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The Moviegoer and the Last Gentleman

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The Moviegoer and the Last Gentleman MASTERARBEIT / MASTER’S THESIS Titel der Masterarbeit / Title of the Master‘s Thesis NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE AND MAJOR THEMES IN WALKER PERCY'S THE MOVIEGOER AND THE LAST GENTLEMAN verfasst von / submitted by Halil Ülker, BA angestrebter akademischer Grad / in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (MA) Wien, 2018 / Vienna 2018 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt / A 066 844 degree programme code as it appears on the student record sheet: Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt / Masterstudium Anglophone Literatures and Cultures degree programme as it appears on the student record sheet: Betreut von / Supervisor: Ass.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Dieter Fuchs TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 3 2. WALKER PERCY ......................................................................................... 5 2.1 The Origins of Walker Percy ..................................................................... 5 2.2 Suicide and Transformation ...................................................................... 6 2.3 Coming to Oneself and Scientism ............................................................. 8 2.4 Religion and Existentialism ..................................................................... 14 2.5 Stoicism .................................................................................................. 17 2.6 Semiotics and Language ......................................................................... 21 2.7 Percy’s Works ......................................................................................... 34 3. PHILOSOPHERS & THEIR APPROACHES ............................................... 35 3.1 Kierkegaard ............................................................................................. 36 3.2 Cartesian Philosophy .............................................................................. 38 3.3 Freud ....................................................................................................... 42 3.4 Fyodor Dostoevsky ................................................................................. 45 4. THE MOVIEGOER ....................................................................................... 46 4.1 Structure ................................................................................................. 47 4.1.1 Plot .................................................................................................... 47 4.1.2 The Narrative Technique .................................................................. 48 4.2 Themes ................................................................................................... 49 4.2.1 Alienation .......................................................................................... 49 4.2.2 Religion ............................................................................................. 51 4.2.3 Stoicism ............................................................................................ 53 4.2.4 Sexuality ........................................................................................... 53 4.3 Characters and Character Analysis ......................................................... 54 4.3.1 John Bickerson “Binx” Bolling ........................................................... 54 4.3.2 Kate Cutrer ....................................................................................... 58 4.3.3 Aunt Emily ......................................................................................... 62 5. THE LAST GENTLEMAN ............................................................................ 64 5.1 Structure ................................................................................................. 64 5.1.1 Plot .................................................................................................... 65 5.1.2 The Narrative Technique .................................................................. 65 5.2 Themes ................................................................................................... 66 5.2.1 Religion ............................................................................................. 67 5.2.2 Romantic Nostalgia ........................................................................... 72 5.2.3 Sexuality ........................................................................................... 75 1 5.3 Characters .............................................................................................. 78 5.3.1 Williston Bibb (Will) Barrett ............................................................... 78 5.3.2 Sutter Vaught .................................................................................... 80 5.3.3 Kitty Vaught ...................................................................................... 81 5.3.4 Jamison MacKenzie Vaught ............................................................. 81 5.3.5 Valentina Vaught............................................................................... 82 5.3.6 Father Boomer .................................................................................. 83 6. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 84 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 85 8. ABSTRACT .................................................................................................. 93 8.1 Abstract English ...................................................................................... 93 8.2 Zusammenfassung Deutsch ................................................................... 93 2 1. INTRODUCTION The target of this paper is to provide an analysis of Walker Percy’s first two novels The Moviegoer (1961), and The Last Gentleman (1966). Although the particular interest is in the major themes and narrative techniques of both novels, substantial information on their settings, plots, and main characters will be presented as well. The first section reveals the aim of this paper and summarizes its contents briefly. Providing some information on the Percys, the second section depicts the Percy family tree and presents Walker Percy’s life and personality. As Eric Voegelin’s philosophy of scientism and Charles Saunders Peirce’s philosophical study of signs are vital to understand Percy’s motives, both these figures and their respective philosophies are presented in two different subsections. Besides, there is a subsection on stoicism since Percy was heavily influenced by his paternal uncle William Alexander Percy’s stoic attitude. The Origins of Walker Percy, Suicide and Transformation, Coming to Oneself and Scientism, Religion and Existentialism, Stoicism, and Percy’s Works are the subsections to introduce respectively. The third section, then, focuses on the philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Descartes, and Freud and elucidates their philosophies since the analysis will be principally based on their philosophical concepts. In addition, a subsection on the author Dostoevsky presents some information on the confessional mode of writing to indicate the same style in both novels. Both in sections two and three, philosophers are introduced along with their philosophies and some of their analyses of the novels. Thus, all their findings mentioned in these sections are considered to constitute the part of the main analysis. The fourth and fifth sections concentrate on both the novels respectively, e.g. their structures, plots, major and minor characters, and main themes. In light of the theoretical information under sections two and three, the findings will be presented during the analysis of the characters and themes. Besides, some new theoretical information will also be mentioned to introduce either the themes and some of the characters or an opposing view. As regards the minor characters, 3 only the most important and relevant ones will be the focus of attention for the sake of brevity. The sixth section is the conclusion of this paper, in which the general overview of the entire paper is summarized concisely. 4 2. WALKER PERCY This section is comprised of seven subsections providing some relevant information on Percy’s biography, his personality and his philosophical conception of the world to make the reader understand the underlying logic and assumptions of the comprehensive analysis in this paper. Within the last subsection, the list of Percy’s works will be mentioned briefly. 2.1 The Origins of Walker Percy The following family tree depicts the known members of the Percy family (Tolson- Table of Contents). Fig. 1 depicts the genealogy of the Percy family Having been making his fortune in the Deep South from 1776 onwards, Charles Percy, a former British Navy lieutenant1, started the history of the Percy family in 1According to the information in Old Families of Louisiana, a compilation book to present the genealogical records of the foundation families of the State of Louisiana, it was not Charles Percy who was a naval lieutenant but his son Robert. Charles was an army officer and his son Robert was hailed by “the Right Honorable Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty” as a result of his successful career as commander (Arthur and Huchet de Kernion 183). 5 Mississippi, previously belonging to the Spanish. Soon this upper-class family became part of the landed nobility of the South with some Confederate leaders and a United States senator being its distinguished
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