Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Psychographic Persona Development In The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Melody Day

Undergraduate Honors Theses

When interviewed about his Victorian Gothic masterpiece, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde once observed that “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks of me: Dorian is what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps” (Oscar Wilde). These three characters represent widely different types of people; in light of Wilde’s words, then, what does it truly mean to be Basil, Lord Henry, or Dorian Gray? In other words, what interests, opinions, and values held by these characters determine how each of them differ from one another? In my cross-discipline …

Contradictory Shakespeare: An Investigation Of Female Protagonists In Othello, Measure For Measure, And Pericles, Mingyue Xu

Student Theses and Dissertations

Unlike the stereotyped image of women in the Elizabethan era, in which women should submit to men’s control, Desdemona in Othello, Isabella in Measure for Measure, and Marina in Pericles present their powerful and brave characteristics when facing male dominance. More specifically, all three young women — Desdemona, Isabella and Marina — negotiate sexual and marital arrangements with their language intelligently, despite the fact that they sometimes lack self-determining power in the plays. That is to say, Shakespeare gives women rhetorical power while in certain circumstances, men cannot be persuaded. Such contradiction within how Shakespeare depicts his female …

A Psychoanalysis Of Rebecca West’S Unfinished Novel The Sentinel, Taylor Vesely

Honors Theses

This thesis applies a psychoanalytic lens to a little-known and unfinished manuscript by Rebecca West. There is little scholarship on The Sentinel but a wealth of knowledge to be gained from it about the complicated psychological dilemmas the suffragists suffered. West was writing at a critical period in feminist history that is still relevant today, and this novel, which would have been her first, lays the groundwork for many of her future works. Her depictions of sexuality, violence, religion, and motherhood provide an excellent framework for both her protagonist’s self-suppression and a compelling psychoanalysis. This thesis argues that the many …

Recovered Images: Medieval Echoes In C. S. Lewis’S Space Trilogy, Nathan Earl Houston Fayard

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

C. S. Lewis has begun to garner more scholarly attention in the last few decades, but his first novels, his science fiction or Space trilogy, continue to be largely ignored by academia. Yet, these three novels are deserving of more serious study, as they are pioneering works of literary science fiction, and even more surprisingly, of literary medievalism. Though long derided as mere reactionary attacks on Modernism and science, when properly understood, these strange and wonderful tales actually reveal the complexity and nuance of Lewis’s response to his times. In them, the Inkling author creates a unique combination of the …

A Deleuzean Poststructural Deconstruction, Adam Nadir Mohamed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This project seeks to reconceive a poststructural form of deconstructive criticism as a Deleuzean deconstructive commentary. I first explore the way Derrida’s concept of différance is confined to a deconstructive criticism which solely traces it in order to critique metaphysical concepts. As an alternative to the confined use of différance in deconstructive criticism, I develop a deconstructive commentary which deconstructs the primacy of a commentated text. Instead of using différance solely to trace the limitations of philosophical concepts (Hegelian in particular), it can serve as a plane of immanence that track a multitude of differently configured philosophical concepts in their …

Furious: Myth, Gender, And The Origins Of Lady Macbeth, Emma King

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis attempts to understand the fabulously complex and poisonously unsettling Lady Macbeth as a product of classical reception and intertextuality in early modern England. Whence comes her “undaunted mettle” (1.7.73)? Why is she, like the regicide she helps commit, such a “bloody piece of work” (2.3.108)? How does her ability to be “bloody, bold, and resolute” (4.1.81), as Macbeth is commanded to be, reflect canonical literary ideas, early modern or otherwise, regarding women, gender, and violence? Approaching texts in the literary canon as the result of transformation and reception, this research analyzes the ways in which Lady Macbeth’s gender, …

The Meaning In The Music: Music And The Prose Of Chopin, Joyce, Baldwin And Egan, Colin Perry

Senior Theses

Kate Chopin, James Joyce, James Baldwin, and Jennifer Egan are collectively gifted in the art of prose, yet each author also experiments with music in their literary works. An analysis of Chopin's The Awakening, Joyce's "The Dead," Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," and Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad reveals a trend of authors utilizing music to enrich their texts and convey major themes.

Black Women’S Bodies As The Site Of Malignity: Interrogating (Mis)Representations Of Black Women In 16th And 17th Century British Literature, Tonika Reed

English (MA) Theses

This thesis examines the often overlooked and consistently maligned African/black female figure in 16th and 17th Century literature. Drawing from historical contexts and feminist literary criticism, this thesis accentuates a culturally nuanced and intersectional feminist examination of specific texts from the period in question and the extent to which they inform or draw from racist rhetoric. The texts examined will include William Dunbar’s Ane Blak Moir, Ben Jonson’s Masque of Blackness and Masque of Beauty, and Shakespeare’s Othello.

Nailing Jell-O To A Tree, Jayson Lozier

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio contains papers addressing writing instruction, women's studies, queer theory, and literary analysis. “Mr. L 2.0 or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love English Composition” details the implementation of more effective techniques to teach writing in the secondary English classroom. “Educating Women in Afghanistan: Power, Revolution, and Rebellion” examines the feminist struggles around education and the efforts of the Afghan Institute of Learning to bring about change. “Out of the Closet and into the Classroom: Introducing Queer Reading Strategies to the Secondary English Classroom” examines the importance of queer theory and queer reading techniques in high school …

Unruly Matter: Masculine Consumption In English Restoration Literature, Shawn Watkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Unruly Matter: Masculine Consumption in English Restoration Literature

Over the past several decades, material culture scholars working within the “Long 18^th Century” have identified how the figure of the woman consumer became an ideological nodal point that registered new enthusiasm for emerging economic dynamics (mercantilism, nascent capitalism, etc.) while also expressing masculine anxieties about consumerism and the role of consumable goods in English society. Although many scholars have noted that men functioned symbolically and ideologically as English society’s primary consumers of material goods in the later 17^th century, there is no scholarly work that aims to describe the …

Taming The Beast: Heathcliff As Dog In Wuthering Heights, Anna Cittadino

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the human/animal distinction in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, focusing specifically on the animal within Heathcliff, and the way this animal undermines his ability to be human as a result of the violence and abandonment he endured in childhood.

Setting The Stage And Building Homes: Architecture Metaphors And Space In Donne's First Caroline Sermon, Alexander S. Laws

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through his use of "foundation" and "house" metaphors in his "First Sermon Preached to King Charles at St. James, 3 April 1625," John Donne discreetly presents his ideologies and principles before the new king, while simultaneously criticizing his contemporaries' misguided bickering over religio-political factions. This essay seeks to unpack the history surrounding, as well as the casuistical logic found within Donne's first sermon preached during the Caroline period, which both explicitly and implicitly addresses the foremost anxieties of the people of the changing age.

The Scientific Romances Of Jules Verne And H.G. Wells: Imperialism Disguised As Progress In The Early Days Of Science Fiction, Timothy Ferris

Theses and Dissertations

Frequently in their respective oeuvres, Verne and Wells write in a rhetoric of conquest that almost always translates to discovering a more efficient means of taming wild, non-European environments. These goals extend not only to the lands that their protagonists explore, but also to human beings and other life that may populate them. Indeed, the underlying focus—the one that is masked behind the thrill and adventure of both Wells and Verne—is none other than the march of progress as understood by middle-class Europeans in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Progress can produce positivistic optimism, and it can also …

Fragmentary Memories: The Cultural Significance Of Famine Echoes In Dracula, Moira Hegarty

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This Plan B thesis explores the questions: What echoes of the 1845 Potato famine exist in Dracula and how do those echoes impact our understanding of the famine’s cultural impact? Dracula has been studied extensively both as an important example of gothic Victorian literature and as a chance to reclaim a native Irish author from the British. By looking at Dracula through the lens of Ireland’s 1845 Potato famine some of the structural and narrative oddities resolve themselves, such as Stoker’s decision to introduce so many opposing images and ideas to create a sense of uncertainty and rob the reader …

John Gardner’S Grendel: The Importance Of Community In Making Moral Art, Catherine C. Cooper

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

John Gardner’s Grendel examines the ways in which humans make meaning out of their lives. By changing the original Beowulf monster into a creature who constantly questions the conflicting narratives set before him, Gardner encourages us to confront these tensions also. However, his emphasis on Grendel’s alienation helps us realize that community is essential to creating meaning. Most obviously, community creates relationships that foster a sense of moral obligation between its members, even in the face of the type of uncertainty felt by Grendel. Moreover, community cannot exist without dialogue, which perpetually stimulates the imagination to respond to the tensions …

Enclosures And Dichotomies: Coexistence Vs. Distance In The Poems Of John Clare, Jordan P. Finn

Theses and Dissertations

John Clare’s poetry emphasizes an affinity with environment by suspending the distinction between the inside (subject) and the outside (object). Clare’s identification with objects and perception rather than subjects and aesthetics renders his work as a prescient and radical example of ecological poetry in the Romantic period. Raymond Williams’ “green language” and Timothy Morton’s ambient poetics both cite Clare as an ideal figure for their above theories and evoke Clare as a writer who positions the environment as governing thought rather than thought governing the environment. This thesis especially relates Clare to Morton’s Ecology without Nature, a study of …

Van Gogh’S Yellow Flowers: The Influence Of Post-Impressionism On Mansfield And Woolf, Gabriella M. D'Angelo

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

In a letter to Dorothy Brett, Katherine Mansfield responds to Van Gogh’s painting of sunflowers explaining, “That picture seemed to reveal something that I hadn't realised before I saw it. It lived with me afterwards. It still does... They taught me something about writing, which was queer—a kind of freedom—or rather, a shaking free” that she felt after experiencing his painting (O’Sullivan, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, 4: 333). The aesthetic emotion resided with her thereafter, as she claimed: “I can smell them as I write” (O’Sullivan, TCLKM, 2: 333). French paintings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth …

Cultivating A New Educator: Teacher And Students Sharing Growth, Megan Campbell

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This is Megan Campell-Looney's final portfolio for her M.A. in English (with a specialization in teaching). It includes a reflective narrative and four revised pieces: "A Murderous Moral Tale: Depictions of the Ideal Victorian in Wilkie Collins' Jezebel's Daughter," "Critical Thinking and Counseling Through the Power of Literature," Developing an American Identity: Syllabus and Assignment Plan," and "Evolving and Adapting Rhetoric and Theory: Indigenous Theory Writing Back." The portfolio focuses on research and study that developed Looney's classroom pedagogy and philosophy. Students and educators both must write back to gain the agency needed for growth.

Perplexed Poetics: Romanticism And The Vortex Of Ideologies, Jaime Luque Lau

Student Theses and Dissertations

In three parts, this thesis explores the tension between the critical and emotional poetics in Romantic poetry, as well as the entanglement of individual will and politics. As a point of entrance, the first part focuses on the major and current trends of scholarly discourses about Romanticism. I will examine Jerome McGann’s influential book of criticism on Romanticism, Romantic Ideology, in juxtaposition with Marc Redfield’s The Politics of Aesthetics: Nationalism, Gender, Romanticism. In particular, the discussion of the two books suggest the problems of aesthetic-political and historical discourses; specifically, I argue that McGann’s critical examination of “Romantic ideology” …

"Within The Hollow Crown": Performing Kingship In Richard Ii And Henry Iv Part One, Angeline Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the parallels and connections between Richard II and Prince Hal in Shakespeare’sRichard II and 1 Henry IV and what the results would be if the characters were cross-cast, or played by the same actor onstage, in performance. Criticism on the plays has often addressed the parallels between the two characters, but as of yet no one has examined ways to show this in performance. This paper acts as a form of critical introduction for a proposed combined performance text of both Richard II and 1 Henry IV, arguing that the textual parallels between the two …

Anne Brontë The Universalist: Religion And Patriarchal Subversion In The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall And Agnes Grey, Ardyn Tennyson

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Anne Brontë (1820-1849) was an English novelist and religious poet, the youngest of the literary Brontë siblings. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë wrote some of the most esteemed novels of the Victorian canon. Children of an Anglican minister, the Brontës were accustomed to clerical life and the conventions of nineteenth-century religious observance. Anne’s faith, however, was unique and radical, an unorthodox form of Christianity called Universalism, which held that all human beings would be saved, not just those chosen by God. This thesis examines her two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, in the context of …

Monstrous Mobility In Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde And Dracula, Autumn Danielle Weese

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores Late Victorian Gothic texts that are central to theories on monstrosity in terms of mobility by examining Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula. The goal of this project is to survey the ways in which two exemplary monsters, Mr. Hyde and Count Dracula, promote mobility for others and themselves as an inherent part of their monstrosity. The variety of this mobility is demonstrated by examples showing how monsters move and encourage movement in ways that are social and transformative as well as physical. Because social mobility is essential to these movements, this study also considers the …

Losing Faith: Emily Brontë'S Revolutionized Religion, Emily Renee Holmes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“Losing Faith: Emily Brontë’s Revolutionized Religion” discusses the role of religion in her novel Wuthering Heights and her poems set in the mythical world of Gondal. Through close readings of both her prose and poetry, this paper seeks to understand the relationship between the dark, vindictive nature of Brontë’s characters and their hopeful ending. The first chapter, Here’s The Situation, discusses the situation as set up by the novel, focusing specifically on Catherine and Heathcliff. I discuss the violence and codependence of their relationship, their Gondal predecessors, their fascination with each other as well as their torment when apart, and …

The Dangerous Women Of The Long Eighteenth Century: Exploring The Female Characters In Love In Excess, Roxana, And A Simple Story, Jillian Bailey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Long Eighteenth Century was a period in which change was constant and proceeding the Restoration Era; this sense of change continued throughout the era. Charles II created an era in which women were allowed on the theatre stage, and his mistresses accompanied him to court; Charles II set the stage for the proto-feminist ideas of the eighteenth century that would manifest themselves in Eliza Haywood’s Love in Excess, Daniel Defoe’s Roxana, and Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story. These novels showcase the enlightenment of women and some of their male contemporaries and the beginning struggles of female …

"Devoted To Influenza": An Analysis Of English And Nigerian Archival And Literary Depictions Of The 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic, Kendra Klein

All NMU Master's Theses

This project examines how the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic is discussed in memoirs, letters, and fiction. I focus on both British and Nigerian sources to compare how different areas of the world portray the cultural significance of this disease. In the first chapter, I analyze two unpublished archival texts: the letters of Dorothy Sutton (1918), a nurse during World War I and the memoir of Private H.J. Youngman (1969). Both sources, housed in the collections of the Imperial War Museum in London, describe the symptoms and scope of the influenza pandemic. The chapter also looks at Virginia Woolf’s novel, Mrs. Dalloway …

Revolutionary Joy: Affect, Expression, And Community In Milton's England, Stephen Spencer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

To express joy in revolutionary England was deeply paradoxical. English Protestants frequently described the experience as indescribable, owing more to the agency of God’s grace than the subject’s will. And yet, the public expression of joy was considered a Christian duty, an important means of affirming and galvanizing community. In Revolutionary Joy: Affect, Expression, and Community in Milton’s England, I argue that the constitutive paradox of Protestant joy renders its expression a potent form of political speech amidst mid-seventeenth century transformations to the English church, monarchy, and parliament. In an era where apocalyptic expectation put pressure on affective experience …

Analysis Of The Effect Of An Ergonomic Improvement Program On Incident Rates In A Forklift Manufacturing/Assembly Plant, Miriah L. Cherry

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The company experienced a high volume of recordable injuries and decided it was time to implement an ergonomic program in order to drive down the number of ergonomic related injuries. The ergonomics program was implemented in mid-2016 and positively impacted the company’s incident rate. Due to the high ergonomic related incident rate the company had in 2016, the decision was made to implement an ergonomic improvement program in 2017. The goal is to determine the effectiveness of the ergonomics improvement program. This project consists of the study of data before and after the implementation as well as a review of …

Reading The Readers : Analyses Of Shakespearean And Cervantine Characters As (Dys)Functional Readers., Erin Shannon O'Reilly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes how the protagonists of Don Quixote and The Tempest perform the act of reading. It explores how the authors create interpretive communities within their works and bring them into conflict in order to foreground the dysfunctionality of particular types of reading. While functional readers are capable of reading among and beyond diverse interpretive communities, dysfunctional readers operate within a single community to the exclusion of other possible interpretations. Chapter One examines Cervantes’s creation of multiple interpretive communities within the first six chapters of Don Quixote, and how Don Quixote acts as dysfunctional reader through his inability …

Introspections Into Rational Fanatics And Thoughtful Deceivers: Examining The Use Of Memoirs In The Works Of James Hogg And Charles Brockden Brown, Tucker Foster

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The memoir as a specific and unique literary genre has only recently been broached for in-depth critical study, with two major, book-length examinations of the genre appearing in the past decade. While the genre has been around in various formats with various conventions for as long as humans have written, only the memoir boom of the late twentieth and early twenty-first-century called for a more sophisticated look at the genre. This thesis will use these recent observations on the memoir as a genre to shed new light on two classics of gothic literature: Charles Brockden Brown’s 1798 novel Wieland and …

“A Woman’S Story”: Lady Macbeth And Performing Femininity In The Early 1600s – Late 1900s, Phyllis Lebert

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper uses gender studies to understand the themes of gender performance further, and more specifically, femininity, in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It also explores the many ways feminine gender performance has changed as society has changed. Thus, proving gender is performative rather than innate. It does this by examining first the text within the context of Elizabethan society. Moreover, by examining three pivotal performances of Lady Macbeth through history within the context of their social structures as well. The three performances are that of Sarah Siddons in the Late 18th Century, Ellen Terry in the 19th Century, and Judy Dench in …