Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
English Language and Literature Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature
"What Do The Divils Find To Laugh About" In Melville's The Confidence-Man, Truedson J. Sandberg
"What Do The Divils Find To Laugh About" In Melville's The Confidence-Man, Truedson J. Sandberg
Theses and Dissertations
The failure of identity in The Confidence-Man has confounded readers since its publication. To some critics, Melville's titular character has seemed to leave his readers in a hopelessness without access to confidence, identity, trust, ethical relationality, and, finally, without anything to say. I argue, however, that Melville's text does not leave us without hope. My argument, consequently, is inextricably bound to a reading of Melville's text as deeply engaged with the concepts it inherits from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, an inheritance woefully under-examined by those critics who would leave Melville's text in the mire of hopelessness. In examining …
Identification Through Inhabitation In Literature, Film, And Video Games, Charlotte Palfreyman Smith
Identification Through Inhabitation In Literature, Film, And Video Games, Charlotte Palfreyman Smith
Theses and Dissertations
In real life we each experience the world separately through our individual bodies, which necessitates what Kenneth Burke calls "identification." In this paper, I assert that as artistic media have structured our aesthetic experience in a way that increasingly resembles our lived, embodied experiences, our identification with fictional characters requires less imaginative effort and is more automatic and powerful. I will show this by analyzing how we inhabit characters through sensory engagement, point of view, and narrative form in literature, film, and video games (specifically action/adventure games, RPGs, and MMORPGs). I will then build off of Burke's foundational theory to …
Rethinking The Historical Lens: A Case For Relational Identity In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street, Annalisa Wiggins
Rethinking The Historical Lens: A Case For Relational Identity In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street, Annalisa Wiggins
Theses and Dissertations
My thesis proposes a theory of relational identity development in Chicana literature. Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera offers an interpretation of Chicana identity that is largely based on historical models and mythology, which many scholars have found useful in interpreting Chicana literature. However, I contend that another text, Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, not only illustrates the need for an alternative paradigm for considering identity development, but in fact offers such an alternative. I argue that Cisneros shows a model for relational identity development, wherein the individual develops in the context of her community and is not determined solely …
A Virginia Woolf Of One's Own: Consequences Of Adaptation In Michael Cunningham's The Hours, Brooke Leora Grant
A Virginia Woolf Of One's Own: Consequences Of Adaptation In Michael Cunningham's The Hours, Brooke Leora Grant
Theses and Dissertations
With a rising interest in visual media in academia, studies have overlapped at literary and film scholars' interest in adaptation. This interest has mainly focused on the examination of issues regarding adaptation of novel to novel or novel to film. Here I discuss both: Michael Cunningham's novel The Hours, which is an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and the 2002 film adaptation of Cunningham's novel. However, my thesis also investigates a different kind of adaptation: the adaptation of a literary and historical figure. By including in The Hours a fictionalization of Virginia Woolf, Cunningham entrenches his adaptation with Virginia …