Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

English Language and Literature

Masters Theses

Literature

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Analyzing The Cynical Perspective Of Death In The Book Thief, Dorothy Elizabeth Hollar Mar 2024

Analyzing The Cynical Perspective Of Death In The Book Thief, Dorothy Elizabeth Hollar

Masters Theses

In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, death is used as a theme and a character to convey the plot of the story. The character of death is used as a device to show the life of a young girl living in Nazi Germany through the eyes of something more sinister and pessimistic. The story explores trauma, friendship, and the power of words when it seems all hope is lost. This thesis will explore the aspect of death as a character and will examine how it works in the story. The creative portion of my thesis will examine the themes …


The Need For Christian Authors In Mainstream Fiction, Ashley Renea Starnes May 2020

The Need For Christian Authors In Mainstream Fiction, Ashley Renea Starnes

Masters Theses

Fiction is an effective and underutilized tool in Christian circles to implicitly illustrate Christian ideas and values to readers of other worldviews. By adopting the writing approach of authors like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, Christian writers can enter into the broad discussion of philosophy, morality, and theology going on in popular fiction.


Death, Friendship, And The Power Of Words: Reflections Of The Holocaust In Liesel Meminger’S Traumatic Story, Jerusha J. Yoder Jun 2018

Death, Friendship, And The Power Of Words: Reflections Of The Holocaust In Liesel Meminger’S Traumatic Story, Jerusha J. Yoder

Masters Theses

Recounted through the voice of Death, The Book Thief explores the process of trauma recovery as it follows the story of young Liesel Meminger in Nazi Germany. The traumatic loss of her mother and brother rattle Liesel’s developing identity and destroy her personal narrative; however, as her story unfolds, she finds the strength to recover through the safety of friends and the power of words. Utilizing prominent theories in trauma recovery, this thesis charts Liesel’s recovery process in the wake of her traumatic loss. In this way, her story exposes the destructive power of trauma and affirms the importance of …


Evoking Unity: Toward A Communal Phenomenology In Virginia Woolf And William Faulkner, Phillip Douglas Bandy May 2012

Evoking Unity: Toward A Communal Phenomenology In Virginia Woolf And William Faulkner, Phillip Douglas Bandy

Masters Theses

Contemporary readings of William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf typically situate these canonical authors within their historical contexts as exponents of the material conditions of modernity or as the literary precursors of postmodernism, as writers of indeterminacy and linguistic play. In this thesis, I argue for a mode of reading Woolf and Faulkner grounded not in history or language, but in consciousness as the irreducible basis of human experience. That is, by invoking the philosophical tradition of phenomenology, I claim that both authors attempted to engage more fully with not simply a historical moment called “modernity,” but a human reality characterized …