Date of Award
2001
Degree Name
Humanities
College
College of Liberal Arts
Type of Degree
M.A.
Document Type
Thesis
First Advisor
Dr. Joyce E. East
Second Advisor
Dr. Leonard J. Deutsch
Third Advisor
Dr. Arline Thorn
Fourth Advisor
Dr. Arnold Hartstein
Fifth Advisor
Dr. Bobbi Nicholson
Abstract
Irish novelist Jennifer Johnston has published twelve novels to date, from The Captains and the Kings in 1972 to The Gingerbread Woman in 2000. Eileen Battersby's recent Irish Times article “Making Sense of Life” called her “the quiet woman of Irish fiction, “ referring to her understated, sophisticated writing style. All of her novels are short (Joseph Connelly and others have called them “novellas”), and she has become known for her ability to describe a complex situation in a direct, compact way.
This discussion is intended to investigate the narratology of several Johnston novels: to explore narrative voice, narrative chronology, influence of the implied author on the reader, and other narratological characteristics. Specifically, there will be discussions of two earlier novels which use few specialized narrative “tricks” and two later ones in which specific narrative devices play significant roles. Finally, Johnston’s latest novel will be examined with respect to the observations made on earlier ones.
Subject(s)
Irish fiction.
Johnston, Jennifer, --1930- -- Criticism and interpretation.
Authors, Irish – 20th century.
Recommended Citation
Hutton, Robert N., "The narratology of Jennifer Johnston's novels" (2001). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. 1677.
https://mds.marshall.edu/etd/1677
