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The unmastered deep : qualifying craft in twentieth-century nautical fiction
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2025.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
2025
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| _version_ | 1867613841829920768 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Cunningham, Kimberly Joy |
| author2 | De Villiers, Dawid |
| author_browse | Cunningham, Kimberly Joy De Villiers, Dawid |
| author_facet | De Villiers, Dawid Cunningham, Kimberly Joy |
| author_sort | Cunningham, Kimberly Joy |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | Stellenbosch University |
| description | Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/134580 |
| institution | Stellenbosch University (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:42:33.557Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| publisherStr | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| spelling | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/134580 The unmastered deep : qualifying craft in twentieth-century nautical fiction Cunningham, Kimberly Joy De Villiers, Dawid Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English. English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism Sea stories -- History and criticism Sea in literature Ecocriticism Conflict (Psychology) in literature UCTD Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. Cunningham, K. J. 2025. The Unmastered Deep: Qualifying Craft in Twentieth-Century Nautical Fiction. Unpublished masters thesis. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University [online]. Available: https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/408a70c3-a0ff-4209-894c-f764ef0d001f ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Marine literary scholars have recognised the ocean’s ability to function as both setting and subject in nautical fiction. Recognising the dynamism and depth of the ocean, the fields of Oceanic Studies and Blue Cultural Studies advocate for a deeper engagement with the sea as a critical space in literature, history, and culture, emphasising its role in the creation of cultural meaning. Furthermore, this scholarship turns away from a traditionally grounded, terrestrial focus; as the groundless, fluid nature of the ocean offers new analytical insights and accommodates the interconnectedness of human and natural histories. The twentieth century Western depiction of the ocean as adversary and medium registers humanity’s complex and dynamic relationship with nature, the dual role of the ocean as geophysical fact and multivalent figure reflecting changing material conditions as well as a shift in literary metaphorics. However, despite the fact that the multi-faceted nature of the ocean meant that it could be characterised in a number of ways, the thread which runs through my selected texts is the ongoing challenge that the sea presented even in the context of maritime modernity. My thesis considers how and why this image of the adversarial ocean resurged in nineteenth-century nautical fiction and persisted into the twentieth-century. In examining the implications that emerge out of this adversarial relationship between man and sea, I conduct a close analysis of Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon (1901), Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952), and William Golding’s Pincher Martin (1956). Each text presents a distinctive adversarial relation and survival narrative — Conrad’s MacWhirr navigates a tumultuous storm, Hemingway’s Santiago battles the massive fish, and Golding’s Pincher clings to a fractured sense of self — thereby raising questions regarding, among other things, the valuation of victory and heroism, the limitations of man’s agency in an indifferent universe, and how the disruption of routine may produce opportunities for ethical reflection. AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar. Masters 2025-12-15T08:12:21Z 2025-12-15T08:12:21Z 2025-12 Thesis https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/134580 en Stellenbosch University iv, 102 pages application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| spellingShingle | English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism Sea stories -- History and criticism Sea in literature Ecocriticism Conflict (Psychology) in literature UCTD Cunningham, Kimberly Joy The unmastered deep : qualifying craft in twentieth-century nautical fiction |
| title | The unmastered deep : qualifying craft in twentieth-century nautical fiction |
| title_full | The unmastered deep : qualifying craft in twentieth-century nautical fiction |
| title_fullStr | The unmastered deep : qualifying craft in twentieth-century nautical fiction |
| title_full_unstemmed | The unmastered deep : qualifying craft in twentieth-century nautical fiction |
| title_short | The unmastered deep : qualifying craft in twentieth-century nautical fiction |
| title_sort | unmastered deep qualifying craft in twentieth century nautical fiction |
| topic | English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism Sea stories -- History and criticism Sea in literature Ecocriticism Conflict (Psychology) in literature UCTD |
| url | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/134580 |
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