Myths and Existential Masks in John Fowles's "The Magus"
| Thesis title in Czech: | Mýty a existenciální masky v románu Johna Fowlese "Mág" |
|---|---|
| Thesis title in English: | Myths and Existential Masks in John Fowles's "The Magus" |
| Key words: | mytologie|masky|hra|existencialismus|divadlo|Fowles|Mág |
| English key words: | mythology|masks|play|existentialism|theatre|Fowles|The Magus |
| Academic year of topic announcement: | 2015/2016 |
| Thesis type: | Bachelor's thesis |
| Thesis language: | angličtina |
| Department: | Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK) |
| Supervisor: | PhDr. Zdeněk Beran, Ph.D. |
| Author: | hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept. |
| Date of registration: | 09.06.2016 |
| Date of assignment: | 09.06.2016 |
| Administrator's approval: | not processed yet |
| Confirmed by Study dept. on: | 23.06.2016 |
| Date and time of defence: | 04.09.2018 00:00 |
| Date of electronic submission: | 08.08.2018 |
| Date of proceeded defence: | 04.09.2018 |
| Submitted/finalized: | committed by student and finalized |
| Opponents: | PhDr. Soňa Nováková, CSc. |
| Guidelines |
| In John Fowles’s novel The Magus, the protagonist Nicholas Urfe is subject to a series of metatheatrical illusions created by a Greek eccentric recluse named Maurice Conchis, the eponymous magus of the title. Increasingly crueller and more surreal, the tricks and peculiar performances are parts of a scheme designed to rouse Nicholas from his life of egotistical freedom and existential inauthenticity. The employment of myths and masks plays a vital role in Nicholas’s “initiation” and in the overall theme of the novel. The thesis and aim of this work is to illustrate, on the various techniques in which the mentioned myths and masks are exploited, both in the immediate plot and Nicholas’s narrative voice, the interrelations of mythologies and masks with the inauthenticity of Nicholas’s existence. Through the analysis of The Magus, this text will focus on the means in which the theatrical disguises work as an extension of Urfe’s own social masks. In the first part of the study, a connection between the classical myth of ancient Greece and the modern myth and their meanings will be focused on together with its literary employment in the postmodern narrative of Fowles’s novel, using the works of several modern and postmodern theorists and writers. In the second part, the relationship of the employed mythologies and the existentialist aspects of the novel will be drawn, paying attention to the ways in which both features combine in the protagonist’s experience, and, lastly, the third part will engage with the position of the examined topic in the context of John Fowles’s work, illustrating its significance throughout the author’s literary creation. |
| References |
| Primary sources: Fowles, John. A Maggot. London: Jonathan Cape, 1985. Fowles, John. Mantissa. London: Jonathan Cape, 1982. Fowles, John. The Aristos. London: Vintage Classics, 2001. Fowles, John. The Magus. London: Vintage, 2004. Secondary sources: Acheson, James. Modern Novelists Collection: John Fowles. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Barth, John. “The Literature of Exhaustion.” The Friday Book: Essays and Other Non-Fiction. London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1984. 62-76. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Vintage Books, 2000. Berets, Ralph. “The Magus: A Study in the Creation of a Personal Myth.” Twentieth Century Literature 19.2 (1973): 89-98. JSTOR Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Trans. Justin O’Brien. UK: Hamish Hamilton: 1955. Eddins, Dwight. “John Fowles: Existence as Authorship.” Contemporary Literature 17.2 (1976): 204-222. JSTOR Eliade. Mircea. Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: the Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities. Trans. P. Mairet. London: Harvill Press, 1959. Eliade. Mircea. Myth and Reality. Trans. W. Trask. New York: Harper and Row, 1963. Fowles, John and Rubenstein, Roberta. “Myth, Mystery, and Irony: John Fowles's The Magus.” Contemporary Literature 16.3 (1975): 328-339. JSTOR Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Myth and Meaning. London: Routlege, 2001. Lorenz, Paul H. “Heraclitus against the Barbarians: John Fowles's The Magus.” Twentieth Century Literature 42.1 (1996): 69-87. JSTOR Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. Onega, Susana. “Self, World and Art in the Fiction of John Fowles.” Twentieth Century Literature 42.1 (1996): 69-87. JSTOR Ricoeur, Paul. “Mýtus a jeho filosofická interpetace.“ Trans. Filip Karfík. Reflexe: Filosofický Časopis (1990): 6-24. REFLEXE < http://www.reflexe.cz/File/ricoeur-mytus.pdf>. 23 May 2016. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel Barnes. London: Routlege, 1956. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism and Humanism. Trans. Philip Mairet. London: Methuen, 1948. |