Date of Award
2012
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Wallace, Miriam
Keywords
Joyce, James, Bely, Andrei, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Kotik, Letaev, Child Narrators, Autobiography
Area of Concentration
Literature
Abstract
This thesis examines the roles that narration and genre play in the generation and reception of texts, through James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Andrei Bely's Kotik Letaev. The two works are known as "semiautobiographical novels," existing in a middle ground between fiction and autobiography. The works' child narrators utilize the language as their artistic medium in order to assert their agency. These narrators are ambiguous and shifting, which is defamiliarizing to the reader and serves to emphasize the division between what is real and what is fictional. These devices all trouble the distinctions of genre and force the reader into a more active role within the realm of the text.
Recommended Citation
Aldrich, Jacqueline, ""You Always See Something, But You Never See All" Narative Devices and the Reader's Role in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Andrei Bely's Kotik Letaev" (2012). Theses & ETDs. 4537.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4537