Summary:
This doctoral thesis aims at highlighting the historical elements found in Lilika Nakos' prose and more specifically in her novels and short stories. The main and primary purpose was to create a substantial research about the narrative techniques and, in general, the literary ways in which the author accomplishes to represent pieces of Greek history through prose that does not belong to the genre of the historical novel. Does a literary text have the power to approach the historical past and convey it to the reader? The interpretive theories of Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger and Georg Gadamer comprise a constituent element of the study and basic methodological tool; theories that focus on the relationship between experience and history, on the position and attitude of the researcher towards the text to be interpreted, on the timelessness of a work, as well as οn its interaction both with the historical past and with the present of each reader. For a deeper understanding of historical representation through Nakos' literary texts, a deeper study is conducted upon the relationship between history and literature, as well as a comparison between historical and literary discourse, mainly through the texts of the great theoretician of history, Hayden White. The theoretical context of the thesis is completed through a thorough study of the Criticism that has been stated about the author's literary work. Whereupon, due diligence on Nakos’ texts, the historical events are explored in combination with the author's personal experience. Personal drama and history go hand in hand without one overshadowing the other. Essentially, the author takes the "self" from the autobiographical genre and the story from the historical novel genre and portrays herself as a member of the history. It manages to identify the individual trauma with the trauma of an entire nation and to transform the individual memory into a collective memory. Isolating the historical elements from Nakos’ overall literary work, the linear course of history is revealed, which is not only projected as past and present, but also as future. It turns out that each historical period and each historical theme is illustrated by different narrative techniques. Hence, each historical unit constitutes a separate chapter and is studied autonomously based on its own theoretical tool. Subsequently, the conflicts from World War I to the Cold War, as well as their consequences, emerge through theories of trauma, the function of memory, the techniques of magical realism, but also through the symbolic power of language. The political situation of the country is expressed through the secondary heroes themselves, who, acting as a chorus of ancient tragedy, function as conveyers of history itself. Via Julien Greimas’ semiotic square and György Lukács’ texts, the ideological symbolism is completely revealed, as not only the social devision between the rich and the poor is highlighted, but also heroes’ political positioning accordingly to their position in the social pyramid. As a whole, the author expresses the need for collectivity and for a Social Reform that will lead to the creation of a "civil society", where the bourgeois will not turn his back on the poor. Love, motherhood, the relationship with the mother and women's emancipation are themes that can be found scattered in Lilika Nakos’ prose work and are presented with narrative thoroughness. These issues follow the pattern of the New Woman and for this reason are interpreted through the theory of feminist criticism. Hélène Cixous, Sandra Gilman and Susan Gubar are some of the theorists of feminist criticism, whose texts were used to the understanding of the representation of the feminine, since the author presents in her work many characteristics of feminine writing (ecriture feminine). The use of specific stereotypical language cancels the entrenched urban stereotype of the female gender and puts forward the model of the emancipated woman, as defined by the dictates of left-wing ideology. Through her work, the author succeeds in raising the voice of women, making them speaking subjects and offering them a place in history. Finally, it is established that Lilika Nakos as a historical being accepts the influences from her environment, assimilates those that are the result of experience and shapes her inner experience. It articulates this inner experience through the linguistic system and its modification and organizes it into systems of meaning production. In this way, she creates the sense of experienced reality, she creates what Raymond Williams calls the “structure of feeling”. She does not restore the truth, she does not create a true copy of reality, but she turns the historical past into an aesthetic creation. The thesis is completed with the formulation of conclusions, the appendix of Lilika Nakos’ ergography and the full bibliography.
Keywords:
history, representation, semiotic square, Greimas, Hayden White, feminist criticism, ecriture feminine, war, body, trauma, expreience, memory
