Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Thesis Submission Assignment, Monica Cookson

Masters Theses

This paper focuses on the importance of complex character development to form connections with the reader. Readers develop connections to characters who are relatable, so writers need to be aware of what makes a character emotionally important to the reader.

Love On The Spectrum: Djuna Barnes’S Case Against Categorization In Nightwood, Kaitlyn A. Alford

Masters Theses

Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood is a challenging and beautiful text that continues to confound readers almost 100 years after its original publication. Though the text is often read as a “lesbian” novel, I consider the possibilities available when we read this text instead with a more open queerness in mind. By looking at the novel’s treatment of image, time, history, gender, sexuality, and identity, a new way of reading is revealed which rejects moves of taxonomization and categorization. This thesis explores how Barnes challenges dominant modes of representation and understanding, not to be a simple contrarian, but to present a new …

Comparing Cultural Context Through New Historicism: The Impact Of Form Upon Content In The Serialized And Novelized Versions Of F. Scott Fitzgerald’S The Beautiful And Damned, Anna Sweeney

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I analyzed the differences between the serialized portions and subsequent novelization of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and Damned. To conduct this research, I studied the seven issues of Metropolitan magazine from September 1921 to March 1922 in which the serialized portions of The Beautiful and Damned were published, and read them against the novel. I found that the omissions and additions between the two modes of text, including the advertisements and illustrations present within the serialized portions, greatly altered the nuances and meanings of the finished novelized product. This project revealed that there is currently a …

Red Star Studded Chaos: Sex Scandal, Juan Salas

Masters Theses

Leon de Cruz is a fame hungry journalist that published sex pictures of the greatest pop group in the world: Red Star Studded Chaos. The group was genetically engineered to be physically perfect and live a minimum of 10,000 years without aging. Leon's news article about the group catapults him into international superstardom, and RSSC's only rival, a recently founded Christian pop group called Properness, wants to manipulate Leon into using his new found fame to write a novel that condemns the very debauchery RSSC stands for.

Looking to capitalize on the chaos sparked by the sex photographs, Properness's management …

“Taming The Maternal”: Mother-Women And The Construction Of The Maternal Body In Harriet Jacobs, Kate Chopin, And Evelyn Scott, Kelly Ann Masterson

Masters Theses

From the nineteenth century to the present day, constructions of motherhood have often run counter to the best interests of women. The repression of desire and sexuality necessitated by ideals of motherhood and maternity are detrimental to women’s awareness of and authority over their own bodies. The physical body, then, becomes problematic for these women, who find themselves trapped within bodies that are expected to behave according to popular ideals of True Womanhood. A rupture occurs between body and mind – a rupture that often results in (sometimes literal) destruction.

The fiction of women writers during the nineteenth and early …

Of What She Lets Go, Amber Dawn Garrison

Masters Theses

Of What She Lets Go is a young-adult novel that focuses on the physical, emotional and sexual development of a thirteen-year-old girl named Emily. Emily is faced with the challenges of becoming a self-respecting and confident young woman despite the social and familial difficulties she encounters.

As the story develops, the problems Emily faces proportionally increase her sense of alienation. She becomes increasingly negative and turns outside her family and long-term friendships to establish a relationship with a rebellious sixteen-year-old male named Steve. Steve is attentive to Emily's need for affection and uses it to move the relationship to the …