Creative Writing Commons^™

Christian Morality In J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings, Lari E. Mobley

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

[Abstract not included]

A Journey Inward : Initiation In Katherine Anne Porter's Miranda Stories, Anne Lobdell

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Tracing the initiation motif in Katharine Anne Porter's "Miranda stories" uncovers her maturing protagonist's search for order and personal truth. Miranda's inward journey ultimately leads not to nihilism and despair, as some critics suggest, but to an honest and courageous affirmation of the independent spirit.

Porter's fiction involving Miranda and her family background reveal varying stages of this maturing that, together with parallel theories of initiation, fall into critic Mordecai Marcus' paradigm of initiation types. The "tentative" initiation stories only brush the child Miranda's awareness and deal primarily with the external world. They include "The Circus," marking an "emotional" initiation …

From Falling Beams To Fallen Souls : The Ethical Development Of The Hard-Boiled Detective Novel, Kevin Chaffee

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The hard-boiled detective story ushered in a revolution in the mystery story. The older "formal" mystery story saw society as a benevolent, ordering force which the detective restored by catching the murderer, while the hard-boiled mystery portrayed society as corrupt, wild and flawed, and presented an implicit criticism of it. The three best writers of the hard-boiled school, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald, show an ethical progression, a turning outward, from the personal, inwardly focused ethics of Hammett's characters to the outwardly turned moral understanding of Macdonald's hero.

Dashiell Hammett writes of an ironic, tough world that the …

A Survey Of Adolescent Reading Habits And Influences : A Study In Selected Parochial Secondary Schools, Sylvia J. Davis

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Adolescent literature, written by authors with a concern for the illiteracy in the United States, and read by students growing in their ability to comprehend life, is a vital link in the personal exploration and adjustment needed by young persons as they proceed into adulthood. Many polls have been conducted by teachers and librarians to learn which authors and topics are meaningful to the young student at the secondary level. It is hoped that this study might assist the teacher in understanding the reading habits of students in a parochial atmosphere by providing a background to evaluate assignments given and …

Septimius Felton: Hawthorne's Last Novel, Pam Dietrich

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Septimius Felton is a little-known work by the well known Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book was the third of four attempts Hawthorne made near the end of his life to construct a full-fledged romance. His first two attempts were titled The Ancestral Footstep and Doctor Grimshaw's Secret. The final try was called The Dolliver Romance. Thus, Septimius Felton has been conveniently junked with the other scraps Hawthorne produced in his last few years, but it has been unjustly criticized, I believe, for the little novel not only shows the author's skill and talent but also offers the reader pleasurable reading. …

William Faulkner: The Search And The Simile, Denise R. Dick

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

William Faulkner (1897-1962) is well known for his distinctive prose style -- his word choice, his long sentences, and his chains of imagery. In this paper, three novels, Sartoris (1929), Absalom, Absalom! (1936), and The Mansion (1955) are studied to see what can be learned about Faulkner's use of the simile.

Many of Faulkner's characters are tortured by a disparity between their peaceful past and their chaotic present. It was found that Faulkner uses the greatest number of similes in the passages of the novels where the characters are searching most intensely to reconcile their past and their present. This …

Eudora Welty : From "The Wanderers" To The Optimist's Daughter, Juli Ling Miller

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The writings of Eudora A. Welty have been published since 1936. They include four collections of short stories and five novels. Although she is a highly anthologized southern writer and winner of several literary awards, serious criticism of her works has been limited to her early short stories or the regionalism of her novels.

The scope of this thesis includes a traditional analysis of "The Wanderers," a story in The Golden Apples (1949) collection which has received cursory study, as well as an analysis of her latest published novel, The Optimist's Daughter, (1972) which has yet to be studied by …

"Art For Truth's Sake" : James A. Herne As Social Critic And Literary Artist, Nancy Hoyt Lecourt

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

James A. Herne, 1839-1901, is generally considered to be the best American dramatist prior to O'Neill. His dramas represent the first American attempts at dramatic realism. His early plays are melodramatic in tendency, but soon he began to eliminate villains, asides, stereotyped characters, and other trappings of that earlier dramatic form. When Hamlin Garland saw Herne's play dealing with the drinking problem, Drifting Apart, he was convinced that Herne could be groomed into a sort of American Ibsen. Garland soon introduced Herne to William Dean Howells, and the two authors encouraged Herne in his quest for realism. The result …

Money In The Fiction Of Willa Cather, Vincent A. Clark

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The subject of money is important in the fiction of Willa Cather. She discusses it frequently and often at great length. In some works it is a major theme.

Despite its importance, a number of Willa Cather's critics have ignored the subject or have given it only cursory mention. Several ·writers, however, have discussed the subject at length. John H. Randall, III, in particular, analyzes it in great detail.· His analysis, however, goes astray at several key points.

This thesis shows that Willa Cather's attitudes toward money were balanced, humane, and consistent. These attitudes can be summarized as follows: (a) …

The Literature Of Verbal Nonsense In Lewis Carroll, Samuel Beckett And Eugène Ionesco, Madeleine R. Scalliet

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Nonsense literature and nonsense poetry have provided release from the shackles of logic for centuries. But the greatest masters of English nonsense are Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. Carroll gives, in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass, the principles underlying a carefully-built structure. In Lewis Carroll's nonsense world, the creatures break the determinism of meaning and significance.

Nonsense can be defined by the following characteristics: a strong adherence to the concrete in every way possible in order to allow the intellect to be in complete control of its material and thus prevent reference; the elaboration of a pseudo-logic based …

A Comparison Of Jane Austen's Early And Late Characterization, Janet R. Moore

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The purpose of this thesis is to compare an early well-developed heroine, Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, with a late well-developed heroine, Anne Elliot in Persuasion, in Jane Austen's novels to see if there are any changes in characterization and techniques of characterization and to evaluate these techniques.

In Chapter One, I have shown that throughout the nineteenth century from the time of publication, critics commented on Jane Austen's ability to create realistic characters. Not until the twentieth century, however, was Jane Austen's work evaluated critically. Twentieth century critics agree that she was a master at character …

Three Studies In Characterization, Diana A. Kohler

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

THE WOMEN OF BEN JONSON IN EPICOENE AND BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. This paper compares and contrasts the method variations that cause the women of Epicoene to be less interesting and more stereotyped than those of Bartholomew Fair.

Basically, in the women of Epicoene, Jonson used character types exclusively. The women were all "masculine," and remained that type throughout the play. In Bartholomew Fair, Jonson created versatility in the characters by including more information on the women through rhetorical "places," particularly the consilium or reason behind their actions. The multiplied places in the women in Bartholomew Fair, the changes in the …