| dc.description.abstract | This thesis will investigate how narratives work in our perception of reality, ourselves and society through a close reading of the novels Outline by Rachel Cusk and The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy. I will argue that these novels show, among other things, how we use narratives not just to understand the world, but for a myriad of other reasons: for comfort, justification, safety, meaning, etc. More than that, these novels show how some of the common narratives of our culture, such as the narrative of the family, of the mother, and of the romantic relationship, can be deceiving, and how the common stories of our society may be inadequate in their depiction of reality as well as in their presentation of the subject, and especially of the female subject.
Among the important theorists in this thesis is Paul Ricoeur’s, who uses the term “emplotment” to describe the synchronization of different elements into a coherent story with a specific narrative identity. This thesis will show that emplotment is not just done in the writing of novels, rather, it is something we all do in our everyday lives; we suppress or emphasize certain aspects of reality so that we can tell a story of our lives, and of our selves, that we can live with comfortably. This is something we also do in our relationships, that in many ways can be described as narratives. One central point of this thesis will be the long-term romantic relationship is, in the words of Lyotard, a grand narrative, that is, one that structures our lives and societal discourse and practices. I will also argue that the breakdown of the narrative of the relationship can also be the breakdown of the narrative of the self. | |
