Gregoriou, C orcid.org/0000-0003-2875-0180 (2023) Plotting and Characterisation in Sophie Hannah’s The Other Half Lives: a Cognitive Stylistic approach. Journal of Literary Semantics, 52 (1). pp. 41-60. ISSN 0341-7638
Abstract
(Sophie Hannah’s. 2009. The Other Half Lives. London: Hodder). The Other Half Lives both complies with, and departs from, the crime fiction formula or text schema. It features a mystery the specifics of which are unravelled non-chronologically, while its numerous crimes and non-ideal criminals and victims disrupt readers’ world schemas and help enable its surprising effects. Not unlike such fiction, the story’s early happenings feature late in the telling, while many happenings are given from different character perspectives. Both of these help unsettle narrative perspective, and generate suspense, mystery, and readers’ later repairing and replacing of frames. Focalisation and the working and reworking of killing characters’ early depiction are techniques also enabling foreshadowing and misdirection, for readers’ sympathies and prejudices to be manipulated accordingly, and for surprise revelations to prove effective, even when a surprise ending is – given the nature of this genre – only to be expected.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Keywords: | archive; focalisation; misdirection; plot; schemas |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of English (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 27 Jan 2023 15:46 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 23:14 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | De Gruyter |
Identification Number: | 10.1515/jls-2023-2004 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:195457 |