| Summary: | 碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 英國語文學系碩士班 === 104 === This thesis examines Alan Ayckbourn’s Communicating Doors and Comic Potential via the integration of two spatial theories, Hanna Scolnicov’s theatre space and Bakhtin’s chronotope. The core of the thesis studies the consciousness of the protagonists to argue that it is the product of specific incidents. As Communicating Doors contains both dynamic characters and time travel, themes of external forces shaping the internal selves of the cast are observed and explored. The impact of choices (made by both major and minor characters) in pivotal moments is scrutinized as well as what creates and constitutes such moments.
Chapter one will illustrate that the narrative device of time travel in Communicating Doors allows for the creation of pivotal moments, which draw narrative gaze and dramatically alter the characters. The chronotope is used extensively to explore how time is utilized in a play where the temporal structure is not linear. Chapter two discusses the theme of consciousness in both humans and artificial intelligence in Comic Potential. Issues of memory, free will and experience are explored in order to delve into the play’s interpretation of sentience. Chapter two concludes that inter-personal relationships, even with the artificial are capable of not only altering existing consciousness, but creating a new sentience. At the heart of this thesis is an exploration of experiences, which are examined via their temporal and spatial dimensions, and the effects these experiences have on the formation of the characters and their outcomes.
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