American Literature Commons^™

Making Then Meaning, Ben Denzer

Masters Theses

This is an artist talk contained within a book. It is 816 pages and 49 minutes long. Closed captions run across the spreads. A video of this talk can be watched on bendenzer.com/making-then-meaning

At RISD, I’ve been prompted to expand the scope and tools of my practice and to reflect on questions of meaning in my work.

I spend my days making things, but I’ve never really had good answers to questions of why I make the things I make, or what their meaning is. I don’t think there are simple answers to these questions.

I think meaning comes from …

Marked At Sea: Race, Class, And Tattoo Culture In Melville's Early Sea Fiction, Connell D. Swenson

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the role of Euromerican maritime tattoos in Herman Melville’s early sea fiction. Through layers of historic and scholarly obfuscation, Euromerican maritime tattoos have been delimited to a marginal role in the cosmopolitan shipboard culture of 19^th-century Pacific whaling and trade networks. This project extracts and contextualizes that cultural practice as formative in the creation of sailors’ hybrid embodied identities. With this intervention in mind, Euromerican maritime tattooing emerges as a small but important feature in Melville’s first six books. Probing issues such as race, class, slavery, and colonialism, this project deploys an intimate reading practice, …

The Cast Of A Giant's Shadow, Angela Kay Steineman

Masters Theses

Adapting fairy tales and folklore has been an ongoing endeavor by storytellers and artists since the very first story was repeated. The evidence can be seen in the many versions of fairy tales like those of the sleeping beauty, from Giambattista Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” to Walt Disney’s Maleficent. However, unlike their European counterparts, adaptations of American tales outside of children’s literature are not as ubiquitous. My writing rectifies this by adding to the resurging interest as seen in recent retellings like Matt Bell’s Appleseed: The Monstrous Birth (2019).

In an effort to reframe the American tall tale …

"There Is Nothing Else Like It": The Innovative Personality Of Lowney Turner Handy, Nathan Crews

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Workers, Athletes And Artists: The Historical Continuity Of White Control Of Black America, Courtney Walton

Masters Theses

From the early twentieth century to the early twenty-first century, black Americans have been subject to different forms of control. This subjection of blacks to societal demands arose in part because black people are viewed as inferior to white people. Because of this misconstrued perception, black people are forced to present an acceptable level of blackness to prevent punishment. Richard Wright's "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch" (1938), Zora Neale Hurston's "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928), and Langston Hughes's "The Negro Artist and Racial Mountain" (1926) detail their lives at the tum of the …

Prolepsis Through Poe's Narrators: The Prophetic Demise Of The Obsessive Protagonist, Bailey Jarnagin

Masters Theses

Edgar Allan Poe was a pioneer of psychological fiction. His stories center around characters whose reliability is questionable and who are mentally troubled in some way. Poe crafted stories that invoke terror because their subject is the horror of the mind. While readers of other types of horror fiction can finish a story and step away from the monsters with little to no fear of being followed by them, readers of Poe cannot forget the tales they read so readily because the horror of the mind is ever present. Poe crafted such horrific stories because of the haunted palace of …

Introducing The Hero Of Stasis: An Examination Of Heroism In David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest And The Pale King, Gregory Robert Peterson

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Deceiving, Fraudulent, And Seductive: The Discourses Of Money In Us Novels Of The Early Republic, Fabian Rempfer

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the importance of money and the representations of its various physical manifestations (such as coin, paper money) in American fiction of the 1790s. My project traces the transition from the colonies' financial dependency on Britain to their independency, relating to the monetary union created after the passage of the constitution. I argue that this shift from financial dependency to independency influences books such as Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson, Kelroy by Rebecca Rush, Ormond or the Secret Witness and Arthur Mervyn by Charles Brockden Brown. My project highlights, on the one hand, the importance of such …

Female Anti-Heroes In Contemporary Literature, Film, And Television, Sara A. Amato

Masters Theses

The anti-hero character has steadily become more popular in contemporary literature, film, and television. Part of this popularity is due to the character's appeal to the audience. This character type often commits acts that challenge the regulations of society. These acts, however, can become wish fulfillment for some audience members, making the acts of the character a vicarious experience as well as making the character more relatable because of the character's flawed nature.

This study will trace some of the evolution of the female anti-hero by discussing an ancestral character of the female anti-hero—Hester Prynne the protagonist of Nathanial Hawthorne's …

Kenneth Koch's Postmodern Comedy Revisited, John Campbell Nichols

Masters Theses

This thesis describes and analyzes the postmodern comedy of New York School poet, Kenneth Koch and discusses the changes this comedy underwent throughout his lengthy career. The thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter I explains the aesthetic of the New York School of poets as contrasted to the dominant New Critical compositional aesthetic embodied by poets such as Robert Lowell in the mid-century United States. Chapter II develops Koch’s comedy as expressing an emergent postmodernism. Chapter III discusses the various aspects of Koch’s comedy, sampling poems from across his career. Chapter IV traces the development and maturity of Koch’s …

The Shadow Of The Hyperobject In Thomas Pynchon's V. And Gravity's Rainbow, Trevor Martinson

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Yeah You Write: Authenticity And Authority In Katrina Literature, Terri Coleman

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Mental Illness In Early American Fiction: Charles Brockden Brown And The Sentimental Novelists, Katie E. Walk

Masters Theses

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries witnessed the development of the United States of America as a new nation. This development brought with it new ideologies and social and political change; included in these changes was the way that sexual conduct outside of marriage was dealt with. Because the emerging legal system became less concerned with matters of morality, some people became frightened that sexual promiscuity would become rampant. The sentimental novel or seduction tale became a means of attempting to control sexual behavior when the law was not able to step in.

The way that madness, a term …

The Lyric And The Lathe: Dreams Of Perfect Poetic Efficiency, 1800-1917, Steven A. Nathaniel

Masters Theses

This study examines patterns of efficiency in the poetry and theory of William Wordsworth, Hilda Doolittle, and other figures from the Modernist and Romantic periods. I begin by defining perfect efficiency as occurring when energy transforms, without loss, inside a closed energy system, and I offer perpetual motion machines as hypothetical examples of this impossible state. I then demonstrate the process of efficiency in William Wordsworth's poetry, which begins with circumlocutory poetic cycles but contracts into terse repetitions. Since technical efficiency is calculated by the formula output/input, poetry's subjectivity makes poetic efficiency difficult to measure. However, I suggest that repetitions …

Gaines's Preachers And Their People: Personalism, Community, And Social Action In A Lesson Before Dying, In My Father's House, And A Gathering Of Old Men, Brooke Light

Masters Theses

Personalist theology, along with Ernest J. Gaines's fiction, resists the idea of isolation and instead highlights the importance of the communal good, criticizing social and religious institutions that fail to uphold the value of human dignity and community. In "Personalism and Traditional Afrikan Thought," Burrow argues that "the church exists for the person and not the other way around" (347) and that churches should be judged and evaluated on the extent to which they meet the needs of the community. Representing their churches, the preachers in three of Gaines's novels (A Lesson Before Dying, In My Father's House, and A …

Hippie Caulfield: The Catcher In The Rye's Influence On 1960s American Counterculture, Richard Neffinger

Masters Theses

This study covers the influence of The Catcher in the Rye on the 1960s youth counterculture in America. Drawing heavily from postmodern and new historicist theory, The Catcher in the Rye has developed a unique connection with the American public, most notably youth culture. This study examines why youth are so attracted to the character of Holden Caulfield and what implications their connection has meant and will mean for future generations of young Americans.

“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 …

Narcissistic Intertextuality In The Works Of Bret Easton Ellis, Jennifer Grindstaff

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the works of Bret Easton Ellis, specifically his three latest novels: Glamorama, Lunar Park, and Imperial Bedrooms, and identifies the metafictional and intertextual elements in these texts. For my purposes, I am defining metafiction as fiction that draws attention to itself and makes the reader aware that he or she is reading fiction. Intertextual will be defined as elements in the novels that appear in other works of fiction. In the case of Ellis, he is drawing upon and reusing elements from his own fiction. These elements include characters that reappear in novels other than the text …

Imprisonment, Punishment, And Progress In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Ashley Breanne Waggoner

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Speaking Silence Fluently: Encouraging Student Understanding Of Counterhegemonic Strategies In African American Literature, Kathleen S. Decker

Masters Theses

This thesis suggests that while mainstream multicultural education claims to promote both diversity and equality, it fails to adequately address, let alone improve, the living conditions of minority students. It further suggests that when teachers help students read through the lenses of critical multiculturalism and critical whiteness studies, students can better see that both canonical and non-canonical African American authors deliberately employ nuanced strategies to resist white supremacy. Specifically through the use of purposeful and discreet silences, these authors serve to promote new and actively counterhegemonic ways of thinking in the classroom.

Each chapter pairs two texts--one canonical and one …

Operating The Silencer: Muted Group Theory In The Great Gatsby, Sarah Funderbruke

Masters Theses

This master's thesis examines gender and social roles seen in dialogue in the American classic novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The researcher conducted a coding and rhetorical analysis to determine if elements of muted group theory were in the novel. Muted group theory was developed by Edwin and Shirley Ardener after their research indicated that a culture's values and social structure were voiced through rhetoric. The theory states that dominance in certain groups mutes, or silences, others from communicating effectively. Five passages from The Great Gatsby were selected for this analysis. These passages highlighted dialogue between the …

Im Westen Nichts Neues And Johnny Got His Gun: The Success Of The First World War Anti-War Novel Through Controversy And Depictions Of Pain, Stephanie Morrissey

Masters Theses

Literature, films, and even the daily news often address war, an event that unfortunately has been a constant in modern society. Large scale, modern warfare with global involvement began with the First World War, and following the war, a global war literature boom occurred. Two bestselling novels whose anti-war themes still resound today, Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) by Erich Maria Remarque and Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, emerged from this sea of literature. Both of these novels focus on the pain that is inherent in warfare and its detrimental effects …

Bharati Mukherjee And The American Immigrant: Reimaging The Nation In A Global Context, Leah Rang

Masters Theses

With its focus on immigration to the United States and development of American identity, Bharati Mukherjee’s fiction eludes literary categorization. It engages with the various contexts of multiculturalism, postcolonialism, and globalization, yet Mukherjee adamantly positions herself as an American author writing American literature. In this essay, I investigate the intersections between Mukherjee’s focus on the American character, culture, and people and developing theories and critical debates on globalization. Through Mukherjee’s works, we can see American identity in a state of flux, made possible by the immigrant and the relationships established between the transnational individual and America. Mukherjee’s immigrant characters challenge …

Bewilderment And Illumination: Catch-22 And The Dark Humor Of The 1960s, Kirsten Staaby

Masters Theses

It is often hard to deal with certain subjects in a way that would not be offensive or painful. Dark humor is a popular and powerful way to deal with serious issues in a manner that is both edifying and enjoyable. In his novel Catch-22, Joseph Heller deals with the atrocities of war, and the subsequent effects it has on people and society as a whole. Heller's novel incorporates the dark humor that became popular in the 1960s, and that was used by this generation to deal with the tensions they faced in the political and cultural realms. There is …

Lacunae: Narrative "Lacks, Holes Or Gaps" In Faulkner's And Morrison's Novels, Phyllis Ann Karpus

Masters Theses

The moment a reader opens a book, turns to the opening lines and begins to read, a circular relationship immediately develops with the author and the text. An implied alliance is formed wherein the author, most often through a narrator, omniscient or otherwise, proposes to the reader that he/she accept a degree of responsibility for understanding the plot, theme, and the underlying meaning in the work.

Retrospectively the theory sounds simple and, with many authors, it is effective. William Faulkner and Toni Morrison, however, not only command but also demand, the reader's absolute attention in, and responsibility to, many of …

The Soldier's Strife: An Introspective View Through The Work Of Tim O'Brien, Mandy Solomon

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Place In Malcolm Cowley's Blue Juniata And Exile's Return, Robert Pratte

Masters Theses

This study examines the various ways in which Malcolm Cowley develops and uses sense of place in his works Blue Juniata: Collected Poems and Exile's Return. Through examination of the literature, I identify four phases of place sense. Starting with childhood in the Identification phase, I illustrate the development of Cowley's place perspective through his poems and writings. As he moves through Adventure and Exile phases, I discuss their relation to the Identification phase and to each other. Likewise, I consider the role of the Nostalgia phase as a bridge from literary to experiential perception. Through close examination of his …

John Irving, Female Sexuality, And The Victorian Feminine Ideal, Tara Coburn

Masters Theses

In an interview about The Cider House Rules, John Irving states, "It is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel" (qtd. in Herel, para. 18). However, in book reviews, jacket blurbs, literary criticism, and Irving's own writing, readers and critics and Irving often assert that he is a neo-Victorian novelist, and the Victorians were a notoriously political bunch. Though Irving does not admit to the political nature of his writing, the way he treats feminist politics in his fiction has drawn particular notice by the media, who often label him as a feminist writer. …

This Man's Heart: Masculinity In The Poetry Of E.E. Cummings, Willis John Whitesell Iii

Masters Theses

"This Man's Heart: Masculinity in the Poetry of E.E. Cummings" explores changing masculinity in the life and poetry of E.E. Cummings. The relationship between Cummings and his father, his first male role model, became strained when Cummings was a teenager finding his own male identity. As he rebelled against his father, a Unitarian minister, he began writing poetry in a modernist style under the direction of a new mentor, Ezra Pound.

Cummings' early modernist poems criticize conventional male roles and configurations of masculinity as outdated. As Cummings continued to grow as a man and writer, he confronted new realities which …

Walt Whitman: The Optimism Of An Evolutionary Pantheist, Katherine R. Hults

Masters Theses

E.M. Forster may have best described Walt Whitman's prevailing optimism in the following passage:

He is the true optimist—not the professional optimist who shuts his eyes and shirks ... but one who has seen and suffered much and yet rejoices. He is not a philosopher or theologian; he cannot answer the ultimate question and tell us what life is. But he is absolutely certain that it is grand, that it is happiness, and that 'wherever life and force are manifested, beauty is manifested.' (Allen, World 52)

Whitman was aware of the social taboos and social evils of his time, witnessing …