A narratological analysis of D. M. Thoma`s: the white hotel (1981)

摘要

“A Narratological Analysis of D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel (1981)” originated within a seminar on British Postmodernist Literature during the first Master’s Degree in “British and North-American Culture and Literature” (2001-04) at the Universidade da Madeira set up by the Department of English and German Studies.This dissertation seeks to present a narratological analysis of Thomas’s novel. The White Hotel stands as a paradigmatic example of the kind of literature that hasdominated the British literary scene in the past three decades, commonly referred to aspostmodernist fiction, owing to its formal craftsmanship (multiplicity of narrativevoices and perspectives, mixing of differing genres and text types, inclusion ofembedded narratives) alongside the handling of what are deemed as postmodernist topoi(the distinction between truth and lies, history and fantasy, fact and fiction, thequestioning of the nature of aesthetic representation, the role the author and the reader hold in the narrative process, the instability of the linguistic sign, the notion of originality and the moral responsibility the author has towards his/her work), The narratological approach carried out in this research reveals that Thomas’s text constitutes an aesthetic endeavour to challenge the teleological drive that is inherent in any narrative, i. e., the inevitable progression towards a reassuring end. Hence, the subversion of narrative telling, which is a recurrent feature in Thomas’s remaining literary output, mirrors the contemporary distrust in totalising, hierarchised and allencompassingnarratives. In its handling of historical events, namely of the Holocaust,The White Hotel invites us to reassess the most profound beliefs we were taught to takefor granted: progress, reality and truth. In their place the novel proposes a more flexible conception of both the world and art, especially of literary fiction. In other terms, the world appears as a brutal chaotic place the subject is forced to adjust to. Accordingly, the literary work is deemed hybrid, fragmented and open.So as to put forth the above-mentioned issues, this research work is structured inthree main chapters. The initial chapter – “What is Postmodernism?” – advances ascrutiny not only of the seminal but also of more recent studies on postmodernistliterary criticism. Following this, in Chapter II – “Postmodernist British Fiction” – a brief overview of postmodernist British fiction is carried out, focusing on the fictional works that, in my opinion, are fundamental for the periodising of Britishpostmodernism. In addition, I felt the need to include a section – “D. M. Thomas as aPostmodernist Novelist” – in which the author’s remaining literary output is brieflyexamined. Finally, Chapter III – “A Narratological Analysis of The White Hotel” –proposes a narratological analysis of the novel according to the particular Genettiananalytical model.To conclude, my dissertation constitutes an approach to D. M. Thomas’s TheWhite Hotel as a text whose very existence is substantiated in the foregrounding of thecontingency of all discourses, meeting the postmodernist precepts of openness andsubversion of any narrative that claims to be true, globalising and all-inclusive.