Narrative structure and the individual in the Íslendingasögur: motivation, provocation and characterisation

• Main Author: Shortt Butler, Joanne
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Clare Hall 2017
• Subjects: old norse literature; medieval iceland; characterisation; narrative structure; oral tradition; icelandic family sagas; narratology; character and structure; minor characters; íslendingasögur; Iceland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.15633; https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/269413

This thesis takes a fresh, character-based approach to the Íslendingasögur. It is inspired by a narratological study that unites the functional and structural role of characters with their human, individualistic portrayal. My major objective is to demonstrate the important connection between characterisation and structure in the sagas.By drawing attention to characters that I term narrative triggers, I offer a way of reading the sagas that relies both on the narrative conventions of tradition and on the less predictable, personal interactions between the cast of any given saga.In the case of both major and minor figures in the Íslendingasögur a certain type of character is often present to perform necessary motivational functions, allowing the plot to develop.In Part I I emphasise the functional aspect of these characters, before exploring unusual examples that emphasise their individuality in Part II.The motivation of the plot is linked throughout to the figure of the ójafnaðarmaðr. A secondary objective is to provide a clearer understanding of the nature and function of this commonly occurring character type. The ójafnaðarmaðr is frequently alluded to in scholarship,but this thesis provides the first in-depth study of the portrayal of these characters. The quality that informs them (ójafnaðr,‘inequity’, lit. ‘unevenness’) is a threat to one of the core values of saga society and hints at an ‘unbalancing’ of social interactions and of the narrative equilibrium itself. That this unbalance leads to changes in the social structure of the setting is a key factor in driving the plots of the sagas along. For this reason, a detailed examination of the figure of the ójafnaðarmaðr is long overdue: they can be observed to perform a specific narrative function but are always fitted to suit their particular context. Focussing on the structural conventions of character introduction, Part I establishes my methodology and catalogues the examples of characters introduced as ójafnaðarmenn. The scope is limited to those ...