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1	Reconfigurations of the American Sublime in the Fiction of Joan Didion, Don DeLillo and Paul Auster Collins, James 10 1900 (has links) <p>This dissertation examines the fiction of three contemporary American writers – Joan Didion, Don DeLillo and Paul Auster – who interrogate the legacy of the American sublime in its contemporary configurations and reconfigurations. The texts that I have selected by each writer dramatize and question how and why the American sublime remains a fundamental way for American culture to conceptualize power as an expression of American identity and progress. In turn, what each text conveys is the destructive consequences that often follow with investing natural phenomena, technology, cultural sites and practices with power that elicits the particular qualities of awe and terror unique to the American sublime. Above all, these texts illuminate why American culture continues to produce, reproduce and popularize experiences and images of sublimity within cultural sites, practices, art and literature.</p> <p>Moreover, by emphasizing that these texts locate the American sublime as a culturally produced experience, my analysis develops from – but also departs from – the most recent book-length studies of the sublime and American fiction. The work of scholars such as Barbara Claire Freeman, Joseph Tabbi and Christope Den Tandt who have considered the sublime in relation to gender, technology and urban landscapes complement my approach to the cultural impact of the American sublime in the fiction of Didion, DeLillo and Auster. At the same time, my examination of the ways in which their fiction accounts for the dissemination of the American sublime through art and literature as well as popular culture, brings to the forefront an important feature each text shares – the possibility that art might contest – rather than reinscribe – traditional configurations or reconfigurations of American sublimity.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Play It As It Lays Democracy White Noise Underworld In the Country of Last Things Moon Palace American Literature American Literature
2	Paul Auster's representation of invisible characters in selected novels Gous, Joané Facqueline January 2012 (has links) In this dissertation I argue that invisible characters, as they appear in Paul Auster’s novels, serve a very specific function within the interpretative framework of a text and that they should be considered to play a functional role, in order to arrive at a more holistic interpretation of the text and a more accurate analysis of said texts. I argue that Auster knowingly includes these characters in his novels as part of his narrative technique, in order for them to serve specific functions and to contribute to the structure of postmodern fiction. I make use of a contextualized close reading of five of Auster’s novels and attempt a hermeneutic interpretation of these novels to arrive at a hermeneutic circle when combining these novels into an integrated whole, individual, work of fiction. Certain parallels can be drawn between Auster’s various novels and these parallels contribute to the various motifs and themes found throughout his work. The importance of space in Auster’s novels is also highlighted with emphasis on liminality which serves as an instigator for transgression to occur between different fictive worlds. / Thesis (MA (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013. Paul Auster Postmodernism Liminality Identity Characterization Metafiction Invisible Silence Focalization Author Reader Time and memory Worlds and space Mystery Games Choices and responsibilities The New York Trilogy In the Country of Last Things Moon Palace The Book of Illusions Travels in the Scriptorium Postmodernisme Liminaliteit Identiteit Karakterisering Metafiksie Onsigbaarheid Stilte Fokalisasie Outeur Leser Wêrelde en ruimte Tyd en geheue Misterie Spel Keuses en verantwoordelikheid
3	Paul Auster's representation of invisible characters in selected novels Gous, Joané Facqueline January 2012 (has links) In this dissertation I argue that invisible characters, as they appear in Paul Auster’s novels, serve a very specific function within the interpretative framework of a text and that they should be considered to play a functional role, in order to arrive at a more holistic interpretation of the text and a more accurate analysis of said texts. I argue that Auster knowingly includes these characters in his novels as part of his narrative technique, in order for them to serve specific functions and to contribute to the structure of postmodern fiction. I make use of a contextualized close reading of five of Auster’s novels and attempt a hermeneutic interpretation of these novels to arrive at a hermeneutic circle when combining these novels into an integrated whole, individual, work of fiction. Certain parallels can be drawn between Auster’s various novels and these parallels contribute to the various motifs and themes found throughout his work. The importance of space in Auster’s novels is also highlighted with emphasis on liminality which serves as an instigator for transgression to occur between different fictive worlds. / Thesis (MA (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013. Paul Auster Postmodernism Liminality Identity Characterization Metafiction Invisible Silence Focalization Author Reader Time and memory Worlds and space Mystery Games Choices and responsibilities The New York Trilogy In the Country of Last Things Moon Palace The Book of Illusions Travels in the Scriptorium Postmodernisme Liminaliteit Identiteit Karakterisering Metafiksie Onsigbaarheid Stilte Fokalisasie Outeur Leser Wêrelde en ruimte Tyd en geheue Misterie Spel Keuses en verantwoordelikheid

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