In my novel, The Forest, protagonist Hector Ellis- writer and artist -undergoes a self-crisis of his slipping sanity as he confronts the ecological crisis of a dying Earth. In his life on a space station that houses a man-made forest, Hector has access to one of the few healthy environments left in the solar system. When he paints a forest scene with a young witch in its composition, he is unnerved when that same witch appears to come aboard the station as a real person. In conflict with, and acceptance of, this unreal situation, Hector and the ‘witch’, Morgan, become romantically involved. As a tangible presence and as a construction of Hector’s fractured psyche, Morgan’s otherworldly influence slowly guides him through his traversal of the impending anthropocene, as the failing Earth finally dies. My artistic approach to The Forest is concerned with the amalgamation of other genres beyond its science fiction and speculative fiction appearance, and through using destabilising narrative techniques such as unreliable narration. This synthesis can become ‘neonarrative’ (Warhol, 2017) - a new way to narrate in a genre, and thus becomes the norm within that genre. The Forest’s use of advanced destabilising narrative techniques produce an indeterminate narrative and an interpretational story. This is predicated on the information Hector narrates, and the information he doesn’t narrate, combining to form the uncanny, existential crisis of living through (and transcending) a climate crisis. What the narrative focus then does, is question who or what is seeing and being seen, in its exploration of focalisation. I therefore posit that The Forest is an aforementioned ‘neonarrative’ in its use of multi-genre conventions and techniques; its nuanced use of destabilising narrative techniques; and its exploration of focalisation, establishing it as a unique contribution to literary knowledge.
| Date of Award | 31 Mar 2026 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Stephen Ely (Main Supervisor) |
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