The Solitaire Mystery is a philosophical fairy tale, in which Gaarder tries to bring philosophy back to the reader’s childhood in an interesting and comprehensive way via 53 playing cards. All of the philosophical questions which Tomas and his father discuss in this novel are the ideas that Gaarder endeavors to convey. Through this story, the author attempts to demonstrate that people always roam around without asking basic questions about who they are and where they come from. Only the Joker, a card that belongs to none of the four suits, and little children, would notice the true meaning of life.
To some extent, this thesis fills in gaps in comprehensive analysis of narrative time. Up to this point, researches on The Solitaire Mystery from perspectives of narratological theories are so scarce and Gaarder’s deliberate design of narrative time is ignored by academia. Compared with other novel studies, this thesis focuses more on the inner structure than the outer one, offering a new perspective to study the text and laying down groundwork for future suveys of its narrative time.
With detailed descriptions and explanations of the narrative layers of the book from angles of temporal order, temporal duration and temporal frequency, this thesis aims at demonstrating how Gaarder manages to infuses his philosophical inquires into the intricately-woven plot and multi-layered narration, and by so doing, reveals to the readers the theme of the novel.