Orra Though It Be is a short story collection which evokes the Northeast of Scotland through its setting, themes and language. In more universal terms, it depicts close-knit communities opening up to the wider world in the age of globalisation and the disenchantment felt by individuals caught up in this process. The collection's introduction outlines the linguistic and aesthetic issues of representing the region to an outside audience. After analysing the available options, my preference for skaz is explained in relation to Mikhail Bakhtin's theories on dialogism and the carnivalesque. The first chapter of the exegesis analyses some of the earliest narratives to mix vernacular with the standard at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Key works by Maria Edgeworth, Walter Scott and James Hogg are dissected in light of how each writer's social context affected their presentation of 'subversive' oralities through artifice and unreliability. The second chapter moves onto writers of the Modernist period, contrasting the oral skaz writings of Russia's Nikolai Leskov with the more linear, literary stories of his contemporary Anton Chekhov. The impact of James Joyce's work on Northeast writers is then discussed with an especial focus on Lewis Grassic Gibbon. The third chapter considers the general cultural shift beyond the Enlightenment from communality to individuality alongside the tandem transition of literature from ballad-‐like objectivity towards modernistic subjectivity. James Kelman's experimentations with these styles are explored in order to show how they have influenced my own work. A larger concern with the expression of emotion in Scottish literature is also assessed. Tying together many of the ideas and methodological issues outlined thus far, the final chapter provides an in-depth reflection on the progression of three stories from first to final drafts and the evolution of the collection as a whole.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:633295 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Strachan, Shane Andrew Forman |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=217890 |
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