Narrating (in) transformation: contextual narratology, gender, and the dialogic interplay between narrative form and narrated content

Abstract

This doctoral thesis explores the dialogic relationship between narrative form and narrated content through the lens of contextual narratology, focusing on gender-conscious novels that emphasise identities in transition. Specifically, my research approaches narrative form as a system of interconnected, interdependent and mutually illuminating relations (both structural and thematic), the detailed study of which can reveal gender- and queer-related significations when examined through a contextual narratological lens.

Challenging the view of formalism as either rigidly tied to structural foundations that prioritise form over content—as is often the case in classical narratology—or as restrictive or irrelevant to gender- and queer-related meanings—a stance commonly associated with gender and queer studies—I propose an alternative conception of formalism. I frame it as a methodological approach that occupies a middle ground, namely, a study of narrative form in dynamic interaction with narrated content, employing the analytical tools of narratology while also engaging with theoretical concepts from gender and queer theory.

To foreground this understanding of narrative form, I turn to the principle of transformation—a concept rooted in Structuralism but still underexplored in terms of its potential for narrative analysis and processing. By tracing its development in narratology and its more recent engagement within queer narrative theory, I argue that transformation serves as a crucial link between narrative form and narrated content, as it encapsulates the dynamic interplay between a narrative’s structural shifts and the thematic changes it conveys.

Moreover, a central aim of this research is to examine the potential role of gender as a productive element in narrative processing. I respond affirmatively to the question—first raised in the 1980s and 1990s but still largely unanswered—of whether gender can productively inform narrative analysis. To this end, I explore gender through its intratextual, formal function: not simply as a contextual factor, but as it operates in relation to structural narrative elements such as temporality, perspective, focalisation, narrative space, characterisation, and metafiction. In doing so, I underscore the importance of contextual narratology—particularly feminist, rhetorical, and queer approaches—in uncovering nuanced gendered and queer significations. Finally, I demonstrate the limitations of classical narratology in addressing such narratives, highlighting the need for more expansive and critically engaged narratological frameworks.