RHETORICAL NARRATOLOGICAL APPROACH TO NARRATIVE SPACE AND PROGRESSION IN THOMAS HARDY’S THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE, THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE, AND TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES

Date

2026-5-21

Author

Oruç Kesici, Sinem

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This is a study about the role of space in the narrative progression of selected works from Thomas Hardy’s “Novels of Character and Environment.” Focusing on The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), and Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), the study addresses the following question: how does narrative space act as a driving force in the movement of plot? Each novel is analyzed in terms of instabilities, tensions, and interactions between the story-level and discourse-level elements against the backdrop of James Phelan’s theorizations on narrative progression. Using a rhetorical narratological approach, this study focuses on spatial elements such as spatial frames, settings, story space, storyworld, characters, and environment to demonstrate how narrative space can catalyze narrative progression. It is argued that space-related tensions and instabilities primarily provide the narrative momentum in these novels. By revealing how spatial elements function as agents in plot movement, this study aims to provide new insight into Hardy’s oeuvre, which occupies a unique position by conflating not-so-distant features of Victorian and modernist fiction.

Subject Keywords

Thomas Hardy, narrative progression, rhetorical narratology, narrative space, novels of character and environment

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/119141

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis