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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Traumas And Recovery In Takaya Natsuki's Fruits Basket, Vesper North May 2022

Traumas And Recovery In Takaya Natsuki's Fruits Basket, Vesper North

English (MA) Theses

This thesis examines the various traumas within Takaya Natsuki’s anime series Fruits Basket and how the act of transformation triggers the beginnings of recovery for numerous characters. Fruits Basket bears striking similarities to the French fairy tale Beauty and the Beast (as well as later adaptations) originated by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve. Throughout, I draw parallels between the “Beauty and the Beast”-genre with Fruits Basket and how the anime expands upon shared themes, specifically trauma. Additionally, I analyse the birth of and recovery from traumas (caused by bullying, loss, abuse, and feelings of otherness) for “Beauty and the Beast” archetypes within …


Ghosts’ Stories: Addictive Behaviors And Complicated Grief In George Saunders’ Lincoln In The Bardo, Jc Leishman Apr 2022

Ghosts’ Stories: Addictive Behaviors And Complicated Grief In George Saunders’ Lincoln In The Bardo, Jc Leishman

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

When experiencing the natural motions of the grieving process, some individuals encounter an inability to pass this process by a phenomenon known as complicated grief. To deal with the cyclical trauma this causes, the human mind seeks to engage in addictive behaviors (both substantive and behavioral) that work to artificially and momentarily circumvent grief. This process, as it appears in George Saunders' experimental novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, reveals a depth of commentary on human attachments and grieving processes through the lives and narratives of ghosts found in the bardo.