Who gets to have a voice? A comparative analysis of traditional and subversive white saviour narratives in fiction

Abstract

This PhD thesis, Who Gets to Have a Voice? A Comparative Analysis of Traditional and Subversive White Saviour Narratives in Fiction, investigates the enduring presence and evolving forms of the white saviour trope in contemporary literature. It comprises a critical study and a creative component: The Grand Scheme of Things, a novel that interrogates institutional bias through the story of two friends who fabricate their connection to a hit play in order to expose the inequities of the British theatre industry. The critical component traces the legacy of white saviour narratives from canonical texts to recent fiction that consciously subverts or destabilises the trope. Through close textual analysis, this thesis compares traditional narratives that reinforce white moral authority with those that complicate or satirise the trope to reveal underlying structures of racial and cultural power. It draws on postcolonial theory, critical race studies, and narratology to examine how voice, agency, and legitimacy are distributed in these texts, asking: who is allowed to speak, and who is spoken for? By placing the creative and critical components in dialogue, the thesis offers both an analytical and artistic intervention into the cultural logic of the white saviour. The Grand Scheme of Things embodies the theoretical concerns of the research, experimenting with form and voice to highlight the limits of meritocracy, the performance of allyship, and the precarious nature of visibility for marginalised creators. In doing so, this project contributes to wider conversations around authorship, representation, and the politics of storytelling in contemporary literature.