Riding into myth: Manifest Destiny, Nietzschean ethics and the creation of a new western frontier mythology in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian
- Authors: Edley, Christopher
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: McCarthy, Cormac, 1933-. Blood meridian , Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900 -- Influence , Mythology in literature , American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism , West (U.S.) -- In literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7334 , vital:21243
- Description: Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West is a provocative evocation of the American West that has attracted a wide range of critical responses. This study has three foci: the novel as epic myth, McCarthy’s critique of Manifest destiny, and the influence of Nietzschean philosophy on the judge and McCarthy’s portrayal of the human condition. These concerns conduce to an alternative reading of the conclusion of the novel. Blood Meridian is a unique textual enterprise as it both conforms to and subverts mythic conventions associated with both Classical epic and the American West. Recognition of the resonances between Blood Meridian and these mythologies helps the reader to engage with McCarthy’s ambitious creation of a powerful literary allegory in the tradition of Twain and Faulkner. Having situated McCarthy’s enterprise within these co-ordinates, the study then moves on to examine the novel’s stunning critique of Manifest Destiny, in the context of the implications that such thinking has had on American foreign policy over the past two centuries, and that continue to inspire American involvement in military conflicts well into the twenty-first century. The final area of focus is the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy on the character of the judge and the weltanschauung that the novel presents. McCarthy’s ultimate objective is to demonstrate that humankind’s most basic condition is an inherently violent one. The more critically accepted reading of the novel is challenged by postulating the kid’s triumph over the judge as not only in keeping with the literary tradition of Melville and others but also a logical outcome of the novel’s allegory of American military involvement in Vietnam. The study concludes that whilst McCarthy has gone on to receive critical acclaim and public praise for works published after Blood Meridian, this work remains both his artistic masterpiece and his most far-reaching engagement with issues of eschatological and political importance. It is argued that, given the contemporary escalation in geo-political tensions, Blood Meridian may well continue to provide insight into the nature of American domestic and foreign policy for decades to come.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Self-reliant transcendentalism in five modern American nonfiction texts
- Authors: Brits, Jason
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Transcendentalism in literature , Self-reliance in literature , Creative nonfiction, American -- History and criticism , Abbey, Edward, 1927-1989 -- Desert solitaire , Krakauer, Jon -- Into the wild , Gilbert, Elizabeth, 1969- -- The last American man , Harlan, Will -- Untamed: the wildest woman in America and the fight for Cumberland Island , Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882 , Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7312 , vital:21241
- Description: This thesis is concerned with the persistence of Self-Reliant Transcendentalist thought in modern American nonfiction. It traces the ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau (as progenitors of the Self-Reliant strand of the Transcendentalist movement in America) in the patterns of thought and endeavours of individuals as documented in five notable nonfiction texts published between 1968 and 2013. The texts are Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Last American Man, and Will Harlan’s Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island. Each of the seemingly Romantic individuals portrayed in these texts not only seeks to live a life similar to that of Thoreau during his famous sojourn at Walden Pond, but also seems to embody some of Emerson’s and Thoreau’s key Transcendentalist ideas. These modern and contemporary individuals, and the way in which they are portrayed in texts that fall under the general rubric of “creative nonfiction,” are testament to the continuing relevance of Transcendentalist thought in the United States - and in Western society more generally, as it seeks to negotiate a new relationship with Nature in the shadow of massive impending ecological disaster.
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- Date Issued: 2017
“The surprising involvement of the outsider”: an examination of pessimism and Schopenhauerian ethics in J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians and Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes
- Authors: Bosman, Sean James
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Coetzee, J. M., 1940- -- Waiting for the barbarians , Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924 -- Under Western eyes , Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1788-1860 , Ethics in literature , Outsiders in literature , Svenska akademien
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/36105 , vital:24479
- Description: When the Swedish Academy lauded J. M. Coetzee for portraying situations in which “the distinction between right and wrong, while crystal clear, can be seen to serve no end” (“PR” para. 3), it presented an interpretation of his texts that considers ethics to be legislative and imperative (see Cartwright, NS 255). The Swedish Academy’s assertions are worth exploring, given that this highly respected body’s statements are indicative of the critical debates generated by Coetzee’s work. It identified a common metaphysical malaise between Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians and Conrad’s Under Western Eyes, and offered pessimism as a dubious explanation for this apparent lack of value in choosing between right and wrong action. This thesis takes exception to the logical inconsistencies of this opinion and offers a sustained and systematic counterargument with the aim of suggesting an alternative interpretation of the value of ethical action in the two works. My counterargument uses interpretive and methodological models that draw on the works of Gabriele Helms, cultural narratology and Bakhtinian theory in order to investigate the texts, using the philosophy of one of the foremost German pessimists, Arthur Schopenhauer, as an ideological point of reference. The affinity between Schopenhauerian philosophy and Eastern religions (particularly Brahmanism and Buddhism) suggests, contrary to the implications of the Swedish Academy’s statements, that there is value in ethical and moral choices in systems other than those that posit Judeo-Christian rewards and punishments in an afterlife, and that pessimism cannot legitimately be used to nullify this value. Rather, UWE and WB present an alternative set of ethics - one that is voluntary and virtue-based, valuing acts of compassion above all else. But basing my arguments on the novels’ textual affinities with Schopenhauerian ethics, I maintain that neither Conrad nor Coetzee offers strictly uncomplicated presentations of the value of compassion. Yet the sustained thematic and authorial considerations of compassionate deeds suggest that there is indeed value in deciding between morally right and morally wrong action - even if the ‘rewards’ are not guaranteed and may only - at best - be temporary.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Ideas of poetic form: aspects of the Romantic-Symbolist tradition
- Authors: Oldert, David
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/54554 , vital:26587
- Description: The subject of the work is some of the formal and technical developments of modern poetry in the Romantic-Symbolist tradition. These developments were stimulated partly by the ideas of the non-intellectual Symbol inherited from the Romantics and the idea that poetry could be a musical medium inherited from some of the French Symbolists. Their combined influence led to a number of technical problems in the structuring of imagery and the handling of syntax. The work begins, therefore, by tracing the philosophical assumptions behind the ideas of the Symbol and of the musical analogy. I then go on to examine two of the difficulties that these ideas produced. One is the tension between the analogical structure of a poem’s imagery and its metaphorical texture: quite simply, the more compressed and complex a poet’s metaphors become, the more they tend to disrupt the poem’s structure of imagery. The other problem is obscurity, which is caused by insufficient objectification of private images in a symbolic structure, and by fused metaphor, which is essentially a metaphor with an obscured ground of resemblance. Finally, I show how these difficulties were solved by poets outside the tradition who used a more articulate kind of syntax, yet who also managed to combine that syntax with the ideal of symbolic form. The implicit argument, then, is that the Romantic-Symbolist ideas of form, and the New Critics’ theories of form which were largely based on them, are able to elucidate an essentially different kind of poetry, and thus have some degree of truth and use beyond the tradition that generated them.
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- Date Issued: 2016
A difficult equilibrium: torture narratives and the ethics of reciprocity in apartheid South Africa and its aftermath
- Authors: Pett, Sarah
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Apartheid -- South Africa -- History Torture -- South Africa Post-apartheid era -- South Africa Apartheid in literature Torture in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2194 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002236
- Description: This thesis takes the form of an enquiry into the development of the ―generic contours (Bakhtin 4) for the narration of torture in South Africa during apartheid and its aftermath. The enquiry focusses on the ethical determinations that underlie the conventions of this genre. My theoretical framework uses Adam Zachary Newton‘s conceptualization of narrative ethics to supplement Paul Ricoeur‘s writings on narrative identity and the ethical intention, thus facilitating the transfer of Ricoeur‘s abstract philosophy to the realm of literary criticism. Part I presents torture as a disruption of narrative identity and a defamiliarization of the intersubjective encounter. The existence of torture narratives thus attests to the critical role of narration in the reconstruction of the tortured person‘s identity and the re-establishment of benign frameworks of intersubjective communication. Literature‘s potential to act as a laboratory for the testing of the limitations of narrative identity and the resilience of ethical mores suggests that the fictional representation of torture also has an important role to play in this attempt at rehabilitation. Part II takes the form of a comparative analysis of non-fictional and fictional accounts of torture originating from apartheid South Africa. This shows that the ethical determinations underlying the narration of torture in South Africa range from intersubjective estrangement to a ―solicitude of reciprocity (Bourgeois 109). However, because the majority of these texts used the presentation of human rights abuses to galvanize international opposition to apartheid, the scope for experimentation was limited by the political exigencies of the time. Part III examines the stylistic and generic shifts in the narration of torture that accompanied South Africa‘s transition to democracy. It suggests that the discursive dominance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission replaced the fruitful—in literary terms—dialogue between authoritarianism and resistance that characterized the apartheid era with a monologic grand narrative of emotional catharsis, reconciliation and nation building. It also suggests that the ―truth-and-reconciliation genre of writing (Quayson 754) that shaped the literary milieu of the post-TRC period be seen in terms of a resurgence of the apartheid–era paradigms for the narration of human rights abuses that were repressed during the initial phase of democratic transition. By framing the TRC as a catalyst for individual journeys of self-discovery, these novels raise important questions about what it means to be a part of the ―new South Africa. In contrast to the majority of apartheid era literature, the novels of the post-TRC period privilege the literary prerogative over the political, and thus bring to fruition the experimental potential of the previous paradigm. In doing so, they not only go beyond solicitude to achieve an ―authentic reciprocity in exchange (Ricoeur, Oneself 191), but also initiate a process of long-awaited literary expansion, in which authors look beyond the limits of apartheid and begin to critically engage with the region‘s pre-apartheid history and its post-apartheid present.
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- Date Issued: 2009
Unstable ironies: narrative instability in Herman Charles Bosman's "Oom Schalk Lourens" series
- Authors: Davis, Rebecca
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Bosman, Herman Charles, 1905-1951 -- Criticism and interpretation , Irony in literature , Narration (Rhetoric)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2215 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002258 , Bosman, Herman Charles, 1905-1951 -- Criticism and interpretation , Irony in literature , Narration (Rhetoric)
- Description: This thesis examines the narrative situation within Herman Charles Bosman’s “Oom Schalk Lourens” series of stories, focussing on the nature of the relationship between author and narrator. In particular, it seeks to trace the source of the multiple ironies at work in the texts. It has been customary for critics in the past to claim that the irony within the stories stems from Bosman, operating authorially ‘above’ Oom Schalk. In terms of this theory, Oom Schalk is read as being largely unaware of the inconsistencies and contradictions within his narrative. It is the claim of this thesis, however, that Oom Schalk is the self-aware creator of the texts’ ironies much of the time. Chapter 1 commences with an attempt at defining irony, and provides a brief overview of the history of its deployment within South African literature before discussing the literary genre which Bosman was to exploit as his ironic vehicle: the “oral-style” short story. Chapter 2 examines Wayne C. Booth’s notions of “stable” and “unstable” irony: the irony of the Oom Schalk stories has, in the past, been classified as belonging to the former category, but this thesis attempts to show that its inconsistent deployment within the stories consigns it more accurately to the latter. Chapter 3 offers an assessment of the extrinsic contexts relevant to the analysis: the context of the stories’ publication, and the likely composition of Bosman’s reading public. Chapter 4 begins to examine the distance between implied author and implied narrator in the stories. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 subject stories dealing with the themes of art, race and land to detailed analysis in order to examine the shifting – and progressively, though unevenly, diminishing – distance between Bosman and Oom Schalk. The thesis concludes that the degree to which the ironic distance between author and narrator fluctuates within, and between, the stories, results in a narrative situation which must be classified as fundamentally unstable.
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- Date Issued: 2006
South African panorama: the novels of Daphne Rooke
- Authors: Coetzee, Paulette June
- Date: 1998
- Subjects: Rooke, Daphne, 1914- -- Criticism and interpretation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2222 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002265 , Rooke, Daphne, 1914- -- Criticism and interpretation
- Description: This thesis covers Daphne Rooke's eight published "South African" novels: A Grove of Fever Trees, Mittee, Ratoons, Wizards' Country, A Lover for Estelle, The Greyling, Diamond Jo, and Margaretha de la Porte. It supports the recent revival of critical interest in Rooke, and argues for the continuing relevance of her work in post-apartheid South Africa. This study also broadens the scope of recent Rooke research by including lesser known works like The Greyling and Margaretha de la Porte in its analysis. Recent criticism has focused on Rooke's unusual blend of romance and realism. The first three chapters concentrate more on "realism", emphasising the depth and extent of Rooke's engagement with serious social issues. The novels are examined in terms of their handling of the themes of class (chapter one), race (chapter two) and gender (chapter three). The concluding chapter shifts in focus to "romance" and examines the question of generic_identity -- touching on Rooke's gothic, magical realist and "popular" qualities -within a consideration of the particular "South African-ness" of her work.
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- Date Issued: 1998
William Plomer's and Sol Plaatje's South Africa: art as vision and reality
- Authors: Ogu, Memoye Abijah
- Date: 1995
- Subjects: Plaatje, Sol. T. (Solomon Tshekisho), 1876-1932. Mhudi , Plomer, William, 1903-1973. Turbott Wolfe , Race in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2239 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002282 , Plaatje, Sol. T. (Solomon Tshekisho), 1876-1932. Mhudi , Plomer, William, 1903-1973. Turbott Wolfe , Race in literature
- Description: This thesis essays a comparative study of William Plomer's Turbott Wolfe (1925) and Sol Plaatje's Mhudi (1930). Although writing from very different subject positions within the social order of the time, Plomer and Plaatje embody in their novels a strikingly similar vision of a South Africa free of racial barriers. Plaatje's version of South African history in Mhudi deconstructs colonial binarism by dramatizing not only conflict and difference but also co-operation and commonality. Holding the past up as a mirror to the present, it protests against racial injustice while implying the continuing possibility of reconciliation. Plomer reacts angrily to white hypocrisy and insists on the rights and humanity of his African characters, in the name of imperatives both moral and political. He seeks additional sanction for these by situating the South African race questioning the context of a Western world slowly awakening to the consequences of modernity. During a time of political turbulence, both writers speak out boldly and confidently against the rising dominance of segregationist ideology. The imminent inception of full democracy in South Africa has reanimated the relevance of these writers' vision of a non- racial social order. If one of the challenges facing the South African literary historian 'today is the reconstruction of a truly national literary tradition, then Mhudi and Turbott Wolfe would appear to be key works in such an enterprise. As different as Plaatje's epic myth-making is from Plomer's modernist irony, both novels contrive to speak with a new voice: a national voice which expresses the aspirations of all South Africa's people. They are, moreover, novels whose survival seems guaranteed as much by their aesthetic qualities as by their ideological orientation. The novels are examined against the backgrounds of South African society and colonial literary production. They are seen as milestones in the development of a liberal South African literary tradition. By breaking with the dominant oppositional mode, whether that of "white writing" or an emergent "writing black", Plomer and Plaatje exemplify a literature at once socially relevant and possessed of a prophetic vision that remains of significance in South Africa today.
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- Date Issued: 1995