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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

To Be Everything: Sylvia Plath And The Problem That Has No Name, Alanna P. Mcauliffe May 2018

To Be Everything: Sylvia Plath And The Problem That Has No Name, Alanna P. Mcauliffe

Student Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores, in depth, how the poetry of Sylvia Plath operates as an expression of female discontent in the decade directly preceding the sexual revolution. This analysis incorporates both sociohistorical context and theory introduced in Betty Friedan’s 1963 work The Feminine Mystique. In particular, Plath’s work is put in conversation with Friedan’s notion of the “problem that has no name,” an all-consuming sense of malaise and dissatisfaction that plagued American women in the postwar era. This notion is furthered by close-readings of poems written throughout various stages of Plath’s career (namely “Spinster,” “Two Sisters of Persephone,” “Elm,” “Ariel,” “Daddy,” …


Naturalism And The New Woman: Fated Motherhood In Kate Chopin's The Awakening And Edith Wharton's The House Of Mirth, Lindsay J. Patorno May 2018

Naturalism And The New Woman: Fated Motherhood In Kate Chopin's The Awakening And Edith Wharton's The House Of Mirth, Lindsay J. Patorno

Honors Theses

Proto-feminist novels have garnered great critical attention in recent decades, largely owing to the reclamation efforts of feminist scholars from the 1960s onwards. These feminist scholars have remarked the fin-de-siècle emergence of a recurring narrative archetype: the unabashed New Woman, whose exploits in what were traditionally male-dominated spheres distinguished her from the domesticated matrons and sentimental bachelorettes of past literary paradigms. While the New Woman is now a commonplace among feminist critics, the following thesis uniquely interprets this feministic archetype in conjunction with the concurrent movement of American literary naturalism—a genre that proffers a deterministic worldview and is often regarded …


From Amherst To The Other Side: The Integration Of Emily Dickinson Into The Italian Consciousness, Mia Jozwick Jan 2018

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 …


Esther Reed's Political Sentiments And Rhetoric During The Revolutionary War, Kennedy Harkins Jan 2018

Esther Reed's Political Sentiments And Rhetoric During The Revolutionary War, Kennedy Harkins

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In 1780, during the final leg of the American Revolutionary War, Esther Reed penned the broadside “Sentiments of an American Woman.” It circulated in Philadelphia, persuading citizens to turn over their last dollars to the cause. Reed’s broadside called to action the women of Philadelphia; they knocked on doors, campaigned with words, and stepped firmly into the “man’s world” of politics and revolution. Reed’s words were so effective that women in cities across the colonies took to raising money as well. Using New Historicist and feminist reading strategies, this study compares and contrasts Reed’s rhetoric to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense …


Why Katniss Everdeen Is Our Favorite Feminist – An Analysis Of The Heroine Of The Hunger Games Film Saga And Her Reception By Young Female Spectators, Paula Talero Álvarez Jan 2018

Why Katniss Everdeen Is Our Favorite Feminist – An Analysis Of The Heroine Of The Hunger Games Film Saga And Her Reception By Young Female Spectators, Paula Talero Álvarez

Theses and Dissertations

THROUGH THE FIGURE OF FICTIONAL CHARACTER KATNISS EVERDEEN, THIS DISSERTATION STUDIES HOW THE FILM INDUSTRY SIMULTANEOUSLY ENTRENCHES AND DISRUPTS GENDER, SEXUAL, AND RACIAL NORMATIVITIES. THE PROJECT USES TEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND PARTICIPANT RESEARCH TO ANALYZE HOW THE FILMS AND NOVELS OF THE HUNGER GAMES SAGA ENCAPSULATE BOTH DOMINANT AND ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTIONS RELATED TO FEMININITY, MASCULINITY, WOMANHOOD, AND MOTHERHOOD. IT ALSO EXPLORES IF AND HOW THE FEMALE HEROINE CAN BE READ AS FEMINIST AND PRODUCES A SENSE OF EMPOWERMENT. I CONCLUDE THAT ALTHOUGH THE INDUSTRY IS PRODUCING NEW MODELS OF WOMANHOOD THAT CHALLENGE TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES, IT STILL PERPETUATES ROMANTIC IDEALS AND …