Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Arts

Program

Comparative Literature

Supervisor

Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu

Abstract

This thesis studies the play of the Other in Vladimir Nabokov’s short story collection The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov and Mu Xin’s short story collection An Empty Room. Friedrich Nietzsche’s theory on the genealogy of morality provides a framework for the research. This thesis explores the two writer’s representation of the other time, the other space, and the self as another, and extends the analysis in the thematic contexts of exile and memory. Examining how Nabokov and Mu Xin cope with “differences” arising in human existence, this thesis argues that such differences are fundamental to their artistic creation. By accommodating the Other in their fictional writing, Nabokov and Mu Xin free the self from temporal, spatial and cultural constraints.

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