A Study of the Dynamic Picaresque Novel
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Postmodern Narration in Umberto Eco's the Name of The
Shanlax International Journal of English 1 Umberto Eco, Italy‟s most celebrated philosopher, semiotician, literary critic, linguist and novelist, is widely acclaimed for many of his influential scholarly works. His novels The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum, Baudolino, An Island of the Day Before, Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, The Prague Cemetery have gained much adulation from his readers. His recent novel Numero Zero has also earned greater Dr. B. Kathiresan popularity. An exceptional narrative style imposed in these Associate Professor of English novels identifies them predominantly with postmodern Thiruvalluvar University literature. The Name of the Rose is a postmodern novel where Eco recites a fictious tale of Adso of Melk who inturn narrates S.Pushpanjali his past to the readers. Adso‟s story deals with William along Research Scholar, Thiruvalluvar University with his novice Adso, solving the mystery of seven bizarre deaths that occurs in the Benadictine Monastery where they come o n a mission to partake in a theological disputation. The postmodern narration in the novel harnesses temporal distortion and unreliable narration. Temporal distortion refers to a technique that the postmodern authors implement in their novels to convey the story. It includes employing features like fragmentation and non- linear narration. Fragmentation is the disarray of events whereas non-linear narration is the usage of distorted timeline in the portrayal of events. A novel, in general, usually incorporates a structure that assembles the compendium of information belonging to the story in an organized fashion. When this fabrication breaks, there is an interruption in the disposal of the events of the story, affecting the totality of meaning. -
A Study of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing Leena Pundir
Lapis Lazuli -An International Literary Journal (LLILJ) Vol.2/ NO.2/Autumn 2012 From being an Unreliable Narrator to becoming a Reliable one: A Study of Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing Leena Pundir ______________________________________________________________________________ The focus of attention in modern critical theories has radically shifted from the author and the age to which he belonged, to the reader who is now taken to be the co-author. It is now difficult to deny that a work of art aims to produce an effect on the reader in some way. In the conventional novel there was not much of this interaction between the work and the reader. The reader was almost always at the receiving end, sitting in a cozy armchair with the omniscient author telling him everything. But the use of the device the point of view in the novels of writers like Henry James and Joseph Conrad, in which the all-knowing, all-seeing author withdrew, gave the comfortable armchair reader a jolt out of his customary passivity into an active and responsive participation in the action of the novel. A variation on the basic technique of point of view, which has been successfully exploited by many authors, is the use of the unreliable narrator. Lapis Lazuli -An International Literary Journal (LLILJ) ISSN 2249-4529, Vol.2/ NO.2/Autumn 2012 URL of the Issue: http://pintersociety.com/vol-2-issue-2autumn-2012/ URL of the article: http://pintersociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/leena-pundir-8.pdf © www.pintersociety.com 1 From being an Unreliable Narrator to becoming a Reliable one: A Study of Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing An unreliable narrator is one who cannot be relied upon to provide accurate information, so that the reader is obliged to try to deduce, from the possibly misleading account given by such a narrator, the true facts of the case. -
A Rhetorical Study of Edward Abbey's Picaresque Novel the Fool's Progress
California State University, San Bernardino CSUSB ScholarWorks Theses Digitization Project John M. Pfau Library 2001 A rhetorical study of Edward Abbey's picaresque novel The fool's progress Kent Murray Rogers Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project Part of the Rhetoric Commons Recommended Citation Rogers, Kent Murray, "A rhetorical study of Edward Abbey's picaresque novel The fool's progress" (2001). Theses Digitization Project. 2079. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2079 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the John M. Pfau Library at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses Digitization Project by an authorized administrator of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A RHETORICAL STUDY OF EDWARD ABBEY'S PICARESQUE NOVEL THE FOOL'S PROGRESS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, San Bernardino In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English Composition by Kent Murray Rogers June 2001 A RHETORICAL STUDY OF EDWARD ABBEY'S PICARESQUE NOVEL THE FOOL,'S PROGRESS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, San Bernardino by Kent Murray Rogers June 2001 Approved by: Elinore Partridge, Chair, English Peter Schroeder ABSTRACT The rhetoric of Edward Paul Abbey has long created controversy. Many readers have embraced his works while many others have reacted with dislike or even hostility. Some readers have expressed a mixture of reactions, often citing one book, essay or passage in a positive manner while excusing or completely .ignoring another that is deemed offensive. -
“Is This Really Happening?”: Game Mechanics As Unreliable Narrator
“Is This Really Happening?”: Game Mechanics as Unreliable Narrator Curie Roe and Alex Mitchell Department of Communications and New Media National University of Singapore [email protected], [email protected] ABSTRACT The unreliable narrator is a popular narrative technique employed by game designers, as seen in games such as Dear Esther and The Stanley Parable. However, much of the academic discussion of unreliable narration in video games has focused on games with an omniscient, personified narrator. Through close readings of Tales from the Borderlands Episode 1 and Doki Doki Literature Club, we examine how video games without an omniscient, personified narrator create unreliable narration. Our findings suggest that in these games the auditory, visual and interactive (gameplay) narrative modes work together to create unreliability by setting up players to doubt the meaning of their in-game actions. This draws attention to the presence of an implied player to whom the unreliable narration is directed, and heightens awareness of the “Game Narrator” through metalepsis. We propose this Game Narrator as the set of rules that govern how the three narrative modes (auditory, visual and interactive) are dependent on each other, and how they support meaning-making and the formation of the cognitive construct of the storyworld in the player’s mind. KeyworDs unreliable narration, game mechanics, close readings, metalepsis, game narrator INTRODUCTION Games are increasingly accepted as a medium for storytelling, with research no longer focusing on whether games can tell stories, but instead exploring how games tell stories, and how these techniques are similar to or different from traditional forms of narrative such as literature and film. -
Glossary of Literary Terms
Glossary of Critical Terms for Prose Adapted from “LitWeb,” The Norton Introduction to Literature Study Space http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/litweb10/glossary/C.aspx Action Any event or series of events depicted in a literary work; an event may be verbal as well as physical, so that speaking or telling a story within the story may be an event. Allusion A brief, often implicit and indirect reference within a literary text to something outside the text, whether another text (e.g. the Bible, a myth, another literary work, a painting, or a piece of music) or any imaginary or historical person, place, or thing. Ambiguity When we are involved in interpretation—figuring out what different elements in a story “mean”—we are responding to a work’s ambiguity. This means that the work is open to several simultaneous interpretations. Language, especially when manipulated artistically, can communicate more than one meaning, encouraging our interpretations. Antagonist A character or a nonhuman force that opposes, or is in conflict with, the protagonist. Anticlimax An event or series of events usually at the end of a narrative that contrast with the tension building up before. Antihero A protagonist who is in one way or another the very opposite of a traditional hero. Instead of being courageous and determined, for instance, an antihero might be timid, hypersensitive, and indecisive to the point of paralysis. Antiheroes are especially common in modern literary works. Archetype A character, ritual, symbol, or plot pattern that recurs in the myth and literature of many cultures; examples include the scapegoat or trickster (character type), the rite of passage (ritual), and the quest or descent into the underworld (plot pattern). -
Critical Inquisitions in Salman Rushdie's the Moor's Last Sigh And
Vol. 3(3), pp. 68-70, March 2015 DOI: 10.14662/IJELC2015.011 International Journal of English Copy© right 2015 Literature and Culture Author(s) retain the copyright of this article ISSN: 2360-7831 http://www.academicresearchjournals.org/IJELC/Index.htm Review Postcolonial Kitsch and writing History: Critical Inquisitions in Salman Rushdie’s The Moor's Last Sigh and The Ground beneath Her Feet Sunil Kumar, PhD Scholar Department of Indian and World Literatures, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad–500 007, India Accepted 3 February 2015 The paper explores postmodern playfulness and blurring of boundaries vis-a-vis postcolonial re-writing history in Salman Rushdie’s The Moor's Last Sigh and The Ground beneath Her Feet. It shows the impossibility of locating the cultural network and social picture of “Mother India” for a stable nation and unified identity in colonial and postcolonial histories. It explores the residual effect of colonial domination and the transnational setting in the wide frame of Western and postcolonial culture, through abundant references to Greek mythology, European philosophy, contemporary texts, and at the same time mixes them with four decades’ history of the growth of rock music and the stars of rock ’n’ roll producing the effect of “kitsch”. The paper also emphasizes the juxtaposition of personal and national narratives in the novels to expose the traumas underlying postcolonial Indian identities, the lasting influence of British culture, and the inaccessibility of a purely "Indian" past. Finally, it focuses on the significance of the postmodern devices like unreliable narrator, metafiction, pastiche, etc. in construction of the national history of India which is repressed in colonial violence. -
Magical Realism and Experiences of Extremity
Current Narratives Volume 1 Issue 3 Losing the Plot - Tangling with Narrative Article 4 Complexity December 2011 Magical Realism and Experiences of Extremity Jo Langdon Deakin University Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/currentnarratives Recommended Citation Langdon, Jo, Magical Realism and Experiences of Extremity, Current Narratives, 3, 2011, 14-24. Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/currentnarratives/vol1/iss3/4 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] Magical Realism and Experiences of Extremity Abstract Examining magical realist texts including Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato (1991), and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated (2002) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2006), this paper discusses how magical realism examines the extremities of trauma and fear, proposing that magical realist narratives afford a unique ability to represent trauma in a way that is not open to the stylistics of literary realism. Blending the real or believable with the fantastically outrageous, magical realist narratives typically destabilise and disorder privileged centres of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, demonstrating the constructedness of knowledge and history. Accordingly, magical realist strategies are frequently used in interventionist or counter narratives that refuse to adhere to privileged versions of truth or history and insist upon a multiplicity of experience. The majority of magical realist scholarship explores how the genre undermines hegemonic perspectives of history to clear a space for marginal representations of the past. However, as this paper argues, magical realist narratives also provide a unique space for writing about experiences of extremity. -
A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms, Second Edition
A DICTIONARY OF Literary and Thematic Terms Second Edition EDWARD QUINN A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms, Second Edition Copyright © 2006 by Edward Quinn All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Quinn, Edward, 1932– A dictionary of literary and thematic terms / Edward Quinn—2nd ed. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-8160-6243-9 (hc : alk. paper) 1. Criticism—Terminology. 2. Literature— Terminology. 3. Literature, Comparative—Themes, motives, etc.—Terminology. 4. English language—Terms and phrases. 5. Literary form—Terminology. I. Title. PN44.5.Q56 2006 803—dc22 2005029826 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can fi nd Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfi le.com Text design by Sandra Watanabe Cover design by Cathy Rincon Printed in the United States of America MP FOF 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents Preface v Literary and Thematic Terms 1 Index 453 Preface This book offers the student or general reader a guide through the thicket of liter- ary terms. -
The Many Faces of the Unreliable Narrator
The Many Faces of the Unreliable Narrator: An Analysis and Typology of Young Adult Novels and their Narrators by Lacey Hall B.A., The University of Fraser Valley, 2014 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Children’s Literature) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) June 2018 © Lacey Hall, 2018 The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation entitled: The Many Faces of the Unreliable Narrator: An Analysis and Typology of Young Adult Novels and their Narrators submitted by Lacey Hall in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Children’s Literature Examining Committee: Carl Leggo, Language and Literacy Education Supervisor Rick Gooding, English Supervisory Committee Member Margot Filipenko, Language and Literacy Education Supervisory Committee Member ii Abstract This thesis examines the style of unreliable narration, through the analysis of three young adult novels: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, and Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman. Drawing on Theresa Heyd’s theories on detection and classification of unreliable narration using the Gricean maxims, this study sets out to demonstrate how unreliable narration is defined and to highlight the degree of intentionality each narrator possesses. This study also gives attention to the real author of each text, in order to combat the outdated and over studied ‘implied author’ previous research has focused on. This research highlights the narrative technique, while adding to the limited number of resources available on unreliable narration within children’s literature. -
Does the Picaresque Novel Exist?*
Published in Kentucky Romance Quarterly, 26 (1979): 203-19. Author’s Web site: http://bigfoot.com/~daniel.eisenberg Author’s email: [email protected] Does the Picaresque Novel Exist?* Daniel Eisenberg The concept of the picaresque novel and the definition of this “genre” is a problem concerning which there exists a considerable bibliography;1 it is also the * [p. 211] A paper read at the Twenty-Ninth Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, April 24, 1976. I would like to express my appreciation to Donald McGrady for his comments on an earlier version of this paper. 1 Criticism prior to 1966 is competently reviewed by Joseph Ricapito in his dissertation, “Toward a Definition of the Picaresque. A Study of the Evolution of the Genre together with a Critical and Annotated Bibliography of La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, Vida de Guzmán de Alfarache, and Vida del Buscón,” Diss. UCLA, 1966 (abstract in DA, 27 [1967], 2542A– 43A; this dissertation will be published in a revised and updated version by Castalia. Meanwhile, the most important of the very substantial bibliography since that date, which has reopened the question of the definition of the picaresque, is W. M. Frohock, “The Idea of the Picaresque,” YCGL, 16 (1967), 43–52, and also his “The Failing Center: Recent Fiction and the Picaresque Tradition,” Novel, 3 (1969), 62–69, and “Picaresque and Modern Literature: A Conversation with W. M. Frohock,” Genre, 3 (1970), 187–97, Stuart Miller, The Picaresque Novel (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve, 1967; originally entitled, as Miller’s dissertation at Yale, “A Genre Definition of the Picaresque”), on which see Harry Sieber’s comments in “Some Recent Books on the Picaresque,” MLN, 84 (1969), 318–30, and the review by Hugh A. -
Rogues, Vagabonds and Sturdy Beggars, a New Gallery of Tudor
poofe 3^ebieiusi Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars: A New Gallery of Tudor and Early Stuart Rogue Literature edited by Arthur F. Kinney; 18 illusfrations by John Lawrence. 328 pp. $18.95, paper University of Massachusetts Press Reviewed by John Mucci. Mr. Mucci is Associate Editor of The Elizabethan Review. On the endless road of popular culture, there has always been a genre of entertainment which supposedly reveals the mysteries of the under world. Although whatever insight might be exposed, from the canting jargon to the details of a crime, accuracy seems to take a back seat to satisfying curiosity and a need for sensationalism. Today, there are interesting things to be leamed about ourselves by reading the pecuUar genre of EUzabethan pamphleteering known as rogue literature. Popular with all levels of literate society, these slender books purported to set down the manner by which con artists of all types might abscond with decent peoples' money and goods. Ostensibly written as a public service, to wam and arm society against rogues of all types, in their fascinating variety, they are an Elizabethan version of mob stories, with curious and lurid detail. This interest with the underworld and the seamiest side of life is one which has obvious parallels in modem times, particularly with readers who are most threatened by and distanced from such criminals. This so-caUed practical element of defending the populace against these all-too-prevalent creatures falls to second place against the pleasure ofreading about others who have been hoodwinked by them (and better still, hearing the details about rogues who have been caught in the act and punished). -
Picaresque Translation and the History of the Novel.Pdf
The Picaresque, Translation and the History of the Novel. José María Pérez Fernández University of Granada 1. Introduction The picaresque as a generic category originates in the Spanish Siglo de Oro, with the two novels that constitute the core of its canon—the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) and Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache (1599, 1604). In spite of the fact that definitions of the picaresque are always established upon these Spanish foundations, it has come to be regarded as a transnational phenomenon which also spans different periods and raises important questions about the nature and definition of a literary genre. After its appearance in the Spanish 16th century, picaresque fiction soon spread all over Europe, exerting a particularly important influence during the 17th and 18th centuries in Germany, France and above all England, after which its impact diminished gradually. A study of the picaresque calls for a dynamic, flexible, and open-ended model. When talking about the picaresque we should not countenance it as a solid and coherent whole, but rather as a fluid set of features that had a series of precedents, an important foundational moment in the Spanish 16th and 17th centuries, and then spread out in a non-linear way. It grew instead into a complex web whose heterogeneous components were brought together by the fact that these new varieties of prose fiction were responding to similar cultural, social and economic realities. These new printed artefacts resulted from the demands of readers as consumers and the policies of publishers and printers as producers of marketable goods.