https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/1046 Sun, 23 Aug 2026 02:35:26 GMT 2026-08-23T02:35:26Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148608 Title: Rereading Martin Amis : character, reputation, morality Abstract: This dissertation begins with the observation that, although Martin Amis was once at the centre of British literary culture, he has remained underrepresented in recent academic criticism. In response, it reassesses his fiction by taking character as a central, though not exclusive, critical concern, considered alongside the questions of reputation and morality that shape both his writing and its reception. This approach is informed by two developments: the renewed attention prompted by Amis’s death in 2023, and a broader critical return to issues surrounding character (and characterisation) in contemporary literary studies. Taken together, they help motivate a reconsideration of Amis’s literary standing through close readings of selected novels from across his career. Accordingly, the first chapter examines how Amis constructs the postmodern self in The Rachel Papers (1973), Money (1984), and London Fields (1989), analysing how these novels engage with and complicate postmodern conventions. The reading then turns to Night Train (1997) and Yellow Dog (2003) to explore Amis’s treatment of meaning and moral seriousness, and how these novels begin to suggest a broader emotional range in his portrayal of character. At the same time, this shift accompanies a change in tone and style, as Amis responds to the critical reassessment of postmodernism and its limits. Finally, the third chapter focuses on The Zone of Interest (2014) and Inside Story (2020), where questions of memory, history, and ‘late style’ shape a deeper emotional investment in his characterisation. These core readings are complemented by reference to Amis’s short stories and nonfiction, which help contextualise the novels within the broader context of his writing. Bringing the study to a close, the conclusion offers a final general reflection on what is overlooked when certain writers or methods fall out of critical view, and attempts to reaffirm the case for renewed scholarly attention to Amis’s fiction. Description: M.A.(Melit.) Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148608 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148607 Title: Kafka at work : refractions of the Kafkaesque across the second half of the twentieth century Abstract: This dissertation investigates the evolving influence and cultural significance of the Kafkaesque in the second half of the twentieth century, tracing its literary refractions across a diverse range of texts and discourse, with a particular focus on Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, J. M. Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled, as it examines how the Kafkaesque persists and adapts across divergent geopolitical and narrative terrains. Beginning by acknowledging that the term has transcended its literary origins to become a widely recognised descriptor for situations marked by absurdity and bureaucratic oppression, this study first sets out to explore the roots of the Kafkaesque, arguing for a historically and theoretically grounded understanding of the term, and revisiting Kafka’s own texts to distil key thematic and formal elements. Through close reading of the three case studies, it will then demonstrate how Kafka’s legacy is not merely replicated but reconfigured, with Heller employing it for social commentary through satire set against a military backdrop; Coetzee engaging it as a vehicle for political critique under apartheid; and Ishiguro invoking it to map psychic fragmentation and existential drift. Subsequently, the study will delve more deeply into the possible reasons behind the pervasiveness of the Kafkaesque during this time. It engages with thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, and Theodor Adorno to contend that the enduring resonance of the Kafkaesque stems from its attuning to the ideological mechanisms of modernity and postmodernity. Ultimately, it concludes that the Kafkaesque remains of vital relevance to this very day, uniquely equipped to articulate the entanglements of power, selfhood, and systems that continue to define contemporary life. Description: M.A.(Melit.) Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148607 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148606 Title: Breakdown or Breakthrough? : madness and selfhood in The Awakening, Tender is the Night, and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Abstract: Female madness is a common trope in nineteenth and twentieth century literature. Readings of this trope vary in their interpretation of whether women going mad – thus being othered a second time – is empowering and subversive, or instead a state of ultimate defeat in which the madwoman cannot fight back against her oppressors. This dissertation will underline the ways in which the perception of madness is socially constructed to serve patriarchal thinking, and consequently to better understand madness as either power or powerlessness within the context of wider societal othering. The second chapter traces the connection between madness, selfhood, and motherhood, arguing that when madness is pushed upon the woman, she often loses a coherent sense of self, exacerbating madness, or else is not able to find her self until she explores those actions which society considers mad. The third chapter will bring these ideas into the context of readings of madness as either escape or defeat, in turn foregrounding how readings and theories surrounding these ideas come short in identifying with only one side of the argument. This analysis takes place in the context of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (1934), and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ (1892). All three texts feature a central female character who experiences some form of madness either in the context of behaving in ways which are inappropriate because she is a woman, thus earning her the label of mad, or mental illness intensified by patriarchal definitions of womanhood, which often necessitate the aforementioned fragmentation of the self. This dissertation is informed by seminal texts on madness and the female hysteric, including the works of Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Elaine Showalter, Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Marta Caminero-Santangelo, and Michel Foucault, among others, to show the consequences of female oppression and the way this manifests in the texts under discussion. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148606 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148605 Title: Time and disaster in Don DeLillo and Maurice Blanchot Abstract: Don DeLillo (1936 – ) is regarded as a significant American writer whose body of work is strongly connected to contemporary theory and philosophy. This dissertation will analyse two of his recent works, Point Omega (2010) and The Silence (2020) using Maurice Blanchot’s (1907 – 2003) literary theory. The introduction will identify the shared ground between DeLillo and Blanchot as well as the merits of such an analysis. Here, the roots of both writer’s thought will be established, foregrounding their shared concerns regarding language, its limitations, role in contemporary life, and effects on the perception of the world and time. Point Omega will be discussed in the first chapter, where DeLillo’s portrayal of an encounter with art will be considered using Blanchot’s discourse on the Orphic space and passivity. The line of argument on the theme of art will continue, this time focusing on literary form, utilising Blanchot’s distinction between poetic and mundane language to emphasize DeLillo’s political concerns, as exemplified in the protagonist Richard Elster. This chapter will conclude by tracing the dwindling belief in the titular Omega Point as a consequence of encountering death, drawing a parallel to Blanchot’s idea of the unavowable human community. The second chapter will investigate The Silence and the process of collapse through the transformation of language. Here, DeLillo’s narrativization of the interim period preceding the catastrophe left out of the fabula will be discussed, for which purpose Blanchot’s concepts of the Disaster and the philosophy of waiting will be employed. The conclusion will establish the continuity and transformation of the concerns interrogated in both works. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148605 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z