Paru en 1983, The Bone People, le premier et à ce jour le seul roman de l'auteure néo-zélandaise aux origines maories Keri Hulme (1947-), a profondément marqué ses lecteurs, car il a montré, de façon poignante et unique, une image d'Aotearoa- Nouvelle-Zélande, de sa nature rugueuse, de ses habitants et de la richesse de la culture maorie. À l'inverse, les poèmes et les nouvelles de Hulme n'ont pas reçu le même accueil et n'ont été que très peu étudiés, c'est pourquoi nous nous y intéressons dans cette thèse. Ces textes brefs laissent au lecteur une sensation d'étrangeté. Est étrange ce qui est hors du commun, bizarre, surprenant. L'étrange possède un caractère indéfinissable, si bien qu'il est parfois impossible de dire précisément ce qui est à l'origine de ce sentiment singulier difficile à cerner, parfois inquiétant. L'objectif de notre étude est de mieux comprendre et d’expliquer les manifestations de l'étrangeté dans l'oeuvre courte de Keri Hulme. Pour ce faire, la première partie ancre l'oeuvre de Keri Hulme dans des contextes historique, culturel et littéraire afin de mieux cerner les identités contemporaines multiples de la Nouvelle-Zélande et de montrer l'affiliation littéraire de Hulme. Dans notre deuxième partie, nous étudions les rapports de l'humain à la nature et au vivant non-humain dans ce que nous nommons l'écriture écopoétique de Hulme. Enfin, dans la troisième partie, nous nous intéressons à la représentation de la hantise et du blocage dans la transmission immatérielle. Nous analysons la manière dont l'auteure se sert des caractéristiques formelles du genre de la nouvelle, mettant à l'épreuve et façonnant sa forme malléable pour exprimer des maux néo-zélandais et traduire la rupture dans la transmission de l'héritage culturel. Nous démontrons que l'écriture de Hulme offre aussi une forme de fantastique, qui invite le lecteur à accepter l'inexpliqué et à voir que se trouver dans un entre-deux culturel – maori et anglo-saxon – permet d'adhérer à deux systèmes de pensée qui confluent et s’enrichissent mutuellement. / First published in 1983, The Bone People, to this day the only novel by New Zealand author with Maori origins Keri Hulme (1947-), had a tremendous impact on its readers. It struck them for its capacity to show, in a unique and poignant way, an image of Aotearoa- New Zealand, its rough nature, its inhabitants and the enriching Maori culture. On the contrary, Hulme's poems and short stories were not read with the same enthusiasm and have been the subject of very few studies. This is the reason why I decided to focus on Hulme’s short texts in this dissertation. These short texts convey the uncanny, which can be defined as a feeling of unease, strangeness and unfamiliarity. What is strange can also be incomprehensible, so that it can be difficult to understand the origin of this feeling of unease. The aim of this study is to better understand and explain the manifestations of the uncanny in Keri Hulme short texts. The first part focuses on the historical, cultural and literary contexts in order to grasp the multiple contemporary identities of New Zealand and to show Hulme's literary affiliation. In the second part, I study the links between humans, nature and the non-human in what I call Hulme's ecopoetics. Lastly, I focus in the third part on the representation of haunting and the impossibility to pass on the cultural heritage. I study how the author uses and challenges the characteristics of the short story, shaping its malleable form to express New Zealand wounds. I also intend to demonstrate that Hulme's writings contain the fantastic, which invites the reader to accept what cannot be explained and realize that being in-between two cultures – maori and anglo-saxon – allows to better understand two belief systems that come together and enrich each other.

Cette thèse s’attache à étudier la notion d’événement dans la nouvelle contemporaine, à travers un corpus de recueils américains, français et italiens, parus entre 1980 et 2007. Habituellement défini comme une rupture, engageant un bouleversement ontologique pour le sujet qui l’éprouve, l’événement connaît une autre représentation dans les récits brefs ici étudiés, engageant une réflexion épistémologique sur la littérature contemporaine, entre conscience d’un monde marqué par le manque et volonté de continuer malgré tout à raconter, selon d’autres modalités. Cette réflexion est mise en évidence par le récit bref. Nos nouvelles montrent à chaque fois ce qui semble être un appauvrissement. Ainsi, l’événement connaît un évidement : sa portée est atténuée, il n’entraîne pas de changements dans la conscience du personnage. De même, nos textes font voir un désengagement des instances auctoriale et narratoriale, empêchant l’établissement d’une signification univoque et d’une morale explicite. Enfin, ces histoires narrent fréquemment un dysfonctionnement, tant matériel que du récit en lui-même. Mais à chaque fois, ces carences sont en fait le lieu d’un renouvellement. L’évidement est la possibilité de proposer un autre récit où le sensationnel est mis à distance ; le désengagement permet au lecteur d’adopter vis-à-vis du texte une attitude qui ne soit pas celle de la maîtrise absolue ; le dysfonctionnement n’inaugure pas une nouvelle ère du soupçon, mais une volonté de souligner le potentiel narratif. De cette façon, la nouvelle contemporaine comme l’événement narré affichent une tension, entre perte et renouvellement. / This thesis sets out to study the notion of event in the contemporary short story, through a corpus of american, french and italian collections, published between 1980 and 2007. Usually defined as a breakdown, which leads an ontological upheaval for the subject who distressed it, the event has another representation in the short stories studied in this corpus. It puts an epistemological reflection about the contemporary literature, between awareness of a world marked by a gap and will of continuing to tell in any case, but with other modes. This reflection is particularly evident in the short story. Our collections show every time what seems to be an impoverishment. Indeed, the event distresses a « digging » : its impact is softened, it doesn’t lead changes in the character’s conscience. Similarly, our texts show a withdrawal of the author and the narrator, which prevents an unequivocal signification and an explicit moral. Finally, these stories frequently tell about a material malfunctionning, that also concerns the story itself. But everytime, these lacks are in fact the possibility of a renewal. The « digging » gives the opportunity to offer another story where the sensational is put at a distance ; the withdrawal allows to the reader to have with the text a posture which isn’t an absolute control ; the malfunctionning isn’t the beginning of a new suspicion’s age, but a will to emphasize narrative potential. By this way, the contemporary short story and the related event show a tension between loss and renewal.

(in English) The topic of this master thesis is a character of the double in Spanish short stories focused on 20th century. Firstly, we describe the historical context of this literary theme and we observe its changing through the time, its transition from a tragic tone to absurdity or a comic tone. The aim of this work is to observe Freud's concept of "unheimlich" feeling applied to the topic of the double and to investigate what literary tools can intensify this feeling in the reader. After this, we focus on repeating motives in selected short stories and we contemplate constituent aspects of this topic in the context of humanities.

Wang Zengqi, an important representative of modern Chinese literature, is best known as an author of pastoral, nostalgic fiction, written in the early 1980s, and as Shen Congwen's student. His short stories ‚Ordination' (Shoujie 受戒) (1980) and "A Tale of Big Nur" (Danao jishi 大淖记事) (1981) are considered masterpieces, and stand as major steps in rebirth of New Era Chinese literature. The present paper introduces thematic and motivic analysis of Wang Zengqi's key short stories. Attention is also payed to the literary qualities and genre characteristics of his representative short stories and the development of author's literary style. Finally, the present paper discusses to what extent Wang Zengqi's work is influenced by his teacher, Shen Congwen. Keywords Wang Zengqi, Ordination (Shoujie 受戒), A Tale of Big Nur (Danao jishi 大淖记事), Shen Congwen, pastoral fiction

This master's thesis aims to compare Horacio Quiroga's short story with a general theory of the short story and to juxtapose it with Quiroga's own Ten Rules for the Perfect Storyteller. The first theoretical part looks at the short story from the point of view of literary history with a special focus on the differences between a short story and a novel. It goes on to give a short overview of the literary development in Latin America, outlining specific features of the given area and their influence on Horacio Quiroga's works. A separate chapter covers the Hispanic - American fantasy short story, its general principles and some examples of Horacio Quiroga's works. In the next chapter the paper refers to Quiroga's essays concerning theories of the short story, particularly Ten Rules for the Perfect Storyteller, aiming to introduce the theoretical concept of Quiroga's art of storytelling. Ten Rules for the Perfect Storyteller provides the paper with the background to interpret a number of selected Quiroga's short stories as well as to compare the theories of the short story between Horacio Quiroga and Edgar Allan Poe. Having briefly outlined the context of Quiroga's complete work, the paper identifies the main recurring themes and touches upon Quiroga's character in his short stories set in the...

The goal of this paper is to map and classify the short stories of French author Marcel Aymé. In the first part of the work the characterstics of the short story as a literary genre are defined and its evolution during the 20th century is illustrated. In the second part, Aymé's life is described as well as general characteristics of his work are exposed and put into contemporary literary context. In the third and main part of the work, Aymé's short stories are presented and the thematic groups are stated (set up as based on the lecture of Aymé's collected short stories), into which the individual stories can be included. Each one of these groups is then explained separately and its general characteristics are outlined. The conclusion then presents the basic thematic overview of the stories.

The diploma thesis 'Personal prose with an authorial commentary' is composed of two parts. The first part is the authorial prose is titled Rusty love. It is a psychological short story that describes a partnership between the main character - a noname woman, and her partner - Filip. Filip likes drinking alcohol and frequently he drinks too much so that he is not able to walk home on his own. Therefore his girlfriend is like his rescuer who helps him with walking and sometimes she even has to haul him. Such bad conditions of Filip make her mad and very badly influence their relationship. Unfortunately it is not the only problem in their partnership. The main character leaves every week to work in the city of Jihlava and thus they can only see each other at weekends. Moreover, she likes to be self-sustaining and independent, which is somehow in contrasts with his concept of living together, to get married and have kids. Finally, the main character decides to live as a single and their story ends up with their separation. The second part of this paper reflects circumstances of the work's origin. The characters, the plot construction, possible ending versions and the meaning of the short story are described here. This part also focuses on the author's experience of writing itself and this first...

Cette recherche concerne le rapport à la lecture et à l’écriture d’une communauté de jeunes issus de l’immigration. L’hypothèse est que l’expression littéraire incarne un tiers espace d’expression culturelle, entre la famille et la société pour des jeunes dont la vie familiale est d’avantage traversée par l’Histoire et les questions mondiales le plus contemporaines. Au fil des représentations découlant d’un recueil de nouvelles qui a été créé ad hoc pour cette thèse, Exister à bout de plume. Nouvelles migrantes, est démontrée la façon dont l’écriture fictionnelle ou autobiographique symbolise une prise de parole importante permettant aux individus qui l’emploient d’avoir une meilleure conscience de soi. À travers une première partie dédiée à la recherche de terrain et l’autre se fondant sur l’analyse des entretiens et des nouvelles du recueil, ressort l’importance d’une visibilité pour les questionnements, problématiques, ressentis, espoirs et revendications des jeunes issus de l’immigration dans une époque où le modèle assimilationniste montre plus que jamais la saveur amère de ses fruits et les fractures sociétaires qu’il n’a pas pu empêcher de laisser se creuser. En mettant en avant des thèmes comme : la quête identitaire, les obstacles et l’ambition caractérisant leurs premiers pas dans la société, la recherche de légitimité et l’envie de raconter, directement ou pas, le parcours de leurs parents – ces jeunes écrivains amateurs se réapproprient activement leur bagage culturel et leur apparence. Ils s’engagent dans l’écriture pour que ça ne soit plus seulement l’apanage des voix littéraires dominantes. Pour qu’on prenne connaissance de leurs propres regards sur eux-mêmes, enfin sortis de la condition limitée d’objet d’étude sociologique ou anthropologique pour se faire sujets via l’écriture. / This research focuses on young people of immigrant background with the aim of investigating the distinctive manner in which this community relates to literature as a means of expression. The hypothesis we explore is that these young people, whose life tends to be especially permeated by history and contemporary global issues, may find in literature a third space of cultural expression, alongside family and society. As the various images arising from a collection of short stories created especially for this dissertation - Exister à bout de plume. Nouvelles migrantes – succeed one another, it emerges that fictional and autobiographical writing enables those who resort to it as a means of expression to find their own voice and gain deeper self-awareness. The first part of the dissertation is dedicated to field research, while the second part provides analyses of the short stories and the interviews of the authors. The analyses reveal how important it is to make visible the problems, struggles, feelings, hopes and claims of young people of immigrant background, especially in times in which the bitter fruits of the assimilationist model and the social fractures this model was unable to prevent become more and more apparent. The young amateur writers reclaim their cultural background and their appearance emphasising themes such as the search for personal identity, the obstacles and ambitions characterising their first steps into society, the search for legitimacy and the desire to narrate, more or less explicitly, the personal trajectories of their parents. The engagement of this community with the literary means appears to be motivated by the desire to reclaim themes that tend to be considered exclusive purview of dominant literary voices. The literary means seems to allow the authors to escape the role of mere object of sociological and anthropological investigation and become Subjects narrating themselves from their own point of view. / L’oggetto di questa ricerca è il rapporto alla lettura e alla scrittura di una comunità di giovani di seconda generazione d’origine immigrata. L’ipotesi formulata vede nella manifestazione letteraria la concretizzazione di un terzo spazio d’espressione culturale e di autorappresentazione, tra famiglia e società, che si giustifica attraverso le questioni storiche nonché contemporanee che questi giovani si trovano ad affrontare nel loro percorso di crescita ed evoluzione personale. Analizzando le rappresentazioni risultanti da una raccolta di racconti creata ad hoc per questa tesi, Esistere in punta di penna. Racconti migranti, si spiega il modo in cui la scrittura di finzione o autobiografica riesce a simbolizzare una presa di parola importante che permette agli individui che l’utilizzano d’avere una migliore coscienza di sé. Attraverso una prima parte dedicata alla ricerca sul campo e l’altra basata sull’analisi delle interviste e dei racconti della raccolta, emerge l’importanza di rendere visibili domande, problematiche, sentimenti, speranze e rivendicazioni dei giovani d’origine immigrata in un’epoca, la nostra, in cui il modello assimilazionista mostra più che mai il sapore amaro dei suoi frutti e la sua impotenza di fronte alle sempre più laceranti fratture sociali. Mettendo in primo piano temi come : l’indagine identitaria, gli ostacoli e le ambizioni che caratterizzano i loro primi passi nella società, la ricerca di legittimità e la voglia di raccontare, direttamente o meno, il percorso dei loro genitori, questi giovani scrittori alle prime armi, si riappropriano attivamente del loro bagaglio culturale e della loro apparenza fisica. Si impegnano nella scrittura affinché questa non sia più sola prerogativa di voci letterarie dominanti, permettendoci quindi di conoscere lo sguardo che hanno su se stessi e il mondo che li circonda, persone liberate infine dalla condizione limitata d’oggetto di studio sociologico o antropologico per esistere diversamente come soggetti « in punta di penna ».

Using selected stories by two North African women writers, Alifa Rifaat of Egypt and Assia Djebar of Algeria, this study, entitled ‘Islamic culture and the question of women’s human rights in North Africa: a study of short stories by Assia Djebar and Alifa Rifaat’, analyzes the creative representation of contemporary Muslim society and its treatment of women. The continued marginalization of women in Muslim societies has led to the rise of feminist movements in North Africa and the Middle East. Muslim women, like their Christian counterparts, have made a most remarkable appearance on the African literary scene by producing literature that interrogates a system in which women are denied the rights to life, equality and freedom, which are the inalienable rights of all Islamic adherents. Thus, North African women’s writing reveals a disparity between Islamic culture, which is based on the Qur’an and upholds equal rights for all believers, and Muslim culture, which denies women access to full rights. The writings of Alifa Rifaat and Assia Djebar espouse the need for a transformation of Muslim culture such that the practices of Muslims effectively harmonize with the teachings of the Qur’an. The stories selected for analysis illustrate that while Rifaat uses the conservatist approach or womanist thrust in her criticism of Muslim culture, Djebar adopts a more radical approach that is ultimately feminist. Nevertheless, both writers address similar issues affecting women in Muslim societies, such as forced or arranged marriages and the suppression of female sexuality. The first chapter situates the argument within gender discourse and the human rights framework, providing a critical appraisal of women in Islam from pre-Islamic times to modern days. To contextualize the literary scene, the second chapter positions Muslim women’s writing within the broad corpus of African feminisms, using the works of Nawal el-Saadawi, Mariama Bâ and Zaynab Alkali to chart the many challenges facing Muslim women today. Chapters Three and Four focus on the selected literature of the chosen writers, Alifa Rifaat and Assia Djebar, respectively, showing how each writer uses her art as an instrument to combat social injustices against women. The concluding chapter establishes the points of convergence and divergence between Rifaat and Djebar and, ultimately, draws attention to the dire need for all Muslims to respect the human rights of women. This study, therefore, blends literary interpretation with sociological findings to assess the extent of the failure of Muslims to endorse the principle of equality for all humans irrespective of race, class, or gender. Essentially, it seeks to raise consciousness on women’s rights in Islam. / Dissertation (MA (Pan African Literatures))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / English / MA / unrestricted

Psychotherapists in full-time, long-term private practice face a variety of occupational demands. They usually maintain private practices for long periods of their lives often under difficult circumstances and emotional pressures and have come to sustain their practices. From literature it is revealed that various demands, as well as benefits and successes are part and parcel of working in private practice full-time. These various factors can have an impact on the well-being of psychotherapists. Apart from the literature review, the personal experience of the researcher, a psychotherapist in full-time private practice, also contributed to ideas and hypotheses about the study. From a position of exploration and further enquiry, the researcher was interested to explore the experiences of psychotherapists in full-time private practice from a fortigenic perspective. A second objective was to determine if this study could contribute to the development of the theoretical assumptions of positive psychology. The research is grounded in the theoretical perspective of positive psychology and fortigenesis. Both these fields are relatively new in psychology and seem to still be forging a niche within the discipline. This perspective was deliberately chosen due to the applicability to the exploration of strengths and vigour, with regards to the maintenance of the professional context of the psychotherapist. The qualitative research process is presented in a narrative approach by means of narrative synthesis and synergy. The findings of the research conversations are presented in the form of a literary short story. Suggestions are made about the fortigenic qualities of psychotherapists essential for maintaining their work in full-time private practice. It’s applicability and usefulness is discussed. Furthermore, suggestions are made with regards to the field of positive psychology and the way forward for this sub-discipline. Ideas relating to narrative research and qualitative research are also discussed. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted