Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Mad To Be Sincere: Authenticity, Irony, And Kerouac’S Response To Modern Reality, Jonathan Michael Devin

Masters Theses

This project explores the qualities of sincerity, authenticity, and irony in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. The thesis asserts that that On the Road is neither ironic nor authentic, but, rather, that it both possesses aspects of traditional sincerity and anticipates the New Sincerity movement in contemporary literature. Through observing the characteristics of traditional sincerity and New Sincerity in the novel, the thesis amends the novel's critical position by showing a level of complexity, foresight, and nuance in the text. Ultimately, the thesis shows Kerouac's response to modern reality, presenting the limitations of authenticity and irony while esteeming the …

American Dreams And Dystopias: Examining Dystopian Parallels In The Great Gatsby And To Kill A Mockingbird, Samuel Nathan Harris

Masters Theses

In this study I consider the recent trend of dystopian fiction in literature—both the broader genre of dystopias of the past century or so, and the contemporarily popular subgenre of young adult dystopian fiction—and examine whether certain American novels, while not typically considered dystopias, can fit into this genre or at least be established as having some parallels with works of this genre. Based on certain shared archetypes of the genre, such as “speculative myth,” a governing “ritual habit,” and a dissatisfied narrator or protagonist, I here propose that other American classics, specifically F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and …

Flannery O'Connor's Redemptive Violence In Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club And Invisible Monsters, Caitlin Elliot

Masters Theses

Underground fight clubs, transsexuals, shotguns: these are the images that come to mind when one thinks of Chuck Palahniuk’s fiction—for many critics and readers, merely the stuff of pulp fiction. However, many of Palahniuk’s novels use violence to critique American culture while offering hope for the redemption of his characters and society as a whole. Thus, the violence in his works serves a purpose beyond mere shock value. The function of Palahniuk’s violence, I argue, reflects the poetics of Flannery O’Connor. Her works contain culturally-driven narratives with strange and grotesque circumstances that lead her characters to moments of redemption, and …

The Romantic Egoist: Fitzgerald's View On Identity And Culture, Tara Bender

Masters Theses

"Who am I?” is a question that not only each individual asks himself or herself at various points in the process of maturation from childhood to adulthood, but also society itself as it changes and grows. During the 1920s, Americans were asking themselves these defining questions. F. Scott Fitzgerald as one of the pre-eminent writers of that time period provides examples in his novels This Side of Paradise, Beautiful and The Damned, and The Great Gatsby of the immaturity of masculine figures. Amory Blaine, Anthony Patch, and Jay Gatsby exemplify the struggle of men in the 1920s to develop their …

The Peace Of The Waste Land And Understanding Eliot’S Two Readings, Luke J. Chambers

The Hilltop Review

There are two recordings of T.S. Eliot reading The Waste Land in existence today, one made in 1946 for the Library of Congress, and another from 1935, recorded at Columbia University. The later 1946 recording, being the only one published, is by far the more well known. The 1935 recording is of much inferior sound quality and is difficult to find. The younger Eliot recites at times with greater energy, a quicker tempo, and with markedly different phrasing and intonation. However, quite often Eliot’s recitation is nearly indistinguishable between the two recordings. The specific moments of difference reveal a great …

New York City Street Theater: Gender, Performance, And The Urban From Plessy To Brown, Erin Nicholson Gale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the ordinary, public performances of fictional female characters in novels set on the streets of Manhattan during the years of legal segregation in the United States. I examine a range of actions from bragging to racial passing, and I argue these ordinary performances are central to our ability to interpret race, gender, and class relations. I detect race, class, and gender-based impulses to segregate and exclude others that overlap with the motives guiding the national, legal edict to segregate people by race. These guiding inclinations, legible through the history of Manhattan's grid, zoning laws, and the city …

Errant Memory In African American Literature Of The Long Nineteenth Century, Tristan Alexander Striker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I trace the complex black literary trope of errant memory through American and African American literature. Authors of African descent are constantly subjected to what I call Africanity, or the paratextual historicizing elements provided by white interlocutors that seek to impose specific caricatures and stereotypes on them and their works to force them into the American historical narrative that depends on their dehumanized and commodified status. These caricatures and stereotypes are rooted in an Africa imagined by these white interlocutors, one that does not match any reality. Authors of African descent transcend this paratextual Africanity through what …

Making The Vision A Reality: Staging The Unreal In Realist Theatre, Sarah Zentner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper seeks to understand why visionary elements are sometimes implemented in otherwise realist works of theatre. Beginning with the father of realism, Henrik Ibsen, and discussing some of the social and domestic conventions present in his work, the paper then moves through an analysis of visionary elements, as they have been implemented in the following works: August Wilson's The Piano Lesson (1987) and Two Trains Running (1990), Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949), and Elizabeth Egloff's The Swan (1993). In doing so, the paper investigates how visionary elements can be effective …

"I Know You!": The Implications Of Knowing In Joyce Carol Oates's Marya: A Life, Josephene T.M. Kealey

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

Joyce Carol Oates’s Preface to the Franklin Library 1^st Edition of her 1986 novel Marya: A Life is a theoretical reading guide. In her explanations for the possible autobiographical components discernible in her book, Oates challenges readers to question their ability to know a character, to know an author’s intentions, even to know the self. Oates’s ideas about the fluidity of identity and the dangers of claiming “to know” an other or the self are explored in this story.

A Fire Stronger Than God: Myth-Making And The Novella Form In Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, Chinh Ngo

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Using concepts of cognitive evolutionary theory, the author explores how narrative storytelling manifests itself in Denis Johnson's novella Train Dreams. The novella form is also discussed, focusing on its manipulation of linear time, its naturalization of supernatural elements, and its deconstruction of dichotomous relationships. Utilizing the novella's distinct structural and thematic elements, Johnson's text shows the myth of American expansionism and industrial progress and that of Kootenai holism in collision, resulting in a narrative renegotiation that seeks to affirm coexistence and complexity.

Discreet Feminism: Neil Gaiman’S Subversion Of The Patriarchal Society In American Gods, Christopher P. Thompson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Neil Gaiman’s use of a hyper-masculine American culture in American Gods sheds light upon the multiple issues surrounding a misogynistic society in which women are treated as sexual objects and punished for their independence as sexual beings. Gaiman’s efforts at highlighting these issues are discreet and hidden under layers of patriarchal expectations, but through the use of his protagonist, Shadow, Gaiman is able to provide an alternative to the society he represents. While he successfully illustrates this more “ideal” society, his endeavors fall short and are almost imperceptible throughout his novel. Gaiman’s work in American Gods, while lacking in its …

Representation Of The Mother’S Body As A Narrative Conduit For Wartime Themes In Saga, Bess Pallares

Student Research Symposium

“Representation of the Mother’s Body as a Narrative Conduit for Wartime Themes in Saga” examines how both diagetic and extradiagetic art creates a visual syuzhet to convey themes of interdependence and transgenerational memory in the comic book series Saga. My method of research was a narrative analysis of volumes 1-4 of Saga, particularly focusing on the artistic representation of two mothers’ bodies within the narrative and on covers of the books, as related to the themes and story. As a result, I found in the artistic syuzhet that the representation of two characters’ bodies as they interact …

Insomniac Of The Soil: A Collection Of Poetry And Essays, Sarah E. Golibart

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

“Insomniac of the Soil” is a homage to a landscape that has deeply informed Sarah Golibart's life and her artistic voice – the tidewater flatlands of Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay peninsula where her family lives and where Golibart has worked on farms since high school. Both her poems and essays are earthy, imagistic, and grounded – quite literally – in the soil as well as in a sensibility of ecological ethics and sustainability. “Insomniac of the Soil” is also a love song to the fervent and fallow cycles of the soil.

The Rough South And New Southern Studies: Crossroads And Constellations, Amanda Freeman

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

“The Rough South and New Southern Studies: Crossroads and Constellations” examines fiction by writers of the Rough South and interrogates the inadequate state of criticism on these working-class authors in New Southern Studies. New Southern Studies seeks to de-marginalize the South and to combat a sense of inferiority or irrelevancy in a multicultural and increasingly globalized world; but in this process, New Southern Studies has actually marginalized the region’s most vibrant form of contemporary fiction—Rough South literature. This marginalization springs partly from class-based prejudice, and partly from a concern that the Rough South is too provincial for New Southern Studies. …

Capitalism And "Blithedale": Exploring Hawthorne's Response To 19th Century American Capitalism, Kyle G. Phillips

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

With the intensive migration of the American public from rural to urban settings in the mid-nineteenth century came many logistical problems. Chief among them was the contention that the city was a place fundamentally void of, or else lax with morals. The examination into these issues explores why Americans felt the city was a catalyst for immorality, specifically examining prostitution and the exploitation of the working poor. It seeks to answer these questions within the framework of the anchor text, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Blithedale Romance”.

An Exploratory Study On The Impact Of Mobile Wireless Technologies In A Teacher Education Classroom, Anupama Ghattu

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mobile technology is revolutionizing the American higher education system. Integrating mobile technology into college classrooms is changing the teaching and learning process. Today’s millennial generation students are tech savvy and using their mobile devices to learn and explore in many possible ways. Mobile technology devices can be used as effective tools to enhance teaching and learning. The ubiquitous nature of these mobile devices with wireless capabilities makes learning possible instantly anywhere and everywhere with easy access to information for everyone. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of integrating mobile wireless technologies (MWT) on preservice teachers’ attitudes …

Blood At The Root, April Schofield

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This is a coming of age story about two very different boys – Jason, a Northerner who ends up stuck in a small Southern town and Billy, a Southern boy with an abusive father. The boys become friends and grow up learning the dark secrets that are allowed to fester in a tiny southern town ruled by the Good Ol’ Boy System of justice. The story chronicles how their shared experiences change them in ways they never imagined and ultimately destroys their friendship and their lives. Through a history of violence and prejudice, Billy and Jason learn who they really …

The Experiences Of African-Born Women Faculty And Administrators At Colleges And Universities In The United States, Oyibo H. Afoaku

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to document the experiences of African-born women faculty and administrators at colleges and universities in the United States. The study explored the factors that motivated African-born women to immigrate to and extend their stay in the United States beyond completion of their education; factors they perceive as constraint on their quest for self-empowerment and identity as foreign students, college instructors, and/or administrators, and parents; and factors that have enabled them to adapt to their host culture and achieve their educational and professional goals even though they had to contend with multiple challenges associated with …

Shifting Identity/Shifting Discourse: Re‐Naming In Contemporary Literature By Zadie Smith, Jeffrey Eugenides, And Salman Rushdie, Jennifer Krengel

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Re­‐naming one’s self is an empowering act of self­‐definition; re­‐naming others is an attempt to codify, contain and censure identity. Re­‐naming emerges as a compelling theme in contemporary transnational literature, appearing in three notable texts: Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000), Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex (2002) and Salman Rushdie's memoir Joseph Anton (2012). These texts depict stories of diaspora, the forced migration or dispersal away from a homeland. Communities of diaspora negotiate between two cultures: an originary culture and the culture of the new geographic location. From these negotiations emerge a third, hybridized identity that reimagines the majority culture and challenges structural …

Setting Fires: Literary Women Blazing Trails For Contemporary Women, Laura Salinas

Senior Honors Projects

“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim” — Nora Ephron

Literature has always provided an outlet for writers to express their commentary on society tracing from Shakespeare’s plays in the 1600’s to Jane Austen’s classic novels to the modern literary narrative. These writings are often more than just tales to entertain a crowd or a reader; they create dynamic characters that call into question the standards and expectations that society deems acceptable.

Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy has created an iconic and dynamic character that resists and challenges what it means to be a woman in terms …