"Among the civilized" : a consideration of family, power, morality and technique in the novels of Ivy Compton-Burnett
The purpose of this thesis is to attempt to penetrate beyond these mystifying eccentricities of style to Ivy Compton-Burnett's world view, in order to show that, rather than being limited and inflexible, they are limited only to the extent that they establish the bounds within which a rich and varied world exists. If these novels can be said to be "about" anything, they are about the difficulties of living as a civilized being in a savage world, and about the depths of human motives and reactions. To illustrate this, my approach is thematic, rather than chronological.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
Department of English Language and Literature