Syftet med uppsatsen är att analysera Grebzdes novellsamling Bergen enligt Michail Bachtins kronotopteori. Jag baserar min kronotopmodell, som uppstår i Bergen, enligt de modeller som utvecklats av litteraturvetaren Juris Rozītis. Romanerna, vilka undersöks av Rozītis behandlar tiden efter andra världskriget i flyktingläger och hur flyktingarna upplever de första åren utanför sitt gamla hemland Lettland samt hur de bosätter sig i det nya landet. I denna uppsats tänker jag gå ett steg längre än Rozītis, eftersom jag ska analysera hur flyktingarna, dvs. novellernas karaktärer, lever i det nya landet. / I have analyzed the collection of Irma Grebzde's short stories "Where the Mountains Meet the Sky", published (in the Latvian language) in 1962 in New York, USA, and found that the times and venues in Grebzde's narratives correspond to the chronotope models developed by literary historian Juris Rozītis for novels written in the immediate post-Second World War years. I have expanded upon the Rozītis' models, and created a new model called "Alone in the New Country". This new model describes and positions Irma Grebzde's short stories in Canada - the new country. It also places the parallel space of Latvia, now occupied by the Soviets - outside the immediate circle of the abstract external chronotope, since in Grebzde's short stories, the old homeland no longer has such a dominating function.

In Live Ghosts, Patricia (Patty) Ireland offers a gathering of short stories based upon real life characters she encountered while growing up in the South. Exploring the diversity, complexity and moral ambiguity of those we might normally perceive as being stereotypically “Southern,” Ireland’s tales encompass a variety of time periods, settings, and characters, including: a modern-day family struggling to reconcile the reality of death, interracial lovers in the early 1950’s who are descended from masters and slaves, and an insane killer locked for life in a mental institution of the 1990’s. Live Ghosts is infused with tales of fear, love, loss, regret, madness, and self discovery, themes intrinsic not only to Southern culture, but to the universal vulnerability in all of us.

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

This thesis is a study of the treatment of mental disability in Canadian literature. Literature reflects the perceptions and practises of the culture of which it is a part. Radical changes have been made in recent years in the thinking about persons with mental handicaps. The issue of whether the changes are reflected in literature prompted the writing of this thesis. Little is known about characters labelled as mentally disabled in non-didactic, Canadian Literature. They are not commonly discussed in the academic journals of Canadian Literature and Education. The purpose of this thesis was to get to know ten of the above characters. The following questions were drawn from issues in the academic literature regarding mental disability. All seven questions were applied to each character in turn. (1) Label? (2) Personal relationships? (3) Thoughts and feelings? (4) Choices? (5) Daily activity? (6) Relationship with service providers? (7) Personal assets and abilities? Short story characters: Benny Parry, "The Time of Death," Munro, 1968; Dolores Boyle, "Dance of the Happy Shades," Munro, 1968; Kelvin, "Circle of Prayer," Munro, 1986; Neddy Baker, "Hello Cheeverland, Goodbye," Findley, 1984; Stella Bragg, "Bragg and Minna," Findley, 1988. Characters from novels: Francis Cornish, "What's Bred in the Bone," Davies, 1985; John-Gustav Skandl, "What the Crow Said," Kroetsch, 1978; Lotte, "Not Wanted on the Voyage," Findley, 1984; Rowena Ross, "The Wars," Findley, 1977; Tehmul Lungraa, "Such a Long Journey," Mistry, 1991. Findings indicated that Canadian literature is not yet reflecting the new movement to develop full personhood. Most characters were limited in the choices they made. A variety of labels were used. Little was said about what the characters think or feel. No characters were married, had children, or a job. Most of the characters had a personal relationship with another character.

This is a collection of creative essays containing one person’s world view and experiences – factual and fiction. The intended purpose is not to make the reader think, act, or change any of his beliefs, it is simply meant to entertain him in a world that often offers few risk-free entertainments. It is hoped that the reader will be just as ignorant when he turns the last page as he was when he turned the first. Even Adam with his wonderful garden, or Aladin and his magic lamp, didn’t offer as much. I am offering reading without the danger of learning, possibly a first for literature; it is the scientific equivalent of light without heat.

This thesis comprises an original collection of short stories entitled Ice Core, plus a brief self-reflexive essay on the challenges, emphases and informing contexts which influenced the writing process. The stories in Ice Core were envisioned and subsequently arranged as a short story cycle. Because of my interest in the shifting mobilities of geography, history and identity which inform the collection, I deliberately wished to avoid a linear narrative progression, hoping instead to capitalise on the ability of the cycle structure to accrue flexible resonance, to accommodate shifts of foci and voice even while simultaneously consolidating to form a ‘core’ connected to regional place and community. The stories are set in the North Beach area of Durban, so it is no coincidence that water as a motif repeatedly permeates the collection. This is apt for my interest in this urban coastal space, and serves to complement the mobile nature of the short story when positioned within a cycle. In the subsidiary component of the thesis, namely, the brief critical essay, I discuss the short story form as a genre, and conceptual paradigms of the short story cycle, referring to work by critics such as Forrest Ingram (1971) and Sue Marais (1992). The essay goes on to discuss regionalism as a major characteristic establishing realism in a cycle, with reference especially to character identification and distinctive dialogue. I suggest that these elements can animate ‘place’, prompting setting to emerge as the central character of the collection. I also refer to Michel de Certeau’s piece, “Walking in the City” (1998), since Ice Core captures fragments of Durban from a street-level point of view which, according, to de Certeau, is important in understanding the ways in which a city is made meaningful through incessant transformations. The mobility of my stories, then, can be seen to emulate something of the associated mobility of the local urban area on which the stories focus. Through this essay I aim to show the short story genre as not merely the naïve fragmented expression of personal experience or ‘inspired’ imagination but one notable for disciplined and inventive practices. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

This trio of stories explores the cost of our increasingly commercialized, globalized society in a fictional future setting. They contain some dystopian science fiction elements in the tradition of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. The antagonist and central focus of all three stories is Hobbes Sylvan, an entitled white southerner whose gradual transformation into activist, criminal, and finally cyberterrorist is chronicled through the successive stories. The titular "Programmer," Hobbes Sylvan is both manipulator and product of the fictional future world she inhabits. Through the ethical dilemmas she faces the reader is asked to examine questions of morality in our own society. The stories are self-contained but connected, with different protagonists and conflicts but similar thematic material. They are told in first person, in epistolary (email) format, and in third person respectively, and set in chronological order. / Revisiting ADP -- A crime of passion -- A power like God. / Department of English

Short stories follows five different characters as they attempt to develop their earliest artistic impulses. Through the use of young protagonists, these stories demonstrate the ways in which our earliest experiences with loss and trauma often create a space for imaginative discovery; the collection reveals that it is the uniqueness of this space, this blend of premature emotional depth and naïve whimsy, that opens up new psychological possibilities for the child-artist. Meant to be read as a collection of intimate character sketches, these stories reveal the artist's intensely visual approach toward growth and maturity. Several stories concentrate specifically on what it means to sustain one's imagination into adulthood, while others use flashbacks to demonstrate the profound influence of childhood memories on adult behavior. / Taylor's stories -- You'll call her tomorrow -- Where to look -- Filling in the gaps -- Certainly not me. / Department of English