The complexities of narratological transmissibility

Kory G Wein, Purdue University

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to weave together the various theories of narrative to examine more closely the complexity of narrative transmissibility, and what new insights the transmission of narrative makes manifest in regards to specific literary works. This dissertation examines the following: how framing narratives and modes of transmissibility in Wutherin Heights and Frankenstein help us to understand characters' desire for narrative and narration; how framing also extends to the descriptive function of framing associated with windows, doors, and mirrors as devices to focus the reader's attention at particular moments and on particular scenes in the The Princesse de Cleves and Madame Bovary; how the transmission of Anna Karenina and Les Liaisons dangereuses is dependant on the semiotics of non-verbal communication: smiles, gazes, facial expressions, blushes, and letters; how Vanity Fair , Bleak House, and Middlemarch are coherent in spite of any discontinuities seemingly present as a result of the multiplication of plot and/or the alternation and intrusion of narratives or narrators; and, lastly, how Alfred Noyes, in The Torch-Bearers: Watchers of the Sky, has reworked the history of science to fit his conception of a grand narrative of science, and what implications its transmission has on imperialism.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Palmer, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Rhetoric|Composition|Literature|British and Irish literature|Romance literature|Slavic literature|Science history

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