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Cleveland State University

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Stories Of Life And Other Such Happenings, Lynette R. Ellis Jan 2019

Stories Of Life And Other Such Happenings, Lynette R. Ellis

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Stories of Life and Other Such Happenings is a combination of three short stories, Breasts Before Brunch, Two Pink Lines, and Tooneressie. Breasts Before Brunch is a comedic romance telling a story of a young lady attempting to find love even despite a crazy family. When her flamboyant cousin insinuates herself into Natalie’s date with her new boyfriend, Natalie’s imagination of what she would like to do to her cousin runs wild. When her cousin decides to show Greg her new boobs, the situation goes from bad to worse for Natalie. Alternatively, Two Pink Lines tells a very different type …


The Passion Of Love Or The Love Of Passion In A-Minor, Brendan Whitt Jan 2019

The Passion Of Love Or The Love Of Passion In A-Minor, Brendan Whitt

ETD Archive

A-Minor is an one-act play that examines the relationship between a Black artist and the predominantly white society and industry he must assimilate into in order to be considered a success. The main character Jacque Bonnet is used as a vessel to interpret the life and career of Joseph Bologne Chevalier de St. George. Despite Bonnet and Bologne being from different eras (Bologne mid to late 1700’s, Bonnet Mid 1800’s) I used Bonnet as a device to investigate the lesser explored life of Bologne. By creating a meta-gothic world for Jacque Bonnet to exist in, the crowd can watch his …


Contradictionary Lies: A Play Not About Kurt Cobain, Katie R. Wallace Jan 2018

Contradictionary Lies: A Play Not About Kurt Cobain, Katie R. Wallace

ETD Archive

Contradictionary Lies: A Play Not About Kurt Cobain is a one-act play that follows failed rocker Jimbo as he deals with aging, his divorce, and disappointment. As he and his estranged wife Kelly divvy up their belongings and ultimately their memories, Jimbo is visited by his guardian angel, the ghost of dead rock star Kurt Cobain. Part dark comedy, part docudrama, this play shows how closely man emulates their heroes, and how in the void of depression, music serves an escape.


“Only A Sufficient Cause:" Bram Stoker's Dracula As A Tale Of Mad Science And Faustian Redemption, Leah Christiana Davydov Jan 2017

“Only A Sufficient Cause:" Bram Stoker's Dracula As A Tale Of Mad Science And Faustian Redemption, Leah Christiana Davydov

ETD Archive

While present Dracula scholarship has made an extensive examination of the ways in which the novel reflects apprehensions about late Victorian scientific advances, little work to date has been done to link these anxieties to fin de siecle fiction involving mad scientists or to Bram Stoker’s lifelong interest in the story of Dr. Faustus. In this work, I argue that the primary menace within Dracula is not actually the threat posed by the novel’s vampires but rather the threat posed by the biologically determined, materialist, and potentially “mad” science practiced by the characters of Dr. John Seward and his patient, …


I Hate It, But I Can't Stop: The Romanticization Of Intimate Partner Abuse In Young Adult Retellings Of Wuthering Heights, Brianna R. Zgodinski Jan 2017

I Hate It, But I Can't Stop: The Romanticization Of Intimate Partner Abuse In Young Adult Retellings Of Wuthering Heights, Brianna R. Zgodinski

ETD Archive

In recent years, there has been a trend in young adult adaptations of Wuthering Heights to amend the plot so that Catherine Earnshaw chooses to have a romantic relationship with Heathcliff, when in Bronte’s novel she decides against it. In the following study, I trace the factors that contribute to Catherine’s rejection of Heathcliff as a romantic partner in the original text. Many critics have argued that her motives are primarily Machiavellian since she chooses a suitor with more wealth and familial connections than Heathcliff. These are indeed factors; however, by engaging with contemporary research on adolescent development, I show …


James And Shakespeare: Unification Through Mapping, Christina Wagner Jan 2015

James And Shakespeare: Unification Through Mapping, Christina Wagner

ETD Archive

The art of exploration became an important aspect of theater in early modern England. Exploration is typically done through the utilization of a map. The map scene in Lear provides a focal point to peer into the political ventures of King James I. As a proponent for peace, James both unified and divided his kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland through the use of cartography as a way to show the aspirations of a king. Lear, in dividing his kingdom between his three daughters, shows Shakespeare's careful strategic planning of the division of a kingdom and what that means in …


Civilization Is Going To Pieces: Crime, Morality, And Their Role In The Great Gatsby, Kathryn F. Machcinski Jan 2013

Civilization Is Going To Pieces: Crime, Morality, And Their Role In The Great Gatsby, Kathryn F. Machcinski

ETD Archive

Historically the 1920s contained growing tensions among the generations, classes and races. To hear that it is turbulent is not new. This becomes part of the frame for the 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby. The other part, which this thesis treats, is that of the moral and legal crime taking place within the novel itself. Beginning with the real-life Hall-Mills murder case, the thesis enumerates and details many, often overlooked, moral and legal crimes by every character within the book. Through this is it my intention to elucidate the potentiality of F. Scott Fitzgerald to portray a culture in crisis. …


Emerging Imagery: The Great Famine In Nineteenth Century Irish Lit, Barbara A. Pitrone Jan 2013

Emerging Imagery: The Great Famine In Nineteenth Century Irish Lit, Barbara A. Pitrone

ETD Archive

The critical debate surrounding the Great Famine in Irish Literature centers on the notion of a perceived silence. While some scholars claim that there is a literary void in Irish Literature following this cataclysmic event, others wonder whether language is even capable of describing the extreme physical, emotional, and psychological suffering that is inflicted upon the victims when such tragedies occur. Centuries of imperialism and colonialism had created a class divide so wide and an Irish economy so fragile that when a calamity such as famine occurred, it was the poverty-stricken, predominately Irish-Catholic peasantry that suffered most. Poor and illiterate, …


Sports Fandom: A Study Of Basking In Reflected Glory, Spiral Of Silence, And Language Use Via Online Social Networks, Shawna L L. Jackson Jan 2012

Sports Fandom: A Study Of Basking In Reflected Glory, Spiral Of Silence, And Language Use Via Online Social Networks, Shawna L L. Jackson

ETD Archive

Emerging technologies and the ever-changing climate of the Internet has helped social networking sites to foster relationships between sports fans and professional sports teams. This study focused on identification a Cleveland Browns fan feels with the team as a predicting factor of emotions, actions, self and group identity, and pronominal usage. An online survey was given to Cleveland Browns fans to determine their level of fandom, Cleveland Browns knowledge, overall media habits, feelings toward the city of Cleveland, personality traits, and demographic information. A content analysis was conducted to determine the pronominal usage, used to indicate a specific distance from …


The Non-Specificity Of Location In Emily Brontë'S Wuthering Heights, Brian P. Voroselo Jan 2010

The Non-Specificity Of Location In Emily Brontë'S Wuthering Heights, Brian P. Voroselo

ETD Archive

Emily Bronte's sole novel, Wuthering Heights, is unusual among nineteenth-century works due to the non-specificity of its locations. While many of her contemporaries were very specific in the use of their settings, using real place names and locations that paralleled real-life locations of the time very closely, Bronte uses details of place that make it impossible to draw one-to-one correspondence between her settings and real-life locales, and includes details that serve to remind the reader that the places in which her story takes place, and thus the story itself, are unreal. She does this in order to exert total narrative …


Shells, Joline L. Scott Jan 2010

Shells, Joline L. Scott

ETD Archive

This thesis combines four short stories which revolve around themes of loss and disorientation. The first three stories, "Costa Rica," "Greece," and "On the Way Down to Florida" are derived from a larger work entitled GhostShells, and are connected by character development and a common mystery. The fourth piece, "Car Crash," is an independent piece that centers around a minor auto accident and the community activity it creates. All four pieces are linked by a central assertion that our physical bodies are merely shells for the souls within, and may be empty or full depending on the state of the …


Violence And Vigilantism In Modern Irish Literature, Janet Carmichael Jan 2003

Violence And Vigilantism In Modern Irish Literature, Janet Carmichael

ETD Archive

Many authors of modern Irish literary works challenge the rhetoric used to justify the continuation of conflict in Northern Ireland. One effective method used to accomplish this challenge is the dramatic depiction of violence. The depictions are notable in that they are designed to fall outside of, run counter to, or exceed the normative frameworks perpetuated by the dominant ideologies. They are formulated to promote social change by attacking the foundational fallacies used to validate the structural hegemony. Eoin McNamee and Kate O'Riordan use graphic depictions of violence and human destruction in their novels to expose some of the fallacies …