Time and Reality in Ali Smith's Hotel World and Like

Abstract

My main concern is to show the variety of ways in which the passing of time and the perception of temporal reality are represented in the two novels of Ali Smith, and I also aim to prove that the key motif in the novels that links them together is the subjective perception of temporality. The thesis is primarily a close reading of the two novels, focusing on their representation of temporal experience, occasionally drawing upon phenomenological (mainly Heideggerian) ideas of temporality, and Freudian psychoanalysis.