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Character Interrelation in Tana French's Novels

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Character Interrelation in Tana French's Novels Character Interrelation in Tana French’s Novels An Analysis of In the Woods, The Likeness and Faithful Place Master Thesis presented by Fabiola Fliegel (Matr. No 1021425) to the Department of English and American Studies Assoz. Prof. Mag. Dr. Sarah Herbe Ass.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Wolfgang Görtschacher in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the subject of English Studies and the Creative Industries University of Salzburg Salzburg, August 2018 Statutory Declaration I declare that I have authored this thesis independently, that I have not used other than the declared sources, and that I have explicitly marked all material which has been quoted either literally or by content from the used sources. ………………………………………….. ………………………………… (date) (signature) Abstract This thesis investigates the concept of character interrelation and interfigurality in the novels written by Tana French and its effects on the characterisation process. The use of side characters as protagonists in following novels is analysed to establish how these interrelations, as well as the use of shifting narrators influences character development. The corpus for analysis includes the first three novels by Tana French, In the Woods, The Likeness, and Faithful Place. The text- based approach of close reading is applied to use quotes from the novels to underline the argumentation. The genre-based approach allows for a close analysis of typical crime fiction genre characteristics and their effect on character expectation and character development in the novels as well as a narrative analysis and comparison thereof, while the use of a character-based approach offers a close analysis of characterisation processes and character interrelation across the novels. Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 1. Crime Fiction – A Genre Discussion .................................................................................. 3 1.1. General overview ......................................................................................................... 4 1.2. Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction ..................................................................................... 5 1.3. Police Novel ................................................................................................................ 8 1.4. Crime Thriller ............................................................................................................ 10 1.5. Mystery Fiction .......................................................................................................... 12 1.6. Irish Crime Fiction ..................................................................................................... 13 1.7. Gender in Crime Fiction ............................................................................................ 14 2. Narrative Framework ........................................................................................................ 19 2.1. Time and Space ......................................................................................................... 19 2.2. Focalization ............................................................................................................... 21 2.3. Character .................................................................................................................... 22 2.3.1. Interfigurality ......................................................................................................... 26 2.4. Multiperspective Narration ........................................................................................ 27 2.5. Unreliable Narration .................................................................................................. 32 3. Tana French – A Close Reading ....................................................................................... 37 3.1. Genre Discussion ....................................................................................................... 38 3.1.1. In the Woods .......................................................................................................... 38 3.1.2. The Likeness ........................................................................................................... 42 3.1.3. Faithful Place ......................................................................................................... 47 3.2. Narrative Analysis ..................................................................................................... 53 3.2.1. In the Woods .......................................................................................................... 53 3.2.2. The Likeness ........................................................................................................... 56 3.2.3. Faithful Place ......................................................................................................... 58 3.3. Character Analysis ..................................................................................................... 62 3.3.1. Rob Ryan ............................................................................................................... 62 3.3.2. Characteristics of the Unreliable Narrator in Rob’s Narrative .............................. 66 3.3.3. Rob’s Relation to Cassie ........................................................................................ 70 3.3.4. Cassie Maddox – In the Woods .............................................................................. 74 3.3.5. Cassie Maddox – The Likeness .............................................................................. 78 3.3.6. Comparison of Cassie in the Two Versions ........................................................... 88 3.3.7. Frank Mackey – The Likeness ................................................................................ 90 3.3.8. Frank Mackey – Faithful Place ............................................................................. 94 3.3.9. Comparison of Frank in the Two Versions .......................................................... 104 3.4. Final Comparison of All Three Novels ................................................................... 106 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 114 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 116 Table of Figures ..................................................................................................................... 119 1 Introduction Characters in a novel form the most basic essential element to a narrative. Without them, a story cannot unfold, develop or even exist. Readers identify with characters, experience the stories through them and laugh and cry along with them. But what happens, if the sidekicks, the secondary characters, the ones that have been described, but not considered properly before, are encountered instead of the already known protagonists? In the novels by Tana French, an interesting new concept has been employed concerning the use and re-use of characters. Side characters known from previous books are used as protagonists in the following novels, which means that although they are already known to the readers, they often have not been properly introduced yet. The interrelation between her novels is achieved mainly via these characters. This has the effect that characters are experienced differently, as they do not have the primacy effect of being completely new to the reader. Thus, the process of characterisation is different from the classical one, where the reader encounters characters without previous knowledge, yet it is also different from the characterisation in a series, as in this case, the respective character is already familiar. In this thesis, the first three novels of Tana French, In the Woods, The Likeness, and Faithful Place, will be analysed according to a theoretical framework based on genre and narrative elements to show how the interrelation between these novels is achieved via characterisation. The concept of interrelating novels via characters is not completely new and has been applied by authors before, yet the realisation of this interrelation has up until now mainly been achieved by re-using protagonists either in a series or in a new fictional surrounding. The introduction of side-characters as protagonists is relatively new, as well as the use of shifting narration and first-person narrators to change the perspective on said characters. In this thesis, the question shall be tackled how the use of side characters as protagonists in following novels influences characterisation and character perception. By analysing genre and narrative situation of the novels, a contrastive analysis will be presented to show how these factors influence the interrelation between the novels and how they either emphasize or contrast character interrelations, as well as how they influence character perception and the development of characters. The genre-based 2 approach is applied in this case, as it can be argued that genre always presupposes certain characters and that by this, character development as well as character constellation is influenced across different novels. Additionally, an in-depth analysis of the characters in all three novels as well as a comparison of the different presentation
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