REPRESENTATIONS OF FAMILIAL TRANSGRESSIONS AND MORAL INJURY IN THE NOVELS OF DANIEL DEFOE

Download

Fahime Serhati thesis.pdf

Date

2022-5

Author

SERHATTI, Fahime

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

174
views

306
downloads

Daniel Defoe's novels have long been studied as eighteenth-century novels of religious morality. These novels have frequently been seen as stories of sins, exploring the courses taken by the narrator-protagonists to repent and find physical and spiritual deliverance after being punished. Unlike these studies, this dissertation uses a recent theoretical framework in literary trauma studies to look at seven of Defoe's novels as first-person retrospective narrations of transgressions regarding familial obligations and to analyze the construction of fictional moral injury through stylistic techniques in the narrative. To do so, it uses Pederson's moral injury model to investigate filial, parental, and matrimonial transgressions and their ensuing moral injury. Three key arguments drive this research. Firstly, the theme of moral injury is not limited to recent narrative fiction, or to narrowly-defined trauma fiction. Secondly, a detailed analysis of these novels reveals that not every act of transgression causes moral injury because transgressors' personal moral values and abilities to contextualize these actions are principal factors in producing moral injury. Finally, the themes of literary texts (such as Defoe's recurring theme of transgressions and moral injury) can impact the form and style of that text (here in the case of temporal distortions, often supported by certain literary tropes). As a result of its thematic and textual analysis, this dissertation supports its arguments and reveals how the narrative structures in Defoe's novels are manipulated to represent these narrators' senses of shame and guilt and their ways of working through these feelings.

Subject Keywords

Daniel Defoe, eighteenth-century novel, moral injury, shame and guilt, temporality

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/97310

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

An analysis of the moral development of George Eliot's characters in Middlemarch according to Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moralization Çetinkaya, Göksev; Çileli, Fatma Meral; Department of Foreign Language Education (2003) This study analyzes the moral development of George Eliot's characters in her novel Middlemarch according to Lawrence Kohlberg's theory called "The Cognitive-Developmental Theory of Moralization". Eliot's moral view is characterized by man's relation with other men, not man's relation with God. As long as the individuals treat others with sympathy and understanding, they can develop morally. Eliot's aim is to contribute to the creation of a happier society by presenting the harms of egoism. According to Koh...
Features of renaissance individualism and references yo Machiavellian politics in Christopher Marlowe's the new of Malta, the tragical history of doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine, the great Eryılmaz, Ayşe Pırıl; Alpakın Martınez Caro, Dürrin; Department of Foreign Language Education (2007) This thesis analyses the Machiavellian concepts of cunning, cruelty and opportunism as well as self-determination and individualism with regard to the major characters in Christopher Marlowe's plays, The Jew of Malta, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine, Parts 1 and 2. The thesis then examines these characters' scales of achievement as individuals who challenge the established order. Finally, the thesis clarifies whether these characters are theatrical representatives of the Renaissance i...
An analysis of gender issues in the lost girl and the plumed serpent by D.H. Lawrence Akgün, Ela; Çileli, Fatma Meral; Department of English Literature (2005) This thesis analyzes the ways how David Herbert Lawrence advocates sexual politics in his novels The Lost Girl and The Plumed Serpent. The thesis argues that although D.H. Lawrence portrays modern women̕s search for identity in The Lost Girl and The Plumed Serpent, his attitude is that of a very conventional man who advertises his male fantasies through female characters; and the gender role that he finally assigns to women is unquestioning submissiveness to male authority. The power relations between sexes...
The Logic of Gilles Deleuze: Basic Principles Shores, Corry Michael (Bloomsbury Press, 2021-01-01) French philosopher Gilles Deleuze wrote two 'logic' books: Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation and The Logic of Sense. However, in neither of these books nor in any other works does Deleuze articulate in a formal way the features of the logic he employs. He certainly does not use classical logic. And the best options for the non-classical logic that he may be implementing are: fuzzy, intuitionist, and many-valued. These are applicable to his concepts of heterogeneous composition and becoming, ...
An attempt to understand Hume's philosophy of religion Özdemir, Halise; Sayan, Erdinç; Department of Philosophy (2006) IN THIS THESIS I ARGUE THAT DAVID HUME DEVELOPED A PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION AS AN EMPRICIST AND A NATURALIST PHILOSOPHER, AND DEFENDED HIS PHILOSOPHY AGAINST THE RATIONALIST TRADITION.

Citation Formats

F. SERHATTI, “REPRESENTATIONS OF FAMILIAL TRANSGRESSIONS AND MORAL INJURY IN THE NOVELS OF DANIEL DEFOE,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2022.