This thesis deals with violence in the language of Timothy Findley's work: both the language of narration and the language of dialogue between the characters. In the thesis, I will examine the way language is violated for the purpose of re-assembling it into a more competent vehicle for communication. Bakhtin's theory of dialogics and Robert Kroetsch's theory of violent silence will be examined with regard to Findley's consistent focus on the way language must be violated to render it useful, and why any character of Findley's who refuses to violate language and chooses instead to submit to silence, is destroyed. According to Findley, the only means of validating existence and literature is to dispel silence with dialogue. I will prove that Timothy Findley treats violence as a positive and necessary precursor to any sort of creativity, asserting again and again through his texts that nothing can be constructed until something is first torn down.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.68108 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Jushkevich, Paulanne |
| Contributors | Lecker, Robert (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001401762, proquestno: AAIMM94359, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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