Literature in English, North America Commons^™

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 …

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) …

From The Tide Pool To The Stars : A Study Of The Evolution Of John Steinbeck's Attitude Towards Good And Evil, Karen Wallace Bondonno

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

It was the purpose of my thesis to trace the evolution of Steinbeck's view, in his non-fiction of what the conflict between good and evil consists, along with the development of this concern, and its related stylistic influence, on his fiction, in order to show that Steinbeck's major concern was for man's relationship to this conflict.

I was alerted to the existence of an evolution in view in Steinbeck by the chance reading of his last novel, The Winter of Our Discontent, in juxtaposition with several early novels. In order best to follow this change, then, I read all …