Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Incurable Fanny Price: Disabled Perspective And Resistance To The Cure Narrative In Jane Austen’S Mansfield Park, Aurora C. Soriano

Dissertations and Theses

Improvement and cure are frequently on the minds of the characters in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. However, what happens when you introduce a chronically ill character like Fanny, who can’t ever be fully cured, into these curative plots? In order to better understand the ways Austen complicates curative discourse, this paper focuses on Fanny’s own perspective and embodied experience of chronic illness, in which she fatigues easily and experiences headaches and pain. Despite clear evidence in the novel of Fanny’s ill health, scholarship analyzing Fanny’s character has historically been fraught with ableist assumptions and subjective opinions. Ignoring the way …

Don't Say Gay: Love Language In Coriolanus, Patrick Lynch

Dissertations and Theses

Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare's Roman plays, a sub-genre which also includes Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. The one element these plays have in common is the ideal Roman hero, the civis romanus, who meets a tragic end. These heroes are not generally considered queer as no free Roman male could allow himself, per social indoctrination instilled since youth, to take on a submissive role. However, Caius Martius and the relationship he maintains with Tullus Aufidius could arguably be seen as homoerotic or even, possibly, homosexual. This paper takes a closer look at …

The Dissonant History Of Tristan And Isolde, Amanda Persaud

Dissertations and Theses

This essay traces the historical evolution of the story of Tristan and Isolde through three distinct phases, highlighting the transformation of the story from a feudal version to a post-feudal rendition infused with courtly love doctrines and notions of Christian love. It examines the early versions of the story by Béroul and Gottfried von Strassburg and discusses the shift in the portrayal of the relationship between Tristan and Isolde from one that decries disloyalty to one that is more sympathetic to their love. The essay also analyzes Richard Wagner's opera version of the story, which celebrates individual desire over duty …

Disaster And Hope In The Comic Universe Of 'Gardening In The Tropics', Molly Mosher

Dissertations and Theses

In this paper, I explore ideas of dominion and how Western canon has helped propagate ideas of human domination of the natural world. Using Joseph W. Meeker’s The Comedy of Survival, I trace a line from the advent of the literary tragedy to the climate crisis. To contrast, I use his idea of comedy as the antidote to domination — a way of thinking that might inspire collaboration with the natural world. I will explore the comic with, predominately, Olive Senior’s Gardening in the Tropics, alongside Jamaica Kincaid’s gardening studies and Mona Lisa Saloy’s essay on environmental destruction. To …

Mira Muchacha: The Latinx Bildungsroman In Elizabeth Acevedo’S The Poet X, Layza M. Garcia

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores how the Bildungsroman’s traditional narrative transforms into a window to the Latinx experience in Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X. The traditional Bildungsroman features white, male, and European protagonists, according to Louis F. Caton in “Romantic Struggles: The Bildungsroman and Mother-Daughter Bonding in Jamaica Kinclad’s Annie John” (126). Recognized as the first work in the Bildungsroman genre, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1796) tracks the development and education of the protagonist from boyhood to manhood. In 20th and 21st century literature, the Bildungsroman structure expands to reflect the diverse cultures, lifestyles, and identities of its readers. …

Roberto Bolaño’S 2666, The Funneling Effect Of Capitalism, And The Production, Consumption, And Proliferation Of Violence For Profit, John Timlin

Dissertations and Theses

Roberto Bolaño's novel 2666 is a realist text, one that reflects the simple fact that in contemporary capitalism, the physical destruction of female bodies is a profitable enterprise; one that forces its readers to confront their complicity or outright participation in violence against women; and one that relates directly to violence against women as consumable entertainment in American mass culture.

Henry Adams: An Education In Autobiography, Marcellus Richie

Dissertations and Theses

This essay will begin by breaking down Henry Adams’s starting sentence in his autobiography word by word, piece by piece – pondering its meanings and permutations in the context of subsequent chapters of this iconic memoir. The essay will then consider whether Adams’s Education should still be regarded as a classic of American autobiography or seen merely as an irrelevant and out-of-date artifact. In a nation radically transformed since Adams’s time, does the book still deserve its high flung reputation? In other words, which of the images cited above is most relevant to The Education: an image of optimistic youth …

The Failed Principle Of Reformed Female Politeness – Exploring Tactical Silence And Voices In Jane Austen’S Sense And Sensibility, Punrada Saengsomboon

Dissertations and Theses

The dichotomy between Elinor and Marianne's manners in Jane Austen's 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility is often central to several readings and interpretations of this novel. Based on the debates concerning the culture of politeness in the eighteenth century, some critics see Elinor's social doctrine as the novel celebrated form of polite female manners. However, the paper will argue how the novel instead criticizes the social and intellectual impact this the idealized doctrine of female manners has on young women. The paper will look at three important moments of social interactions in the novel: the party with the Middletons, the …

The Miseducation Of Marianne Dashwood: Jane Austen’S Politicization Of Sentimental Discourse, Kevin Frazelis

Dissertations and Theses

Examining the love triangle between Marianne Dashwood, Colonel Brandon, and John Willoughby provides new insight into how Austen decided to politicize the notion of the novel to demonstrate the inherent flaw in how sentimental novels to depicted romances bared a threat to women. I work against the conventional opposition of "good" versions of masculinity versus "poor" versions to posit a notion that instead, most masculinities are unstable and a detriment to the fairer sex. In this essay, I will argue that Sense and Sensibility disclose Austen's anxieties regarding sentimentalism because, from this perspective, Marianne Dashwood's character arc illustrates the author's …

The Process Of Cultural Appropriation In Literature And How It Can Be Changed, Wendy Meza

Dissertations and Theses

This paper explores the ways cultural appropriation has existed in literature from the time of Sylvia Plath's poem "Daddy" to the present, with the publication of Jeanine Cummins's novel American Dirt. After dissecting the motives behind the exploitation of traumatic events and acknowledging the consequences appropriation has on the individuals it is portraying, the inclusion of NoViolet Bulawayo's novel We Need New Names proposes a way for contemporary literature to revolve around cultures without silencing voices and allowing individual identities to shine in the texts.

Walking Through Fire: Black Men’S Quest For Autonomy In August Wilson’S Two Trains Running And King Hedley Ii, Natasha Young

Dissertations and Theses

This paper explores Black male characters in August Wilson's Two Trains Running and King Hedley II. Characters in these plays seek personal autonomy through economic stability. They seek these things during the turbulent times of the 1960's and 1980's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Hill District. The roads they take are filled with self discovery, humility and peril.

The Hydra Of Modern Literature, Genevieve Sharp

Dissertations and Theses

Modernist Literature

"Dawn And Doom Was In The Branches": Eros Revisited In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Fernando M. Duran

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

"Beyond Consolation": Or Strangeness, Estrangement, And Strange-Ing In The Elegy For The Black Body, 1955-Present, Naomie Jean-Pierre

Dissertations and Theses

The Elegy for the Black Body examines the mid-twentieth to early-twenty-first-century poetic justice crafted by African American poets to eulogize individual African Americans whose deaths were the result of racial and political violence. In the age of lynching, mass shooting, and police brutality, I argue that an African American poetic tradition persists that, while not entirely beholden to the ancient elegy, is its distant relative, along with the English and American Elegy. I argue further that while the contemporary American elegy has undergone for the last six decades intensive study, from the notable studies done by Peter Sack’s in The …

"The Hazards Of Being Free": Thinking About Not Thinking In Infinite Jest, Josh Cunningham

Dissertations and Theses

This paper is about self-consciousness and how it figures in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Because Infinite Jest is such a large novel (1079 pages, including the indispensable footnotes), it serves, like other large novels before it, as a kind of encyclopedia of contemporary culture. The novel, in large part, treats self-consciousness—a distinctly human phenomenon, one which certainly accounts for our dominance as a species—as a problem (on both an individual and collective level) that needs to be overcome. This is because, as it turns out, self consciousness, when it becomes epidemic, is as much a boon as it …

The Embodiment Of Theory In Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, Julie A. Ficks

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this research is to explore how Maggie Nelson, in her groundbreaking memoir The Argonauts (2015), works to bring critical theory (primarily queer and feminist theory) out of the academy and into the realm of the personal, rendering theory as tangible and embodied in a real-world setting. Through this unique exchange, Nelson radically reinstates norms relating to gender, sexuality, motherhood and relationships.

Revolution, Reform, And Class Conflict In Rebecca Harding Davis’S Life In The Iron-Mills, Thomas Collins

Dissertations and Theses

Life in the Iron-Mills (1861) by Rebecca Harding Davis is a very early example of American fiction that depicts the living and working conditions in a mill town. Although the novella advocates for workers, it does not accurately depict contemporaneous working-class culture. Davis depicts workers as isolated and helpless in the face of the forces that oppress them rather than giving voice to the workers’ movement of her time. Although Davis depicts workers in a debased state, the text’s narrator holds out hope of the “Dawn,” suggesting a revolutionary movement. Because the narrator offers no interpretation regarding how the working …

Suffering And The Black Female Narrative In The Twentieth Century, Aquilah Jourdain

Dissertations and Theses

Adventure, romance, and happiness are not large parts of the stories Black women tell. If we had to name ten mainstream literary novels released in the last 50 years that featured Black women central to the plot — and included the aforementioned themes — we would be hard-pressed to find them. Though there are real life accounts of love, joy, and adventure in the lives of Black women, why do we see these life experiences documented sparingly? In the stories written by andforBlack women, where can Black female readers find joy in their history and culture without elements of grave …

Seeing Whiteness: The Progression And Regression Of White Identity In Four Post-Civil War Literary Generations, Sara N. Stone

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the concept of white identity as seen in literary works in four time periods: Reconstruction, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement and the 21st century. It examines the work of Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Kurt Vonnegut and contemporary writers George Saunders, J.D. Vance, and Jonathan Franzen. It seeks to understand patterns in racism, white nationalism, and white supremacy as part of the fundamental construct of the literary white man, and follows the evolution of that construct over time.

From Amherst To The Other Side: The Integration Of Emily Dickinson Into The Italian Consciousness, Mia Jozwick

Dissertations and Theses

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Emily Dickinson’s poetry appeared in Italy in two key forms: anthologized alongside other American authors and in select translations by prominent Italian intellectuals including poet Eugenio Montale and writer Emilio Cecchi. Dickinson was both touted as one of the great American writers, but also kept as somewhat of an underground poet who spoke to a specific literary identity in Italy. The cross-hairs of history brought together increased knowledge of Dickinson’s poetry just as Mussolini and his fascist agenda threatened the influence of literature whether homegrown or international. What materialized was a dynamic in …

From Fear To Reverie: Incidents In Isolation In The American Wilderness, Serhiy Metenko

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis looks at Nineteenth Century American adventure narratives to examine the role of the wilderness. This thesis centers on a motif of isolated characters in the wilderness and analyzes the various techniques nineteenth-century authors use to project the psyche of their characters. The selected Nineteenth Century authors: Washington Irving, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Alan Poe, Harriet Spofford, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville root America’s identity in the wilderness. They emphasize its power on the human psyche as positive, restorative, inward-looking, and divine. This thesis argues that these authors portray the wilderness as a protagonist that needs to be preserved …

Crafting Oppression Of Women In Novels By Writers Of Color, Jacqueline Annette Phillips

Dissertations and Theses

CRAFTING OPPRESSION OF WOMEN

IN NOVELS BY WRITERS OF COLOR

Abstract:

This thesis explores methods used by the writers of five realist novels, to create oppressive situations for female characters in their work. In writing about these novels, the aim is to see how authors use fictional characters to illustrate actual female oppression. The novels drawn from different cultures, share the depiction of female oppression.

Specific situation: INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL Harriet Jacobs

Domestic / Social: THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD Bucchi Emecheta

COMING TO BIRTH Marjory O. Macgoya,

Violent Oppression: THE COLOR PURPLE Alice Walker

PURPLE …

Towards A Queer Aesthetic: Biographical Readings Of Oscar Wilde, Herman Melville And Walt Whitman, Vanessa J. Ragusa

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Creator And Creation: Artistic Development In Herman Melville’S Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities And James Joyce’S A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, Magdalena M. De La Cruz

Dissertations and Theses

This study focuses on the primary protagonists of Herman Melville’s Pierre; or, the Ambiguities (1852) and James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Pierre Glendinning and Stephen Dedalus, as well as Isabel Banford, a supporting character in Melville’s novel, to illustrate how the tensions of contemporary society have a direct influence on the artist-hero’s representations and perspectives on self-realization. This thesis will draw on the major concepts of the artist and artist fiction as put forth in Otto Rank’s Art and Artist (1916), Herbert Marcuse’s “Der Deutsche Künstlerroman” (“The German Artist Novel”, 1922), and Maurice …

Writing Indigenous Identity In Herman Melville And Joseph Conrad's Polynesian And Malay Archipelago Novels, Catherine L. Black

Dissertations and Theses

The thesis of this paper is that cross-cultural writing can be done with the right methods of communication, such as engaging narrator and education—or simply sensitive, imaginative writing. Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad’s five books set in the Polynesian and Malay Archipelagos—Typee and Omoo and the Malay Trilogy (Almayer’s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, and The Rescue)— are used as master models of how to write indigenous characters with rich characterization in pivotal roles, even circa 1846 and 1896. The unique perspective and technique by which they did this is explored, a technique and perspective not …

Richard Wright's And Chester Himes's Treatment Of The Concept Of Emerging Black Masculinity In The 20th Century, Peter M. Brown

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Struggle To Re-Establish Anglo Superiority In American Modernism And Its Collapse Into American Tragedy, Jeff Brelvi

Dissertations and Theses

A study of the impact Anglo race assertion had on American Modernism through the work of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and T.S. Eliot shaping the discourse on American cultural identity. Arthur Miller and his "Tragedy and the Common Man" put an end to Modernism's Anglo stronghold and brought about the next period of American literature, ushering it into the era of American tragedy.

The Forgotten Caste Of The Quadroon In Nineteenth Century Literature, Johanna Sherrier

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

People Don't Do Such Things!: Contextualizing Representations Of Gendered Violence Through The Re-Scripting Of Aristotelean Tragic Devices In Fin-De-Siecle Drama, Olivia Blasi

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Disability Poetry: An Exploration In Three Parts, Daniel Sarmiento

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.