أساطير الجزر : دراسة مقارنة لدور الجزيرة في بعض نماذج الروايات الإنجليزية والألمانية

Abstract

This study undertakes a comparative examination of the role of the island in three novels: Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), Gerhart Hauptmann's Die lnse/ der Crossen Mutter (1924) and William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954) in the light of Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the Chronotope. The study investigates the reasons why the island has thrived as a transcultural, transhistorical structure found in works separated from each other by many centuries.

This thesis is divided into four chapters, a conclusion and an appendix. Part I of Chapter One traces the origin and development of the Robinsonade. Part II provides the theoretical framework for the research by expounding Bakhtin's theory of the Chronotope. Chapter Two deals with the technical function of the island chronotope in the three novels. Chapter Three examines the different meanings which the island chronotope acquires in the process of textual interprellltion, while Chapter Four explores the interr lations between the three texts and their contexts.

By studying the island chronotope in the three novels within an analytical/comparative frainework, this dissertation hopes to be considered an addition to the three novelists' scholarship. Since there are no comparative works involving the three writers and their texts, this research points out the possibility of further chronotopic/comparative studies involving other writers.