"The power of the spoken work" : discourse in Ethel Wilson's novels

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dc.contributor.authorMcCourt, Kathryn Lilyen_US
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-14T22:44:26Z
dc.date.available2024-08-14T22:44:26Z
dc.date.copyright1989en_US
dc.date.issued1989
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of English
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en
dc.description.abstractCriticism of Ethel Wilson's fiction has focussed primarily on characterization and theme, and has been mainly interpretative in nature. Current literary theory has to date had little influence on the study of her work. Because discourse plays a prominent role in Wilson's writing, this thesis undertakes to analyze the effects of discourse in Swamp Angel and The Equations of Love. At the level of story, a character's discourse reflects his or her world view. Characters' use of perfonnative language, their silences, their fictionalizations, are examined in order to discover how these elements of discourse generate the events in each story. This thesis defines "plot" as that part of the narrator's discourse which presents the story. At this level, names of char­acters are shown to constitute a language of their own; they, along with religious, military, and other discourses contribute to the multi-voicedness of these texts. As well, commentary on the plot is a prominent feature of Wilson's writing, The final chapter addresses --and refutes--the generally accepted views that the narration in Swamp Angel and The Equations of Love is "third-person omniscient," and that passages of commentary frequently intrude on the plots. This study of discourse employs methodology proposed by Mikhail Bakhtin and Gerard Genetter it leads to the conclusion that Wilson's writing presages the development of postmodemism in Canadian Fiction.
dc.format.extent133 pages
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/18904
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.title"The power of the spoken work" : discourse in Ethel Wilson's novelsen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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