For my final project, I have opted for the analytical route. I would like to write a narratological explication of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. Although we briefly discussed some narrative fiction early in the semester, for the most part the focus of this course was on forms of narrative that have not been explored in as much depth as standard prose fiction. And while writing a paper on your average novel would probably not be a very fruitful exercise (in the sense of fitting with the parameters of this project,) looking at House of Leaves offers an array of potential sources for narratological analysis.

For instance, the layered narration of the novel subverts the standard narrator/narratee relationship - when we have one narrator of one thread of the story, and a second for another one, what narratological implications does that have? The fact that Johnny Truant is relating a story from a text he found that was originally written by Zampano also leads to questions of historical narrativity. What is the impact on stories when they are passed down to different narrators? How does this affect narrative as we understand it?

The extensive use of typographical techniques in the novel is another potential avenue to follow. When words are used not just to convey meaning in their usual sense, but also to form pictures that suggest emotions and actions, what happens to the rules of narrativity? What do the use of different fonts for different characters imply? The appearance of real life people in the novel, and the concomitant blurring of reality and narrative, is also something I would like to write about.

These are some of the ideas I would like to address in my paper.