This study sets out from the premise that the fantastic, in the hands of the women writers with feminist awareness,can be used as a tool to subvert patriarchal gender roles that are culturally constructed. The dissertation aims at analysing the fantastic novels by Angela Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and Nights at the Circus, and by Jeannette Winterson, The Passion and The.PowerBook as examples in which the transgression of gender roles is achieved through the use of fantastic images. The analysis of the fantastic images in these novels is confined to the definitions by Tzetvan Todorov and Rosemary Jackson. The study asserts that through an efficient use of the fantastic mode, both Carter and Winterson negate culturally dominant notions of reality, whereby they resist the cultural constructions of gender. Within the framework of this dissertation, some concepts like the New Woman, historiographic metafiction, the lesbian continuum and compulsory heterosexualism are also studied where they become indispensable to the role that the fantastic images play. Thus, this study identifies each fantastic image in the novels studied with its possible cultural and political implications so that the &ldquo / un-seen&rdquo / of the culture, a term suggested by Jackson, can be seen. In other words, the study concentrates on the subversive nature of the fantastic images so as to see the ways in which the rigid boundaries of the gender roles in patriarchy can be transgressed

This study approaches parody as a multifarious literary form that has assumed diverse forms and functions throughout history. The study handles this diversity by classifying parody according to its objects of imitation. Three major parodic kinds are specified: parody directed at texts and personal styles, parody directed at genre, and parody directed at discourse. In the light of this classification, this study argues that different literary-historical periods in Britain have witnessed the prevalence of different kinds of parody &amp / #8211 / a phenomenon that may be accounted for mainly through the dominant literary, cultural, social, and ideological characteristics of each period. Although all periods from the Middle Ages to the present are considered in this regard, the study attributes a special significance to the postmodern age, where parody has become not only an essential area of inquiry but also a highly popular and widely produced literary form. In line with this emphasis, the study contends further that postmodern parody is primarily discourse parody. It argues, in other words, that discourse is the most essential target of parody during the postmodern age &amp / #8211 / a phenomenon which can again be explained through the major concerns of postmodernism as a movement. In addition to situating parody and its kinds in a historical context, then, this study engages in a detailed analysis of parody in the postmodern age, preparing the ground at the same time for making an informed assessment of the direction parody in general and its kinds in particular may take in the near future.

This study carries out both a technical and a thematic analysis of the novels by Albert Camus, L&amp / #8217 / Etranger, La Peste, and La Chute, and Samuel Beckett, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. In the technical analysis of the novels, the study explores the differences in characterization and narrative technique. It argues that the differences in these two issues mainly emerge from the difference in the two authors&amp / #8217 / views of art. In the thematic analysis, on the other hand, the study focuses on the recurring themes in the two authors&amp / #8217 / novels. It argues that Camus and Beckett explore similar themes in their novels because both writers belong to the absurd tradition. In other words, although their notions of art are different, their views of the human condition are quite similar, which is reflected in the common themes they explore in their novels.

This thesis analyzes the ways how David Herbert Lawrence advocates sexual politics in his novels The Lost Girl and The Plumed Serpent. The thesis argues that although D.H. Lawrence portrays modern women&amp / #8217 / s search for identity in The Lost Girl and The Plumed Serpent, his attitude is that of a very conventional man who advertises his male fantasies through female characters / and the gender role that he finally assigns to women is unquestioning submissiveness to male authority. The power relations between sexes and the depiction of modern woman in both novels are analyzed as propagandas of patriarchy. This thesis makes use of feminist reading which requires analyses of texts with reference to behavioral codes that are incorporated in the novels and to the systematic patriarchal propaganda which is imposed through textual strategies. The reason for choosing this method of analysis for the present study is to trace the ways in which sexual politics operate within the novels The Lost Girl and The Plumed Serpent by D.H. Lawrence.

This thesis studies Peter Shaffer&rsquo / s use of time as a technique for creating alienation effect. In order to provide the audience with a questioning role, Shaffer primarily employs historical and mythical past as elements of pastness in the Brechtian sense. Shaffer also innovatively contributes to the formation of alienation effect with spatial time achieved through the coexistence of past and present. Distancing the audience in time, the playwright leads them to adopt a critical viewpoint so that they can question and reflect upon the psychological and metaphysical themes such as search for worship, existential disintegration and the eternal conflict between reason and instinct in his plays The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Yonadab, and The Gift of the Gorgon.

The aim of this dissertation is to study postmodern historical novels, which are labeled &ldquo / historiographic metafictions&rdquo / (Hutcheon 1989: 92), in terms of their allowing for different voices and alternative, plural histories by subverting the historical documents and events that they refer to. The study analyzes texts from feminist and postcolonial literature, Jeanette Winterson&rsquo / s The Passion and Sexing the Cherry, and Salman Rushdie&rsquo / s Midnight&rsquo / s Children and Shame as examples in which the transgression of boundaries between fact and fiction is achieved. Basing its arguments on postmodern understanding of history, the thesis puts forward that historiography not only represents past events but it also gives meaning to them, as it is a signifying system, and turns historical events into historical facts. Historiography, while constructing historical facts, singles out certain past events while omitting others, for ideological reasons. This inevitably leads to the fact that marginalized groups are denied an official voice by hegemonic ideologies. Therefore, history is regarded as monologic, representing the dominant discourse. The thesis will analyze four novels by Winterson and Rushdie as double-voiced discourses where the dominant voice of history is refracted through subversion and gives way to other voices that have been suppressed. While analyzing the novels themselves, the thesis will look for the metafictional elements of the texts, stressing self-reflexivity, non-linear narrative, and parodic intention to pinpoint the refraction and the co-existence of plural voices. As a result, historiographic metafiction is proved to be a liberating genre, for feminist and postcolonial writers, that enables other histories to be verbalized.

ABSTRACT A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SENSE OF BELONGING AS A PART OF IDENTITY OF THE COLONIZER AND THE COLONIZED IN THE GRASS IS SINGING AND MY PLACE Cansu G&ouml / ktan M.A., in English Literature Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Margaret S&ouml / nmez May 2010, 205 pages This thesis investigates how two loosely autobiographical works unveil the effects of colonization on their major characters in terms of their identities and senses of belonging. The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing, a second-generation member of the colonizer, and My Place by Sally Morgan, a third-generation hybrid Australian Aborigine, are selected because both novels essentially deal with colonial issues by depicting their major characters in a process of maturation within a colonial and post-colonial framework, the former using a semi-autobiographical narrative tone and the latter using an Aboriginal version of autobiography, which integrates oral tradition and storytelling. These two books reveal that a sense of identity is closely related to a sense of belonging and that both are fundamentally affected by the colonial situation. The effects of a sense of identity and a sense of belonging, which boil down to the demise or survival of the individual, interacts with family and society, physical environment, and race issues that the thesis investigates by dedicating a chapter to each. The method used in this point-by-point comparative analysis is to approach the issues of sense of belonging and identity in a colonial context with a close reading of the two works, to find out what the texts say for themselves regarding the effect of family and society, environment, and race as depicted in The Grass Is Singing and My Place. The theoretical background that is most relevant to this study is post-colonial literary theory, although here it is taken as secondary to the close reading that is the thesis&rsquo / s primary approach to these works. Keywords: Doris Lessing The Grass Is Singing, Sally Morgan My Place, Colonial and Post-colonial Literature

This thesis evaluates metafictional self-reflexivity, and presents it within the scope of certain structuralist and post-structuralist approaches especially by referring to William Gass&rsquo / definition of metafiction and Raymond Federman&rsquo / s theories on the devices of metafiction. Then aspects of the works of William Gass&rsquo / Willie Master&rsquo / s Lonesome Wife and Laurence Sterne&rsquo / s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy are discussed within this framework.

This thesis evaluates Caryl Churchill&#039 / s criticism of culturally defined roles imposed by patriarchy on both sexes in her three plays Owners, Cloud Nine, and Top Girls by referring to Kate Millet&#039 / s defination of aspects of patriarchal ideology in Sexual Poitics, and the thesis contends that gender roles are arbitrary. Churchill&#039 / s attempt to draw attention to patriarchal essentialism is discussed within this framework.

This thesis presents a close analysis of one of the ageless discourses of human life &ndash / apocalypse, or the End &ndash / within the highly controversial In-Yer-Face drama of the 1990s British stage. The study particularly argues that there is a strong apocalyptic sense in the plays of the decade, and it discovers that the apocalyptic representation within these plays varies. Five plays by three prominent playwrights of the decade are used to illustrate and expand the focus. After a detailed examination of the apocalyptic discourse, it is claimed that Mark Ravenhill&rsquo / s Shopping and F***ing and Faust is Dead are based on certain philosophical ideas of the End, Anthony Neilson&rsquo / s Normal and Penetrator reveal the apocalyptic through an extreme use of violence, and Sarah Kane&rsquo / s 4.48 Psychosis comingles representations of the apocalyptic and psychological trauma.