Sangam: A Confluence of Knowledge Streams

Minding the Gap: Time in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and the Hermeneutical Inquiry

Show simple item record

dc.contributor English
dc.creator Peoples, Timothy Andrew John
dc.date 2016-06-27T19:04:01Z
dc.date 2016-06-27T19:04:01Z
dc.date 2004-05
dc.date.accessioned 2023-03-03T18:51:41Z
dc.date.available 2023-03-03T18:51:41Z
dc.identifier eprint:321
dc.identifier http://hdl.handle.net/10919/71593
dc.identifier.uri http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/282042
dc.description I begin this thesis with a discussion of Neil Gaiman’s career and my interaction with his first novel, Neverwhere. I define time in the novel as the succession and interrelatedness of events and divide this definition into two perceptions: immediacy and graduality. I apply the former to the novel’s separate worlds, which are called London Above and London Below. London Above, in the perception of Richard Mayhew, the main character, favors immediacy and rejects graduality. Though his perception is incomplete, the nature of London Above makes him unsuitable for life there. London Below, on the other hand, exhibits both perceptions. Graduality’s influence on the two worlds shows a departure from Western conceptions of time that makes London Above and London Below a symbiotic that cannot be unified. This symbiosis can be allegorized as the hermeneutical gap. After examining similar concepts in Gaiman’s Stardust and American Gods, I conclude that Gaiman’s writing states that the permanently separated hermeneutical gap allows humanity to reflect upon itself.
dc.format application/pdf
dc.format application/pdf
dc.language en
dc.publisher University of Houston
dc.rights In Copyright
dc.rights http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
dc.subject British literature
dc.subject English literature
dc.subject postmodernism
dc.subject hermeneutics
dc.subject contemporary literature
dc.subject Neil Gaiman
dc.subject religious studies
dc.subject time
dc.subject PS
dc.subject PN0080
dc.subject PE
dc.subject PN
dc.subject PR
dc.title Minding the Gap: Time in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and the Hermeneutical Inquiry
dc.type Thesis


Files in this item

Files Size Format View
321_1.pdf 326.8Kb application/pdf View/Open

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record

Search DSpace


Advanced Search

Browse