The third state: ethics and agency within hybrid narratives

The Third State is an exploration of the consequences to individual agency in the process of inadvertent hybridization when competing narrative systems come into contact. This work takes as its beginning point the example of Don Quijote who in the course of his adventures becomes entangled in a narrative of hybrid and contradictory expectations that subvert his individual agency. Applying this basic framework to Lord Jim by Conrad and La cena by Aira, I will analyze how each author represents the disconnect between the protagonist’s internal narrative and his experience in a social environment, and then continue on to consider what the consequences of the incorporation of such a rupture into the consequent entangled narrative systems are shown to be in each case. This work will focus on each author’s approach to the question, along with considerations of consequences to individual agency with respect to the pursuit and achievement of the experience of happiness, the success and degree of authenticity in questions of interpersonal relationships, and of the doubtful possibility of authentic subjectivity in narrative contexts.