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Literature in English, North America Commons™
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Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Literature in English, North America
Women As Victims In Tennessee Williams' First Three Major Plays, Ruth Foley
Women As Victims In Tennessee Williams' First Three Major Plays, Ruth Foley
Masters Theses
Although Tennessee Williams does not openly champion the rights of women in his plays, he presents strong cases against their social alienation in a harsh and brutal world governed by men. Williams' emotional leanings, sensitivity, and intuition enable him to see life through women's eyes. In The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Summer and Smoke, Williams astutely sounds the battle cry for women to fight against male oppression. He shows how Amanda Wingfield, Laura Wingfield, Blanche Dubois, Stella Kowalski, and Alma Winemiller are held hostage to the rules governing patriarchal society and become unhappy marginalized victims. The self-contained …
Life Inside The Spectacle: David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, And Storytelling In The Age Of Entertainment, John Hawkins
Life Inside The Spectacle: David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, And Storytelling In The Age Of Entertainment, John Hawkins
Masters Theses
This project explores George Saunders's In Persuasion Nation and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest as interventionary literature. The thesis asserts that the two works confront the problems of isolation and dehumanization created by entertainment-based consumerism; they do so by depicting satirically exaggerated consumer societies and placing well-developed, sympathetic characters in those settings. The thesis includes a consideration of Jameson and deBord's theories of spectacle and Wallace's stated concerns with postmodern irony as an ineffective form of critique.
Humor Me To Heaven: Humor's Redemptive Role In The Works Of Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, And Marilynne Robinson, Stephanie Johnson
Humor Me To Heaven: Humor's Redemptive Role In The Works Of Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, And Marilynne Robinson, Stephanie Johnson
Masters Theses
Humor is the topic of many psychological, social, and cultural studies, but this project examines humor under a new lens. Humor's unique qualities explored in this study prove that humor is capable of more than just causing laughter; the nature of humor allows it to unveil truths about humanity, both spiritual and physical, through exposing man's flaws. This quality is especially important to consider when analyzing humor in the context of literature, in which humor also works as an aesthetic element. This study searches several short stories by Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor along with Marilynne Robinson's Gilead to reveal …
And Then, He Folds His Patterned Rug: Repressive Reality And The Eternal Soul In Vladimir Nabokov, Elizabeth Cook
And Then, He Folds His Patterned Rug: Repressive Reality And The Eternal Soul In Vladimir Nabokov, Elizabeth Cook
Masters Theses
While Vladimir Nabokov has deservedly earned fame as a stylist of the strange, most critics who study his novels approach his absurd and beautiful characters as little more than fractured victims of a wholly subjective reality. Compounding the misunderstanding is the tired debate over whether or not Lolita is literary, pornographic, or some cruel game of cat-and-mouse in which Nabokov seizes control of his readers' sense of morality. However, critics who read Nabokov as nothing more than a manipulative stylist neglect to realize that his characters suffer such absurd distortions of spirit and mind because their environment--the "average" reality of …
The Power Of Words: The Use Of Language In Ethan Frome, Heather Faye Spear
The Power Of Words: The Use Of Language In Ethan Frome, Heather Faye Spear
Masters Theses
Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, has been sharply criticized for its tragic ending, yet Wharton's compelling storytelling which depicts universal conditions of mankind accomplishes something powerful through its narrative: it defends language. The complicated relationship between the three main characters, Zeena, Ethan, and Mattie is rooted in their utilization of language. Using a combination of close reading for textual analysis and identifying a communicative style for each character, this thesis asserts that how the characters in this novel utilize language contests the meaninglessness and relativity supported by deconstructionists. Wharton clearly illustrates Zeena's linguistic power over both Ethan and Mattie, and …