University of North Dakota
From "The Dead Center Of This Place That Is No Place": The Novel Of Abjection
Abstract
dc:description.abstract<p>This essay is a comparative reading of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood as examples of abjection in the novel form. This subgenre, termed the Novel of Abjection, exemplifies Julia Kristeva's notion of abjection as occurring after a distinct separation from social norms and a movement toward destruction, violence, and insanity. This breaking-off occurs through catastrophe on the part of tragic characters, anomie, and the collection of a group sensibility through a first-person narrator. By carefully reading the two novels and exploring these common themes, the narrative mechanisms of the novels operate around abjection. As a result of this reading, the phenomenon that is here explained as breaking-off results in a shift in awareness, and that the result of breaking-off is either an illuminated return to society or a descent into complete abjection.</p>
Degree
thesis:*- Name thesis:degree_name
- Master of Arts (MA)
- Level thesis:degree_level
- Thesis
- Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
- English
- Year
- 2013
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Cavanaugh, Alexander
- Contributors dc:contributor
-
- Michael Beard
Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Repository record dc:identifier
- https://commons.und.edu/theses/1516
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:commons.und.edu:theses-2517