Literature in English, North America Commons^™

A Pandemic Of Greed And A Disease Of Poverty In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque Of The Red Death", Benjamin Herrick

Master's Theses

The breakers tripped. Again. The breakers, a mandatory halt to trading on the floor of the stock exchange in response to the S&P falling more than 7% from the previous close. This was instituted after the Crash of 1987 to calm the markets before trading is allowed to resume. They are supposed to mitigate a drastic crash. They have only ever triggered once before, in 1997. Not for the tech bubble. Not even in the crash of 2008. All trading stops for fifteen minutes when the Level One breaker trips. If it drops further in the same day, the Level …

'Disembodied Bones': Recovering The Poetry And Prose Of Elinor Wylie 2021, Sarah R. Bullock

Master's Theses

Picking a book to read is like diving for a pearl, writes Elinor Wylie, a 20th Century American poet, novelist, essayist and prominent magazine literary editor. In her essay "The Pearl Diver", she writes that it is the diver that risks the unknown- unaided by diving equipment in the form of library indexes-who gains the greatest joy, Wylie states (Fugitive Prose, 869). Wylie explains:

I venture to perceive an analogy between the rebellious pearl diver and myself, in my slight experience with public libraries...how much more delightful, how much more stimulating, to abandon the paraphernalia of card indexes and mahogany …

“Flowing Along The Wall”: Anarcha-Feminist Bioethics And Resistance In Octavia E. Butler’S Dawn 2019., Theresa Mendez

Master's Theses

Science fiction (sf) texts conversant with the temporal play between past, present, and future push readers to imagine the extremes of human and environmental existence, interaction, and potential. Simultaneously, despite the sf genre’s tendency to traffic in extremes, these texts provoke readers to consider the ways in which these imagined worlds are grounded in history as well as in the contemporary social moment. As Donna Haraway has argued, “the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion” (306). This illusory boundary must continue to be traversed in order to consider how sf literatures, particularly those which imagine …

Posthuman And Alien Breeding: The Implications Of Cybersex In Octavia Butler’S Dawn 2019., Elizabeth Rutkowski

Master's Theses

Speculative science fiction affords new ways for authors to represent social problems of the modern day in an apocalyptic manner. Authors such as Octavia Butler use science fiction to analyze social injustices revolving around race, gender, and sexuality. Throughout her novel Dawn, Butler uses the posthuman to represent minority groups in the late twentieth century. The posthuman represents those who have moved from humanity towards a new opportunity that is mixed with the potential for struggle. 1 As demonstrated through Butler’s work posthumanism blurs the lines between binaries such as male / female, straight / gay, and consensual / nonconsensual …

The Return Of The Dead: Resurrecting Chappell's Family Gathering, Jonathan Moore

Master's Theses

This thesis examines Fred Chappell’s virtually overlooked collection of poetry Family Gathering (2000), and how the poems operate within the mode of the grotesque. I argue that the poems illuminate both the southern grotesque and Roland Barthes’s theory of photography’s Operator, Spectator, and Spectrum. I address Family Gathering as a family photo album full of still shots, snapshots, and even selfies, which illumines how Chappell’s use of the grotesque in this collection derives more from its original association with visual arts rather than only depicting the grotesque typically associated with characteristics deemed explicitly shocking or terrifying. I argue that …

T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land", And Yoga Philosophy, Jessica Cloud

Master's Theses

While pursuing his graduate studies at Harvard, T.S. Eliot put a year into deep study of the Yoga Sutras with renowned scholar James Haughton Woods. Yoga, defined in the Sutras as the practice of stopping “the fluctuations of the mind-stuff” (Patañjali 8), provides the possibility of hope and equanimity in Eliot’s poem The Waste Land (1922), which depicts a world seemingly devoid of meaning. Not only can the influence of the Yoga Sutras be seen in the poetic form, style, and voice of The Waste Land and in the explanatory notes to the poem provided by Eliot, but classical yoga …

Exploitation Of Land And Labor In Appalachia: The Manipulation Of Men In Ann Pancake's Strange As This Weather Has Been, Britani W. Baker

Master's Theses

Ecofeminism is traditionally interested in the relationship between patriarchal domination of women and nature. Ann Pancake’s novel Strange As this Weather Has Been critiques the way the coal mining industry has affected the Appalachian people and land. The novel reflects natural ecofeminism, which views the connection between women and nature in essentialist terms. This outdated mode of ecofeminism leads to a reinforcement of gender stereotypes and a misrepresentation of the relationship between gender, nature, and culture. This study of Pancake’s novel employs a material ecofeminist approach to both critique and develop the novel’s gender politics. Material ecofeminism, even as it …

The Scripture Of Helices, Jessica M. Ramer

Master's Theses

This thesis comprises poems written during my two years of study for the Master of Arts Degree in English with a creative writing emphasis. The majority of the poems are written in either a received or contemporary form, although a substantial minority are written in free verse. Many of the poems deal with extreme circumstances such as combat and imprisonment. Others address family stresses due to birth, death, remarriage, and clashes of values. Some poems have a religious emphasis while others are firmly rooted in the natural world. All, however, are explorations of human nature.

"Casting Aside That Ficticious Self.": Deciphering Female Identity In The Awakening 2015, Anne L. Dicosimo

Master's Theses

Kate Chopin’s female protagonists have long since fascinated literary critics, raising serious questions concerning the influence of nineteenth-century female gender roles in her writing. Published in 1899, The Awakening demonstrates the changeability of the various representations of woman. In the nineteenth century, the subject of women may be divided into two categories: the True Woman and the New Woman. The former were expected to “cherish and maintain the four cardinal virtues of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity” (Khoshnood et al.), while the latter sought to move away from hearth and home in order to focus on education, professions, and political …

"Carried Away": Love, Bly, And Secrecy In Henry James' The Turn Of The Screw 2015, Natalie G. El-Eid

Master's Theses

The function of the prologue in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is decidedly ambiguous, as the characters in the prologue, much like the uncle of the main text, are seemingly never seen again. For this reason, the purpose of this prologue is much debated.1 As Rolf Lundén states in his article “‘Not in any literal, vulgar way’: The Encoded Love Story of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw,” “The openness of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw has invited more analytical attempts, and more critical controversy, than most literary texts” (30). Lundén summarizes four schools of …

Daisy And Frederick: An Exploration Of Innocence And Its Consequences In Henry James' Daisy Miller: A Study 2015, Mark Andrew Meyer Ii

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

"Equal Partners In Crime": Narration In The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Rebecca Mae Holder

Master's Theses

This reading of Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao argues that narrator Yunior’s failure to capture the authentic speech of Beli illuminates the failure of narrative generally to speak authentically for the subaltern. The writings of Mikhail Bakhtin, Gayatri Spivak, and Scott McCloud work together to uncover the political and ethical implications of Yunior’s willful erasure of Beli’s voice. In the sections detailing her early life, Yunior draws attention to the gaps in the information he gives readers and thus reminds them that all narrative excludes and distorts details to fulfill an objective. This reading argues that …

Gender And Self-Representation In Maya Angelou's Autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings 2014, Jay-Nel Steitz

Master's Theses

A voice that has been silenced for so long has much to say. Whether still confined or set free, the statement applies equally to both. The silenced voice wants not only to tell his or her story, but to share the life experiences which in turn reveal the identities of these individuals. These silenced voices then are not those of the oppressors, but the oppressed; and when an oppressor wants to share his or her story, the oppressed wants to tell their side of it as well. How can those labeled the marginalized outcasts of society express their feelings and …

Minor Characters With Major Impacts : Examining Giovanelli’S Role In Henry James’ Daisy Miller 2014, Zachary Lang

Master's Theses

Henry James’s first journey into the world of the American girl came in the form of one of his most read novellas, Daisy Miller. Through the eyes of Frederick Winterbourne, the reader begins a study of Daisy Miller, a character whom James uses to showcase many of the issues that were prevalent at the time including the role of women, societal standards, and class mobility. Winterbourne and Daisy are the principal characters, and as such they are given the most attention from readers and critics alike. The minor character Giovanelli, however, has received little critical attention. Despite being a minor …

A Kierkegaardian Reading Of Three Novels By Faulkner, Francine Marilyn Hall

Master's Theses

William Faulkner and S¢ren Kierkegaard, although separated in time by almost a century, possess a common concern: both are deeply interested in the numerous ways in which individuals live out their lives in either hope or despair. Exploring the avenues which might alleviate this despair and providing a basis for hope are tasks both authors have accepted as theirs.

This paper relates three novels by Faulkner to the stages of existence set forth by Kierkegaard in much of his philosophical writing. I intend to show that Faulk­ ner's characters serve as illustrations of different ways in which an individual may …

Washington Irving: Artist Of The Picturesque, Dana Dewey Woody

Master's Theses

Living in the period of romanticism in art and literature, Irving reflects the spirit and taste of the times. His choice of subject matter and his attitude toward it were romantic. He wrote about things that were old, unusual and strange-Spanish castles, English churches and manor houses, Hudson River area legends and traditions. He found nature delightful and was sympathetic toward humble creatures, such as the noble savage and animals.

Art of the romantic period pleased without disturbing and pictured common human situations, painted sentimentally and with a touch of humor. The beauty of primeval nature was painted with tenderness …

Revolt And Compromise : Steinbeck's Characters And Society, James Randolph Fitzgerald

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Village Revolt In American Literature, Gerald Kerr Wells

Master's Theses

This thesis will concern three facets of small town life: (1) The communities in thelr development have assumed certain general characteristics which apply to the small town regardless of its location and which are unique to a small town. (2) Within the community certain members have obtained social promenence because of their professional position. Their training in most instances was taken outside the town, and their statue was assured by the needs of the community. Among these are the minister, the teacher, the doctor, the newspaper editor, and the town magnate. (3) In small-town literature certain "characters" often appear. They …

Transcendentalism In The Private Journals Of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rachel Sherwood

Master's Theses

This paper is designed to interpret Transcendentalism by showing its origins and influences and to give the reader a view into the private journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The first chapter is devoted to a study of Transcendentalism and the question of its taking root in the Boston area in the 1830's. The second chapter presents a study of Emerson as he debated the forces of his universe and formulated a philosophy to explain the vicissitudes of life. It is necessary to relate Emerson's views with the events of his life. The years covered in the second chapter are 1820-1835.

Cabell's Rational Morality As Expressed Through The Dream-Vision Technique In Jurgen, Ruth Macdonald Stevenson

Master's Theses

The various parts of this study deal with various episodes in Jurgen, episodes in which Jurgen progresses from one region to another and from one set of circumstances to another with no very immediately apparent relationship between any two of his adventures. This apparent lack of unity is deceiving. What witness, if we are perceptive, is not an aimless progression to region after region but a series of related allegories, each of which concerns it­self with some aspect of reality, the moral values involved therein, and man's "reasonable" adjustment to these realities. The unity of this thesis rests upon the …

Ernest Hemingway, A Writer Of Episodes, Robert Alexander Chermside Jr.

Master's Theses

In this thesis my purpose is to analyze and review some of Hemingway's episodes and short scenes, which I believe to be his most valuable work, in order that their value may become evident. I then intend to show that the author's novels are in most cases dependent on these episodes for their literary success. In accomplishing this, it would be useless to consider everything Hemingway has written. I shall deal only with his fiction and shall confine myself to selections which most amply illustrate my point.

An Investigation Of The "Fragile Escape" In The Work Of Elinor Wylie, Claribel A. Moroney

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Influence Affecting Hart Crane, Dorothy Jayne Mcnulty

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Expression Of The Modern World In The Works Of W.H. Auden, Margaret Mary. Mcnulty

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The New Poetry Of The American South, M. Carmel Meyer

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Whitman And Sandburg, Irene Kuzminski

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Henry James's Principles And Practice As A Craftsman Of Fiction, Wesley Francis Amar

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Satirical Tendencies In Modern American Drama, Marie H. Kelly

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Metrical Theories Of Poe And Lanier, Mary Aloysia Freund

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.