Author: Michele McCrea
McCrea, Michele, 2012 Regenerative Voices: Narrative Strategies and Textual Authority in Three Post-colonial Novels and The Wheel Pin, Flinders University, School of Humanities and Creative Arts
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Michele McCrea's thesis turns on the notion of narrative authority in post-colonial literature. Narrative voice, like any representation of authority, may be problematic in contemporary fiction that endeavours to document the dislocation of colonial and post-colonial experience and give authority to previously unheard voices. Since traditional modes of narration tend to mimic existing power constructs and reinforce hegemonic master narratives, alternative strategies are needed in order to reconfigure textual authority. Using critical perspectives from feminist narratology and post-colonial studies, the exegesis demonstrates the use of innovative narrative strategies to create textual authority in novels by Terri Janke, Gail Jones and Kelly Ana Morey. Critical theory is applied to creative practice in Michele McCrea's novel The Wheel Pin, where the narrative strategies of nonunitary narration, textuality and assemblage are used to reveal one family's history, establishing a polyphonic textual authority that endorses ambiguity, cultural diversity and multiple interpretations.
Keywords: narrative,narrative strategies,textual authority,authority,literature,novel,Australia,New Zealand,narratology,feminism,feminist criticism,post-colonial,colonial,polyphonic,voice,dislocation,Gail Jones,Kelly Ana Morey,Terri Janke,Michele McCrea,McCrea,narration,assemblage,textual,textuality,non-unitary narration,Mieke Bal,Susan Lanser,Rachel Blau DuPlessis,narrative structure,imaginative geography,imaginative history,authority,cultural difference,cultural identity
Subject: English thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2012
School: School of Humanities and Creative Arts
Supervisor: Professor Jeri Kroll