Graham Greene has stated that he believes there to be an undercurrent of fantasy running through all of his work that has largely gone unnoticed by his critics. Within the context of any discussion on Greene can be found a starting point for an evaluation of his work in terms of the fantastic and fantasy. Eric S. Rabkin defines fantasy as the inverse of reality. In a fantasy world, the ground rules, expectations, and perspectives of everyday experience are reversed, or diametrically opposed, and the effect is a sense of hesitation and wonder. All of Greene's fiction describes worlds divided. He constructs borders that continuously separate people, places, situations, motivations, perspectives, objectives, and states of mind. Each side of the border describes a world that is the opposite of the other. The reality of one side is turned over on the other side, and life on the border is unpredictable and uncertain. The concept of alternate realities and other worlds which characterize fantasies, can be applied to all of Greene's works in general, and more specifically to a particular group of the fiction which exhibits a much higher degree of fantastic content.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.61315 |
Date | January 1992 |
Creators | Tracey, Linda |
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: 001317790, proquestno: AAIMM80316, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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