I explore how the structure of Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible invites the reader to accept narrators’ authority in different ways depending on their temporal situatedness. I examine how a retrospective, extradiegetic perspective contrasts with limited, homodiegetic and intradiegeitc perspectives among female narrators. I analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, as well as how they shape one another. I discuss how the intersection of these voices develops the identity and enhances the authority of each narrator. Kingsolver employs polyvocality to bring female voices out of marginalization in order for readers to hear and respect their testimonies.

Critical Design uses designed artifacts as a critique of consumer culture. However, the complex nature of these artifacts prompted designers to focus on the artifact and present it in an informative, but relatively isolated fashion.The theoretical framework for this thesis is drawn from a similar, yet more recent, design criterion called Design Fiction. The artifacts of Design Fiction are called Diegetic Prototypes: fictional prototypes that function in the social sphere of a film’s structure. This research develops a method for analyzing and creating artifacts, in reference to psychoanalysis theories on the human psyche and perception of objects. It then explores scenarios for presenting these artifacts as diegetic prototypes by exploring and integrating the disciplines of systems/parametric design, digital fabrication, music, animation and film. The scenarios function as micro-narratives. These micro-narratives created through the prototypes will inform the larger narrative structure of the film.

This essay explores the influence of contemporary values in two iterations of the Greek Prometheus myth and argues that the events portrayed in the two texts follow the structure of the myth and that the discourse in the texts shows traces of contemporary moral values. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is used as a starting point, but the focus is on Howard Phillip Lovecraft’s “Herbert West: Reanimator” (1922) as a later iteration of the Prometheus myth.The method for comparison is centred on disassembling the texts in accordance with the instructions found in Mieke Bal’s Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (1997) to form tables of events. The functions of the events found in the Prometheus myth will then be used to sort the events from Lovecraft’s and Shelley’s work to assert focal points for comparing the moral values in the discourse.

Words on a page are insufficient vehicles for complex ideas. When images and words appear together on the page, as in comics, the process of meaning-making through narrative functions more efficiently. Building on this idea, we must establish a “graphic narratology” to understand the process whereby meaning is transmitted. Analysis of narratological conventions, as well as the conventions of mass-market comics, provides a framework for this new narratology.

This study offers a narrative comparison of A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and A Revelation of Love, the two texts created by the first known English woman writer, Julian of Norwich (c. 1343 – c. 1416). It focuses Julian as a storyteller rather than as a theologian, mystic or visionary, concentrating particular on her narrative strategies, that is, on the strategic use of formal narrative features and the changes in these between Vision and Revelation. This dissertation therefore examines Vision and Revelation in terms of three narrative features: plot, characterization and perspective or point of view (termed ‘focalization’ here). These three narrative features are brought into dialogue with Julian’s theology. Three analytical angles help shed more light on Julian’s innovative use of these structures in her works: modern narratology, Middle English literary theory and practice, and the texts’ own literary concepts and self-referential comments. Two central narratological methods are used throughout. The first is to make a distinction between narrator Julian, who tells about the events, and character Julian, who experiences the events. The second is distinguishing several hermeneutic layers or levels of signification in a narrative. Following narratologist Mieke Bal, this discussion distinguishes between fabula (the raw material), story (the content of the text) and text (the linguistic construct). On the basis of this exploration, this study argues that Revelation includes, expands and transforms the narrative structures of Vision, and thereby consciously draws more attention to the structures themselves. At the same time, however, within Revelation a similar narrative reshaping can be seen as between Vision and Revelation. That is, Revelation reshapes its own new narrative structures, in order to hint at God’s greater structure and envelop its own in His. This greatest structure, however, is only glimpsed. As regards these narrative structures, this study argues that linear finite narrative desire driving the plot of Vision is taken up into an endless, greater narrative desire in Revelation, creating a circular plot. At the same time, narrator Julian constructs an omnitemporal, non-sequential plot. Moreover, this analysis shows that the focalization already found in Vision is made more demonstrative in Revelation, while the narrator directs this gaze more towards the apophatic and what is always hidden. Finally, this study explores how many of the characters from Vision are made twofold in Revelation, while Revelation at the same time foreshadows the union this doubleness will achieve at the end of time. Revelation, in short, utilizes Vision’s structures and its own to implode structure.  Julian’s poetics thus is one of continuous developing and enveloping, which allows her to depict God, herself and the reader as characters in each other’s narratives and as participating in each other’s storytelling: she authorizes her own story by making it God’s and the reader’s as well. This more conscious structuring and simultaneous reshaping of the new structure in Revelation forms Julian’s most innovative narrative strategy and the most striking interaction between her art and theology: narrator Julian depicts her own storytelling as simultaneously participating in that of God and foreshadowing God’s ultimate storytelling at the end of time.

This study focuses on the relationship between the author’s narrative craft and the potential for the reader’s empathetic response. Specifically, it discusses how an anachronous narrative structure provides the author with different ways to promote empathy. The discussion of empathy is key in the discussion of narrative craft: great characters are those a reader can empathise with. But the discussion of empathy runs deeper than this, with many scholars turning to the wider effects literature can have on a reader’s moral compass (Nussbaum 1997) and even their real-world behaviour (Keen 2007). This study sets aside the question of how to produce empathy and turns instead to the author’s craft. I have assessed the author’s capability of promoting empathy by building a framework of tools for the author (dubbed The Empathy Toolbox) from several studies conducted by narratology theorists. I have then analysed this in relation to my own work and that of Audrey Niffenegger and Kurt Vonnegut with a particular focus on characterisation and how this is affected by anachrony. This study is of value to all writers of creative fiction, as anachronous timelines can be employed across a breadth of genres using plot devices like flashbacks, flash-forwards and dream sequences. Furthermore, it provides authors with tools to aid their craft and help their work resonate with any reader, not just those that might have a similar background to their protagonist.

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Comment les romans d’Émile Zola parviennent à retenir durablement l’attention du lecteur ? Dans cette étude, nous repérons une des techniques narratives fréquentes chez Zola, l’"annonce", qui laisse entrevoir le dénouement et suscite l’envie d’en vérifier la réalisation et la façon. L’une des caractéristiques de l’annonce dans Les Rougon-Macquart est que son énonciation soit assurée par les personnages secondaires et par les marginaux de la société. De plus, pour étouffer des vérités défavorables à la société, leurs présages sinistres sont souvent déclarés "déraisonnables" et facilement dénigrés. Chez Zola, l’annonce ne concerne pas seulement le fonctionnement narratif, mais incite aussi à jeter un regard sur l’hypocrisie sociale. Les recherches génétiques permettent de voir comment l’auteur a incorporé ce procédé dans la création du roman. Les dossiers préparatoires de L’Assommoir témoignent du processus de la programmation de l’annonciateur-personnage secondaire ; ceux de Pot-Bouille, de l’annonciateur marginal. Mais, dans L’Argent, ces archétypes d’annonciateur vacillent à travers les interventions de la Méchain, tandis que le germe d’un type nouveau apparaît dans la figure de Sigismond. Ce nouveau type d’annonciateur s’imposera dans les derniers cycles. Après la transition des Trois Villes, dans Les Quatre Évangiles, les héros deviennent des évangélistes qui annoncent une société meilleure et en confirment la réalisation. L’annonce consiste alors à proposer un modèle idéal. Ainsi, le système de l’annonce se transforme parallèlement à l’évolution idéologique de l’auteur : de la dénonciation de la société actuelle à la revendication de l’utopie à venir. / How does Émile Zola retain durably the reader’s interest? In this study, we identify one of the author’s frequent narrative techniques: the "announcement", which allows the reader to foresee the outcome, creating both the desire to see if the novel ends as one might have guessed, and the urge to find out how. An essential aspect of announcements in Les Rougon-Macquart is that they are voiced by characters either of secondary importance or belonging to society’s margins. Moreover, their sinister prophecies are often declared "unreasonable" and easily cast aside, in order to throttle the voicing of inopportune truths. Thus, the announcement in Zola’s fiction is not only a narrative issue; it also raises awareness on social hypocrisy. Studying Zola’s manuscripts offers a prime perspective on how the author integrated this process to his novels. His dossier préparatoire for L’Assommoir shows firsthand the programming of the announcement through a secondary character; that of Pot-Bouille shows the same procedure, for a socially marginal character. But in L’Argent, one finds a wavering of these archetypal announcing figures in la Méchain, while Sigismond appears as the sprout of an entirely new type of announcer, which will blossom in the last novelistic series. Indeed, after the transition of Les Trois Villes, the heroes of Les Quatre Évangiles become preachers announcing a better world, and confirming its fruition. The announcement then consists of putting forth an ideal. The system of foretelling therefore undergoes a transformation that parallels the author’s ideological evolution: from the denunciation of current issues to the annunciation of the coming utopia.

Apresenta uma reflexão a respeito das representações sociais e sua importância na construção das memórias virtuais da cidade a partir das informações publicadas por usuários em um aplicativo de celular. Estudo realizado no âmbito do projeto de pesquisa Porto Alegre Imaginada e articula conceitos como informação, representações sociais e memória virtual, a partir de uma perspectiva teórica interdisciplinar. Defende o estudo da cidade a partir das representações que os cidadãos possuem sobre ela, amparadas em suas experiências com o ambiente urbano. Enfatiza o estudo das representações sociais a partir das informações produzidas pelos cidadãos, pois elas são amparadas na memória e marcadas pela subjetividade dos indivíduos. Objetiva compreender como informações produzidas pelos cidadãos no aplicativo Foursquare auxiliam na constituição das representações sobre Porto Alegre e na dinamização das suas memórias. Afirma que, ao produzirem e compartilharem informações sobre a cidade, os cidadãos atuam como narradores do ambiente urbano Analisa as dicas publicadas pelos cidadãos no aplicativo nas páginas de Porto Alegre e do Bom Fim, Centro Histórico, Cidade Baixa, Menino Deus e Moinhos de Vento, que são bairros citados pelos usuários na página da cidade. Pesquisa qualitativa que utiliza a narratologia como método para analisar os temas, os cenários, as personagens, os enredos e as sequências cronológicas que compõem as histórias narradas pelos cidadãos no aplicativo. Constrói mapas para localizar os lugares dos cenários da cidade citados pelos cidadãos nas narrativas. As narrativas formadas pelas dicas dos cidadãos representam uma cidade múltipla e envolta por tensões, embora a memória virtual seja selecionada e enquadrada de acordo com as concepções de cada sujeito. Conclui que o aplicativo dinamiza a memória social e a construção de um imaginário sobre a apropriação do espaço vivido. / It presents a reflection about the social representations and their importance in the construction of the virtual memories of the city from the information published by users in a mobile app. This study was carried out within the scope of the Porto Alegre Imaginada research project and which articulates concepts such as information, social representations and virtual memory, from an interdisciplinary theoretical perspective. It defends the study of the city from the representations that the citizens have on her, supported in their experiences with the urban environment. Emphasizes the study of social representations based on the information produced by citizens, because they are supported in memory and marked by the subjectivity of individuals. It aims to understand how information produced by citizens in the Foursquare app helps in the constitution of representations about Porto Alegre and the dynamization of their memories Afirms that in producing and sharing information about the city, citizens act as narrators of the urban environment. Analyzes the tips published by citizens in the app in the pages of Porto Alegre and Bom Fim, Centro Histórico, Cidade Baixa, Menino Deus and Moinhos de Vento, which are neighborhoods mentioned by users on the city page. Qualitative research that uses narratology as a method to analyze the themes, scenarios, characters, scenarios and chronological sequences that make up the stories narrated by the citizens in the app. Constructs maps to locate the places of the city's scenarios cited by the citizens in the narratives. The narratives formed by the tips of the citizens represent a multiple city and surrounded by tensions, although the virtual memory is selected and framed according to the conceptions of each subject. Concludes that the app dynamizes the social memory and the construction of an imaginary about an appropriation of the lived space.

The episode framework of the Kaiserchronik is as much a semanticising structure as the chronicle’s content. If treated analogous to Hayden White’s analysis of annals the conceptual continuity of the Roman Empire as the object of narration becomes all the more clearer. The episodes are used as pegs for a wide selection of historical narratives, which are decontextualised and presented unmoored from its traditional semantic environment. Only its place in the continuous succession of emperor episodes imbues them with historical meaning. The mobility of these episodes, however, is limited as two dimensions emerge within which the chronicle does have to negotiate qualitative change which translates into historical difference and not only distance as the episode framework produces it. Next to its axial episode paradigm the Kaiserchronik also employs rhetorics as a tool to create distance. This however happens mainly to distance itself from an unspecified group of other texts. The Kaiserchronik aims to polemicise against those text which don’t share its ideas about poetic artefactuality and composition. The transformation of the Roman Empire from a pagan into a Christian one is one of the essential threads of the Kaiserchronik. The gradual substitution of the polytheistic worship of demons disguised as gods with Christian monotheism is the driving motivator behind the selection of much of the narrative material up until Constantine and Theodosius. The aim here is not to device a teleological salvation historical trajectory but to negotiate the qualitative change of religious identity in the conceptually unchanged Roman Empire. This means that Christianity even after its assertion always remains vulnerable. While the Roman Empire always remains Roman, the perspective on it and its rulers changes significantly. Even when the Roman Empire is ruled by Roman emperors the chronicle opportunistically latches on to several opportunities to emphasis the historical closeness of the Germans or of discrete German peoples to the body and history of the Roman Empire. This is especially poignant during the Caesar episode, which sees the inauguration of the Empire as an imperial genealogy and in the Charlemagne episode, which marks the switch of perspective from an internally and essentially Roman one to a transalpine on, which, however, never fully asserts a fully conceptualised Germanness.