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Apocalypse as revelation of truth in modern American fiction: Thomas Pynchon and post-9/11 novel
Olehla, Richard ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Procházka, Martin (referee) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
English summary This dissertation focuses on the apocalyptic fiction of Thomas Pynchon and analyses various representations of the apocalypse as "revelation" or "unveiling of truth" in its various aspects and manifestations (i.e. paranoia, angels, etc.) in the novels V., The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow. The theme of apocalypse as a revelation concerning the true nature of the world has a key role to play in the above mentioned novels as well as significance for Pynchon's protagonists. This is so despite the fact that such revelation is depicted as illusory and mostly unattainable, since these novels are all based on the premise that there is no ultimate truth, and therefore, there is nothing that can be revealed. Pynchon's characters get only a revelation of individual truth, and thus theirs is a private apocalypse. When analysing the role of the apocalypse in Western culture, it is also important to analyse the role of millenarian expectations as well as the supposed communication process between God and people, a process depicted as being mediated by angels. The interpretation of God's message can never be precise and perfect, since its meaning is distorted during the communication process. On the rhetorical level, this distortion is equal to metaphor, which in turn causes feelings of paranoia...
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Feminism in Women's Canadian Literature in the 1960s and the 1970s
Milotová, Simona ; Kolinská, Klára (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee)
This bachelor thesis focuses on feminism in selected Canadian novels published in the 1960s and 1970s. The discussed novels are Marian Engel's Bear, Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel, Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women, and Margaret Atwood's Surfacing. This thesis will concentrate on the feminist aspect of each work, and primarily on the rebellion against the patriarchal society - each of the protagonist rebels in a different way. Lou from Bear is using a feminine language to overpower men, as well as her sexual awaking and a rebirth into a new woman. Hagar's rebellion in The Stone Angel manages to subvert the male- dominated society, primarily thanks to her hidden femininity in the beginning, and also because of Laurence's usage of the first-person narrative in the present tense, which seemed to have been unusual in her time. Del from the Lives of Girls and Women subverted the society by choosing her own path, in the form of becoming a writer, as well as her breaking the taboos about women's sexuality by not only reading and talking about it but also by experimenting. The no-name narrator from Surfacing then again uses her language to take a feminine stance in society. Her rebellion is then also pictured by her quest for a better woman inside her. The second main focus of this thesis will be...
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Negotiation and Hybridization:Constructing Immigrant Identities in Zadie Smith`s White Teeth and Swing Time
Araslanova, Anna ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
Present research addresses the topic of construction immigrant identities in two novels, White Teeth and Swing Time by contemporary British author Zadie Smith. The main focus of the work is to look closely at the examples of the characters in the aforementioned two novels who are first and second generation immigrants and see how they negotiate and create their identity formations. The most valuable theoretical framework for the present research proves to be the hybrid identity theory created by Homi Bhabha. Thus, the first theoretical part of the thesis attempts to explain the theoretical framework in order to apply the notion to the literary examples from the novels that are addressed in the following two chapters of the thesis. The following analysis of the literary characters revealed that the identity formations are primarily constructed through negotiation and hybridization as the immigrant identities tend to be hybrids of the cultures of their ancestors. Additionally, the penultimate chapter addresses the ideas of cross-national cosmopolitanism that are mentioned in the second novel which seem to be the possible and desired outcome of the processes of hybridization, while also exploring the limits of the theory.
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A Major Minor Literature: The Grass Is Singing and Disgrace
Holečková, Zuzana ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
1 ABSTRACT This thesis deals with the comparative analysis of the novels The Grass Is Singing by the British writer Doris Lessing, and Disgrace (1999) whose author is the South African-born novelist and scholar J. M. Coetzee. Both works portray fundamental problems of Southern Africa, which is racism and colonialism, more precisely its continuing consequences. They are, however, separated by almost half a century, and the profound social changes that took place during that time are significantly reflected in the content, form and the overall message of both works. The analysis of the novels is preceded by a detailed overview of the colonial and postcolonial history of the region with a special emphasis on the Republic of South Africa and Zimbabwe where the stories are set. Particular attention is given to the history of the first white colonizers who made up the present-day ethnic group of Afrikaners, and their struggle for national liberation against the British colonial Empire, because it is this element that disturbs the usual view on postcolonial literature. After a brief introduction to the literary work of both writers, including relevant biographical information and the synopses of the books under review, the next part of the thesis is devoted to literary criticism. Some basic notions and concepts of...
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The Image of Death in Selected Works of Contemporary American Indian Literature
Glatzová, Zuzana ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
The subject of this BA thesis is contemporary American Indian literature. My aim is to explore how selected representatives of this minority literature portray death in their works. To be able to understand the native population's approach to death, it is important to consider their traditional spirituality and how it stands on the question of death. The spirituality began to transform with the arrival of the European settlers. The traditional way of life of American Indians was disrupted and they became the object of exploitation. Not only were they subjected to physical elimination but their culture was also purposefully repressed. All this contributed to a transformation of the understanding of death which is reflected in the contemporary American Indian literature. The works which will be discussed are Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, Louise Erdrich's Tracks and N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn. The thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part. The purpose of the theoretical part is to offer a basic introduction to traditional native spirituality before the colonization of North America, describing its main features. It also presents the cultural conflict between the Indians and the white settlers and how the spirituality evolved under the pressure of Christianity and assimilating...
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Canadian Literary Regionalism: Rural Ontario and Manitoba Pariries In the Works of Alice Munro and Margaret Laurence
Ondová, Zuzana ; Kolinská, Klára (advisor) ; Jindra, Miroslav (referee)
The BA thesis deals with the use of region in the works of two renowned Canadian authors of the 20th century, Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro. For my analysis I have chosen Laurence's novel The Diviners (1974), the final work in her Manawaka sequence, and Alice Munro's first published collection of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968). Laurence sets her Canadian novels primarily in Manawaka, a small prairie town based her own hometown. Munro, who is largely associated with Southern Ontario Gothic, takes us to several towns in southwestern Ontario. Since both authors have successfully been published outside of Canada I also discuss whether their works are distinctly Canadian in any way. Contemporary Canadian studies recognize regionalism as one of the defining features of the country. In the introduction, I touch on the lack of uniform identity, experience and interests in a country as ethnically and geographically diverse as Canada. Although the first thing that comes to mind in relation to Canadian regions, is the division of the country into provinces and territories, it is not the only way to approach regionalism - the country could be divided into different regions if we were to focus on language or climate. Beverly Rasporich proposes the view that artists serve as "active creators...
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Blurring the Lines between Reality and Fiction: Peter Carey's Engagement with Australian History and Identity
Císlerová, Magdalena ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
This thesis is concerned with the analysis of Peter Carey's portrayal of Australian history in his novels Illywhacker (1985), Oscar and Lucinda (1988), True History of the Kelly Gang (2000), and My Life as a Fake (2003), while also taking into consideration the travel memoir 30 Days in Sydney (2001). Carey approaches Australia's past critically and offers a playful rewriting of the "official accounts", striving to give voice to the marginalised, thus offering alternative versions not only of Australian history, the resulting national identity. This thesis first locates Carey within the historical novel tradition, and considers his rewritings from the perspective of postcolonialism, postmodernism and transnationalism. From the point of view of postcolonialism, Carey's novels serve as a tool of asserting the former colony's independence from the power of the metropolitan Centre over discourse. Postmodernism and its relativisation of established concepts and the blurring of boundaries provide Carey with narrative strategies such as unreliable narrators, historiographic metafiction, and multiple perspectives, which are examined in terms of how Carey employs them to call attention to the unreliability of historical sources, and by extension meaning and reality itself, to inspire a critical approach to...
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Disillusion in Ian McEwan's 21st century Novels
Zemanová, Tereza ; Beran, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
(in English): The focus of this diploma thesis is disillusion in the works of the contemporary novelist Ian McEwan, particularly in his twenty-first century novels. The thesis analyses the disillusionment of the reader based on McEwan's work with traditional narratives and the reader's expectations, which is achieved through the employment of the unreliable narrator in Atonement (2001) and Sweet Tooth (2012), depiction of self-deception in Saturday (2005) and Solar (2010), and the misunderstanding on the interpersonal and intrapersonal level in On Chesil Beach (2007) and The Children Act (2014). The analysis uses the method of close reading and critical evaluation through the hermeneutic process in combination with Iser's theory about the reader, Foucault's definition of discourse and some generally accepted ideas based on psychology. The analysis reveals that Ian McEwan uses disillusion in his novels as a device through which he tries to encourage the reader to critically evaluate the reader's preconceptions about the world, the conventional narratives, and the roles the reader ascribes to him/herself and to the society around him/herself. By allowing the reader to build his/her expectations of the story's denouement and then crushing them, McEwan points out the reader's routine regarding a given...
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Sentimental Canada: Literary analysis of The History of Emily Montague
Jerglová, Aneta ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
THESIS ABSTRACT This thesis focuses primarily on The History of Emily Montague, a novel written in 1769 by Frances Brooke. The novel is remarkable for covering a vast spectrum of eighteenth-century debates. In formal terms, it is an epistolary as well as a sentimental novel, both of which were widely popular during the eighteenth century. As it is written in letters by several persons, an example of the polyvocal epistolary novel, it provides a broad range of perspectives whereby it achieves exceptional insight into the social, cultural and even political concerns of the era. The thesis will focus on issues of form and on thematic issues: which range from the sentimental construction of ideal femininity and marriage, aesthetic conceptions of the visual appreciation of landscape and depictions of cultural otherness as parts of socio-cultural and literary debates of the eighteenth century. The thesis is consequently divided into three parts. The first part introduces the background of the author and of the novel concentrating on the specificities of its epistolary form. A short introduction into the history and development of this particular literary device will be provided, but the main thrust will be on its functions in the novel, advantages and disadvantages. The second part will observe The History of...
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