Fictions of Home: Narratives of Alienation and Belonging, 1850-2000

Abstract

This doctoral thesis examines the concept of home as a tool for literary critical and cultural analysis. In addition to discussing various theoretical concepts established by earlier critics (e.g. the Freudian uncanny, the Russian formalist idea of defamiliarization, or Marx's concept of alienation), this thesis proposes that fiction itself ought to be considered as a home-making practice, and that any analysis of fictions of home ought to bear in mind seven critical precepts. These seven precepts are formulated in the introduction an Show more