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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Tracing The Origins Of The Eighteenth-And Nineteenth-Century Rake Character To Depictions Of The Modern Monster, Courtney A. Conrad
Tracing The Origins Of The Eighteenth-And Nineteenth-Century Rake Character To Depictions Of The Modern Monster, Courtney A. Conrad
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While critics and authors alike have deemed the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary rake figure as a “monster” and a “devil,” scholars have rarely drawn the same connections between monsters to rakes. Even as critics have decidedly characterized iconic monsters like Victor Frankenstein and Dracula as rapists or seducers, they oftentimes do not make the distinction that these literary monsters originated from the image of the rake. However, the rake and the monster share overarching characteristics, particularly in the inherent qualities their respective authors attribute to them, which shape the way they treat women and offspring. A side-by-side comparison between the …
You Can Go Home Again: The Misunderstood Memories Of Captain Charles Ryder, Monica M. Krason
You Can Go Home Again: The Misunderstood Memories Of Captain Charles Ryder, Monica M. Krason
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Critics have frequently commented on the nostalgic tone of Brideshead Revisited. Their assessment has been largely negative, with most considering Brideshead too sentimental about England’s aristocratic past. This current characterization fails to recognize Waugh’s critiques of such thinking in Brideshead, wherein he upends the nostalgic tropes of popular Oxford novels, illustrates the dangers of both insulated upper class living and thoughtless presentism through his depictions of various characters, and proposes a greater metaphysical drama through memory is at play in the novel. Brideshead offers nostalgia as an enlivening force which allows Charles Ryder to maintain a vibrant understanding for who …
Truth And The Language Of War, Kelly O'Melia
Truth And The Language Of War, Kelly O'Melia
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According to modernist Friedrich Nietzsche in On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense, language is a constructed system which fails to represent reality because of its inherent metaphorical nature. Modernist writer Virginia Woolf and postmodernist writer Tim O’Brien implicitly address Nietzsche’s belief as they warn against and represent the horrors of war in the novels Jacob’s Room and The Things They Carried. Nietzsche and Woolf develop new modernist styles, forsaking the conventions of nineteenth-century realism. O’Brien pays homage to high modernism and to Woolf in his novel through direct reference and through the modernist strategies utilized to present the …
First Person Plural: Short Stories, Justin R. Lazor
First Person Plural: Short Stories, Justin R. Lazor
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I decided to title this collection First Person Plural after observing that one of the most prominent motifs common among these stories concerns the instability and multiplicity of identity. Horror is one of the traditions that most influences my writing, particularly the claustrophobic psychological horror of writers like Edgar Allen Poe. I mainly deploy the tropes of horror in an effort to destabilize my characters’ inner and outer realities. Another important influence on my writing has been that brand of fiction which exists within the liminal space between horror and realism, such as Dan Chaon’s collection Stay Awake, Bringing Out …
The Sting In The Green City, Nicole Tsakoumagos
The Sting In The Green City, Nicole Tsakoumagos
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In an irradiated, alternate earth, where a mysterious supernatural phenomenon caused a near-apocalypse, the human race is back on it’s feet. Four major cities dominate the landscape: New Sparta, The Mel, The Nocturn and Oz. In the first installment of “The Sting” series, explore the emerald, Greene Mob run metropolis, Oz. Gun-slinging, Ex-mercenary Kyra `The Sting’ Lee is living quietly in the outer part of the city with her dog, Doogie. The only family she has are the Castellanoses, a Greek four-part ensemble that own Kyra’s favorite greasy spoon diner. Maria Castellanos is Kyra’s best friend and her seemingly unobtainable …
Contradictionary Lies: A Play Not About Kurt Cobain, Katie R. Wallace
Contradictionary Lies: A Play Not About Kurt Cobain, Katie R. Wallace
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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.
Wharton's Library: For Born Readers Only, Christine Primisch
Wharton's Library: For Born Readers Only, Christine Primisch
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Edith Wharton is known for her depictions of the changing New York aristocracy and marriage market in the early twentieth-century. Critics have previously examined Wharton’s views on upper-class New York society and social climbers attempting to insert themselves into that society. What has not been studied as extensively in existing criticism is the way in which the exponential increases in the size of the reading public and the type of literature available at the time Wharton was publishing negatively impacted Wharton’s perception of the lower-class and nouveau riche readers and caused insecurities over her literary legacy. These insecurities influence her …
“Only A Sufficient Cause:" Bram Stoker's Dracula As A Tale Of Mad Science And Faustian Redemption, Leah Christiana Davydov
“Only A Sufficient Cause:" Bram Stoker's Dracula As A Tale Of Mad Science And Faustian Redemption, Leah Christiana Davydov
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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, …
Writing Through The Lower Frequencies: Interpreting The Unnaming And Naming Process Within Richard Wright's Native Son And Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Sarah M. Lacy
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The search for identity within Richard Wright’s Native Son and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man has long been analyzed, yet the fact that each protagonist’s search for self is brought to a point of crisis during an intimate interaction with a white woman has often been neglected. Here, I analyze each author’s strategic use of a nameless narrator by utilizing the work of W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon, arguing that the act of “literary unnaming” is used to critique the development of black American identity during the time of Jim Crow. The use of a nameless narrator is explored through …
"Tale As Old As Time": The "Beauty And The Beast" Narrative As Vehicle For Social Resistance, Monica Williams
"Tale As Old As Time": The "Beauty And The Beast" Narrative As Vehicle For Social Resistance, Monica Williams
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While current criticism has discussed various versions of the “Beauty and the Beast” tale individually, none have traced any particular trends that have emerged within the tale as it has been revised over the centuries. One particular trend began in the eighteenth century, when Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont streamlined the tale from the oral tradition in order to utilize it for the moral education of young French girls. Along with this pedagogical goal, Beaumont also managed to critique Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the abuse Pamela often suffered at the hands of Mr. B by revising her Beast character to act …
Sympathy, Skepticism And Conversation In Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy And Henry Mackenzie's The Man Of Feeling, Ahoud Turki Al Ghmiz
Sympathy, Skepticism And Conversation In Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy And Henry Mackenzie's The Man Of Feeling, Ahoud Turki Al Ghmiz
ETD Archive
While Tristram Shandy and The Man of Feeling have received continuous literary attention, few has been done in reading the skeptical and sentimental aspects of the two novels. This thesis glances through “conversation”, a reader-author conversation may be defined as a dialogue with a reader which is mediated by text. Both Sterne and Mackenzie engage in a conversation with readers by making them laugh, question, criticize, sympathize, and reflect on the deeper meaning of the novels. Moreover, this author-reader conversation is impossible without the wide use of conversations in both novels, through which characters convey their emotions and thoughts. Both …
Eldritch Horrors: The Modernist Liminality Of H.P. Lovecraft's Weird Fiction, Dale Allen Crowley
Eldritch Horrors: The Modernist Liminality Of H.P. Lovecraft's Weird Fiction, Dale Allen Crowley
ETD Archive
In the early part of the twentieth century, the Modernist literary movement was moving into what was arguably its peak, and authors we would now unquestioningly consider part of the Western literary canon were creating some of their greatest works. Coinciding with the more mainstream Modernist movement, there emerged a unique sub- genre of fiction on the pages of magazines with titles like Weird Tales and Astounding Stories. While modernist writers; including Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, William Faulkner, and T.S. Elliot – among others – were achieving acclaim for their works; in …
Shriekers, Jessica Leigh Johnson
Shriekers, Jessica Leigh Johnson
ETD Archive
In every horror sub-genre, there is a fear that the narrative exploits. In ghost stories, the fear is that of the unknown; in alien movies, it is the fear of the other; and in stories involving the undead we are confronted with the nature of living itself. In using creatures that were once human but now act only on instinct, we are forced to examine ourselves. Further, most stories involving zombies are set in a world where society is crumbling or has crumbled, and humans are forced to make difficult decisions, which brings us to question the nature of survival.
Towards A Synthesis: Tracing The Evolution Of Masculinity In The Eighteenth-Century Novel, Anthony Necastro Necastro
Towards A Synthesis: Tracing The Evolution Of Masculinity In The Eighteenth-Century Novel, Anthony Necastro Necastro
ETD Archive
Studies of eighteenth-century British novels are typically centered on the alleged “rise” of the novel; that is, the formation of the novel as a genre distinguished from the epics, dramas, romances, and satires of past centuries. These new novels betray the critical trajectory of masculinity throughout the politically turbulent long British eighteenth century (1688-1815). While critics have studied individual constructions of masculinity within particular novels, or masculinity presented by a single author’s corpus, this paper tracks the various constructions of masculinity and demonstrates the relationship between masculinity and political change. The novel’s century-long “rise” presents the reflection of the English …
I Hate It, But I Can't Stop: The Romanticization Of Intimate Partner Abuse In Young Adult Retellings Of Wuthering Heights, Brianna R. Zgodinski
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 …
Cultural Criticisms Within Thomas Hardy's Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Holly Rose Litwin
Cultural Criticisms Within Thomas Hardy's Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Holly Rose Litwin
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To understand fully Thomas Hardy’s cultural criticisms within his 1891 novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, one must look simultaneously at the full range of these cultural criticisms. The novel is a scathing condemnation of capitalism, Victorian beliefs about women, church doctrine, the shortcomings of the educational and judicial systems, and the destructive forces that industrialization and mechanization bring to the natural world in rural agrarian England. Within the past twenty years, scholars have explicated this text in ever-more specific, detailed, and narrow areas of focus, often coming up with fascinating and meticulously researched individual topics. However, I believe that …
Fe/Male Mother Of Two: Gender And Motherhood In Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin, Amy B. Smialek
Fe/Male Mother Of Two: Gender And Motherhood In Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin, Amy B. Smialek
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There are critical reviews regarding Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin that discuss many controversial topics in the novel. Of these reviews, most critics limit their arguments to the taboo topics of American school shootings and Eva’s character as an ostensibly ambivalent mother. Unfortunately, there is little academic criticism on Shriver’s most recognized novel and, among such analyses, two of Shriver’s most crucial depictions are overlooked. Firstly, readers must acknowledge the impact that contemporary American society has on females and mothers. This novel shows how much a culture relies on societal “rules” that govern human expectations. Secondly, Shriver’s …
The Black Death And Giovanni Bocaccio's The Decameron's Portrayal Of Merchant Mentality, Rachel D. Rickel
The Black Death And Giovanni Bocaccio's The Decameron's Portrayal Of Merchant Mentality, Rachel D. Rickel
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Giovanni Boccaccio was a contemporary witness to the effects of the Black Death pandemic, the Yersinia pestis bacterial pandemic in Europe between the years 1346-53, causing 75 million to 200 million deaths across the continent alone. In The Decameron, Boccaccio depicts the outbreak’s high-mortality rates and how that was a catalyst for many social and cultural changes within fourteenth-century Europe. He also goes on to portray the devastating effects of death on, not only the physical bodies of people and animals, but also on their mental, emotional, and spiritual states, and how this accelerated their acceptance of the rising …
The Liquid Nature Of Self In Maxine Kingston's Autobiographical Story The Woman Warrior, Evelyn Jablonski
The Liquid Nature Of Self In Maxine Kingston's Autobiographical Story The Woman Warrior, Evelyn Jablonski
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This work examines the notion of self in the autobiographical narrative of Maxine Hong Kingston. Self-writing is constructing a discursive body, and Kingston presents the reader with a unique articulation of her identity. Conventional autobiographical narratives tend to define a self as an opposition to the other. In such texts the literary discourse is intended to secure the integrity of the self. This image of the self can be called conventional. While the conventional narrative self claims to demonstrate developmental stages of an individual that acquires his or her maturity by the end of the quest, the constantly changing self …
Sexualizing The Body Politic: Narrative The Female Body And The Gender Divide In Secret History, Eileen A. Horansky
Sexualizing The Body Politic: Narrative The Female Body And The Gender Divide In Secret History, Eileen A. Horansky
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Recent studies of eighteenth-century women writers have focused on the role of women as developers and proponents of the secret history. The secret history, recently defined by scholars such as Rebecca Bullard, Melinda Alliker Rabb, Ros Ballaster, Marta Kvande, and Rachel Carnell, among others, occupies space within several genres, including political satire and historiography. The genre's secretive nature and reliance on gossip and anecdotal evidence creates a new space for women writers that allows them to enter political discourse and offer a distinctly gendered social commentary. As public became private and private became secret, secret historians sought to expose the …
James And Shakespeare: Unification Through Mapping, Christina Wagner
James And Shakespeare: Unification Through Mapping, Christina Wagner
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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 …
The Hill Fire And Other Stories, Michael Ervin Putnam
The Hill Fire And Other Stories, Michael Ervin Putnam
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The following stories contained here are the culmination of two year's work in the realm of the short story. In that time, I have further honed my writing voice and shaped these works in a way where they work in conjunction with each other as well as on their own. An over-arching theme I have in the work is a character (in these instances, specifically a man) who is unsatisfied with his current position in life but unwilling to put forth much effort to make a significant change. In some instances, that change is then forced upon the character by …
Legacy Of Shame: A Psychoanalytic History Of Trauma In The Bluest Eye, Martina Louise Hayes
Legacy Of Shame: A Psychoanalytic History Of Trauma In The Bluest Eye, Martina Louise Hayes
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The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison’s troubling short novel which focuses on the lives of a traumatized and disempowered African-American family and the community in which they live. The book openly discusses a variety of social taboos carried out by various members of a Black community in Lorain, Ohio. The most disturbing being the rape of a young Black girl, resulting in pregnancy by her father. Through the omniscient narration of a teenage girl, readers are thrown into the lives and thoughts of the adults and children within this community as they attempt to deal with these extraordinary situations as …
Structural And Symbolic Parallels Within The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn And The Catcher In The Rye, David G. Polster
Structural And Symbolic Parallels Within The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn And The Catcher In The Rye, David G. Polster
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye are both quest narratives in which the youthful protagonist begins his story trapped within a paradigm that oppresses him and -in order to escape- dies a symbolic death, descending to the underworld to learn a sacred truth that will be revealed at novel's end. The structure and symbolism are quite similar and follow the archetypal hero's journey, which I closely examine. In my thesis, I seek to prove that by descending to the "hell" of the Antebellum South and the conformist/materialistic world of post-war America, both Huck and Holden …
Civilization Is Going To Pieces: Crime, Morality, And Their Role In The Great Gatsby, Kathryn F. Machcinski
Civilization Is Going To Pieces: Crime, Morality, And Their Role In The Great Gatsby, Kathryn F. Machcinski
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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. …
Passive And Active Masculinities In Disney's Fairy Tale Films, Grace Dugar
Passive And Active Masculinities In Disney's Fairy Tale Films, Grace Dugar
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Disney fairy tale films are not as patriarchal and empowering of men as they have long been assumed to be. Laura Mulvey's cinematic theory of the gaze and more recent revisions of her theory inform this analysis of the portrayal of males and females in Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. This study reveals that many representations of males in these films actually portray masculinity as an object of female agency. Over time, Disney's representations of masculinity have become more supportive of male agency and individuality, but this development has been inconsistent …
Shells, Joline L. Scott
Shells, Joline L. Scott
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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 …