Patterns of Discovery in John Banville’s Works From 1973 to 1989

Abstract

John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland in (1945). He is a novelist of ambition who cherished all works of literature of high imagination as well as craft and experimentation. He turned to literature itself as a source of imagination and aspiration for his fiction. Banville's novels offer a difficulty to the reader, since he uses many images, metaphors, puns, indirect narration as, in other words, dramatisation with a shift in time, which tests the reader's awareness and holds his attention all through, i.e. He writes for the high­ brow reader. The stream of consciousness also added to the complex style. The voices of his narrators, or the mouthpieces, that he uses, are all modern in their sense of rejection and anger at the absurdity and misery of the world. In this thesis, an attempt will be made to highlight on six of Banville's novels in terms of themes, characterisation and technique. The thesis will be divided into three chapters and a conclusion.