This study examines the function of oral narratives in Michael Ondaatje's representation of history. Ondaatje employs a variety of thematic, structural and stylistic oral narrative strategies in this inquiry. In the course of this work he faces the challenge of translating the open oral quality of the "tale" to the page. Ondaatje's longer prose works counter the printed text's tendency towards stasis through oral narrative and paralinguistic devices. Gradually, the aesthetics of public storytelling inform the process of historiographic revision. Within the oral model, ostensibly verifiable historical facts are no longer subjected to the laws of linear causality; therefore, any central single voice must relinquish its conventional claim to authority. Instead, several "speakers" tell of a shared history. Whereas conventional historiography often focuses on the effect of major historic forces, Ondaatje's oral model reveals how those on the periphery shape and define a given incident. Ultimately, the various participatory agents create the central event in the telling. The study concludes that Ondaatje employs oral narrative strategies to revise monolithic notions of history and to offer an open representation which draws attention to complexities ignored by conventional accounts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.56797 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Gamlin, Gordon S. (Gordon Sebastian) |
| Contributors | Trehearne, Brian (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: 001337646, proquestno: AAIMM87525, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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