ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

approximately half of the narrative. As Wole Ogundele argues, Part One is
characterized by repeated rituals, analepsis, and vague temporal markers, while Parts
Two and Three feature clearer temporal markers and frequent and often large ellipses;
this shift in the approach to narrative tense marks a shift in the perception of time
from cyclical to linear and from a mythic to a historical imagination (Ogundele 135).
That is, the narrative discourse reflects a shift in epistemology that occurs due to the
disruption of traditional communities by the appearance of Western colonizers. I have
made only the slightest sketch of a reading of one of the most influential postcolonial
novels in the English language, with the intention of suggesting the territory for
further study. Particularly in light of recent efforts to expand the reach of modernist
studies to include many postcolonial texts, there is room for the study of not only the
narrative middles of postcolonial texts, but of the specifically modernist narrative
middles to be found in some postcolonial texts.
Graphic novels, as well, contain narrative middles, with some radical
approaches that may help us to understand how middles may shape our understanding
of narrative. The American Chris Ware’s 2012 graphic novel Building Stories is a
successor to The Unfortunates in its use of a “book-in-a-box” format that allows
readers to choose a different syuzhet without affecting the fabula. It goes further than
The Unfortunates, however, in that its 14 separate sections do not include a beginning
and ending and, even more radically, do not share a common format. Instead, the box
contains a variety of physical formats, from small pamphlets to hard-bound volumes
to posters to a piece of cardboard that can be unfolded like the playing surface of a
board game. Consisting largely or previously published material, Building Stories
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