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"Beowulf": Myth as a Structural and Thematic Key
Very little of the huge corpus of Beowulf criticism has been directed at discovering the function and meaning of myth in the poem. Scholars have noted many mythological elements, but there has never been a satisfactory explanation of the poet's use of this material. A close analysis of Beowulf reveals that myth does, in fact, inform its structure, plot, characters and even imagery. More significant than the poet's use of myth, however, is the way he interlaces the historical and Christian elements with the mythological story to reflect his understanding of the cyclic nature of human existence. The examination in Chapter II of the religious component in eighth-century Anglo-Saxon culture demonstrates that the traditional Germanic religion or mythology was still very much alive. Thus the Beowulf poet was certainly aware of pre-Christian beliefs. Furthermore, he seems to have perceived basic similarities between the old and new religions, and this understanding is reflected in the poem. Chapter III discusses the way in which the characterization of the monsters is enriched by their mythological connotations. Chapter IV demonstrates that the poet also imbued the hero Beowulf with mythological significance. The discussion in Chapter V of themes and type-scenes reveals the origins of these formulaic elements in Indo-European myth, particularly in the myth of the dying god. Chapter VI argues that both historical and mythological layers of meaning reflect traditional man's view of history as cyclic, a temporal period with a beginning and an end. At the juncture between end and beginning is conflict, which is necessary for regeneration. The interlacing of Christian, historical and mythic elements suggests the impossibility of extricating the individual and collective historical manifestations from the cosmic imperative of this cycle. The Beowulf poet perhaps saw in the ancient myths which permeated his cultural traditions the basis of meaning …
Literature of Conscience: The Novels of John Nichols
This dissertation presents a thematic study of the novels of John Nichols. Intended as an introduction to his major works of fiction, this study discusses the central themes and prominent characteristics of his seven novels and considers the impact of the Southwest on his work. Chapter One presents biographical information about Nichols, focusing on his political awakening and subsequent move to Taos, New Mexico. A visit to Guatemala, after the publication of The Sterile Cuckoo. his first novel, brought Nichols to a realization that America was not a benevolent world power. He began to consider capitalism a voracious, destructive economic system, a view which informed the subjects and themes of his five novels written after The Wizard of Loneliness. In 1969, Nichols left New York City, moving to Taos, New Mexico, an area with a history of physical and economic aggression against its predominantly Native American and Hispanic population. The five polemical novels, all set in northern New Mexico, were written after this move. Chapters Two through Four discuss Nichols's seven novels, analyzing theme and reviewing critical response. /V Chapter Two discusses The Sterile Cuckoo (1965) and The Wizard of Loneliness (1966), novels written prior to Nichols's political awakening. Both of these books are rite-of-passage novels which focus on relationships. Chapter Three analyzes The New Mexico Trilogy: The Milagro Beanfield War (1974), The Magic Journey (1978), and The Nirvana Blues (1981). These three novels depict the exploitation of people, the displacement of cultures, and the despoliation of land in the name of progress. Chapter Four considers A Ghost in the Music (1979) and American Blood (1987). Although these two books differ greatly in tone and subject, they are similar in the general theme of waste--waste of human potential and human life. Chapter Five identifies the prominent characteristics and reviews the …
Natural Innocence in "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", the Nick Adams Stories, and "The Old Man and the Sea"
Hemingway claims in Green Hills of Africa that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." If this basic idea is applied to his own work, elements of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn appear in some of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories and his novel The Old Man and the Sea. All major characters and several minor characters in these works share the quality of natural innocence, composed of their primitivism, sensibility, and active morality. Hemingway's Nick, Santiago, and Manolin, and Twain's Huck Finn and Jim reflect their authors' similar backgrounds and experiences and themselves come from similar environments. These environments are directly related to their continued possession and expression of their natural innocence.
Mark Twain: "Cradle Skeptic"
Critics discussing Mark Twain's early skepticism have, to date, confined their explorations to short studies (articles or book chapters), brief references in passing, or buried their insights in discussions on other topics. Other critics ignore Twain's atheistic statements and see his beliefs as theistic or deterministic. Others ascribe his attitudes in the "dark writings" to late life disappointments. This study demonstrates that Twain's later attitudes towards religion, determinism, social reform and institutions were products of his family heritage, his social environment, and his early reading. Chapter 1 introduces the major premises of the study, and Chapter 2 reviews the critical background. Chapter 3 discusses the family and hometown influences: on Twain's skeptical thought, and Chapter A discusses Twain's early literary and philosophical influences. Chapter 5 examines Twain's early writings in letters and frontier tales and sketches, showing the development of his anti-religious attitudes. Chapter 6 concludes the study.
Topics in the Morphology and Phonology of Mandarin Chinese
This thesis examines some selective cases of morphophonemic alternation in Mandarin Chinese. It presents analyses of the function -of the retroflex suffix -r and describes several conditions for tone sandhi. The suffix -r functions not simply as a noun formative. Some of the suffixed forms have consistently different meanings from the roots on which they are based. The suffix -r also plays a role in poetry as a time-filler to make each line of a poem fulfill the requirements of the strict number of characters and rhyme. This thesis also explains what causes the tone pattern of words such as xiaojie and jiejie to be pronounced differently. These tonal changes are found to be related to the way in which a word is formed. Compounding, reduplication and suffixation differ with respect to how they effect tone sandhi. Tone alternations in actual speech are explored to determine how tone sandhi produces each pronunciation and how grammatical structure and other factors are relevant.
A Challenge to Charles Lamb's "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare"
This study challenges Charles Lamb's 1811 essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare, Considered with Reference to their Fitness for Stage Representation," which argues that Shakespeare's plays are better suited for reading than stage production. Each of the four chapters considers a specific argument Lamb raises against the theatre and the particular Shakespearean tragedy used to illustrate his point. The Hamlet chapter examines the supposed concessions involved in the actor/audience relationship. The Macbeth chapter challenges Lamb's Platonic view of Shakespearean characterization. The Othello chapter considers whether some characters and images, while acceptable to the reader's imagination, are improper on stage. Finally, the King Lear chapter considers the portrayal of the mind in the theatre, employing semiotic principles to examine the actor's expressive resources.
Love, Marriage, and Irony in Barbara Pym's Novels
In my study on Barbara Pym's novels, the focus is first on the two basic ironies in love-marriage relations: irony of dilemma in which marriage is seen as the end of romantic love; and irony of situation in which excellent but plain-looking women are deprived of the chance to express their basic need for love. Chapter I of this study introduces the major themes and ironies in Pym's novels and the nature and functions of her irony. The following six chapters examine the two major ironies in six of Pym's twelve novels: Some Tame Gazelle, Excellent Women, Jane and Prudence, Less Than Angels, A Glass of Blessings, and A Few Green Leaves. While discussing the uniqueness of each of Pym's heroines, I also explore how Pym underwent changes in her views of love and marriage and how she attempted to keep a balance between her romanticism and her sense of irony. Pym's other six novels are discussed in Chapter VIII, the concluding chapter.
Whitman's Failures: "Children of Adam" in the Light of Feminist Ideals
Walt Whitman was a feminist, and this assertion can be supported by excerpts from his prose, poetry, and conversation. Furthermore, the poet's circle of associates, chronology, and place of residence also lend credence to the hypothesis stating Whitman's subscription to feminist credos. A pro-feminine attitude is evident in much of Whitman's work, and his ties to the women's rights movement of the nineteenth century do influence the poet's portrayal of women. But the section of poems titled "Children of Adam" proves to be an anomaly in Walt Whitman's feminist attitudes. Instead of portraying women as equals, able to walk a path of equanimity with males, the women of "Children of Adam" are often obscured in linguistic veils or subjugated to the poet's Adamic rhetoric.
The Angel in the House and The Woman in White: The Unfolding and Decoding of a Victorian Stereotype
Abstract: Modern readers frequently perceive female characters in Victorian novels as insipid and inane, blaming the static portrayals on the angel in the house stereotype attributed to Coventry Patmore's poem of the same name. The stereotype does not accurately reflect the actual Victorian woman's life, however. Examining how the stereotype evolved and how the middle-class Mid-Victorian woman really lived provides insight into literary devices authors employed either to reinforce the angel ideal or to reconcile the ideal with the real. Wilkie Collins's portrayal of Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White features a dynamic female who has both androgynous characteristics and angel-in-the-house qualities, exemplifying one more paradox in a society riddled with contradictions.
The Craft of the Old English Glossator: Latin Hymns in the Anglo-Saxon Hymnarium
The ten hymns of this study cover such overlapping categories as doctrine, solemn occasions in the rites of the Anglo-Saxon Church, and hymns prescribed in the Regularis concordia for the "little hours" of the daily office, as well as a historical overview from the fourth to the early tenth centuries.
D. H. Lawrence: Misogyny as Ideology in His Later Works of Fiction and Nonfiction
Critics continue to debate Lawrence's attitude toward women: Some say Lawrence is a misogynist, some say he is an egalitarian, and others say he is ambivalent toward women. If Lawrence's works are divided into two chronological periods, before and after 1918, these differences of opinions begin to dissolve. Lawrence is fair in his treatment of women in the earlier works; however, in his later works Lawrence restricts women to what he calls the sensual realm, the realm of feelings and emotions. In addition, Lawrence denounces all women who assert individuality and self-responsibility. In the later works, Lawrence's ideology restricts the role of women and presents male supremacy as the natural and necessary order for human existence.
The Writers and Writing of Computer User Documentation: A Social Perspective
This thesis studies the writing of computer user documentation from a social perspective by examining the process of creating computer documentation and the role of documentation writers in the work place. This study consisted of in-depth interviews and observations of four writers of computer user documentation.
Browning and Dickens: Religious Direction in Victorian England
Many Nineteenth century writers experienced the withdrawal of God discussed by Miller in The Disappearance of God. Robert Browning and Charles Dickens present two examples of "Fra Lippo Lippi" and Great Expectations model effective alternatives to accepting God's absence. Conversely "Andrea del Sarto" accepts the void the other two heroes shun.
Rhetorical Figures and Their Uses in I Henry IV
This study is concerned with the artistic use of classical rhetorical figures in Shakespeare's I Henry IV.After the Introduction, Chapter II examines the history of rhetoric, focusing on the use of the rhetorical figures in Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Medieval Europe. Chapter III investigates rhetorical principles and uses of the rhetorical figures during the English Renaissance and examines the probable influence of rhetoric and the figures on William Shakespeare. Chapter IV discusses themes, characterization, structure, and language in I Henry IV and presents the contribution of the rhetorical figures to the drama's action and characterization. Chapter V considers the contribution of the figures to the major themes of I Henry IV and concludes that the figures, when used with other artistic elements, enhance meaning.
Bearclaw: a Novel
Written in the tradition of American political suspense thrillers such as "Fail-Safe" and "Seven Days In May," "Bearclaw" uses their idealistic and nationalistic elements to tell a story of an American President eager to lead the world's peoples in a quest to achieve man's "highest destiny," the conquest of space. Believing that this common goal will cause mankind to come together in a spirit of brotherhood, he misreads the historical purpose of the United States and, in the end, refuses to recognize the obvious truths of human frailty and ambition even though he has been victimized by them. The Introduction is a brief survey of the sociopolitical and literary forces which combined to create the American political suspense thriller and an attempt to define its place in the literary canon.
An Investigation of the Semantics of Active and Inverse Systems
This study surveys pronominal reference marking in active and inverse languages. Active and inverse languages have in common that they distinguish two sets of reference marking, which are referred to as Actor and Undergoer. The choice of one series of marking over another is shown to be semantically and pragmatically determined.
Personal Archaeology: Poems
A collection of poems focused primarily on rural America and the South, the creative writing thesis also includes material concerned with the history of Mexico, particularly Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. The introduction combines a personal essay with critical material discussing and defining the idea of the Southern writer.
A Study of Christina Rossetti's Poems on Death
Throughout her life Christina Rossetti was pursued by the thought of death. Many of her poems, especially her later poems, display her concerns about death. Her early poems show death as the destroyer of mortal things, reflecting her pessimism and her sometimes naturalistic views on life. Her death wish is sometimes associated with her thwarted desire for absolute love in the world. Her religious poems describe death as the gate to heaven or to hell, the final resting place from the pains of her life. Either as her religious yearning for a better place of Resurrection or as her way of expressing her unfulfilled desire in the world, her persistent theme of death is an expression of the conflict between a sometimes skeptical, sometimes religious view.
Billy and Me and Other Stories
The thesis begins with an introductory chapter that explains the problems that short story theorists encounter when they try to define the short story genre. Part of the problem results from the lack of a definition of the short story in the Aristotelian sense. A looser, less traditional definition of literary genres helps solve some of the problem. Six short stories follow the introduction. "Billy and Me," "Queen of Hearts," "The Whiskey Man," and "Psychedelic Trash Cans" are representative of traditional short stories. "Mourning Coffee" and "Seven X Seven" might very well fit into other genres, but even these stories fit a loose definition of the short story genre.
Conflict in The Brothers Karamazov: Dostoevsky's Idea of the Origin of Sin
The thesis systematically explicates Dostoevsky's portrayal of the origin of human evil on earth through the novel The Brothers Karamazov. Drawing from the novel and from Augustine, Pelagius, and Luther, the explication compares and contrasts Dostoevsky's doctrine of original conflict against the three theologians' views of original sin. Following a brief summary of the three earlier theories of original sin, the thesis describes Dostoevsky's peculiar doctrine of Karamazovism and his unique account of how human evil originated. Finally, the thesis shows how suffering, love, and guilt grow out of the original conflict and how the image of Christ serves as an icon of the special kind of social unity projected by Zosima the Elder in The Brothers Karamazov.
The Feminist Trollope: Hero(in)es in The Warden and Barchester Towers
Although Anthony Trollope has traditionally been considered an anti-feminist author, studies within the past decade have shown that Trollope's later novels show support for female power and sympathy for Victorian women who were dissatisfied with their narrow roles in society. A feminist reading of two of his earliest novels, The Warden and Barchester Towers, shows that Trollope's feminism is not limited to his later works. In The Warden, Trollope acclaims female power and "woman's logic" through female characters and the womanly warden, Septimus Harding. In Barchester Towers, Trollope continues to support feminism through his positive portrayals of strong, independent women and the androgynous Harding. In Barchester Towers, the battle of the sexes ends in a balance of power.
The Incest Taboo in Wuthering Heights : A Modern Appraisal
A modern interpretation of Wuthering Heights suggests that an unconscious incest taboo impeded Catherine and her foster brother, Heathcliff, from achieving normal sexual union and led them to seek union after death. Insights from anthropology, psychology, and sociology provide a key to many of the subtleties of the novel by broadening our perspectives on the causes of incest, its manifestations, and its consequences. Anthropology links the incest taboo to primitive systems of totemism and rules of exogamy, under which the two lovers' marriage would have been disallowed because they are members of the same clan. Psychological studies provide insight into Heathcliff and Catherine's abnormal relationship—emotionally passionate but sexually dispassionate—and their even more bizarre behavior—sadistic, necrophilic, and vampiristic—all of which can be linked to incest. The psychological manifestations merge with the moral consequences in Bronte's inverted image of paradise; as in Milton's Paradise, incest is both a metaphor for evil and a symbol of pre-Lapsarian innocence. The psychological and moral consequences of incest in the first generation carry over into the second generation, resulting in a complex doubling of characters, names, situations, narration, and time sequences that is characteristic of the self-enclosed, circular nature of incest. An examination of Emily Bronte's family background demonstrates that she was sociologically and psychologically predisposed to write a story with an underlying incest motif.
Retro
"Retro" is a novel which attempts to depict the psychological reality of the spiritually isolated individual characterized in traditional gothic novels, in this case the alienated individual in the contemporary American South. The novel follows the doctrine set down by Roland Barthes, Frank Kermode, and other postmodern critics, which holds that, as Kermode puts it, "all closure is in bad faith." Therefore, rather than offering resolution to the problems and events presented in the text, the novel attempts instead to illustrate the psychological effects its main character experiences when confronted with a world that offers only irresolution and uncertainty. The novel's strategy is to depart from conventional, realistic modes of narration and to adopt instead certain characteristics of satire, surrealism, and the type of grotesque often associated with the gothic novel.
T. S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday: a Philosophical Approach to Empowering the Feminine
In his 1916 dissertation, Eliot asserted that individuals were locked into finite centers and that all knowledge was epistemologically relative, but he also believed that finite centers could be transcended through language. In the essay "Lancelot Andrewes,'" Eliot identified Andrewes's "relevant intensity," a method very close to nonsensical verse. Eliot used Andrewes's Word and the impersonality of nonsense verse in Ash Wednesday. The Word, God's logos, embodied the Virgin Mary as its source, and allowed Eliot to transcend the finite center through language. Ultimately, Eliot philosophically empowered the feminine as the source of the Word. Though failing to fully empower the earthly Lady in part II of Ash Wednesday, Eliot did present a philosophical plan for transcending the finite center through language.
This Sad Kingdom
This Sad Kingdom is a collection of lyric, dramatic, and narrative poems that are post-modern revisions of the American Romantic impulse of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
When Johnny Comes Marching Home: A Novel
"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is a novel that focuses upon the severe emotional trauma of a young boy coping with his father's death. For Johnny Freeman, the seemingly innocent setting of a typical American elementary school becomes a dangerous psychological battlefield, his most threatening "enemy" being his teacher, Miss Holloway, a first-year instructor beginning her career with only textbook knowledge and stubborn determination. Johnny Freeman and Miss Holloway clash the first day of school and set into motion a war of minds, wills, and emotions. Neither will relent; each is driven for various complex reasons to dominate the other. Their personalities demand that only one of them will emerge as the winner in this struggle, creating a psychological fight for survival with terrifying and deadly consequences for the loser.
Abraham Lincoln and the American Romantic Writers: Embodiment and Perpetuation of an Ideal
The American Romantic writers laid a broad foundation for the historic and heroic Abraham Lincoln who has evolved as our national myth. The writers were attracted to Lincoln by his eloquent expression of the body of ideals and beliefs they shared with him, especially the ideal of individual liberty and the belief that achievement of the ideal would bring about an amelioration of the human condition. The time, place and conditions in which they lived enhanced the attraction, and Lincoln's able leadership during the Civil War strengthened their estimation of him. His martyrdom was the catalyst which enabled the Romantic writers to lay the foundation of the Lincoln myth which has made his name synonymous with individual freedom everywhere even today.
Jonica Run
The thesis begins with an introductory chapter that helps to define and locate the point of view from which the novella is told. The introduction also cites modern authors who influenced the tone, structure, and content of the novella. Thirteen chapters and an epilogue follow the introduction. Every third or fourth chapter is written as a vignette. The vignettes function as interchapters with the intention of giving contrast and balance to the main plot chapters.
The American Eve: Gender, Tragedy, and the American Dream
America has adopted as its own the Eden myth, which has provided the mythology of the American dream. This New Garden of America, consequently, has been a masculine garden because of its dependence on the myth of the Fall. Implied in the American dream is the idea of a garden without Eve, or at least without Eve's sin, traditionally associated with sexuality. Our canonical literature has reflected these attitudes of devaluing feminine power or making it a negative force: The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, and The Sound and the Fury. To recreate the Garden myth, Americans have had to reimagine Eve as the idealized virgin, earth mother and life-giver, or as Adam's loyal helpmeet, the silent figurehead. But Eve resists her new roles: Hester Prynne embellishes her scarlet letter and does not leave Boston; the feminine forces in Moby-Dick defeat the monomaniacal masculinity of Ahab; Miss Watson, the Widow Douglas, and Aunt Sally's threat of civilization chase Huck off to the territory despite the beckoning of the feminine river; Daisy retreats unscathed into her "white palace" after Gatsby's death; and Caddy tours Europe on the arm of a Nazi officer long after Quentin's suicide, Benjy's betrayal, and Jason's condemnation. Each of these male writers--Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner--deals with the American dream differently; however, in each case the dream fails because Eve will not go away, refusing to be the Other, the scapegoat, or the muse to man's dreams. These works all deal in some way with the notion of the masculine American dream of perfection in the Garden at the expense of a fully realized feminine presence. This failure of the American dream accounts for the decidedly tragic tone of these culturally significant American novels.
Briefs: A Discussion of Genre and a Presentation of Short Fiction
Eleven short fictions are introduced with a discussion of genre. Genre is looked at as being a matter of degree ranging from absolute prose on one end of the spectrum to a very specific form of poem with conventions of its own such as the Shakespearean Sonnet on the other end of the spectrum. The analysis is made in an appeal for the short-short story (or sudden fiction) as being a genre of its own. It is argued that regardless of what category a fiction may fall into (and some of the distinctions seem arbitrary), that what is most important is success at conveying a meaningful experience.
Bureaucratic Writing in America: A Preliminary Study Based on Lanham's Revising Business Prose
In this study, I examine two writing samples using a heuristic based on Richard A. Lanham's definition of bureaucratic writing in Revising Business Prose: noun-centered, abstract, passive-voiced, dense, and vague. I apply a heuristic to bureaucratic writing to see if Lanham's definition holds and if the writing aids or hinders the information flow necessary to democracy. After analyzing the samples for nominalizations, concrete/abstract terms, active/passive verbs, clear/unclear agents, textual density, and vague text/writers' accountability, I conclude that most of Lanham's definition holds; vague writing hinders the democratic process by not being accountable; and bureaucratic writing is expensive. Writers may humanize bureaucracies by becoming accountable. A complete study requires more samples from a wider source.
Edgar Allan Poe's Use of Archetypal Images in Selected Prose Works
This study traces archetypal images in selected prose fiction by Edgar Allan Poe and shows his consistent use of such imagery throughout his career, and outlines the archetypal images that Poe uses repeatedly throughout his works: the death of the beautiful woman, death and resurrection, the hero's journey to the underworld, and the quest for forbidden knowledge. The study examines Poe's use of myth to establish and uphold archetypal patterns. Poe's goal when crafting his works was the creation of a single specified effect, and to create his effects, he used the materials at hand. Some of these materials came from his own subconscious; however, a greater portion came from a lifetime of study and his own understanding of the connections between myth and archetypal images.
Fade Away: A Novel
The struggle for survival of an American family revolves around Mitch Wilcox, a relief pitcher for a fictional major league baseball team. Nearing the end of his long career, he must decide whether to retire or to sign a new contract. His dilemma centers on his wife, Nicole, who argues for his retirement; and his only child, Twylight, who has run away from home. The novel traces the final two weeks of a season, during which Mitch's team battles for a pennant and he delays his decision because of events that expose the precarious nature of both his professional and personal identities. During a crucial game, his journey culminates with a choice that directs him toward a new life.
If I Could Live Next Door for a Day
If I Could Live Next Door for a Day is a collection of short stories with the recurrent theme of taking life for granted. "Climbing the Fence" is a story about a sexually unfulfilled woman who has an unfulfilling affair. In "Chained Melody" a condescending young man learns about life in and out of jail. "An Educated Man" shows the inferiority of one man in the presence of others he considers more important. A deluded school counselor brings a jealous boy and his younger brother together in "Piggie and Pete," while another young man in "The Good Boy" tries to break away from his mother. Finally, a woman learns about herself and the world around her when she wins a large sum of money in "What About Ten-Fold?"
The Light Under
A poet who is a woman and a theologian writes under three pressures, or a triple bind: individuality, spirituality, and society. The desires and drives of the ego and those of spirituality often conflict, and societal expectations which gender bestows add further stress to the poet's efforts. This constant struggle destroys some poets (Plath, Sexton) and renders silent many of the rest. The following collection of poems combats the silence in four progressive sections: The first is an introductory essay which further discusses the triple bind; the second, "Between Two," illustrates spiritual relationships from despair to disillusionment; the third section, "Life in the Mirror," describes deteriorating human relationships; the final section, "Salt," presents problems resolving to a kind of negative capability. This poetry collection continues one woman's poetic struggle toward validity and acceptance.
Tennyson's Lyricism: The Aesthetic of Sorrow
The primary purpose of this study is to show that anticipations of the "art for art's sake" theory can be found in Tennyson's poetry which is in line with the tenets of aestheticism and symbolism, and to show that Tennyson's lyricism is a "Palace of Art" in which his tragic emotions-- sadness, sorrow, despair, and melancholic sensibility--were built into beauty.
Winnie Verloc and Heroism in The Secret Agent
Winnie Verloc's role in "The Secret Agent" has received little initial critical attention. However, this character emerges as Conrad's hero in this novel because she is an exception to what afflicts the other characters: institutionalism. In the first chapter, I discuss the effect of institutions on the characters in the novel as well as on London, and how both the characters and the city lack hope and humanity. Chapter II is an analysis of Winnie's character, concentrating on her philosophy that "life doesn't stand much looking into," and how this view, coupled with her disturbing experience of having looked into the "abyss," makes Winnie heroic in her affirmative existentialism. Chapters III and IV broaden the focus, comparing Winnie to Conrad's other protagonists and to his other female characters.
The Disfigured Muse : Supreme Readers in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens
In "Discourse in the Novel," Mikhail Bakhtin tells us that "Every discourse presupposes a special conception of the listener, of his apperceptive background and the degree of his responsiveness." My study of Wallace Stevens's poetry examines Stevens's "conception of the listener"—in the form of his intratextual readers, their responsiveness, and the shapes that responsiveness takes—and attempts to formulate out of that examination Stevens's theory of reading embodied in his canon of poems.
Edmund Spenser as Protestant Thinker and Poet : A Study of Protestantism and Culture in The Faerie Queene
The study inquires into the dynamic relationship between Protestantism and culture in The Faerie Oueene. The American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr makes penetrating analyses of the relationship between man's cultural potentials and the insights of Protestant Christianity which greatly illuminate how Spenser searches for a comprehensive religious, ethical, political, and social vision for the Christian community of Protestant England. But Spenser maintains the tension between culture and Christianity to the end, refusing to offer a merely coherent system of principles based on the doctrine of Christianity.
The Fictional World of Rolando Hinojosa
Rolando Hinojosa's Klail Citv Death Trip Series purports to give a picture of life in the Texas Rio Grande Valley from roughly the 1930s to the present. Much of Hinojosa's attention is directed toward the tensions that characterize relations between the mexicano and Anglo cultures. Hinojosa's novel sequence in large part documents the ever-increasing acculturation and assimilation of the mexicano into Anglo society.
The Possible House
The thesis begins with an introductory chapter that explains the creative process, providing quotes from well-known poets and examples from my own personal history and ideas. Some of the creative concepts discussed are different manifestations of inspiration, such as the duende and the Muses. However, the act of creating a work of art--what actually occurs when an artist works--remains undiscovered. Every poet is part of the poetic tradition, yet she also strives to supersede that very tradition. In my poetry, I try to build on and deviate from the poetic tradition, while simultaneously representing events from my cultural and personal history. Twenty-nine poems follow the introduction. The poems included in this volume represent a contemporary writing style influenced by Romanticism and Modernism, apparent in nature imagery and ambiguity.
Postmodern Narrative Techniques in the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Metafiction, Fabulation, and Hermeneutical Semiosis
Hawthorne's metafiction, fabulation, and hermeneutical semiotics are investigated in the tales and in all the novels in chronological order, including his unfinished works.
Salvation and Other Short Stories
This is a collection of short stories written to satisfy the requirements for a Master of Arts degree. These stories are done in several different forms in an attempt to help the author discover which one suits his personal style best. The preface to these stories is an examination of how and why the author goes about the creative process. The author has examined the lives and methods of other literary figures to see what their individual inspirations were and how they worked. This preface also looks at some of the obstacles and hazards that these men and women face while they are writing.
Saul Bellow's Creation of Ambiguity and Deception in Herzog and The Dean's December
Argues that Bellow purposefully creates ambiguity and deception using impersonal narration and free indirect discourse in order to present Herzog and The Dean's December as reflections of an ambiguous and deceptive world. The discussion of impersonal narration is based on Wayne Booth's theories about the confusion of distance resulting from impersonal narration; the discussion of free indirect discourse is drawn from a number of definitions. Utilizes a number of specific references to the texts and to criticisms of the texts to demonstrate the absence of norms and the effect that the ambiguity and deception may have on readers.
The Scholarly Trickster in Jacobean Drama: Characterology and Culture
Whereas scholarly malcontents and naifs in late Renaissance drama represent the actual notion of university graduates during the time period, scholarly tricksters have an obscure social origin. Moreover, their lack of motive in participating in the plays' events, their ambivalent value structures, and their conflicting dramatic roles as tricksters, reformers, justices, and heroes pose a serious diffculty to literary critics who attempt to define them. By examining the Western dramatic tradition, this study first proposes that the scholarly tricksters have their origins in both the Vice in early Tudor plays and the witty slave in classical comedy. By incorporating historical, cultural, anthropological, and psychological studies, this essay also demonstrates that the scholarly tricksters are each a Jacobean version of the archetypal trickster, who is usually associated with solitary habits, motiveless intrusion, and a double function as selfish buffoon and cultural hero. Finally, this study shows that their ambivalent value structures reflect the nature of rhetorical training in Renaissance schools.
Wuthering Heights: A Proto-Darwinian Novel
Wuthering Heights was significantly shaped by the pre-Darwinian scientific debate in ways that look ahead to Darwin's evolutionary theory more than a decade later. Wuthering Heights represents a cultural response to new and disturbing ideas. Darwin's enterprise was scientific; Emily Brontë's poetic. Both, however, were seeking to find ways to express their vision of the nature of human beings. The language and metaphors of Wuthering Heights suggest that Emily Brontë's vision was, in many ways, similar to Darwin's.
Active or Passive Voice: Does It Matter?
This thesis reports on the use of active and passive voice in the workplace and classroom through analysis of surveys completed by 37 employees and 66 students. The surveys offered six categories of business writing with ten sets of two sentences each, written in active and passive voice. Participants selected one sentence from each set and gave a reason for each selection. The participants preferred active over passive 47 to 46 percent of opportunities, but they preferred mixed voice over both, 49 percent. The participants preferred active only for memos to supervisors; in the other five categories they preferred passive or mixed voice. Both males and females preferred mixed voice, and age appeared to influence the choices. They cited context as the most common reason for using passive.
Charles Dickens and Idiolects of Alienation
A part of Charles Dickens's genius with character is his deftness at creating an appropriate idiolect for each character. Through their discourse, characters reveal not only themselves, but also Dickens's comment on social features that shape their communication style. Three specific idiolects are discussed in this study. First, Dickens demonstrates the pressures that an occupation exerts on Alfred Jingle from Pickwick Papers. Second, Mr. Gradgrind from Hard Times is robbed of his ability to communicate as Dickens highlights the errors of Utilitarianism. Finally, four characters from three novels demonstrate together the principle that social institutions can silence their defenseless constituents. Linguistic evaluation of speech habits illuminates Dickens's message that social structures can injure individuals. In addition, this study reveals the consistent and intuitive narrative art of Dickens.
From Boyd City to the Big City and Beyond: Six Stories with a Critical Introduction
The critical introduction to this collection of short fiction argues that writing is reading and that reading is writing. The argument draws descriptions of writing as reading from such diverse sources as Sherwood Anderson, Roland Barthes, Neil Simon, J. Hillis Miller and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, as well as from the author's own experience. Descriptions of reading from phenomenological and subjective criticism, including the theories of Georges Poulet, Wolfgang Iser, Stanley Fish and David Bleich, affirm the creative role of the reader, show that the reader, in fact, writes the text in the process of reading. The introduction concludes that reader, writer and text are all constructs of language, that both reading and writing are, ultimately and primarily, thought.
Tales of Caution
This thesis contains five short stories, "The Playground at the End of the Neighborhood," "The Daylight Monster," "Union, Justice, and Confidence," "Traction," and "Exercise." The five stories presented here seek to utilize the freedom of the "tale." They vary in degree of employment of the fantastic, are the product of another culture and a different outlook, and utilize the freedom of the short story to operate on strengths other than reader-protagonist identification. A theme of caution serves as a unifying thread for these five tales
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