Rachel Cusk and the renovation of the novel: forms and themes in the Outline trilogy

This dissertation aims at analysing Rachel Cusk's work, focusing on her last novels, Outline (2104), Transit (2016) and Kudos (2018), which form a trilogy. The first chapter will dwell on the reasons which led Cusk to seek a new literary form, which will be analysed. The second chapter will focus on the role of the narrator and on Cusk's position in the overall context of English literature. The third chapter will investigate the concept of personal identity with regard to linguistic aspects, and scrutinise the ideas of change, progress and freedom in Cusk's trilogy. The fourth and fifth chapters hinge upon narration: first, the notion of post-traumatic narrative is introduced; afterwards, the act of narration is analysed as a way of exercising one's power to deceive, both other people and oneself. The sixth chapter addresses the idea of fate, while the seventh chapter, following on that same notion, underlines the way in which women tend to mistake other people's power for faith. Moreover, the same chapter dwells on power, violence and on the way the two are linked; these relations are explained in the light of Lévi-Strauss' idea of kinship and Hegel's master-slave theory. The eighth and ninth chapters consider the way Cusk sees two social structures: marriage and family, respectively. Marriage is analysed with a particular focus on roles and identities which develop within a couple and which, at the same time, sustain it; family, on the other hand, is seen by Cusk as a closed reality, deceitful insofar it represents the «death of doubt», as Cooper phrases it. The chapter ends by looking at the way Cusk's families are often portrayed as containers of the most primitive passions. ​