Thesis
Distant worlds, Dark materials: travel writing and the multiverse
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2013
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/102502
Abstract
There is a deep-seated urge to travel, to explore, and to build an understanding of self and place based around comparison between others and elsewhere. During the later half of the age of exploration, around the rise of the novel, the genre of travel narrative gained prominence because of its ability to sate these social urges; however, with various global crises, shifts in social structuring and an ever expanding knowledge base the ability for travel narrative to fill this urge diminished and, I argue, was replaced by the genres of science fiction and fantasy literature. In this paper I build a connection between travel literature and science fiction/fantasy literature using common tropes, an exploration into the social focus of each genre, a detailed study into Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, and, finally, a study into the evolution and presence of the Multiverse in literature. All of this supports my claim that science fiction and fantasy literature grew out of travel narrative to fill a social void left behind by the fundamental changes the travel narrative genre was required to undergo as the map of the world was filled in. The urge to travel is ever-present, and when the loss of blank spaces on the map, new, fantastic worlds were created.
Metrics
25 File views/ downloads
34 Record Views
Details
- Title
- Distant worlds, Dark materials
- Creators
- Owen Williams
- Contributors
- T. V. Reed (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- English, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525089401842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis