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Writing in Borges's "Garden": The lively performances of John Barth and Maxine Hong Kingston

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Date Issued:
1996
Summary:
This thesis is a comparative study of John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse and Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, based on the imagery and theme of Borges's "forking paths." Both authors are indebted to Borges's work for providing the experimental narrative devices that made it possible for them to challenge their "ghosts." In Barth's case, he loses himself in the Funhouse, haunted by the "same old stories" (102); Kingston finds her voice in the Chinese stories and shocking images of the past. The thesis will work toward a presentation of the dramatic performances and brilliant images in Barth's Lost in the Funhouse and in Kingston's The Woman Warrior. Readers become players who surrender their conventional notions about narrative in Borges's "Garden of the Forking Paths." Fortunately, the writing of Barth and Kingston continues to keep storytelling a lively art where time and memory are the main characters.
Title: Writing in Borges's "Garden": The lively performances of John Barth and Maxine Hong Kingston.
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Name(s): Scala, Virginia M. D.
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Faraci, Mary, Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 1996
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 89 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: This thesis is a comparative study of John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse and Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, based on the imagery and theme of Borges's "forking paths." Both authors are indebted to Borges's work for providing the experimental narrative devices that made it possible for them to challenge their "ghosts." In Barth's case, he loses himself in the Funhouse, haunted by the "same old stories" (102); Kingston finds her voice in the Chinese stories and shocking images of the past. The thesis will work toward a presentation of the dramatic performances and brilliant images in Barth's Lost in the Funhouse and in Kingston's The Woman Warrior. Readers become players who surrender their conventional notions about narrative in Borges's "Garden of the Forking Paths." Fortunately, the writing of Barth and Kingston continues to keep storytelling a lively art where time and memory are the main characters.
Identifier: 15329 (digitool), FADT15329 (IID), fau:12098 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1996.
Subject(s): Barth, John--Lost in the funhouse
Kingston, Maxine Hong--Woman warrior
Borges, Jorge Luis,--1899-1986--Criticism and interpretation
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15329
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.