This paper analyzes Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (1991), and more specifically, the protagonist-narrator Patrick Bateman. He is analyzed through the theoretical framework known as narratology, and more specifically, the designation of “unreliable narrator,” in order to analyze the interplay between the character and the postmodernist society of which he is a product. This paper also uses the critical approach of close reading as a method. Close reading will be used in order to analyze Bateman and his narration. This essay will argue that in American Psycho, the protagonist-narrator Bateman’s loss of control over reality is described as arising because of how postmodern society works to fit people into a mould and remove individuality. Bateman displays the excesses of the 1980s, and he conforms to the expectations of postmodern society, which emphasizes consumerism and trends but no substance. He lives in a postmodern society that highlights materialism, consumerism, and reality versus hyperreality. He tries to find his identity, away from superficiality and wealth, but fails. He takes out his frustration on people who are in a lower social class than him, and he murders and tortures his victims as a result. Bateman does not only live like someone out of a magazine, but he also copies serial killers, but: he has no real identity or even original method of murder. Bateman takes on an identity as a serial killer and imitates their crimes. He finds himself torn between the postmodern reality and the reality he creates in his mind.

Abstract Both Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) and Bridget Jones’s Diary (Helen Fielding) have been thoroughly examined by literary critics. When discussed from a feminist perspective, critics are ambiguous as some claim that the novels work against feminist values rather than the reverse. This essay aims to add to the existing discussion, with focus on narration, specifically the narrative authority heroines Elizabeth and Bridget claim. Thus, it is situated within feminist narratology, examining the discourse of the narrative rather than the story. Analysis is conducted with Alison Case’s concept feminine narration, where women traditionally have been narrative witnesses without authority. Through acts of plotting and preaching, authority is claimed by which the narrator can control the meaning the reader is meant to derive from the narrative. I argue that Elizabeth and Bridget both assert narrative authority throughout their stories, thus breaking gendered conventions by claiming agency in traditionally male positions. Additionally, the comparative analysis enables discussion on “Chick lit” literary status, which has been questioned by critics.             Analysis shows that both Elizabeth and Bridget assert narrative authority throughout their stories, by acts of plotting and preaching. Often, both heroines meet male characters attempting to usurp narrative authority by assuming the role of master-narrator, a figure who traditionally possesses more authority. By avoiding these attempts, Elizabeth and Bridget escape the position as narrative witnesses and claim authority, thus directing the readers towards the intended meaning of respective narratives. Furthermore, the comparative analysis opens up for a broader discussion of issues women have faced, and continue to face, throughout time.

This essay explores the character development of Ronan Lynch in Maggie Stiefvater's The Dream Thieves (2013) with the intention of showing the process of self-acceptance through the narratological concepts character and characterization as well as Young Adult literature research focused on coming-of-age in terms of self-discovery and sexual identity. It was found that Ronan does reach self-acceptance. In terms of characterization, this can be seen through his relationships with other characters and his role in the narrative. When it comes to coming-of-age, his self-acceptance is seen through his self-discovery in regards to sexuality, and especially through his identity construction in relation to his supernatural ability.

This thesis deals with the analysis of the British author's China Miéville's literary debut King Rat. For the analysis, I used especially semiotically/semiologically oriented narratology, the thesis therefore draws especially from the methods used in Roland Barthese's, Tzvetan Todorov's and Lubomír Doležel's works. It also uses methods of Gérard Genette, Seymour Chatman and Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan. I analysed categories from the domain of narratology, specifically: the narrator, story, characters, space (surroundings) and the time.

The aim of this thesis is to study literature education using a tabletop role-playing game (TRPG) and in particular which knowledge about narratives that role-players have potential to develop during game sessions. In addition, the objective is to explore the use of the informal learning environment characterised by the TRPG medium, and provide suggestions on how teachers in Swedish upper secondary school can incorporate and further develop narrative knowledge in formal literature education. The empirical material consists of the Swedish TRPG Symbaroum – Rollspelet by Mattias Johnsson and Mattias Lilja (2018) and the tutorial adventure ’Det förlovade landet’. The analysis is based on theories on defining narrative in linear and interactive fiction, literature theory on aesthetic response and the unfinished text, and how participative narratives are created in participatory cultures. The results show that the empirical material provides a framework for a distinct plot based on a set of key events, and in order to actualize this plot the players must fill the gaps and connect the key events with intentional, narrative substance. This participative activity requires that players use their existing narrative knowledge to expand and explore the Symbaroum text universe, and can constitute an environment for narrative knowledge development and acquisition. The study also shows that literature education in Swedish upper secondary school, with inspiration from the completed study, has the potential to highlight the students role as narrative creators and promote participatory learning and creativity.

The Romantic era, from roughly the middle of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, was a period of rapid and revolutionary social change. Progressing in parallel was the form of the novel, which rose from relative disrepute to the foremost literary genre. While neither a prolific writer nor one that was very popular during her lifetime, I argue that Jane Austen and her inimitable style can be figured at the nexus of these two transitions. This dissertation presents a comprehensive study of Austen’s style across her body of work, from her early manuscripts through her published novels and ending with her unfinished draft. Using historical, digital, sociological, and narratological methods, I interrogate Austen’s style on three interrelated levels—moving from the most insular effects to the broadest applications of her narrative technique. First, I explore the progression of Austen’s style across her canon, particularly focusing on the development and maturation of her free indirect discourse. Second, I locate Austen’s style in the evolution of the novel. I begin with constructing her literary lineage, which I argue is tied to female writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and move towards understanding how her use of free indirect discourse was necessary for the emergence of the novel’s modern form. Third, I consider Austen’s style as a means of imagining and critiquing the changing social spaces of her contemporary moment, specifically in terms of how the layered vocality of her narrative technique reflected Britain’s movement from the rigid structures of rank and honour to the fluid categories of class and dignity. / Graduate

Victorians frequently conflated body and text by using terms of medical diagnosis to talk about literature and, in turn, literary terms to talk about the body. In light of this conflation, this dissertation focuses on the intersection between narrative form and disability in nineteenth-century fiction and interrogates how the shape of Victorian fiction both informed and reflected the era’s developing notions of disability. Examining this intersection of body and text in several genres and across seven decades, from Frederic Shoberl’s 1832 English translation of Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris to Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Crooked Man” (1893) from the Sherlock Holmes series, I show how the structural forms of these works reveal that disability’s conceptualization during the Victorian era was frequently dialogic, incongruously understood as both deviant and commonplace. My research thus contributes to our understanding of disability’s complex development as a concept, one that did not immediately or irrevocably marginalize people, but rather struggled to negotiate the limits, capabilities, and meanings of bodies in a rapidly changing culture. / Graduate / 2020-04-19

This thesis examines the semiotic experiences in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury from a reader perspective by analyzing in what ways sensorial gesamtkunstwerk is used to convey or evoke sensations that appeal to the reader on a cognitive level. Drawing from Marco Caracciolo’s theories on experientiality which operate under the assumption that an evoked feeling from a text is dependent on the reader’s familiarity with their emotions and senses, this thesis claims that the bridge between narratological (textual) experiences and the reader’s experiences in the novel is made possible through sensorial aesthetics that appeal to our sensory modalities and that operate in a gestalt fashion to form a sensorial gesamtkunstwerk. Upon closer analysis, the experientiality in The Sound and the Fury is not only evoked by sensory modalities operating as a sensorial gesamtkunstwerk that draws on the reader’s cognitive and sensorial familiarity as is suggested by Caracciolo, but the analysis also exposes a narratological gesamtkunstwerk that operates at an intratextual level and which is only manifested when the novel is examined holistically. Containing differently perceived semiotic experiences, collectively, the differently narrated sections complement one another in such a way that they, too, synthesize into a gesamtkunstwerk that is dependent upon each section to fully operate.

The voices of the autodiegetic narrator and its character counterpart in Boy Erased: A Memoir by Garrard Conley enter the debate around the ontology of voice in literary texts. Using this debate, I will provide an analysis of the voices in this memoir in order to prove the importance of assuming a voice for the narrator, to compensate for speech silenced through discourses and social contexts. The social contexts and discourses that surround the main character silence his speech, to the point that it can be actively used to control even the private self, as gay conversion therapy tries to do. This dangerous silence leads to a need to finally be heard, which is provided through the ontologically silent voice of the narrator. This evolvement of the character to the narrator is the reason why voice and the way it allows for heard speech is essential.

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