English Language and Literature Commons^™

A Panoptic System And Social Control’S Influence On The Children In Henry James’S 'The Turn Of The Screw', Taylor Whittington

The Corinthian

This paper’s purpose is to offer a new reading of the children in Henry James’s novella The Turn of The Screw (1898). The paper argues that the characters are subjects of Foucault’s panopticon and social control, which results in Flora’s loss of social status and Miles’s death due to their lack of adherence to the social control. I also argue that the social control and the panoptic system integrate themselves into the Bly household and work alongside one another to reinforce the hierarchy. A panoptic system represents a type of surveillance based on Bentham’s architectural design that subject prisoners to …

The Impact Of Emma: Destroying Stereotypes Through Nuanced Characters In Text And Film, Julia Mccool

English MA Theses

This paper explores Jane Austen’s Emma as a response to stereotypes in 18th century novels and moral tales, and Autumn De Wildes’s Emma. from a feminist lens. Examining both of these works reveals that Emma was originally, and still is over 200 years later, transforming stereotypes in literature and film adaptations. The novel seems to be responding to a common stereotypical female villain found in many 18th century novels. In viewing Emma as a subversion of this stereotype, it is clear that Austen was responding to the sexist notions behind the character type, and writing a heroine more in line …

This Passing Shadow: The Role Of Trauma In Reforming Individual And Cultural Identity In The Lord Of The Rings And Anglo-Saxon Literature, Benjamin C. Benson

English MA Theses

Many scholars focus on J.R.R. Tolkien's personal history and attempt to locate his own trauma in the texts of his works. However, this focus often overlooks the role that trauma plays in the reshaping of individual and cultural identity within the works of Tolkien. Tolkien uses a number of methods to communicate trauma throughout his works, but these methods often have roots in Anglo-Saxon Literature. This study analyzes the various ways that Tolkien adapts Anglo-Saxon works to communicate trauma while simultaneously using the traumatic events to help communicate healing through the interaction of the traumatized with their community.

Across Time And Genre: A Comparative Analysis Of Eastern And Western Romanticism, Nayoung Seo

English MA Theses

This research centers on big ideas about flowers, fruit, and growing up as themes that create a bridge between American, British, and South Korean Romanticism. Through comparatively analyzing Romantic elements in literary works across genres, the globe, and time periods—from poems, a short story, to popular contemporary music—this research will trace out the dimensions and contours of that bridge, which more and more people are crossing today than ever before as readers, music fans, and as travelers and immigrants. Each chapter will focus on Romantic elements interwoven with humanity, nature, and art and their demonstration of what it means to …

Taulkinham’S Guardian: The Character Of Enoch Emery In Flannery O’Connor’S Wise Blood, Michaela Reed

Graduate Research Showcase

Flannery O’Connor’s first novel Wise Blood follows the story of Hazel Motes as his journey in the hostile city of Taulkinham transforms him from a defiant defector of the divine to a stoic and resigned blind prophet. For many readers, Hazel’s evolution labels him as the sole owner of wise blood in the novel, a conclusion that fails to acknowledge Enoch Emery’s obedience to his own innate wisdom. Enoch’s bumbling behavior and animalistic drive cause many O’Connor writers and scholars, such as Patrick O’Donnell and Jason C. Lee, to interpret him as little more than a comic simpleton. However, careful …

“Just Don’T Frighten The Horses”: Discussing Porn And Kink In Fandom Spaces, Hillary Hencely

Graduate Research Showcase

In my presentation, I plan to discuss why the banning of sexually explicit content is occurring in fandom spaces, who is trying to ban this content, and why it should matter to people both inside and outside of fandom. I also intend to look at these answers within the framework of feminism and fandom culture. When fanfiction is considered to be literature, it is easy to see why fanfiction matters. This is especially true when the authors of fanfiction are primarily women and are told that their content might be harmful to others through the reasoning that pornography is anti-feminist. …

Alex In Wonderland (Or A Clockwork Tour) + Whale Watching, Colin Bishoff

Graduate Research Showcase

Lewis Carroll’s (Charles Dodgson’s) Alice stories (1865, 1871) and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962) remain some of the most linguistically inventive works of English literature. Yet despite their shared fondness for creative wordplay—and due, perhaps, to the stylistic differences of their respective film adaptations—Carroll and Burgess are rarely considered side by side. While some of the parallels between their works can no doubt be traced to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake—which took inspiration from Carroll and which Burgess, in turn, translated into Italian—the similarities between the Alice stories and A Clockwork Orange are significant enough in themselves to merit attention. …

Christian Allegories And Social Change In Southern Literature: A Comparative Study Of Mason Tarwater And Atticus Finch In Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away And Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, Marlee Ruark

English MA Theses

This thesis compares Mason Tarwater of Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away and Atticus Finch of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird to better understand how each author comments on Christian allegories and social change within their novels. This thesis argues that To Kill a Mockingbird promotes social change through the Christian values of good Samaritanism, nonviolence, and inclusion, while The Violent Bear It Away promotes a problematic Christian message. This thesis identifies how both novels utilize religious allegory. In O’Connor’s novel, the paradoxical and violent prophet figure, Mason Tarwater, uses violence and division to evoke change, while in …

Reclamation: The Crown Of African American Identity, Lindsey Kellogg

English MA Theses

African American voices have been the main sources of influence on society and culture. For this reason, it is important that African Americans speak up and reclaim their voices. Not only are their voices important, but the stories that lie behind the voices are what need to be amplified. With the application of postcolonial theory, this thesis takes modern stories located in North America depicting racist behavior towards African Americans from the year 1970 to present-day New York City in order to fully amplify the process of social struggle. As these narratives are passed down through generations serving as a …

Freeing The Black Final Girl In Postmillennial Zombie Horror: Race, Gender, And The Strong Black Woman Stereotype In 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead, & Z Nation, Makhalath Fahiym

English MA Theses

Freeing the Black Final Girl in Postmillennial Zombie Horror: Race, Gender, and the Strong Black Woman Stereotype in 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead, & Z Nation discusses the cultural image and issues of representation of the black femme within the horror genre. As the horror genre shifts in the 21st century to an era of increasingly diverse representation, examining the black Final Girl is particularly relevant. Race complicates the Final Girl concept and the black Final Girl must be analyzed within the context of the controlling images, like the Strong Black Woman stereotype, and racialized horror tropes …

What The World Needs Now: Love, Humor And The Shakespeare Connection, Kelly Capers

English MA Theses

What the World Needs Now: Love, Humor and the Shakespeare Connection discusses how the modern romantic comedy (rom com) genre depicts gender roles in adaptations of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of the Shrew. This paper looks at Shakespeare’s contributions to the themes of romantic comedy and how 21^st Century filmmakers interpret his concepts. Because rom com typically lacks value among scholars, much of this genre’s impact on audiences is overlooked, yet its popularity makes it an undeniable presence deserving a closer examination. The 2020 pandemic brought into specific relief, not only the popularity …

Female Rage, Revenge, And Catharsis: The "Good For Her" Genre Defined In Promising Young Woman (2020), Tara Heimberger

English MA Theses

By analyzing relevant cultural contexts to the popularity of the “Good for Her” genre, such as the “#MeToo” movement, the Trump presidency, and the resurgence of conservatism in the United States, the development of the “Good for Her” genre and its impact can be made clear. Given the genre’s development through social discourse on social media, it has become a universal and collaborative representation of liberation from oppressive experiences under a patriarchal society. The lead women in these films give those who experience patriarchal oppression a reprieve and an opportunity for catharsis they would not typically get in a male-led, …

Noisy Transgressions: Gendered Noise, Female Voices, And Noisy Narration In Anne Bronte's The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, Brianna Phillips

English MA Theses

This thesis re-evaluates Anne Brontë’s critically undervalued novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) through its noisy women. By joining the fields of narratology and noise studies, I argue for the subversive noisiness of a novel that has been overwhelmingly dismissed by critics as a text of female silence, subjugation, and subordination. However, by offering a soundscape of gendered noise and proliferating female voices, Brontë privileges the sounds of women’s voices in such a way that female noise “re-voices” the masculine origins of the novel (Gilbert Markham’s frame narrative). Contrary to traditional readings of Brontë’s heroine, Helen Huntingdon proves subversively …

Video Games Are Where The Detective Story Has Always Belonged: The Progression Of Detective Stories Into Video Games, Robert Palmour

English MA Theses

From its inception, the detective genre has always tried to challenge the reader with a mystery. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of the various traditional mediums this is a challenge that is largely unmet as the mystery is revealed to the reader regardless of their ability to actually solve what was presented. With the more recent medium of video games however this challenge to a reader can finally be met. A detective story can now be presented to a player who must then solve it themselves in order to progress through the game. This thesis is divided up into multiple …

Playing With Noise: Anne Elliot, The Narrator, And Sound In Jane Austen's And Adrian Shergold's Persuasion, Brianna R. Phillips

The Corinthian

This paper pushes against the critical tradition that views silence or listening in relation to passivity and powerlessness by exploring the role of noise in Jane Austen’s Persuasion and in Adrian Shergold’s experimental 2007 film adaptation of that novel and how sound relates to Anne Elliot’s emotional legibility. Austen fills the narrative landscape with sounds that are filtered almost exclusively through Anne so that even when she is silent, she is “making noise” through her focalizations and through free indirect narration. Both Austen and Shergold align noise with Anne’s emotions such that Anne’s sensorial responses to shocking, loud, and disruptive …

Trauma, Violence, And Deathly Consequences: Female Justice In Contemporary Literature And Television Adaptations, Allie Owens

English MA Theses

Over the past decade, a familiar villainous character has begun to arise in television adaptation: the mentally-fractured heroine who turns to villainy: women who have been attacked, raped, or lost loved ones to villains. These attacks and losses trigger murderous rampages and other violence that often leads to their descent into villainy. Netflix’s Jessica Jones, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, and its television adaptation Game of Thrones, feature heroines that turn to violence to get revenge. However, the violent heroines in these texts and television adaptations do not just become villains; some …

The Lens Of Truth: A Critical Response To The Role Of Rinehart In Ellison's Invisible Man, Michael Cudmore

Georgia College Student Research Events

After exploring several different critical evaluations of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man, I discovered that multiple scholars paint the figure Rinehart in a positive light, believing he represents the benefits and possibility of an African-American man living in an urban environment. Other critics posited that Rinehart serves more as a representation of a lack of morality and the deception of others, but they often only mentioned this point briefly or without substantial supporting evidence. This paper aims to not only argue that Rinehart serves as a more negative figure than many scholars believe, but also to build upon the arguments …

Cuba Journals Volume I - Transcription, Laura Swarner

Undergraduate Theses

The document is a transcribed version of volume I of the digital copy of the Cuba Journals which can be found online at the New York Public Library Archives. The Cuba Journals were written by Sophia Peabody Hawthorne during her time abroad in Cuba recovering from illness.

From Terrorism To Feminism: Live-Action Superhero Films As Reflections Of American Social Problems Post 9/11, Lindsey Poe

English MA Theses

Superheroes have always been used as tools of escapism. From their insurgence into popular culture in the 1930s, to their animation in television programs, and appearance in films in the late 1970s until now, superheroes have allowed audiences an avenue through which they could imagine an alternate, utopian reality. Through the analyses of modern superhero films, audiences are able to connect how the genre reflects larger social and political fears in the wake of such unexpected realities: fear of annihilation after the 9/11 attacks and existing in a potentially unsafe America following the election of Donald Trump. The superhero film …

Beyond Marital Bliss: A Redemption Of Motherhood In Jane Austen, Destiny Cornelison

English MA Theses

Though the mother figures in Jane Austen’s novels are often written off as ridiculous or unlikeable, this thesis posits that the mothers of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park are written as they are in an intentional effort on Austen’s part to condemn the society that forced them into roles of ridiculousness or stinginess. Their inconsistencies highlight the unattainable standards placed on mothers by society as a whole and their eccentricities are the result of a lack of outlet for feminine energy. Character studies of the women of these novels illustrate that they are not …

Letters To My Dead Mom, Alexandra Mclaughlin

Creative Nonfiction MFA Theses

This thesis is a collection of letters to the author's mother spaced throughout seasons of the year.

The Relationship Between Rock Climbing And Total Body Strength And Endurance, Madison Gamma, Alexa Bruce, Madison Massey, Ashlee Cordero

The Corinthian

Purpose: The purpose of our study was to assess the relationship between muscular strength and endurance and time to complete a rock wall climb.

Methods: The researchers of this study tested 22 participants ranging from 19-25 years of age. An informed consent and a Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PARQ+) form were completed by each individual before being cleared to participate in this study. Data collection was completed on two separate days. On the first day, participants completed four fitness tests which consisted of a hand grip strength assessment, a 10-repetition maximum (RM) leg press, a flexed arm hang test, and …

Acknowledging The "Forgotten" Contributions Of Black Female Authors: A Review Of _Women Of The Harlem Renaissance_ By Cheryl Wall, Emily M. Allmond

The Corinthian

This review critiques Cheryl Wall's book, Women of the Harlem Renaissance. In this book, Wall addresses the contributions black female authors and artists made to the Harlem Renaissance. The life stories of Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston are examined and analyzed by Wall to show the obstacles these female authors faced, and the ways in which the subject matter of their works was affected by their circumstances and cultural upbringing. For many years, these contributions were largely overlooked by both critics and popular culture. Wall's narrative illuminates the significance of these contributions, provides some context for …

A Question Of Identity: God And The Human Crisis In William Blake’S The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell And Songs Of Innocence And Experience, Hannah R. Lindquist

The Corinthian

In his works, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Songs of Innocence and Experience, William Blake explores traditional constructs and philosophies of good and evil, challenging the status quo, and criticizing the way that humankind treats their fellowmen. Additionally, Blake points out errors in the man-made social and religious structures and institutions, and, the consequences of these said structures and institutions. Blake addresses the identity and existence of God as both an individual entity and as he is presented by religious individuals. God, in Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Songs of Innocence and Experience, is presented …

Revealing The Face Of Islamophobia: A Critical Evaluation Of Western Feminism, Kelley Quinn

The Corinthian

This paper will dive into the various pharisaical views and practices by governments and cultures through an intersectional feminist lens. Throughout the world, cultures shape the definition of appropriate and expected dress, particularly for women. In previous years, the covering of woman’s hair and/or face was a systemic oppression forced on by a patriarchal government. These women have made efforts to reclaim this clothing by enforcing a choice to wear or to not wear the garment. Western Feminism, however, still views these women as oppressed and forces them to remove their covering, such as making it illegal to wear or …

Questioning The Question: Review Of Modernism And The Harlem Renaissance, Destiny Cornelison

The Corinthian

Through my book review of Houston A. Baker, Jr.’s Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, I examine how well Baker ingeniously transforms the question defining Harlem Renaissance scholarship from “Why did the Harlem Renaissance fail?” to “How did the Harlem Renaissance marshal black aesthetic tradition to develop a form of modernism for the New Negro?” Baker’s bold refusal to limit scholarship to the question being asked engages current readers in a previously unreachable aspect of this momentous movement.

Something Rotten: Space, Place, And The Nation In Hamlet And As You Like It, Mikaela Lafave

English MA Theses

Ecocriticism has been defined as literature that concretely concerns the environment, which can be obviously applied to those of Shakespeare’s that directly depict natural disaster. This creates a prototype of a Shakespearean Ecocritical canon. My thesis addresses the limitation of this initial definition, and applies ecocritical theory to other works by Shakespeare. Ecocriticism is no longer confined to only the natural as critics expand the field through examinations of built environments and urban interaction with the natural. This widening of the field encourages the addition of further Ecocritical Shakespeare. How can audiences see the unnatural as natural, and conversely the …

Leaving Neverland For Narnia: Childhood And Gender In Peter Pan, The Secret Garden, And The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Calabria Turner

English MA Theses

British gender expectations are often epitomized in mature adults, either in society or within novels, but in Peter Pan, The Secret Garden, and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe gender roles are interpreted by the child protagonists. J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan inhabits the world of the Neverland, but the gender roles of Victorian England follow them from London to the home below the tree where Peter, Wendy, her brothers, and the Lost Boys reside in a pseudo-domestic sphere. Peter often engages in literal discussion of what it means to become an English man, while Wendy lives …

Margaret Chase Smith’S 1950 Declaration Of Conscience Senate Speech: A Stance Against The Exploitation Of Fear, Victoria E. Mcbrayer

The Corinthian

The article focuses on Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s speech she gave on the Senate floor on June 1, 1950. Her speech took place during the Cold War when tensions were high between the democratic United States and the communist Soviet Union. President Truman’s policy of containment and the anticommunist crusade taking place in the United States created an atmosphere of fear among Americans that politicians used to advance their careers. “Declaration of Conscience” was Senator Smith’s stance against the exploitation of fear for political gain and the first time someone spoke out against the corrupt Joseph McCarthy, whose slanderous witch …

Silver And Gold: The Markers Of Goodness, Greed And Vanity In Chaucer's Travelers, Samantha G. Strickland

Georgia College Student Research Events

In this presentation, I will argue that in the “General Prologue” to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer refers to silver and gold in three different ways in and analyze how these methods reflect on the travelers as well as reflect Chaucer’s own musings on morality and wealth: through description of their attire or looks, through reference to the literal exchange, and through metaphor. All three types of references allow for both negative, like the Pardoner and Miller, and positive, like the Parson, evaluations of the specific traveler’s character, and through this Chaucer reminds the reader that wealth is not inherently good …