Digital Commons Network^™

Suck My Dick: G.I. Jane, Demi Moore And The Action Heroine, Matthew Mckeown

Theses : Honours

The content of my thesis sits at the tail end of about three decades of feminist criticism that has examined women's place in film texts. During which, theoretical work has been done studying the types of roles given to women, how they are constructed visually and narratively across different genres. This thesis then sets out to examine the action genre and the room it makes for the central female protagonist. How does this genre, largely ignored by critics and academics and inherently masculine and dominated by males, allow for a central female heroine? What room is there for any femininity, …

Nene Gare, A Biographical Study: Australian Novelist, 1919-1994, Rosina Squarcini

Theses : Honours

This thesis undertakes an introductory biographical study of Australian writer, Nene Gare, and a critical reading of her work with special reference to The Fringe Dwellers. The author of this study has sought to establish the basis for that novel's positive literary reception. The research has been directed at correcting, in part, the comparative neglect of this writer. Nene Gare's life and work has been surveyed in the belief that this study will contribute to the current knowledge of twentieth-century Australian fiction writers as well as showing the critical reception to Nene Gare's work as a part of Australian …

Moral Dilemmas And Cases Of Conscience : Trollope's Morality In The Warden And The Last Chronicle Of Barset, Hannah Louise Rogers

Theses : Honours

This thesis offers an exploration of Trollope's morality in The Warden and The Last Chronicle of Barset. Existing critical work which explores Trollope's morality often argues either for or against Trollope's moral relativism. This thesis argues, instead, that Trollope's morality unifies aspects of both theoretical perspectives. It reconciles the polarisation of Trollope's moral absolutism and moral relativism, taking the middle-ground. In doing so, it makes evident the contradictions and extremes in existing Trollopian criticism.

The thesis places Trollopian morality within the historical and socio-cultural context of Victorianism. It focuses on the Victorian consciousness of change, securing a definition …

The Sacrifice Of Les Murray, Jill Reading

Theses : Honours

Les Murray's vivid and evocative poetry has made him a major Australian literary figure. Critics routinely note the sophisticated, often highly wrought nature of Murray's poetic language and acclaim his technical virtuosity, including gifts for pun, paradox, aphorism, idiom and metaphor. The themes of both Murray's poetry and his non-fiction prose often revolve around the divisions he sees in Australia between cultures, between society and people, and within individuals themselves. Despite his efforts to bring healing to these schisms, however, the poet is criticised for his frequent dogmatism and didacticism, which mark his work as divisive. Although Murray professes to …

Loneliness Underneath Laughter : Aspects Of Alienation In The Early Plays Of Tom Stoppard, Steven Hounsome

Theses : Honours

This thesis investigates the various states of alienation that exist in the early plays of the British dramatist Tom Stoppard. By first defining alienation (and discussing the areas of contention which surround the concept), it proceeds to argue that whilst Stoppard has been greatly revered as a comic writer his works are equally consequential for their sensitivity and insight. They depict a prolificacy of characters who fail to assimilate with their society, can no longer relate to those around them and, as is often the case, reach for, but never manage to grasp a sense of their own identity. The …

The Legal Issues In Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice And Jonson's Volpone, Felicia A. Matthew-Stubbs

Theses : Honours

The aim of this thesis is to explore the legal issues within William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and Ben Jonson's Volpone. I will attempt to discover the extent to which both plays can be seen as indicative of English jurisprudence applicable to Early Modern England. I shall commence by investigating The Merchant of Venice through outlining the process of signing and sealing a contract, defining the roles of The Court of Chancery and The Court of Common Law and relating the judgements made by Portia and the Court to statutes, precedents and procedures applicable to the sixteenth and seventeenth …

The Changing Form And Function Of Claisebrook - East Perth, Graeme R. O'Neill

Theses : Honours

This study will focus on the changing social function and form of Claisebrook, East Perth, and will show how the area has geographically changed over time. This research will also examine the significance of the area to the Aboriginal people and focus on the settlement and land use patterns from the 1830's to the 1990's. It will then elucidate the characteristics attributable to a sense of place, and link these to the physical and urban environment throughout different periods of time. Finally, this study will concentrate on the current redevelopment, investigating the current form and function of the area. It …

Imagining Machines: Time & Image In The Shorter Poems Of William Carlos Williams, Stuart Campbell

Theses : Honours

A discussion of time and image in the shorter poems of William Carlos Williams. The particular focus is Williams' short poems published between the Great War and World War II. The relationship between the form of the poems, and Williams' theories on poetry, as expressed in Spring and All, and The Wedge is examined. In turn, Williams' theories are viewed in the context of Imagism, Objectivist poetics, and the modernist machine aesthetic. Williams' application of these theories is seen to create a poetic form that generates images in the reader's imagination in synchrony with the moment.

Representations Of History In Popular Cinema : Schindler's List And Jfk As Postmodern History Texts, Kieran L. Murphy

Theses : Honours

The concept of this dissertation is to research specific filmic representations of historical situations, and to discuss arguments presented in Spielberg's Holocaust by critics such as Bartov, Hansen and Zelizer (1997), that popular films such as Schindler's List are unable to represent history to the same extent as traditional historical texts. I will also attempt to locate specific interest groups who reaffirm the truth claims of traditional historical narrative, the gatekeepers of 'historical truth', and to examine the nature of 'popular history', and how it is negotiated in the modern cultural sphere. I will analyse the concept of the 'unrepresentable' …