The performative nature of literary devices in the Fourth Gospel

Abstract

The goal of the study is to present an analysis of literary devices in the Fourth Gospel from a narratological-pragmatic perspective. This means that the text of the Fourth Gospel is approached as a story. The impetus behind this analysis is to demonstrate the performative nature of the literary devices employed by the implied author to invite the implied reader’s participation as they read the Fourth Gospel. The study approaches the text of the Fourth Gospel using some aspects of speech act theory (Chapters 2–5) and focalisation (Chapter 6) as analytical tools or methods of analysis. Regarding Chapters 2–5, the study concedes that it does not intend to comprehensively apply all aspects of speech act theory in analysing the text but some aspects of it as discussed in Chapter 1. The study’s point of departure is from an already established finding that the Fourth Gospel’s purpose is stated in performative terms (Van der Watt, 2010), i.e., that the Gospel is written so that the reader may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him the reader may have life in his name. It is convincingly clear, from this purpose, that the implied author of the Fourth Gospel intends to achieve something in the life of the reader through the text. Following the stated purpose of the Gospel, the central question that this study attempts to addresses is: How does the implied author of the Fourth Gospel ensure that the purpose of the Gospel is achievable? The study proposes that the Gospel’s implied author employs literary devices such as misunderstanding, irony, forensic dialogues, asides, and repetition to augment the achievability of the Gospel’s purpose. Therefore, this thesis demonstrates that these literary devices are performative in nature. The thesis consists of seven chapters, namely: Chapter 1 is the introduction to the study; Chapter 2 presents the study of the performative nature of misunderstanding; Chapter 3 focuses on the performative nature of irony; Chapter 4 deals with the performative nature of forensic dialogue; Chapter 5 demonstrates the performative nature of asides and repetition; Chapter 6 delves into the performative nature of focalisation as an analytical tool; and finally, Chapter 7 summarises the findings and indicates the contribution of the study.