Digital Commons Network^™

A New Man: Masculine Confusion And Struggle In The Works Of Edith Wharton, Gary L. Crump

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Edith Wharton’s male characters offer an important commentary on the evolving situation of the man in American society. Wharton did not wish for women to usurp all social positions from men but rather to claim their rightful position alongside them. Characters such as Lawrence Selden in The House of Mirth and Ralph Marvell in The Custom of the Country display the same characteristics of fear, passion, and vulnerability as do many of her primary female figures. Wharton’s societal concerns do not merely extend to that of her own sex but to that of the male in society who struggled with …

A Mock Rhetoric: The Use Of Satire In First-Year Composition, Michael James Sobiech

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

On the eve of the Second World War, high school English teacher Leon Ormond writes about a minor skirmish he has with a history teacher over the pedagogical usefulness of wit. After telling her about his book, Laugh and Learn: The Art of Teaching with Humor, she tells him, “Only morons laugh.” Ormond goes on to describe her as one who exhibits “a countenance curiously reminiscent of an ancient Greek tragic mask”—she was “an exemplary member of the Cult of Pedagogic Pallbearers.” Although educators, historically, have often frowned upon humor, humorous writing—especially satirical writing—helps students understand the fundamentals of …

Beyond Boundaries: Embodiment And Selfhood In Hilary Mantel's Novels, Tara Koger

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

No abstract provided.

Exploring The New Front Of The Culture War: 1984, Oryx And Crake, And Cultural Hegemony, Terry Ryan Hall

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Dystopic fiction is defined by its depiction of oppressive societies with power structures that seek to exercise control on its citizens. Orwell’s classic 1984 depicts a society that is a reaction to World War II and totalitarian regimes. This society depicts elements of cultural hegemony that are altered during the move to postmodernism. Atwood’s Oryx and Crake evolved to reflect the political climate that grew out of the Cold War’s end, while retaining the cautionary messages regarding the state’s ability to control. Oryx and Crake can be seen as completely reversing the concern from centralized power to decentralized power (represented …

Paradise Lost And The Medieval Tradition, Justin Lee Mathews

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis is a comparative study of the Medieval influence on the creation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and the purpose of this thesis is to establish Paradise Lost as a poem designed to correct what Milton saw as the errors of the Medieval theological worldview. A range of topics are discussed, from the loyal angels to the Garden of Eden to Hell and Satan, and particular attention is given to Dantean parallels in these areas of Milton’s poem. The thesis shows how Milton responded to such Medieval concepts as courtly love and salvation theory and demonstrates how Milton …

Love And Low Serotonin, Leslie Parrish

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The following is a novella that depicts a young man and woman in search of differing goals, but the essence of their goals does have something in common: each of their pursuits, if obtained, allows for self-control and recovered lifestyle. However, their lives are far from average throughout the story. Themes such as bulimia, drug use, loveless sex, voyeurism, lucid dreaming and emergency room healthcare are explored in the form of fiction. Both of the main characters in this story explore their world with a measure of obsession, and like any worthy character, their obsessions transform into decisions and actions …

Escaping The Gender Box: An Empirical Study Of Anxiety Experienced By English As A Second Language Learners, Alexandra Knapp

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Studies have shown that, in general, anxiety in second-language learners debilitates their language acquisition capabilities and ultimate second language (L2) achievement. Such studies have also shown that gender has much to do with the strategies used to cope with feelings of stress and anxiety. Anxiety specifically impedes classroom achievement due to its interference with the production and retention of a new language. In other words, anxious students have been shown to learn less and have been often unable to demonstrate what they have learned, especially in front of large crowds. When anxiety impairs cognitive function, it likewise causes students to …

The Girls Who Had To Grow Up: Reflections On Motherhood And Dual Identity In Lewis Carroll's Wonderland And J.M. Barrie's Neverland, Theresa Fitzpatrick

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

My thesis explores the world of the "imaginary" in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and its connection to the world of the "mundane" experienced by the typical Victorian housewife and mother. Both are intimately connected within the texts, primarily in the characters' dual roles as dictated by the gendered expectations of Victorian society. While in the imaginary world, both Alice and Wendy experience mini-versions of their future lives. They exist as girl and mother simultaneously. Carroll, by creating a hostile environment, grotesque motherimages, and a confused, argumentative Alice, shows a negative portrait of motherhood, …

Museum-Making In Women's Poetry: How Sylvia Plath And Emily Dickinson Confront The Time Of History, Margaret Brown

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In The Newly Born Woman, Helene Cixous and Catherine Clement note that Michelet and Freud "both thought that the repressed past survives in woman; woman, more than anyone else, is dedicated to reminiscence" (5). Whether or not this is true of woman, that expectation of her—as keeper of the past—has perhaps subsisted in the deepest realms of the collective unconscious. From the work of Cixous and Clement, Julia Kristeva and Angela Leighton, I ultimately deduce that there are two perceptions of time: man's time has been associated with the straight, the linear, the historical, and the prosaic; woman's time has …

How To Tell A Story: Mark Twain And The Short Story Genre, Richard Simpson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study examines the short fiction of Mark Twain in relation to major theories concerning the short story genre. Despite his popularity as a novelist and historical figure, Twain has not been recognized as a major figure in the development of the short story genre. This study attempts to show that the short fiction produced by Twain deserves greater regard within studies specific to the short story, and calls for a reconsideration of Twain as a dynamic figure in the development of the genre. The introductory chapter lays the groundwork for understanding how the short story genre has developed since …

Foibles, Follies And Fantastic Occurrences: First-Time Teaching And The Composition Classroom, Susan Swanson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Foibles, Follies and Fantastic Occurrences: First-time Teaching and the Composition Classroom explores incidents that expectedly—and often, unexpectedly—occur in any instructor's classroom, but especially focuses on the first-time instructor. Following the author's journey from graduate student to graduate assistant to teaching assistant, the thesis describes the steps along the way to teaching that many who have written about the subject leave out—how to negotiate the days before classes begin, what to do to appear older than the students themselves, how to create an interesting and creative syllabus. Once classes begin, instances involving student competition, peer review, responding to student essays and …

Boethian Colorings In Geoffrey Chaucer's Earlier Poetry: The Book Of The Duchess, The Parliament Of Fowls And The House Of Fame, Morgen Lamson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

There has been much written on Boethius and his impact on Chaucer's greater known works, such as The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, yet there has not been much light shone on his other works, namely The Book of the Duchess, The Parliament of Fowls, and The House of Fame, which are a rich mix of medieval conventions and Boethian elements and themes. Such ideas have been explored through the lenses of his five, shorter "Boethian lyrics" - "The Former Age," "Fortune," "Truth," "Gentilesse," and "Lak of Stedfastnesse" - particularly because it is within these five poems that the …

Voices I Have Heard, Rosemarie Wurth-Grise

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The poems in this thesis are an exploration of how two worlds can exist at once. The first world is the physical world as we perceive it through our senses and experience it through living. It is a cyclical world that begins with childhood, and moves toward adulthood, parenthood and death. In this world we go about the act of living. Yet it is in the second world, a more metaphysical one, that we are most alive. We often gain our knowledge of this world through observing and experiencing the natural world. It is a place in which we discover …

A Spectre Is Haunting Samuel Clemens: A Marxist Critique Of Wealth As Resolution In Mark Twain's Novels, Jeff Carr

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The distribution of wealth occurs frequently in Mark Twain's novels, especially at the resolution. Indeed, Twain uses wealth as resolution in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Pudd'nhead Wilson. The repeated use of this formula in the author's approach to novel writing indicates the tremendous influence that capitalism had in shaping his worldview. In his early works, Twain appears to endorse capitalism in his use of wealth as resolution. Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, and Huckleberry Finn each conclude with the distribution of capital as a reward to …

Courtship, Loe, And Marriage In Othello: Shakespeare's Mockery Of Courtly Love, Leigh Copas

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Othello is the forgery of a comedic play turned tragedy, for the play begins where the ordinary comedy would end. While many critics prefer to discuss the racial and exotic aspects of William Shakespeare's tragedy, there are several critics who focus on the role of love and the marital relationships that are also important in terms of interpreting the actions of key characters. Carol Thomas Neely, Maurice Charney, and several other literary critics have focused primarily on the role of marriage and love in Othello. The topic of marriage is generally discussed in terms of the wooing scene (Act 1, …

The Green World Of Dystopian Fiction, Martin Hensley

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Northrop Frye was the first theorist to develop the green world archetype; Frye used the term to refer to a recurring motif in Shakespearean comedy. In several of Shakespeare's comedies, the protagonists leave the civilized world and venture into the green world, or nature, to escape from the irrational law of society, which is the case in such comedies as As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Elements of the green world can also be found in Shakespearean tragedy, where the natural retreat serves as a temporary escape for the protagonists. Such a green world exists in three …

Shakespeare's Use Of The New Testament: Biblical Intertexuality In As You Like It And Romeo And Juliet, Joseph Hurtgen

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis examines structure in Shakespeare to show how his plays Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It intertextually relate to the Bible in such a way that allows them to elicit order. Shakespeare's plays contain dramatic structure, imagery, themes, and character relationships influenced by the New Testament. In order to understand how Christian elements find their way into texts, the first chapter demonstrates the function of intertextuality, how plots and words evoke others, and how Shakespeare frequently borrows from many sources. Biblical sources, as well as many others, are ubiquitous in Shakespeare. The first chapter then examines Northrop …

Oedipus' Wake: The (Neo-)Masculinization Of The Self In Late Twentieth-Century American Women's Memoir, Thomas Johnson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Without pretensions to exhaustiveness, this study briefly examines the mid- to late-twentieth-century flowering of western theory and criticism built around autobiographical writing and follows the feminist branch(es) of that theory and criticism through a reading of the following four memoirs: Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, All the Lost Girls by Patricia Foster, Lying by Lauren Slater, and Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. Using both Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory as they relate to literature, I argue that the selves these four women write in their memoirs are not selves built around the model historically set for women by …

Influence And Its Opposite: Presence And Absence In The Work Of Harold Bloom, Joshua Henderson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In the years since he formulated and expanded on it in The Anxiety of Influence (1973), A Map of Misreading (1975), and Kaballah and Criticism (1975), Harold Bloom's theory of the "anxiety of influence" has engendered more ambivalence than serious investigation into his theory and its influences. In part, the ambivalence is due to Bloom's persona, which irritates the academic "left" and "right" alike. Surprisingly, it is not Bloom's defense of canonicity against post-structural Marxism, feminism, and New Historical criticism that generates the most resistance; instead, Bloom's dissenters more often come from the ranks of conservative traditionalists who might be …

Masculinity And The Postmodern In American Psycho And Fight Club, Sean Mccray

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Initially, this paper traces masculinity in America from the nineteenth century and up through the mid twentieth century in order to define traditional masculinity and identify some of its characteristics. Traditional masculinity, typically demonstrated though aggressive and violent behavior, is currently undergoing cultural and social revisions due to various contemporary ideas. In analyzing American Psycho and Fight Club, two controversial novels written in the past twenty years, the paper makes clear that the protagonists acutely feel the tension that exists between historical perceptions of masculinity and current ideas of what men should be. They react to that tension by exhibiting …

The Gospel Of Cosmopolitanism: Conflict Resolution In Barbara Kingsolver's Fiction, Catherine Altmaier

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Despite Barbara Kingsolver's ability to create unique characters and storylines, two factors remain constant throughout each of her novels: strong female protagonists and conflict resolution. Though conflict exists in almost all fiction, the way that Kingsolver's characters deal with their situations often speaks louder than any other aspect of her writing. Moreover, though her characters often vary wildly from story to story, their methods of conflict resolution seem to undoubtedly connect them. Through her continuing desire to emphasize "the question of individualism and communal identity," {Reading Group Guides) Kingsolver often promotes the ideas of cosmopolitanism, which have recently been articulated …

Tempering Steel: Reapproaching The Mythos Of Superman, Corey Alderdice

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study seeks to answer a question posed in Superman #156 and frequently throughout the history of the DC Comics Universe: Must there be a Superman? In answering this question, this study seeks to seam together over sixty years of Superman to better understand the mythology associated with these narratives as well as their impact on American culture. In an analysis of Mark Waid's Superman: Birthright (2003), the basic forms of the origin narrative are addressed as well as how Waid reconstructs the mythos for the twenty-first century. The second chapter addresses deconstructive narratives and the issue of shifting the …

Self-Discovery Journals In The College Composition Classroom, Heather Mcallister

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

What is it that makes writing so enjoyable to some people, and such a troublesome task to others? What, if anything, can teachers of composition do to promote an enthusiasm for writing? As I have found examination of my past experiences a key to answering these questions, I am persuaded that the key to enthusiastic writing lies in the opportunities students have to explore themselves as individuals within their writing. As Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus states above, we write well when we know the truth about that which we are writing. Providing students the occasion to write about themselves will …

The Freedom Of Flexibility: Lessons From The Child Characters In Flannery O'Connor, Kathryn Matheny

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Flannery O'Connor had a penchant for repetition, often revisiting the same character types, plot devices, and overriding ideas in two or more stories. This repetition always goes hand in hand with reinterpretation. Even when the characters and plots seem suspiciously similar, the differences signal both O'Connor's fascination with her subject and her persistent attempts to understand it. This thesis will explore O'Connor's revisions of stories in which child characters play an integral part. The later story in the three pairs I will examine gives a clearer picture of what O'Connor believed were the freedoms of childhood. O'Connor's adults rarely arouse …

The Underground House: A Body Memoir, Aubrey Videtto

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The creative non-fiction genre, in particular memoir and travel writing, is in a state of constant evolution. Furthermore, as we progress further into postmodern times, writing (both fiction and non-fiction, as well as poetry and drama) becomes more and more confessional and fragmented. These two facts make it difficult to classify the following memoir. It is both travel narrative and memoir on the body, but perhaps none of the traditional writers in either of these camps would claim my piece. Nevertheless, I call it a body memoir, and under essay it should be filed. In three sections (plus an introduction …

Melting Beeswax Bodies: The Queen Bee, The Hive, And Identity In Women's Writing, Leigh Johnson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The works examined are poetry by Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, and Audre Lorede, novels by Starhawk, The Fifth Sacred Thing, and Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, and a drama by Elizabeth Bussey Fentress, The Honey Harvest. In looking at how the women writers construct identity using bee imagery, I propose that they actually subvert the societal devaluation of women. The beeswax bodies represent gendered constructions of how women should behave. The characters "melt" these bodies by refusing to fit the mold and by redesigning the mold to fit themselves.

Buried Alive: Hard Science Fiction Since The Golden Age, Bonny Mcdonald

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A substantial body of science fiction authors, critics and fans appreciate the literary attention the New Wave of the '60s and '70s brought to the genre of science fiction, but regret the seemingly lasting move away from the hard science classics of the '50s and before. They argue that "the hard stuff' is at the very heart of sf and that its future—still on the path set by the New Wave—is ostensibly a dead end. Many important critics along with hundreds of sf fan websites display this fatalistic concern, asking over and over "Is hard science fiction dead?" The answer …

Baptism, Mark Melloan

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

One of my favorite movie characters said he'd worn lots of shoes, meaning he'd been a great many places and done a great many things. Well, I've never been to war or run across America or founded a shrimp company or shook the President's hand or returned kickoffs for the University of Alabama. But I did grow up in a church, come of age, and stay there, which is perhaps as interesting. I am now a husband, worship leader, singer-songwriter, and college writing instructor, struggling to capture fragments of who I was before I was any of these things, and …

Restlessness, Revision, And Multigenre, Jennifer Bradbury

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis explores the importance of restlessness in revision from the perspective of a writer and teacher of writing. This phenomenon, which naturally recurs throughout the writing process, is key to understanding what effective revision is and how to do it most effectively. The thesis has a secondary focus on multigenre writing because it offers a powerful means for understanding revision and conducting it authentically. Thus, both the content and structure of the thesis strive to present and apply the theories of restless revision and multigenre writing.

Three Furies: The Mythic And The Mundane, Adam Howard Jolly

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Adam Jolly May 7^th, 2004 67 pages

Directed by: Dr. Nancy Roberts, Dr. David Lenoir, and Dr. Lloyd Davies

Department of English Western Kentucky University

This thesis, consisting of three short stories, proposes to explore ubiquitous motifs by exhibition of symbolic, mythological conceptions and personalities relating mutually with the everyday and the exceptional in a plausible way. These stories are intended to include effectual inquiry and still be inventive and entertaining.

Source materials for this thesis range from Norse mythology to Homer to the Charlie Daniels Band.