The Use of Deconstructive Parody in Muriel Spark’s Novel Not to Disturb

Authors : Volha Korbut Salman

Pages : 205-224

Doi:10.18026/cbayarsos.1471463

View : 81 | Download : 86

Publication Date : 2024-09-30

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The prolific British-Scottish novelist Muriel Spark depicts the plight of the owners of a Gothic-style chateau in Geneva, the Baron and Baroness Klopstock, and their servants in her purposefully brief and infinitely suggestive novel Not to Disturb (1971). The approaching tragedy that will encompass the deaths of Klopstocks and Victor, their secretary and lover, is something the butler Lister is bracing himself for. Servants of the chateau are not permitted to bother these three captives who are detained in the library for the night. While the servants are the ones who planned the murder with the intention of inheriting a fortune, due to the expectant housemaid Heloise’s marriage to the lunatic and sole heir to Klopstock’s fortune residing in the attic, they nevertheless seem to be shocked and saddened by the discovery of three dead bodies the following morning. This paper argues that Not to Disturb, in this sense, offers a brilliant deconstructive parody of the Gothic novel and Jacobean drama genres by dissecting their essential elements, cliches, and traditions and then reincorporating them into the story in a whole new twentieth-century self-reflexive light.
Keywords : Muriel Spark, Rahatsız Etmeyin, Jakoben Drama, Gotik Roman, Dekonstrüktif Parodi