Date of Award
2006
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
Degree Name
Master of Arts
School
School of Language and Literature
Faculty
Faculty of Community Services, Education and Social Sciences
First Supervisor
Dr David Rossiter
Abstract
Dead Man is a novella about four brothers. They live an unrestricted life until their mother decides that they lack fear and this lack could make their lives difficult when they are adults. To combat this, she recruits the help of another boy to create a sense of fear and threat that remains endlessly elusive, that will make her sons more wary and alert than she thinks that they would otherwise be capable of. Neuroses always seek their source and Dead Man explores this notion. The source of neurosis for the brothers in Dead Man is a real person; a real physical presence, and, like regular neuroses, it convolutes the characters' perception of their `place in the world'. Dead Man subverts the notion of neurosis by making the force of the ailment an actual physical being, rather than a misapprehension and projection. To represent the phenomena of neuroses, a non-linear narrative is employed in the construction of Dead Man.
Recommended Citation
Green, A. (2006). Dead Man: And an accompanying exegesis: `Labyrinthine modes in Dead Man and The Castle by Franz Kafka.'. Edith Cowan University. Retrieved from https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/67