Experiencing the child’s perspectives in contemporary English-language literature: The coalescence of reality and fantasy as an element of experientiality

Abstract

This bachelor thesis analyzes the coalescence of reality and fantasy as an element of the literary childhood perspective. It proposes the thesis that the uncertain seperation and confluence between the real and the fantastic from the perspective of the literary child is developed as a literary strategy to generate an experiential child perspective, one that emulates the worldview and subjective perceptions of a fictional, literarily constructed child. The paper provides three case studies that consist of a close reading of excerpts from three different child perspectives in contemporary English-language novels: “The Daydreamer” (1994) by Ian McEwan, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” (2005) by Jonathan Safran Foer, and “Gun Love” (2008) by Jennifer Clement.