A text-driven approach to psychological projection in Jemisin’s ‘Broken Earth Trilogy’

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to examine the ways in which a text encourages different kinds of projection, with a secondary focus on the effects of the interactions between such projections. Whiteley (2011)’s argument that readers can project into more than one enactor during the process of reading is central to this. I chose to examine psychological projection into enactors of the narrator, addressee and characters in Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy (consisting of The Fifth Season (2015), The Obelisk Gate (2016) and The Stone Sky (2017)) because of the complex forms of projection encouraged by this text. The analysis will be carried out mainly via Text World Theory, but with the addition of other research that examines the reader’s interactions and relationship with characters, and that can thus throw more light on the process of psychological projection. First, a series of extracts were analysed via Text World Theory, in order to examine the world structure in relation to the enactors of the narrator, addressee, and a character. This analysis was then discussed, in order to examine how the world structure and narrative encourage psychological projection into different enactors, and the interactions between the multiple instances of projection. Finally, conclusions were drawn based on these findings.