Overcoming Sin: Comparing Dante’S Inferno And The New Testament To Cormac Mccarthy’S Outer Dark And Child Of God,
2016
University of New Orleans
Overcoming Sin: Comparing Dante’S Inferno And The New Testament To Cormac Mccarthy’S Outer Dark And Child Of God, Tammy S. Hanson
LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
There are many textual and thematic similarities between Dante’s Inferno and Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark. There are also significant textual similarities between the New Testament and McCarthy’s third novel, Child of God. Juxtaposing Outer Dark and Child of God to Inferno and the New Testament, respectively, suggests a common trope that redemption requires characters’ name and repent of sin.
The Family Gothic: Identity And Kinship In The American Gothic Tradition,
2016
James Madison University
The Family Gothic: Identity And Kinship In The American Gothic Tradition, Meagan Elizabeth Riley
Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019
American Gothic literature contains many stories of families under duress, or individuals struggling to reconcile their family identity with their national identity. These stories often coincide directly with the anxieties of the American nation. Through the works of three authors, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft, I will study how the families of their works represent the concerns of the entire nation, and how Gothic terms catapult these stories into the American canon.
Regimes Of Prestige And Power: Transnational Authorship And International Acclaim In Rutu Modan's Exit Wounds,
2016
University of Kentucky
Regimes Of Prestige And Power: Transnational Authorship And International Acclaim In Rutu Modan's Exit Wounds, Kyle Eveleth
disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory
This essay will examine the reception of Rutu Modan’s international-award-winning graphic novel Exit Wounds (2007) in the massive cultural centers of the United States and France by situating its success within the inter/transnational dynamics of the contemporary comics market, or what James English would term an “economy of prestige.” My essay reconsiders Exit Wounds beyond its popular status as an international phenomenon—that is, one that crosses national borders but which maintains distinctions between those nations it enters and its home state—by considering it a transnational work—one which blurs the lines between nation-states in its form, function, and reception. To do …
Liberating Irony: Investigating Postmodern Techniques In David Foster Wallace's Short Fiction,
2016
Bridgewater State University
Liberating Irony: Investigating Postmodern Techniques In David Foster Wallace's Short Fiction, Timothy Urban
Master’s Theses and Projects
No abstract provided.
Facing Our Future: An Examination Of Age And Gender In Margaret Atwood's The Stone Mattress,
2016
College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University
Facing Our Future: An Examination Of Age And Gender In Margaret Atwood's The Stone Mattress, Makenzie Krause
All College Thesis Program, 2016-2019
This thesis examines the intersectionality of age and gender in Margaret Atwood's The Stone Mattress. Atwood is well known for her speculative fiction, and she uses this style of storytelling to create futuristic worlds that easily mirror what our own future will look like. I find that Atwood's characters are marginalized in these worlds, not solely because of their age and gender, but because of the interdependency of age and gender. The fact that Atwood's societies rely so heavily on these discourses causes the characters unnecessary suffering and thus prevents them from living to their fullest potential. Because Atwood's …
"Out Of The Dark Confinement!" Physical Containment In Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Protest Literature,
2016
University of Southern Mississippi
"Out Of The Dark Confinement!" Physical Containment In Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Protest Literature, Allison Lane Tharp
Dissertations
Most scholarship on American protest literature tends to focus on the protest literature of specific, politically marginalized groups, such as black protest, women’s protest, or working class protest. My project redefines how we read nineteenth-century American protest literature by investigating the connections between the protest texts of these three marginalized groups. In particular, I argue that mid-nineteenth-century protest authors incorporate images of physical confinement and entrapment within their texts to expose to privileged readers the physical and ideological containment and control marginalized subjects encounter in their daily lives. Drawing from rhetorical theories of argumentation and audience engagement, and incorporating historical …
The Scarlet Letter And Novel Structure,
2016
Murray State University
The Scarlet Letter And Novel Structure, Cade S. Miller
Research in Literary Studies (ENG 321)
“The Scarlet Letter and Novel Structure” examines Nathaniel Hawthorne’s use of narrative role and conflict in The Scarlet Letter. To start, the paper examines the novel’s opening chapter “The Custom-House” as a device utilized by Hawthorne to establish a narrator-reader relationship early in the work, and how this allows Hawthorne to influence the reader’s interpretations of the novel’s main trio: Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth. The paper then moves on to examine the utilization of conflict throughout the novel, which is structured in a unique way, when compared to other novels of the time, thanks to …
Transforming The Mundane: Juxtaposing Maria Friedman’S "High Society" With George Cukor’S "The Philadelphia Story" As An Emphasis On The Importance Of Theatre,
2016
East Tennessee State Universtiy
Transforming The Mundane: Juxtaposing Maria Friedman’S "High Society" With George Cukor’S "The Philadelphia Story" As An Emphasis On The Importance Of Theatre, Dana T. Speight Ms.
Undergraduate Honors Theses
The subjects of film and theatre belong to an extensive hierarchical debate that has remained prominent within the realm of performing arts since the introduction of cinema in the late nineteenth century. A plethora of scholars choose to argue in favor of the former, suggesting that film surpasses theatre as superior in both aesthetics and overall execution of naturalism; however, the argument is purely subjective and cannot be applied to all films and their corresponding plays. As a counterclaim, theatre continues to thrive as a prominent source of artistic entertainment globally, not only offering a contemporary twist to preexisting texts, …
The Scripture Of Helices,
2016
University of Southern Mississippi
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.
Lost Generations And The Problem Of American Identity : The Emergence Of Racial Nativism In American Culture (1890s-1920s),
2016
Montclair State University
Lost Generations And The Problem Of American Identity : The Emergence Of Racial Nativism In American Culture (1890s-1920s), Gloria Lugo
Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects
This thesis problematizes traditional generic groupings (such as realism, naturalism, and modernism) since such categories segregate texts into literary periods defined largely by artificial formalist criteria. These ahistorical distinctions tend to deemphasize social and cultural import and also occlude analyses of texts as cultural products that express the dominant ideology of a particular epoch. A historical analysis focusing on cultural ideology can offer new insights to how various canonical texts perpetuate American mythologies and stereotypes. When interrogating texts of the Progressive and Modernist Eras, a pattern emerges that conflates racism and nativism in an effort to define Americans as elite …
William Faulkner's Southern Landscape,
2016
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
William Faulkner's Southern Landscape, Rachel V. Ford
English Undergraduate Honors Theses
The American South is a region full of rich and complicated history, undergoing slavery, war, poverty, ecological devastation, and racial violence. One of the most famous and distinctly southern writers of the twentieth century is William Faulkner, whose works challenge the idealistic Lost Cause mentality of white supremacy and highlight major issues within southern society. Faulkner’s writings are set in Mississippi, grounded with a distinct sense of place. The southern landscape provides more than simply a backdrop to the stories, but plays an active role in plot and character development. This thesis examines three of Faulkner’s novels, discussing their historical …
Robert Frost’S Ulteriority: Saying One Thing In Terms Of Another – The Inexpressible,
2016
University of Southern Mississippi
Robert Frost’S Ulteriority: Saying One Thing In Terms Of Another – The Inexpressible, Nicolette S. Stackhouse
Honors Theses
Robert Frost’s poetry, which is famously rich in double meaning—saying one thing but meaning something else—is also concerned with pragmatism. Pragmatism implies that there is no one fundamental universal truth. I contend that Robert Frost’s poetry says that duplicity of meaning, or ulteriority, is something to be embraced. Frost wants the uncertainty of meaning to be understood by the reader as vital to life and the mind’s processes. The simple fact that so many readers search for the hidden meanings in his poetry justly proves this point. As a pragmatist, Frost was aware that the process of getting to a …
Jazz Epidemics And Deep Set Diseases: The De-Pathologization Of The Black Body In The Work Of Three Harlem Renaissance Writers,
2016
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Jazz Epidemics And Deep Set Diseases: The De-Pathologization Of The Black Body In The Work Of Three Harlem Renaissance Writers, Shane C. Hunter
Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
This dissertation argues that the Harlem Renaissance was, in part, a response to Victorian-era medical and scientific racism, and that the three writers on which it centers, Langston Hughes (1902-1967), Wallace Thurman (1902-1934), and Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-1987), participated in subverting these racist discourses. I focus on elements of their creative work that de-pathologize the black body. Specifically, I consider how these writers undermine Victorian-era medical racism that had, by the 1920s, come to inform American racial politics. Hughes’s, Thurman’s, and Nugent’s work from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s is at least partly concerned with undermining medically racist ideology …
“The World Broke In Two”: The Gendered Experience Of Trauma And Fractured Civilian Identity In Post-World War I Literature,
2016
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
“The World Broke In Two”: The Gendered Experience Of Trauma And Fractured Civilian Identity In Post-World War I Literature, Erin Cheatham
Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
This thesis examines the complexities of civilian identity and the crisis of gender in twentieth century fiction produced after World War I. Of central concern are four novels written by prominent women authors, novels that deal with themes of trauma, violence, and shifting gender roles in a post-war society: Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier, Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House, and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Jacob’s Room. Although these novels do not directly portray the battlefield experiences of war, I argue that, at their core, they are “war novels” in the fullest sense, concerned with the …
Keats And America: Attitudes And Appropriations,
2016
East Tennessee State Universtiy
Keats And America: Attitudes And Appropriations, Jessica Hall
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
While John Keats never traveled to America and only wrote a handful of admittedly hostile lines about it in his poetry, American writers and readers have consistently regarded Keats as one of the greatest and most influential poets of the past two centuries. His critical reputation in America has been stable since the 1840s, enduring throughout changing tastes and movements, and his biography and work have been utilized in manifold appropriations by American poets and writers. I examine Keats’s attitude toward the United States—which was in conflict with the general feeling regarding the country by his fellow Romantic poets—and briefly …
Master Buddha & The Jolly Golly Fun Time Gang.,
2016
University of Louisville
Master Buddha & The Jolly Golly Fun Time Gang., Todd Edward Evans
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis is the first two chapters of a novel. The novel parodies the capitalist and consumerist United States of the 21st Century in the tradition of Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Donald Barthelme.
“First-Rate Eddication”: The Educational Roles Of Merlyn And Dumbledore,
2016
Liberty University
“First-Rate Eddication”: The Educational Roles Of Merlyn And Dumbledore, Carissa Johnson
Masters Theses
The Once and Future King (1957) and the Harry Potter series (1997-2007) are Bildungsroman stories of young, orphaned boys, Wart and Harry, who endure extraordinary circumstances and become wise, mature, and heroic. The transformation that they undergo is the effect of strong education from their teachers, the wizards Merlyn and Dumbledore. This thesis uses progressive educational theory to demonstrate the model these wizards employ. This study also utilizes a study of discourse grammar and Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development to discuss the nature of Wart’s and Harry’s education. Because of the moral education demonstrated in the stories, reading them …
Flannery O'Connor And The Poetics Of Prayer: The Analysis Of A Prayer Journal,
2016
Liberty University
Flannery O'Connor And The Poetics Of Prayer: The Analysis Of A Prayer Journal, Emily Wilson
Masters Theses
Prior to the recent discovery of her college prayer journal, kept between 1946 and 1947, knowledge of Flannery O’Connor’s religious influence and activity had been restricted to her letters and published works, such as Mystery and Manners and The Habit of Being. Works such as these shed light onto O’Connor’s background and religious views, making her Catholic faith obvious and explicit. This prayer journal exposes a new aspect of her faith – that is the personal relationship between herself and God shown through narrative. Her prayer journal makes it clear that her external expression of faith, showcased in most of …
Perceptions Of Southern Culture And Writing Program Effectiveness At A Community College: A Phenomenology,
2016
Liberty University
Perceptions Of Southern Culture And Writing Program Effectiveness At A Community College: A Phenomenology, Mary Fetters
Doctoral Dissertations and Projects
The purpose of this hermeneutical phenomenological study was to develop a deeper understanding of the perceptions of students, faculty, administration, and visiting Southern authors of the effectiveness of Chattanooga State Community College’s Writers@Work program for encouraging composition student writing and learning about Southern culture. Southern culture is defined as phenomena which shape the regional experience and resonate through the lives of individuals native to the US South. Participants in the study that was conducted in Chattanooga, Tennessee consisted of two current English administrators, four current English professors, eight composition students who participated in the Writers@Work program, and two visiting Southern …
An Anthropological Exploration Of Latino Immigrant Identity In Contemporary Migration Literature,
2016
University of Minnesota, Morris
An Anthropological Exploration Of Latino Immigrant Identity In Contemporary Migration Literature, Laura Hoppe
Honors Capstone Projects
Immigration remains one of the hottest topics of debate in the United States. As a country constructed by immigrants and home to over one million newly admitted immigrants each year, the immigration phenomenon has contributed extensively to the multiculturalism seen in the United States today. While many immigrant groups have historically lived in marginalization, the 21st century has proven especially difficult for Latino immigrants--those from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Latin America. As the current largest immigrant group, Latinos have received a lot of backlash and discrimination in the U.S. Many of these immigrants, whether they immigrate to the U.S. temporarily or …
