1999. / In this study I will examine two texts by the Congolese author Sony Labou Tansi, namely The Seven Solitudes of Lorsa Lopez and Parenthesis of Blood. The aim of the research is to examine how and why the author uses techniques of allegory and magic realism instead of realism in his work. By closely examining the two texts and with the help of comparisons with his other works, I intend to show that the world he is representing is too fabulous to be rendered in a realistic manner. The use of allegory and irony in the text is a strategy that helps the author to challenge the oppression and despair in his society. The issue of gender is also important in both texts, therefore, I will examine how Labou Tansi portrays women in his works. I will do this by comparing his presentation of women to other female characters found in African canonical works by male writers.

Descended from Celtic goddesses and the fairies of folklore, the literary character of Morgan le Fay has been most commonly perceived as a witch and a one-dimensional villainess who plagues King Arthur and his court, rather than recognized as the legendary King’s enchanted healer and otherworldly guardian. Too often the complexity of Morgan le Fay and her supernatural abilities are lost, her character neglected as peripheral. As a literary figure of imaginative design this thesis explores Morgan le Fay as a unique “window” into the medieval mindset, whereby one can recover both medieval understandings of magic and female magicians. By analyzing her role in key sources from the twelfth to fifteenth century, this thesis uses Morgan le Fay to recover nuanced perceptions of the supernatural in medieval England that embraced the ambiguity of a pagan past and remained insulated from continental constructions of demonic witchcraft. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis--Universität München, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 467-496)

Thesis (MA (Visual Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

M.A. (English) / The main focus of study in this dissertation is the magic realism of Isabel Allende as it pertains to gender politics, specifically in the oppressive fascist regime of revolutionary Chile at the time at which her novels are set. Her narrative technique is identified and related to the environment of which she writes, with a view to associating it with the gender aspect of politics. The socio-political climate in Chile, certainly in the decades ot the 1960s and 1970s, incorporated elements of fascism, oppression and sexism: Allende successfully adapts most of her female characters to the revolution and its effects ...

This research provides an analytical reading of four contemporary novels, in a transcultural study of magical realism and dreams. Two of the novels, Ben Okri's The Famished Road and its sequel Songs of Enchantment, examine dreams through magical realism in postcolonial African literature. The third novel, Toni Morrison's Beloved, is used to depict the use of memory within an African-American magical realist novel. And the fourth narrative is Irvine Welsh's Marabou Stork Nightmares, which focuses on the use of hallucination within what can be seen as a magical realist mode. The analysis of these novels examines certain aspects of magical realism, including the use of the subconscious, focusing primarily on dream, memory and hallucination. In examining this topic, I aim to suggest that the use of the subconscious, within this literature, allows the writer to comment on a particular society. As can be seen in previous studies of magical realism, the writer is able to express his or her dissatisfaction with society by destabilising conventionally accepted truths. A writer can therefore convey a sense that the surface of a particular culture or society is a facade, disguising certain hidden truths, which require a more in depth examination, in order to more fully understand the workings behind that society. The subconscious works to reveal these hidden realities, and is therefore a mode of resistance in that it allows the writers an avenue through which to express their dissatisfaction with their particular society. This is achieved through the exploring and deconstruction of certain boundaries within the novels which, along with several other factors, essentially concords the magical realism inherent in these texts. It is additionally enhanced through the use of the device of the subconscious, which allows the writers to transgress borders, and further explore their particular cultures. Through the use of novels from various contemporary societies, I hope to establish the fact that the subconscious, and therefore magical realism, is a transcultural technique, in that it traverses a multitude of cultures, without being specific to any one in particular. While the use of dreams requires a culture specific interpretation, the use of the subconscious in this literature can be seen as a global technique of expressing dissatisfaction within these societies. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

Both historiographical and literary practices have undergone revision in recent years in attempting to address the inheritance of nineteenth-century realism. Since the object of realist stylistics, employed in both the writing of fiction and history, is to render authorship authoritative or even invisible, the ideological import of these narratives is often such that the constructedness of the historical record and its absences are veiled. In developments beginning in the 1980s with the advent of ‘New Historicism’ and with the emergence of postmodern literary techniques, the interface of literature and history became of seminal importance, since both were now credited as being products of narrative and discourse, and hence, to varying degrees, of the literary imagination. This movement intersects interestingly with developments in postcolonial studies, since it is the voices of the marginalized and disempowered colonized peoples that are routinely co-opted and excised from nineteenth-century realist histories. These concerns are now being fully explored in the literature of the contemporary post-transitional South African moment, since authors in this country seemingly now feel freed up to look back to histories that precede the immediate traumas of apartheid. The concern, in relation to apartheid developments but also on a broader universal scale, is this: if history is viewed as perpetual emergences of modernities, then one of the great absences in the record is the historical determinants of any given epistemology. The attempt to recreate such an epistemological genealogy is thus simultaneously postcolonial, historiographical, and literary. Russel Brownlee’s Garden of the Plagues (2005), Ingrid Winterbach’s To Hell with Cronjé (2010), and Etienne van Heerden’s The Long Silence of Mario Salviati (2002) attempt to bridge this gap in the recorded sensibilities of any historical moment by representing a ‘lived experience’ of the past, and in the process imaginatively recreating the cultural, historical and psychological locations of the proponents of an emerging modernity. This study concerns itself with the ways in which these authors address the influence of realist historiography through the use of literary innovations that allow for the departure from realist stylistics. Most commonly, all three authors draw on forms of magic realism, but multiple refigurings and recombinations of notions of temporality, narrative, and characterization likewise work to defamiliarize the once stable discourse of history.

Text in Afrikaans / In hierdie studie word die verbandhoudende teoretiese begrippe van trans-liggaamlikheid, kriptosoölogie en dieresiele ondersoek met verwysing na drie magies-realistiese Afrikaanse romans, naamlik Kikoejoe (Etienne van Heerden, 1996), Die olifantjagters (Piet van Rooyen, 1997) en Dwaalpoort (Alexander Strachan, 2010). Die gewaande dualisme tussen kultuur en natuur word in die tekste bevraagteken en vrye interaksie tussen biologiese, klimatologiese, ekonomiese en politieke magte vind plaas in die onderskeie romanruimtes. Die toenemende druk op die omgewing word uitgebeeld en in hierdie opsig sluit die romans aan by ʼn eietydse tendens in die (Afrikaanse) letterkunde waar die klem op ekologiese kwessies val. Hierdie drie kontemporêre romans reflekteer voorts die komplekse interaksie tussen menslike en niemenslike diere en kan beskou word as dierenarratiewe (met ’n mitiese onderbou) waar tradisionele beskouings oor diere in die samelewing deurentyd ondermyn word. / In this research report, related theoretical concepts such as transcorporeality, cryptozoology and animal souls will be explored with reference to the magic-realistic Afrikaans novels Kikoejoe (Etienne van Heerden, 1996), Die olifantjagters (Piet van Rooyen, 1997) and Dwaalpoort (Alexander Strachan, 2010). The perceived dualism of nature versus culture is undermined in the respective novels and the environment is exposed as a space where the interaction between biological, climatological, economical and political forces takes place freely. The novels portray the increasing demands on the environment and in this respect these texts become representative of a current trend in (Afrikaans) literature to reflect ecological issues. The three contemporary novels further reflect the complex interaction between human and nonhuman animals and can be described as animal narratives (underpinned by myths) where traditional perspectives on animals in society are constantly subverted. / Afrikaans and Theory of Literature / M.A. (Afrikaans)

Text in Afrikaans / In hierdie studie word die verbandhoudende teoretiese begrippe van trans-liggaamlikheid, kriptosoölogie en dieresiele ondersoek met verwysing na drie magies-realistiese Afrikaanse romans, naamlik Kikoejoe (Etienne van Heerden, 1996), Die olifantjagters (Piet van Rooyen, 1997) en Dwaalpoort (Alexander Strachan, 2010). Die gewaande dualisme tussen kultuur en natuur word in die tekste bevraagteken en vrye interaksie tussen biologiese, klimatologiese, ekonomiese en politieke magte vind plaas in die onderskeie romanruimtes. Die toenemende druk op die omgewing word uitgebeeld en in hierdie opsig sluit die romans aan by ʼn eietydse tendens in die (Afrikaanse) letterkunde waar die klem op ekologiese kwessies val. Hierdie drie kontemporêre romans reflekteer voorts die komplekse interaksie tussen menslike en niemenslike diere en kan beskou word as dierenarratiewe (met ’n mitiese onderbou) waar tradisionele beskouings oor diere in die samelewing deurentyd ondermyn word. / In this research report, related theoretical concepts such as transcorporeality, cryptozoology and animal souls will be explored with reference to the magic-realistic Afrikaans novels Kikoejoe (Etienne van Heerden, 1996), Die olifantjagters (Piet van Rooyen, 1997) and Dwaalpoort (Alexander Strachan, 2010). The perceived dualism of nature versus culture is undermined in the respective novels and the environment is exposed as a space where the interaction between biological, climatological, economical and political forces takes place freely. The novels portray the increasing demands on the environment and in this respect these texts become representative of a current trend in (Afrikaans) literature to reflect ecological issues. The three contemporary novels further reflect the complex interaction between human and nonhuman animals and can be described as animal narratives (underpinned by myths) where traditional perspectives on animals in society are constantly subverted. / Afrikaans and Theory of Literature / M.A. (Afrikaans)