http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/12244850

Perceiving the vertigo : the fall of the heroine in four New Zealand writers

In this study I analyse the role of the heroine in the work of four New Zealand writers, Katherine Mansfield, Robin Hyde, Janet Frame and Keri Hulme, starting from the assumption that such a role is influenced by the notion of the falland by the perception of the vertigo entailed in it. In order to prove this I turn to the texts of four New Zealand writers dedicating one chapter to each. In the first chapter a few of Katherine Mansfield s short stories are analysedfrom the vantage point of the fall, investigated both in the construction of thecharacter s subjectivity and in the construction of the narration. In the secondchapter a link is established between Katherine Mansfield and Robin Hyde. Aparticular emphasis is put on the notion of subjectivity in relationship developed bythe two writers, highlighting the link between this kind of subjectivity and thenotion of the fall. In the third chapter the focus is subsequently shifted to RobinHyde s work, in particular one of her novels, Wednesday s Children, which is read in the context of Mikhail Bakhtin s theory of the carnivalistic. In the fourth chapter the notion of the fall is analysed in the fiction of Janet Frame, which is related to the treatment of the notion of the fall present in Keri Hulme s The Bone People. Thefifth chapter is dedicated to the analysis of The Bone People as in the novel thenotion of the fall and the vertigo perception find their fullest expression, whilst in the sixth chapter a significant parallel is drawn between Janet Frame s Scented Gardens for the Blind and Keri Hulme s The Bone People and links are established with their predecessors. Finally in the seventh chapter the critical perspective is broadened to comprise those common elements in the writing of Katherine Mansfield, Robin Hyde, Janet Frame and Keri Hulme that have been neglected by focusing uniquely on the notion of the fall, and thus to contribute to a more complete overall picture of the comparison presented in this study.

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