Ruimtelike plasing as struktuurmoment in die romankuns van Etienne Leroux

Abstract

This is a study of the important role that setting (milieu, space, background) plays in the novels of Etienne Leroux. The first chapter consists mainly of a theoretical speculation aimed at clarifying and defining the part that setting plays in a novel. The purpose of this was to determine whether the set= ting could be employed as a usable means of interpreting the thematical layer of a novel. The conclusion that is arrived at points out that the setting of a novel only partly embodies the main theme. Another important aspect is the part that the narrator plays in the realisation and interpretation of the meaning of the setting. This finally leads to the definition of setting from an anthropological point of view, In the second chapter an analysis is given of the various ways in

which the setting is employed in Leroux' s novels as an embodiment of the main structural patterns in those novels. The main part of this chapter is devoted to an analysis of the symbolical use of the setting and the way in which Leroux has enriched the traditional concept of the literary symbol with the mythological-psychological concept of symbolism. Leroux's settings are also qualified. Specific characteristics of The fragmentary nature of the analysis in the first two chapters made it. necessary to analyse a complete novel so as to determine the function and meaning of the setting in a novel as a whole. In this analysis of Na'va, the last novel in Leroux's novel cycle, the setting not only embodies the main structural patterns but also enfuses all the different techniques Leroux employs in the different settings of his novel cycle. It is also illustrated in which way the setting leads to an interpretation of the thematical layer. I have also specified, however, that this interpretation has to be correlated with that which crystalizes out of the analysis of the other epic elements. The fourth chapter gives a brief discussion of the moral vision embodied in the setting of Na'va and concludes with a historical evaluation and placing of Leroux's employment of setting as a symbolical device.