Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines a new kind of literary history developed in four postmodern historical romances: Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion and The English Patient, and Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs and True History of the Kelly Gang. By foregrounding their intertexts, these novels expose acts of violence and terror directed against scapegoats, particularly those constructed as criminals, who are perceived to threaten social stability. The novels of Ondaatje and Carey transform these criminals from social transgressors to heroes, from victimizers to victims. They first reconstruct and expose the social dynamics of specific historical contexts drawn from their precursor texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Herodotus’s Histories, Great Expectations and Lorna Doone, and then create a form of communal history, which for the first time voices the suppressed narratives of the disenfranchised. The theoretical framework used in the analysis of each text and its intertextual “double” is developed through analyses of desire and imitation in space as well as time. The thesis links René Girard’s theory of rivalry and violence in mimetic desire to Julia Kristeva’s and Susan Friedman’s theories of reading at the point of intersection between a text and its precursors, newly allowing the application of Girard to the complex intertextual dynamics of the sub-genre of metahistorical romance. This approach reconfigures this sub-genre as a form of simultaneous and paratactic history. It adapts Amy Elias’s and Brian McHale’s theories of spatial tropes as literary techniques which collapse, onto one plane, or juxtapose, different historical periods, characters and events, as a means to examine the ����dark areas” of history. In this process the thesis considers each modern text and its precursor to explore the role of Girard’s rivalrous doubles within and across texts in activating or interrupting cyclical violence. The historical scapegoats, given the opportunity to recognize and tell their histories in the modern texts, generate a new form of communal history, which challenges earlier depictions and celebrations of violence and the persecution of scapegoats. These new histories recoil from violence and reconstruct scapegoats through attention to the complex intersection of political and legal policies, cultural values and practices informing their previous historical representation. They allow Girard’s cycles of violence to be broken, reimagining the scapegoat not in terms of singular identifications as anarchist, spy, convict and outlaw, but as multi-faceted, able to be renewed in multiple identifications as heroic.

Mobbning i arbetslivet är ett dolt problem som alltid funnits på arbetsplatser i Sverige. Vuxenmobbning handlar om psykiskt våld och upprepade kränkningar som skadar människor och leder till utfrysning, utslagning och isolering. Syftet med studien är att öka förståelsen och kunskapen kring mobbningsproblematiken på arbetsplatsen och dess konsekvenser. Syftet är också att ta reda på vilka rättsliga möjligheter och begränsningar det finns att vidta, samt vilka förebyggande strategier som forskning och utredningar föreslår. Materialet består av fyra domstolsbeslut kring mobbning i arbetslivet. Syftet uppnås med hjälp av en dokumentanalys av materialet. Resultaten analyseras med hjälp av två teoretiska modeller: förloppsmodellen och rollmodellen samt teorier om stigma och stämpling. I uppsatsen sammanställs empirin utifrån fyra teman: konflikter, syndabockarna, krisen och utslagningen. Studiens huvudresultat är att destruktiv ledarskap och missköta konflikter skapar förutsättningar för mobbning i arbetslivet och resulterar i att människor stigmatiseras, stämplas som avvikare och exkluderas från samhället.   Avslutningsvis görs förslag till vidare studier utifrån funderingar kring huruvida lagändringar skulle kunna påverka hanteringen av grundproblemet positivt vad gäller mobbning i arbetslivet. / Bullying in the life of work is a concealed issue that always has existed in Swedish workplaces. Adult bullying is about mental violence and repeated violations that harm people and often leads to ostracism, exclusion and isolation. The aim of this study is to increase understanding and knowledge about the bullying issue in workplaces and its consequences. The aim is also to find out what legal possibilities and limits there are to take and what preventative strategies that research and investigations suggests. In order to find out about this we have based our study on four court decisions dealing with bullying in the workplace. In addition, official documents, newspaper articles, laws and documents issued by authorities and other organizations that publish articles on the Internet are also used in this study. The aim is achieved by using a document analysis of data. It is compiled on empirical data based on four themes: conflicts, scapegoats, crisis and exclusion. The results are analyzed by using two theoretical models: progress model and role model, and also theories about stigma and stamping are being used. The basic finding is that the destructive leadership and mismanage conflict create conditions for bullying in the workplace and results in people stigmatized, branded as outliers and excluded from society. Finally made ​​suggestions for further studies based on concerns about whether legislative changes could affect the handling of the basic problem positively in terms of bullying in the workplace.

Cette thèse se propose d'étudier la question du Bouc Emissaire dans les œuvres de Gabriel García Márquez. Le thème du Bouc Emissaire est étroitement lié aux personnages dont l'existence semble attachée à ce phénomène. Soumis à leur triste sort, il est difficile d'envisager les personnages de Gabriel García Márquez en dehors de ces cercles vicieux. L'auteur associe inconsciemment ou pas ce phénomène du Bouc Emissaire aux thèmes tels que ceux de la Maison, du Corps meurtri ou sublimé, de l'Identité, de l'Altérité... qui seront exploités tout au long de ce travail. Il est donc intéressant de se demander pourquoi l'auteur semble ressentir le besoin pressant et permanent de construire des sociétés fictives faites avec et par des personnages boucs émissaires. En se servant de l'écriture, l'auteur semble dévoiler et affronter son univers personnel, le monde, notre actualité. Aussi, ce travail compte bien interroger certains ouvrages de Gabriel García Márquez afin d'observer dans un premier temps les éléments nécessaires à la formation du Bouc Emissaire. Puis notre analyse nous permettra de voir comment se manifestent les phénomènes d'exclusion en parallèle avec les réalités sociétales, tout en gardant en toile de fond la vie de l'auteur. / This thesis proposes to study the issue of Scapegoat in the works of Gabriel García Márquez. The theme of the Scapegoat is closely related to characters whose existence seems attached to this phenomenon. Submitted to their fate, it is difficult to imagine the characters in Gabriel García Márquez outside these vicious circles. The author combines unconsciously or not this phenomenon Scapegoat themes such as those of the House, the bruised body or sublimate, Identity, Otherness ... of which will be used throughout this work. It is therefore interesting to ask why the author seems to feel the pressing need to build permanent and fictitious companies made with the characters and scapegoats. By using writing, the author seems to reveal and confront his personal universe, the world, our news. Also, this work intends to examine certain works of Gabriel García Márquez to observe in the first place the elements necessary for the formation of the Scapegoat. Then our analysis allow us to see how phenomena occur in parallel with the exclusion societal realities, keeping in the background the life of the author.

The reading of four contemporary novels, namely: Credo by Melvyn Bragg, The Catastrophist by Ronan Bennett, Everything You Need by A.L. Kennedy and American Gods by Neil Gaiman explores the prominent position of mythification and remythification in contemporary literature. The discussion of Bragg's novel examines the significance of Celtic mythology and folklore and to what extent it influenced Christian mythology on the British Isles and vice versa. The presentation of the transition from a cyclical, pagan to a linear, Christian belief system is analysed. My analysis of Bennett's novel supports the observation that political myth as myth transformed contains elements and qualities embodied by sacred myths and investigates the relevance of Johan Degenaar's observation that "[p]ostmodernism emphasises the fact that myth is an ambiguous phenomenon" and practices an attitude of "eternal vigilance" (1995: 47), as is evident in the main protagonist's dispassionate stance. My reading of Kennedy's novel explores the bond that myth creates between the artist and the audience and argues that the writer as myth creator fulfils a restorative function through the mythical and symbolic qualities embedded in literature. Gaiman's novel American Gods focuses on the function of meta/multi-mythology in contemporary literature (especially the fantasy genre) and on what these qualities reveal about a society and its concerns and values. The thesis contemplates how in each case the original myths were substituted, modulated or transfigured to be presented as metamyth or myth transformed. The analysis shows that myth can be used in various ways in literature: as the data or information that is recreated and transformed in the creative process to establish a common matrix of stories, symbols, images and motifs which represents a bond between the author and the reader in terms of the meaning-making process; to facilitate a spiritual enrichment in a demythologized world and for its restorative abilities. The study is confirmed by detailed mythical reference. / English Studies / (D. Litt. et Phil. (English))

The reading of four contemporary novels, namely: Credo by Melvyn Bragg, The Catastrophist by Ronan Bennett, Everything You Need by A.L. Kennedy and American Gods by Neil Gaiman explores the prominent position of mythification and remythification in contemporary literature. The discussion of Bragg's novel examines the significance of Celtic mythology and folklore and to what extent it influenced Christian mythology on the British Isles and vice versa. The presentation of the transition from a cyclical, pagan to a linear, Christian belief system is analysed. My analysis of Bennett's novel supports the observation that political myth as myth transformed contains elements and qualities embodied by sacred myths and investigates the relevance of Johan Degenaar's observation that "[p]ostmodernism emphasises the fact that myth is an ambiguous phenomenon" and practices an attitude of "eternal vigilance" (1995: 47), as is evident in the main protagonist's dispassionate stance. My reading of Kennedy's novel explores the bond that myth creates between the artist and the audience and argues that the writer as myth creator fulfils a restorative function through the mythical and symbolic qualities embedded in literature. Gaiman's novel American Gods focuses on the function of meta/multi-mythology in contemporary literature (especially the fantasy genre) and on what these qualities reveal about a society and its concerns and values. The thesis contemplates how in each case the original myths were substituted, modulated or transfigured to be presented as metamyth or myth transformed. The analysis shows that myth can be used in various ways in literature: as the data or information that is recreated and transformed in the creative process to establish a common matrix of stories, symbols, images and motifs which represents a bond between the author and the reader in terms of the meaning-making process; to facilitate a spiritual enrichment in a demythologized world and for its restorative abilities. The study is confirmed by detailed mythical reference. / English Studies / (D. Litt. et Phil. (English))

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