<p>Terry Pratchett, writer of humorous, satirical fantasy, is very popular in Britain. His Discworld series, which encompasses over 30 novels, has witches as protagonists in one of the major sub-series, currently covering eight novels. His first “witch” novel, Equal Rites, in which he pits organised, misogynist wizards against disorganised witches, led him to being accused of feminist writing. This work investigates this claim by first outlining the development of the historical witch stereotype or discourse and how that relates to the modern, feminist views of witches. Then Pratchett’s treatment of his major witch characters is examined and analysed in terms of feminist and poststructuralist literary theory. It appears that, while giving the impression of supporting feminism and the feminist views of witches,</p><p>Pratchett’s witches actually reinforce the patriarchal view of women.</p>

Terry Pratchett, writer of humorous, satirical fantasy, is very popular in Britain. His Discworld series, which encompasses over 30 novels, has witches as protagonists in one of the major sub-series, currently covering eight novels. His first “witch” novel, Equal Rites, in which he pits organised, misogynist wizards against disorganised witches, led him to being accused of feminist writing. This work investigates this claim by first outlining the development of the historical witch stereotype or discourse and how that relates to the modern, feminist views of witches. Then Pratchett’s treatment of his major witch characters is examined and analysed in terms of feminist and poststructuralist literary theory. It appears that, while giving the impression of supporting feminism and the feminist views of witches, Pratchett’s witches actually reinforce the patriarchal view of women.

Terry Pratchett, author of the best-selling Discworld series, and winner of multiple literary awards, writes satirical fantasy for adults and children. The academic community has been slow to accept Pratchett's work as worthy of notice. Factors that contribute to this reticence include writing fantasy, writing for children, a high volume of work, and popularity in general society. This thesis will provide a comparison between Pratchett's work and that of Evelyn Waugh by focusing on their academic satire, shedding new light on Pratchett's work from a literary perspective, thus lending greater value to his Discworld series as a collection of novels with measurable literary value to the academic community.

In this analysis of Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters, I argue that performance of the witch is the most important part of witchcraft on Discworld, and, indeed, what drives the story. To underpin this position, I understand Wyrd Sisters as a work of metafiction and parody, examine witch tropes and stories on Discworld and draw parallels to the weird sisters of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Using Pratchett's own theory of narrative causality and Judith Butler's theory of performativity, I show that there is no witch essence on Discworld, but that the witches' performances are imitations of imitations. I also show how the witches' performances of themselves and theatre performance interact and amplify each other, as theatre is a key theme in the novel. / I den här analysen av Terry Pratchetts Häxkonster argumenterar jag för att de roller häxorna ikläder sig är den viktigaste aspekten av deras magi på Skivvärlden, och att iscensättandet av häxan i sig är vad som driver berättelsen framåt. Som bevis för min tes läser jag Häxkonster som metafiktion och parodi, går igenom stereotyper av häxor på Skivvärlden och drar paralleller till de tre häxorna från Shakespeares Macbeth. Jag använder Pratchetts egen teori om narrativ kausalitet och Judith Butlers teori om performativitet för att visa att ”häxan” inte har någon essens på Skivvärlden; häxornas iklädande av roller är istället imitationer av andra imitationer. Jag visar också hur teateruppträdande och häxornas iscensättande av sig själva samspelar och förstärker varandra, då romanen har ett starkt teatertema.

In this essay, I am analyzing how recognition occurs through humor in the two novels: Mort, by Terry Pratchett, and A Dirty Job, by Christopher Moore. This is with the intention to add more ways of using literature to speak about difficult topics such as death, in the Swedish secondary school. Throughout the analysis, I am connecting humor and recognition to each other to initiate a position where a teacher can move towards the subject through the duality of seriousness and comedy. The result has shown that an understanding of life’s duality, and human existence, plays an important role in how recognition occurs through humor. / Uppsatsens syfte har varit att analysera hur igenkänning uppstår genom humor i de två verken: Mort av Terry Pratchett och A Dirty Job av Christopher Moore. Uppsatsen har skrivits med intentionen att tillföra fler alternativ till hur lärare kan samtala om svåra ämnen så som döden genom litteraturen i klassrummet. Genomgående i analysen drar jag paralleller mellan humor och igenkänning för att visa på olika vägar kring hur man kan närma sig ämnet via den dubbelhet som finns mellan bland annat allvar och komedi. Resultatet har visat att en förståelse för livets dubbelhet och mänsklig existens spelar en viktig roll för hur igenkänning uppstår via humor.

The history of translation has been built on the notions that the translator either leaves the writer alone and moves towards the reader (domesticating the text), or leaves the reader alone and moves towards the writer (foreignising the text). These strategies have been called many names, but the translator has always been faced with the choice between domesticating or foreignising the target text. This study considers the options available to a translator when translating the proper nouns and neologisms in a fantasy novel. The translator should not move towards and stand next to the reader to create a target text that is unrecognisable compared to the source text. At the same time, the translator cannot remain next to the writer and thus not change the proper nouns and neologisms to ensure that the target-text readers can understand all – or most of – the potential meanings. If the translator does not move closer to the readers, they cannot have the same experience as source-text readers. This study looks at the translation theories, strategies and procedures that can be applied when translating proper nouns and neologisms used in Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods. It is limited to the study of the neologisms that act as proper nouns, and does not look at other neologisms in the novel. The study identifies translation procedures that retain the meaning potential of the proper nouns and neologisms in the source text in the process of translating them into an Afrikaans target text. It compares the procedures that may have been used by the Dutch translator, by Venugopalan Ittekot, of the novel, Kleingoderij, into Dutch with the procedures that are identified to be used by a translator of the text into Afrikaans. This study identifies the procedures most appropriate to a possible translation of proper nouns and neologisms in Small Gods to Afrikaans in order to retain the meaning potential. The translation procedures that has been identified are addition, cultural adaptation, internationalisation, literal translation, neutralisation, substitution, transference, transliteration and transposition. These procedures can be used to attain equivalence at word level and in such a way that the meaning-potential is retained. / Dissertation (MA) University of Pretoria, 2016. / African Languages / MA / Unrestricted

This essay is a creative study of how characters are depicted in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, based on three novels of Pratchett, translated to Swedish: Häxor i Faggorna (1994), Svinvinternatt (2005), and Levande musik (2001). The creative part will be a short story written by me, where I put the well-known character Näcken from Swedish folklore into Pratchett’s imaginary world Discworld. I will use two academic texts about Näcken, Näcken (2008) by Jochum Stattin and Erotiska väsen(2010) by Ebbe Schön, as a base for my creative writing. To study how Pratchett writes and uses allusions in his works, White Knowledge and the Cauldron of story: The Use of Allusion in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld by William T. Abbott and The intertextual use of the Fairy Tale in Postmodern Fiction by Kevin P. Smith will guide me. The purpose of this essay is to study how Pratchett changed folklore characters to fit into his world.

In the last twenty years, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series has become very popular. Pratchett's success hinges in part on his use of allusion, in what Tolkien called the "Cauldron of Story," and what Pratchett refers to as "white knowledge." This paper explores the Discworld novels and illustrates Pratchett's use and success of storytelling through a few key directions: folk tales, fantasy literature, movies, and rock music. Pratchett has received limited critical review, mostly of a negative nature, while producing a strong literary series, one crafted with both obvious and subtle recognition of his genre's sources. While standing on the shoulders of giants, Pratchett both respects and scrutinizes the myths and stories that construct our reality. Critically, Pratchett's fiction deserves more respect and closer study; this paper attempts to give him his due.

The aim of this dissertation was to critically analyse Terry Pratchett’s Johnny Maxwell trilogy in terms of three areas, namely Pratchett’s use of various fantasy techniques; how comedy and satire function as distancing mechanisms; and how fantasy and comedy function in accordance with Erikson’s and Bettelheim’s theories concerning identity formation in adolescent and child readers. The primary aim of this dissertation was therefore to provide a literary reading of Pratchett’s trilogy, Only You Can Save Mankind (1992), Johnny and the Dead (1993) and Johnny and the Bomb (1996). However, it also acknowledges the possible didactic and developmental benefits of the books. The trilogy is entertaining, exciting, witty and child-friendly (Baldry cited in Butler, James and Mendlesohn, 2004:41), but it is also clear that Pratchett endeavours to challenge his child readers by presenting everyday situations from foreign and unusual perspectives. This dissertation argues that, as Baldry states, Pratchett ‘expands the thinking of his young readers with new ideas or unconventional ways of looking at familiar ideas’ which will ultimately help them consider their own lives in alternative and perhaps even more meaningful ways (quoted in Butler, James and Mendlesohn, 2004:41). The idea of ‘distancing techniques’ is vital for this study, because it proposes that readers can be transported from their Primary Realities (in which they live and function on a daily basis) into Secondary Realities or worlds which are unlike the Primary Reality in form and composition, but not unlike them in the way they function. Once this removal has taken place, bibliotherapists argue that readers are able to look back upon their primary world with new insight into their sense of industry and identity and also into the way their primary reality functions and the way they function within it. J.R.R. Tolkien (1985:35) explains that ‘…fact becomes that which is manipulated by the fantasy writer to produce a keener perception of the primary world and a greater ability to survive in it’. Owing to Pratchett’s specific comic brand of fantasy, a discussion of his comic and satiric techniques is also presented. Part of this discussion again concentrates on the ability of comedy to act as a distancing mechanism, while another discusses how Pratchett uses comedy to satirise certain aspects of society. As Bergson (1911:17) states in his book, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, laughter is a way of ‘correcting men’s manners’. Pratchett thus makes use of various comic techniques to mock and ridicule certain features of society, such as its obsession with television, its materialism, or its obsession with computer games. This research is important as the fantasy genre is often considered to be mere popular fiction, to which parents and school teachers are frequently averse. However, with the increase in sales of fantasy works over the past decade, especially in adolescent and children’s fantasy, study of the genre and its possible influence on readers is becoming increasingly necessary. This dissertation undertakes to show that fantasy works can be both complex and satisfying literary works while they also have a positive influence on child readers. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / English / unrestricted

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