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A Variety of Perspectives: The Role of the Narrator in Selected British Dystopian Novels
Yavtushenko, Alona ; Poncarová, Petra Johana (advisor) ; Horová, Miroslava (referee)
This bachelor thesis focuses on examining the narrative situations in selected British dystopian novels and determining how the specific narrative strategies contribute to the texts' efficiency. The discussed novels are Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty- Four, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. The study analyses the narrative situation in every novel separately, concentrating on the role of the narrator and their contribution to the presentation of the dystopian world. The thesis works with Gérard Genette's theory of narrative and his concept of focalization, using his terminology to describe the narrative mode in each of the novels. By examining the role of the narrators in the texts, the present study aims to determine how the chosen narrative techniques augment the depiction of the fictional worlds, thus making the novels more effective and relatable. Each of the novels was given their individual chapters in order to provide a detailed analysis of the narrative situations and determine how the particular type of narrator influences the way the text is perceived. In the introductory part, the genre of dystopia and its primary purpose are discussed. The chapter also introduces the theoretical framework and the primary texts. The second chapter is dedicated to...
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Wilson Harris's Mythic Vision in The Guyana Quartet
Nguyen, Mai Chi ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Poncarová, Petra Johana (referee)
This thesis engages with Wilson Harris's vision for the Caribbean in light of the processes of land settlement, appropriation, genocide and slave trafficking that have historically denied the region's population of human identity. Concerned primarily with Wilson Harris's first four published novels, Palace of the Peacock (1960), The Far Journey of Oudin (1961), The Whole Armour (1962), and The Secret Ladder (1963), which were then grouped together and republished as The Guyana Quartet (1985), the study of this quartet also focuses on Harris's critical essays, most notably "The Amerindian Legacy" (1990). Firstly, this thesis situates Wilson Harris within the context of postcolonial thought and Caribbean literature in the 20th century. Then, it focuses on the remnants of colonial conquest that appear continuously in Harris's four novels under the repeated motif of pursuit. By exploring the presence of Jungian thought in Harris's fictional writing and critical writing, as well as the immanent ontology of the Caribbean that underpins the author's vision, the thesis draws out Harris's response to the cycle of persecution that he believes to stagnate the Caribbean. Harris's mythopoetic revisioning of Caribbean identity in The Guyana Quartet proposes a form of rebirth that transforms the dialectic between...
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"…before they turn us into something worse": A Postcolonial Reading of The Satanic Verses
Fediakova, Anastasiia ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Poncarová, Petra Johana (referee)
This paper attempts to analyze Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, its structure, multiple dimensions and characters through the lens of postcolonialism, separately from the infamous controversy. The thesis consists of three chapters which primarily deal with the themes of dehumanization, migration, exile, cultural contamination and possession (both literal and imaginary) of the territory through bodies. In addition to Rushdie's novel which lies in the core of this thesis, this paper also introduces a number of other literary texts and one film, all belonging to the authors coming from different backgrounds though curiously repeating and overlapping some of the notions when it comes to the portrayal of the migrants. Whereas the introduction of the thesis could be regarded as general, giving a necessary background to the reading of The Satanic Verses and outlining the methodology, the conclusion concerns not so much the repetition of what the chapters investigate, but rather draws the final line, discusses and interprets what the characters as well as entire narrative had arrived to. Whereas "the migrant can do without the journey altogether; it's no more than a necessary evil; the point is to arrive",1 Rushdie's novel seems to continuously enable movement rather than fixity. 1Salman Rushdie, The...
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Renderings of the Self: The Theme of Fluid Identity in the Work of Jackie Kay
Stehlíková, Anežka ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Poncarová, Petra Johana (referee)
The bachelor thesis performs an analysis of the treatment of Scottish national and gender identity in selected poetry and fiction of the third modern Scots Makar, Jackie Kay (1961-), and argues that the author's works, regardless of genre, portray identities as self-invented and fluid rather than fixed and environment- or birth-determined. Kay's speakers, characters and narrators recurrently (re)construct their own identities, often in defiance of socially given norms, and, consequently, display one's ability to flexibly formulate own self-concept. The argumentation demonstrating the given depiction of identities is based on an examination of the poetry collection The Adoption Papers (1991), the novel Trumpet (1998), and the short story collection Why Don't You Stop Talking (2002) respectively. The analysis of Kay's poetry and fiction is preceded by the survey of the theoretical framework germane to the identity subcategories focused on in the thesis: Scottishness and gender identity. Conceiving both as social identities which, among other components, constitute an individual's self-concept, the overview provides the chief approaches to the formation of each identity category separately. Delimiting the civic, ethnic and cultural perception of Scottish national identity and the essentialist,...
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The Political Poetry of Derick Thomson
Poncarová, Petra Johana ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Dunbar, Rob (referee) ; Markus, Radvan (referee)
This dissertation focuses on the political verse and journalism by the Scottish Gaelic poet, scholar, publisher, and activist Derick Thomson (Ruaraidh MacThòmais, 1921-2012). The chosen set of themes can be broadly described as "political issues", although Thomson should not be regarded only as a political poet in the narrow sense of a propagandist, nor does his political poetry deal with elections and campaigns. The political aspect of his poetry is much broader, including concerns with language and power. Politics also represent the connection between Thomson's multiple activities, and therefore a suitable framework in which to explore them. So far, the prevailing paradigm for studying Thomson's works has been the poetry of place, a concept deeply rooted in the Gaelic tradition, and both popular and critical attention was paid especially to his Lewis poems and, to a less extend, his writing about Glasgow. This dissertation strives to provide answers to the following questions: Which political issues can be traced in Thomson's poetry? What were his main concerns? How does he handle politics in his verse? Are there poems where a political interpretation might be constructed, but that also allow other ways of reading? What were Thomson's actual political convictions, as far as we can reconstruct...
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From the Woods of Raasay to Glasgow Streets: Poetry of Place in the Works of Sorley MacLean and Derick Thomson
Poncarová, Petra Johana ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Markus, Radvan (referee)
This thesis focuses on the poetry of place in the works of the two most important figures of modern Scottish Gaelic verse: Sorley MacLean (Somhairle MacGill-Eain, 1911-1996) and Derick Thomson (Ruaraidh MacThòmais, 1921-2012). Both poets exhibited a keen interest in poetry of place, although each one approached it from a very different angle: MacLean's poetry is proudly local and audaciously universal at the same time, moving from the Cuillin of Skye to Spain and Russia in the space of one stanza, while Thomson inquires in the ways in which the island environment, in terms of nature, language and religion, shapes the individual psyche, memory and creative abilities, and he is also a significant poet of the city. The opening chapter gives reasons for the choice of these two authors, introduces the structure and method of the thesis, and outlines what is meant by "poetry of place." It also sums up different theoretical approaches to places and discusses important features of Scottish Gaelic poetry of place of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as both poets employed, altered and contradicted certain traditional patterns and motifs. The second chapter provides a context for the subsequent discussion by explaining the basic facts about the linguistic, social and cultural conditions of Gaelic...
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