Recovering Pearl: Utopian Projections In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter",
2023
Seton Hall University
Recovering Pearl: Utopian Projections In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", Evan Weiss
Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)
Much of the recent scholarly criticism of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter aims to demonstrate the novel’s function as an allegory for Hawthorne’s anti-reformist (and especially anti-abolitionist) views at the height of the antebellum crisis. This commitment to revealing Hawthorne’s conservatism tends to cast the novel’s major figures as pieces within a self-balancing paradigm of good (intentions) and evil (acts) that ultimately symbolizes the author’s preference for inaction on the major political and humanitarian issue of his time—slavery. Curiously, however, the character of Pearl, Hester Prynne’s “wild,” “bird-like” child who dominates nearly every scene in which she appears, is almost …
“She Didn’T Know I Was In The Room”: The Effects Of Hatfield’S Illustrations On Readers’ Interpretations Of “The Yellow Wallpaper”,
2023
Cleveland State University
“She Didn’T Know I Was In The Room”: The Effects Of Hatfield’S Illustrations On Readers’ Interpretations Of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Mason Repas
The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University
When Charlotte Gilman's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," was first published in New England Magazine in 1892, staff illustrator Joseph Hatfield created three realistic-style images to accompany the text. Research suggests that Gilman had no control or influence over these images, which altered readers' perception of her story about the dangers of the rest cure for female hysteria. While Hatfield faced artistic limitations and his intentions are not discoverable today, the choices and details in his illustrations support interpretations of the short story as a piece of horror fiction in which his cohesive series of images is a more reliable …
Sweat Equity: Lynn Nottage's Radical Dialectic Of Deindustrialization,
2023
Chapman University
Sweat Equity: Lynn Nottage's Radical Dialectic Of Deindustrialization, Jocelyn L. Buckner
Theatre Faculty Books and Book Chapters
"Lynn Nottage has devoted her career to researching and telling stories of Black individuals and communities with expressed interest in laborers, advocating for their agency, humanity, and legacy. In her second Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Sweat, Nottage dramatizes more recent US history, illuminating the lives of workers marginalized by the deindustrialization of the Rust Belt in the early 2000s. Sweat is emblematic of Nottage's sustained effort to deploy playwriting as activism and stand in solidarity with those whose stories she chooses to tell. As a constant theme in her works, Lynn Nottage's stories align with marginalized workers' efforts and histories, …
Review Of Jack Lewis And His American Cousin, Nat Hawthorne: A Study Of
Instructive Affinities,
2023
Morehead State University
Review Of Jack Lewis And His American Cousin, Nat Hawthorne: A Study Of Instructive Affinities, John Stanifer
Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal
A review of D. G. Kehl, Jack Lewis and His American Cousin, Nat Hawthorne: A Study of Instructive Affinities (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2013). ix + 247 pages. $29.00. ISBN 9781610978361.
Beyond Blackface: Minstrel Shows In Modern Day America,
2023
Lindenwood University
Beyond Blackface: Minstrel Shows In Modern Day America, Cheyenne Burns
The Confluence
This essay explores the history of Blackface in America and how not addressing or treating Blackface as a taboo has allowed for microaggressions within the media to continue.
Lovecraftian Queerness: Weird And Queer Temporalities In Lovecraft Country And Detransition, Baby,
2023
Chapman University
Lovecraftian Queerness: Weird And Queer Temporalities In Lovecraft Country And Detransition, Baby, Eurydice Dye
English (MA) Theses
By analyzing H. P. Lovecraft’s work through the lens of queer temporality, I offer a queer perspective on Lovecraft, reading the monstrous outside in his work as a queer figure and casting the temporal conflict common to Lovecraftian horror as a conflict between dominant time and outside time. I argue that, by placing queerly-temporal protagonists in conflict with dominant temporalities, queer fiction is essentially an inversion of Lovecraftian horror. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope of the novel, I develop a theory of the queer chronotope in fiction to align with the queer temporalities that queer characters inhabit. …
Through Her Eyes: Learning And Teaching About Racism Through "To Kill A Mockingbird" And "The Bluest Eye",
2023
College of the Holy Cross
Through Her Eyes: Learning And Teaching About Racism Through "To Kill A Mockingbird" And "The Bluest Eye", Sloane Larsen
English Honors Theses
This thesis argues that Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird both merit a place in te United States’ secondary education systems by using use them in the classroom to encourage students to recognize and challenge their biases, perspectives, and choices. One of the many complex questions this thesis addresses is the efficacy of teaching students about racism using such novels. Teaching these novels through Critical Race Theory could help create a new generation of students who are more likely to address and challenge their biases and privilege. At the same time, this approach requires …
"Enlightened Motherhood": Frances Ellen Watkins Harper And The Conception Of Black Womanhood,
2023
Clark University
"Enlightened Motherhood": Frances Ellen Watkins Harper And The Conception Of Black Womanhood, Christina Rose Walcott
History
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an influential nineteenth-century activist and writer. She was active in the antislavery lecture circuit and the suffrage movement. She developed a conception of Black womanhood through her writing that culminated in a richer understanding of equal rights in the United States. This thesis reexamines her work from an interdisciplinary standpoint. She developed her vision of Black womanhood over time through the character of the enslaved mother in the Antebellum era, the nuances of freedom during the Civil War and Reconstruction era, and finally through home as a personal space and as a nation in the …
“It’S Alive!” The Birth And Afterlife Of The Gothic Genre,
2023
East Tennessee State University
“It’S Alive!” The Birth And Afterlife Of The Gothic Genre, Tanner Linkous
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis explores the development of the Gothic novel in England throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This thesis establishes the Gothic as a literary mode of middle-class terror by analyzing Gothic novels within the historical context of the Industrial and Democratic revolutions. This requires an in-depth understanding of politics throughout both centuries and this thesis engages with several sources such as Maggie Kilgour’s The Rise of the Gothic Novel which adds important context to my claims. Additionally, I use several contemporary sources such as Godwin’s Caleb Williams, the writings of Edmund Burke, and On the Pleasure Derived from Objects …
Oceans Of Literature - The Little Mermaid,
2023
Chapman University
Oceans Of Literature - The Little Mermaid, Makena Metz
English (MA) Theses
Mermaid stories have existed for millennia, stemming back to the ancient cultures of the world. Influenced by the mythos established in books like The Iliad, sirens and mermaids were a part of European culture for centuries. The mermaid as chimera monster that represented the duality of danger and seduction was subverted in 1837, when Hans Christian Andersen wrote the seminal fairy tale “The Little Mermaid.” In our present day, we can find that this short story has created a canon of “mermaid” literature, especially in the fantasy canon, and has majorly impacted our pop culture and digital spheres. By tracing …
Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler,
2023
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler, Korryn Plantenberg
Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects
During the 1980’s the Second Wave feminist movement provided more interest in interdisciplinary movements towards equity in the case of gender. One movement that slowly grew was Womanism, which included the intersection between race and gender. Specifically, the experiences of black women in the United States. Inspired by this movement authors such as Octavia Butler was a black science fiction author who wrote literature focused on black women. Alongside her preoccupation, with race in science fiction, Butler explores the nature of consent and bodily autonomy in utopian and dystopian futures. Within her novels, she uses Womanism to engage with futuristic …
What's That Word . . . : The Real Reverse Dictionary,
2023
University of Rhode Island
What's That Word . . . : The Real Reverse Dictionary, Giacomo Wholey
Senior Honors Projects
No abstract provided.
Führer And Father In Flux: Fascism And Desire In The Works Of George Saunders, Don Delillo, And David Foster Wallace,
2023
East Tennessee State University
Führer And Father In Flux: Fascism And Desire In The Works Of George Saunders, Don Delillo, And David Foster Wallace, K. Tyler Wick
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Since the end of World War II, the possibility of fascism and totalitarianism as a global threat continues to proliferate in American art and literature to the point that many individuals paradoxically desire the very things that seek to control them. Postmodern literature often portrays fascism and totalitarianism as it exists under contemporary capitalist systems as a multiplicity of discreet machines operating within objects of desire. These objects are complicated by the 24-hour news cycle and the popularity of solitary, on-demand entertainment that in turn mediates the desires and fears of a population through strict control of information. This thesis …
Consuming The World: Poetic Appetite, Memory, And Identity In Li-Young Lee’S Food Poems,
2023
East Tennessee State University
Consuming The World: Poetic Appetite, Memory, And Identity In Li-Young Lee’S Food Poems, Claire Liszka
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Food is a universal human necessity, yet food often serves more than a biological purpose as it informs individual and communal identities, and even facilitates memory. This thesis explores personal memory, the development of identity, and an almost reverential connection to nature in several food poems by Li-Young Lee in Rose (1986) and Behind My Eyes (2008). Born in 1957, Lee has been writing poetry since he was young, studying under Gerald Stern in the late 1970s, and he is known for writing sublime, transcendent yet incredibly accessible and expressive poetry. This thesis gives an overview of food studies and …
Mankind Is Machine: A Monstrous Posthuman Reading Of Philip K. Dick’S Selected Works,
2023
East Tennessee State University
Mankind Is Machine: A Monstrous Posthuman Reading Of Philip K. Dick’S Selected Works, Gabriel Davis
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The works of Philip K. Dick act as an ideal template for readers to explore what it means to be human in a technologically dominated world. Dick’s emphasis on the usage of androids and artificial intelligence as literary monsters allows for a posthuman reading of the traditional literary monster, notably in how their uncanny nature and behavior helps reveal the synthetic tendencies of humanity. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, “Imposter,” and “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon,” each narrative incorporates artificial intelligence and androids acting as others to reveal the machine-like qualities of Dick’s human characters. This …
The American Dream, The American Lie: An Examination Of Queerness, Disability And American Identity In Miss Lonelyhearts,
2023
California State University, San Bernardino
The American Dream, The American Lie: An Examination Of Queerness, Disability And American Identity In Miss Lonelyhearts, Vivian Arias
Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations
This project, informed primarily by queer theory and disability studies, examines the ways in which queerness, disability, and marginality are central to Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts, and his critique of the American Dream. Nathanael West, Jewish American novelist and screenwriter, is remembered for his work critiquing the American Dream; however, one aspect that has remained understudied is how his novels feature non-normative outsiders, past and present. The primary analysis of this project is focused on the 1933 novella Miss Lonelyhearts. Other works by West are also referenced. From West’s perspective, the American Dream was the American nightmare for …
“Too Good To Kill”: Literary Gerontology And Late Style In Margaret Atwood’S Gilead Novels,
2023
California State University, San Bernardino
“Too Good To Kill”: Literary Gerontology And Late Style In Margaret Atwood’S Gilead Novels, Serina Item
Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations
Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid's Tale, and her 2019 sequel, The Testaments, illuminate the author’s continued interest in the connection between a woman’s age and the notion of her usefulness and complicity within a hegemonically masculine society. Focusing on literary gerontology and the author’s late style, this essay highlights Atwood’s persistent rejection of patriarchal representations of older women in literature. I analyze the ways in which Atwood’s “ustopian” (Atwood’s literary genre invention, combining “dystopia” and “utopia”) novels develop older women characters beyond “old age as motif and metaphor” by removing age and gender as significant barriers to …
Steps Toward Healing From The Possessive Other: The Vital Role Of Fantastical Literature In Trauma Theory,
2023
Chapman University
Steps Toward Healing From The Possessive Other: The Vital Role Of Fantastical Literature In Trauma Theory, Rebekah Izard
English (MA) Theses
Fantastical narratives such as fairy tales and magical realist literature utilizes fantastic and intangible spaces to unpack that which is often beyond the limitations imposed on our understanding by reality: the stunting experience of individual and generational traumas. This study aims to contribute to the current literary discourse’s understandings of fantastic literature and its subgenres as a tool for healing from trauma through the application of ontological notions of Selfhood and Otherness supplied by 20th century philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, and the notion of Orientalism by postcolonial scholar, Edward Said. The dialogue generated by these schools of thought provide a space …
Media Analysis And Journalistic Applications,
2023
California State University, Monterey Bay
Media Analysis And Journalistic Applications, Jose Villasenor Cervantes
Capstone Projects and Master's Theses
Media has been a part of our lives now for a better part of over a century or more. From newspapers, radio, tv, film, music. All of these have impacted our lives since their creation and have influenced our society for better or worse for educational or not so educational purposes. Media in all of its aspects have been around for many years and that has translated to every part of our society. We see a film and we quickly talk about its whether it was good or bad but we analyze it. This goes for everyone from children to …
Sehnsucht And Eros In The Life And Work Of Sheldon Vanauken,
2023
George Fox University
Sehnsucht And Eros In The Life And Work Of Sheldon Vanauken, Ralph C. Wood
Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal
A review essay on Will Vaus, Sheldon Vanauken: The Man Who Received “A Severe Mercy” (Hamden, CT, 2013). 292 pages. $16.99. ISBN: 9781935688037.
