Thèse (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2000. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.

This collection of short stories studies the elements of genre fiction and applies them to literary fiction. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror have specific manners in which they speak to an audience. By using these elements, for example the desensitization of the current generation of readers to most horrors, an author can demonstrate the core of the human relationship to pain, faith, or hope. Though some genre fiction seems to fit certain formulas, there are also horror or science fiction stories which do not fit a conventional mold. This collection sets forth to break away from genre fiction conventions. Also, this project utilizes the genre of magical realism, which is the medium between genre fiction and literary fiction, by using fantastic events within a mundane setting to emphasize the author's ideas. By bridging the gap between genres, magical realism reveals how interrelated the elements of all genres are. In this study stories use magical and horrifying events while maintaining an intention beyond the formulaic thrill. Therefore, genre fiction can have a place amongst literature. / Department of English

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-03T11:52:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2013-04-24Bitstream added on 2015-03-03T12:06:29Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000805830.pdf: 489721 bytes, checksum: 67cb9938f91ea5f8da614f845f0093bf (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / A literatura de Murilo Rubião, introdutora do insólito no Brasil, abriga temas essenciais para a compreensão da modernidade brasileira do século XX. Analisar o sobrenatural em sua obra implica ainda examinar temas referentes à condição humana, que envolvem necessariamente a relação texto/contexto e também observar como isso é veiculado na narrativa em termos de representação. Tendo como pressuposto o relevante papel do escritor no seu contexto social e a importância da criação literária quando considerada a partir de certas necessidades de representação do mundo, nosso intuito com a pesquisa é problematizar a construção formal do insólito na ficção do autor, utilizando as acepções do neofantástico, realismo mágico e do absurdo, na direção de um diálogo entre os gêneros. Desta forma, a pesquisa tem por finalidade a análise da estruturação dos elementos insólitos como mecanismo de representação simbólica do homem moderno, em seis contos do autor, observando as especificidades do contexto histórico em que se situam as narrativas. A saber, os contos selecionados para a análise são: “O ex-mágico da Taberna Minhota”, “O pirotécnico Zacarias”, “Teleco, o coelhinho”, “Os dragões”, “O edifício” e “A cidade”. O embasamento teórico para o trabalho é composto de ensaios críticos sobre o autor como os de Arrigucci Jr, Jorge Schwartz, Nelly Novaes Coelho, José Paulo Paes, entre outros. Também fazem parte do embasamento, estudos sobre o fantástico, o neofantástico, o realismo mágico e o absurdo, como os de Tzvetan Todorov, Jean Paul Sartre, Jaime Alazraki, David Roas, William Spindler e Martin Esslin. Além disso, são utilizadas proposições teóricas sobre as categorias da narrativa como as de Gérard Genette / Murilo Rubião’s literature, pioneer of the uncommon in Brazil, contain essential themes for understanding the Brazilian modernity of the twentieth century. Analyzing the supernatural in his work also involves examining issues related to the human condition, which necessarily involve the relationship text / context and also observe how it is conveyed in the narrative in terms of representation. Assuming the relevant role of the writer in his social context and the importance of literary creation when seen from certain requirements of representing the world, our aim with the study is to discuss the construction of the formal neofantastic, magical realism and absurd in the author fiction, toward a dialogue between genres. Thus, the research main objective is to analyze the structure of the uncommon elements as mechanisms for symbolic representation of the modern man, in six tales of the author, observing the specificities of the modern context in which the narratives are situated. Namely, the stories selected for analysis are: “O ex-mágico da Taberna Minhota”, “O pirotécnico Zacarias”, “Teleco, o coelhinho”, “Os dragões”, “O edifício” e “A cidade”. The theoretical basis for the work is composed of critical essays about the author such as Arrigucci Jr, Jorge Schwartz, Nelly Novaes Coelho, José Paulo Paes, among others. Also, part of the fantastic, magical realism and absurd’s studies, such as Tzvetan Todorov, Jean Paul Sartre, Jaime Alazraki, David Roas, William Spindler and Martin Esslin. Moreover, theoretical propositions are used on categories of narrative such as Gérard Genette

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.

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)