A Mad Certainty: Narrative Instability, Insanity, and the Search for Answers in Late Nineteenth Century French Fiction
| dc.contributor.advisor | Gould, Evyln | |
| dc.contributor.author | Cogan, Elizabeth | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-02-27T22:39:24Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-02-27T22:39:24Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2020-02-27 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Writers of every period articulate a sense that the world is changing; in modernity, that constant change is intensified by an accelerating pace and comprehensive upheaval. Our reaction to change (personal, social, or technological) and its concurrent disequilibration defines us. Some adapt to new circumstances and struggle through the uncertainty while others turn instead to delusion or constructed realities that provide the illusion of certainty. In the latter reaction late19th-century French psychologists recognized the possibility of insanity: religious mania, megalomania, spiritualism, and use of hallucinogens were all possible pathologies related to this dynamic. Fin-de-siècle French novelists were very aware of contemporary psychological theories and models, as some demonstrate in their texts. Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, Isidore Ducasse, Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Jean Lorrain explore the danger in constructing selective realities and sketch the failure and madness inherent in these strategies. All manipulate the tropes and typical construction of fiction to highlight their depictions of madness; the authors variously reshape the narrative arc, introduce comedy to undercut narrative reliability, and create temporal inconsistencies and ambiguities. Using thematic analysis via late 19th-century psychological theories and the “New Rhetoric” as well as narratological examination of plot and structure, I have charted the spectrum of the insane reactions these authors portray. These works combine the madness of the protagonists with unsettling narrative techniques to portray the dangers and depths of untenable reactions to the wrenching changes of their time. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/25291 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.title | A Mad Certainty: Narrative Instability, Insanity, and the Search for Answers in Late Nineteenth Century French Fiction | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Department of Romance Languages | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |
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