Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Dimino, Andrea

Area of Concentration

English

Abstract

The act of reading can often be a physically passive one, even if the material is mentally stimulating; but House of Leaves defies this norm. The novel, which is about a labyrinth, becomes a kind of labyrinth readers must wander as they read, following three principal characters at three distinct textual layers of the novel. House of Leaves is essentially an unfinished scholarly treatise about a fictitious film, compiled and completed by a second author surrogate. This layering establishes three “interpreters,” each of whom relays his experience with his subject to his audience (specifically through writing or film); and the sense of their experiences is often presented through the ways in which readers are asked to interact with the text in front of them. Whether a change occurs in the typography or in the formatting, the book is often most easily navigably by spinning it around, holding it up to a mirror, or flipping around in a non-linear order. Each chapter of this thesis looks closely at one of the textual levels of House of Leaves and analyzes the ways in which visual function contributes to a greater understanding of the narrative throughout the course of the novel.

Download

Share

COinS