Modern Literature Commons^™

What Experience Can’T Tell: How To Show Reality In Young Adult Fiction, A Female Warrior’S Story, Jessica A. Walker

Departmental Honors Projects

Young adult literature is a medium that catapults our youth into fictional realms, gives them courage, and prepares them for realities of our world. As a female warrior, having served as a soldier in Afghanistan, I learned firsthand what a female warrior must be. While there are many YA novels written with women warriors as main characters, there’s a significant lack of female warrior representation that resembles our modern day military and the trials female warriors face in a primarily male-dominated field.

I have examined four authors who have tackled the issue of strong female warriors. While each author depicts …

Pathos, Winter 2014, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Kate Marshall

Volume 8 No.2

Teaching Australian Literature In A Class About Literatures Of Social Reform, Per Henningsgaard

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article presents an intriguing thesis about proximity and identification, distance and empathy based on the experience of teaching Sally Morgan’s My Place to American university students alongside Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in a class examining literature as an agent of social change. Indeed, its response to the question, “How does the Australian production of My Place influence its American reception?” will surprise many people. Students more readily demonstrate empathy with characters and are prepared to ascribe their unenviable life circumstances to social structures that propagate oppression when reading literature about cultural groups …

The Power Of Multiplying: Reproductive Control In American Culture, 1850-1930, Virginia B. Engholm

Theses and Dissertations--English

Prior to the advent of modern birth control beginning in the nineteenth century, the biological reproductive cycle of pregnancy, post-partum recovery, and nursing dominated women’s adult years. The average birth rate per woman in 1800 was just over seven, but by 1900, that rate had fallen to just under than three and a half. The question that this dissertation explores is what cultural narratives about reproduction and reproductive control emerge in the wake of this demographic shift. What’s at stake in a woman’s decision to reproduce, for herself, her family, her nation? How do women, and society, control birth?

In …

[Introduction To] Escrituras A Ras De Suelo: Crónica Latinoamericana Del Siglo Xx, Marcela Aguilar, Claudia Darrigrandi, Mariela Méndez, Antonia Viu

Bookshelf

El proyecto de publicar una colección de artículos sobre la crónica latinoamericana aparecida en el siglo xx, principalmente entre 1930 y 1970, intenta hacerse cargo de una producción mucho menos estudiada que la crónica modernista o que la crónica de las últimas décadas, problematizando las definiciones y fundamentos que se le han atribuido al género a partir de esas tradiciones. Más que una nueva revisión de tales concepciones de la crónica, lo que el lector encontrará en los escritos agrupados en las distintas secciones de este libro son elementos parciales y problemas concretos que surgen en muy distintos contextos y …

Eye For The Gap: Frenzy, Liberty, And The Nietszchean Chorus In Conor Mcpherson's The Weir And Shining City, Frances Krieg

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study situates The Weir and Shining City by Conor McPherson as embodying elements of Dionysian aesthetics as elucidated by Friedrich Nietzsche. Working through the lenses of Samuel Beckett’s linguistic philosophy and the premium of theater as established by Nietzsche, Artaud, and Brecht, the aim of this paper is to demonstrate how McPherson pierces the boundaries of language in drama by establishing his audience as chorus. Background information on Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and McPherson’s own comments on the plays are included with the research on the plays themselves. This work articulates the chorus itself but also the choral, …

Questing The Beast: From Malory To Milton, Malorie A. Sponseller

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The Questing Beast is a Medieval creature that has received little scholarly attention. Because of her labile nature, she is difficult to identify and therefore challenging to study. When previously analyzed, she has been considered only in her Medieval context. By comparing the Questing Beast from Perlesvaus, the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and the Prose Tristan, four identifying characteristics can be found: she is symbolic, she is multi-formed, she is a mother that gives birth, and she produces a barking noise most often made by her unborn young. Of these four signs, the last is the most prevalent and identifiable. …

The Judge’S Hold: A Struggle For Voice In Cormac Mccarthy’S Blood Meridian, Daniel R. Johnson

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is a novel that provides a clear critique on the ways in which the American west was acquired. The text is awash with gratuitous violence, symbolism and storytelling, together creating a piece that offers a modern interpretation of American identity. This analysis will approach the novel by examining a struggle for voice between the two main characters Judge Holden and The Kid in the narration. In doing so, it will be shown that Blood Meridian uses Holden's voice to suppress all other worldviews within the text in order to show the invulnerability of the political rhetoric …

Pursuit Of Empowerment: The Evolution Of The Romance Novel And Its Readership In Fifty Shades Of Grey, Amy Elizabeth Quale

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the new-adult romance work Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James and the novel's readership to identify the evolution of the romance genre and the ways in which the genre is used as a tool for empowerment. As the genre evolves, subgenres develop with the new "empowering" characteristics. As new technologies present themselves to readers, readers have more opportunities to participate with one another and affect the genre's evolution. I assert that Fifty Shades of Grey and the romance community are limited by the patriarchal values traditionally portrayed by the genre; however, the nature of the …

Dust : Polvo, Jonathan Scott Nehls

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A novel that takes place along the U.S. Mexico border.

Rolodex Of Saints: A Collection Of Short Stories, Yvette D. Benavides

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A critical preface and collection of short stories.

¡No Contaban Con Mi Astucia! México: Parodia, Nación Y Sujeto En La Serie Televisiva De El Chapulín Colorado, Carlos Aguasaco

Publications and Research

¡No contaban con mi astucia! México: parodia, nación y sujeto en la serie televisiva de ‘El Chapulín Colorado’ (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 2014) es un estudio revolucionario del impacto y la efectividad residual de la literatura del Siglo de Oro y el periodo colonial en la producción audiovisual de Latinoamérica en el siglo veinte. El trabajo de Roberto Gómez Bolaños (creador de El Chapulín Colorado) se transmite hoy en día tanto en el formato original como en series animadas en varios canales de USA. El público norte americano y la academia están presenciando la consolidación de los estudios audiovisuales …

Detective Fiction Reinvention And Didacticism In G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown, Clifford Stumme

Masters Theses

In the Father Brown stories, G. K. Chesterton reengineers the classic detective story so that it can be a vehicle for didactic messages. Through a rethinking of mysteries, a repurposing of secondary characters, and a subversion of Holmsean-type detectives, Chesterton is able to insert philosophic ideas into his stories while still entertaining readers. Differing from earlier detective stories, the Father Brown mysteries showcase an acceptance of the spiritual and a natural empathy for all characters whether criminal or no. In my research, I show how, through these stories, Chesterton posits messages that are new to the mystery genre and how …

Anthologizing Modernism: New Verse Anthologies, 1913-53, Warren Scott Cheney

Dissertations

The history of the anthology form goes back thousands of years to what is often called the Greek Anthology--a modern term and not the title of one ancient work. Though there are fragments of earlier collections, Meleager of Gadara's Stephanos (or Garland) is the first known poetry anthology and dates to approximately 100 BC. Anthologies of English poetry begin in 1557 with Richard Tottel's Songes and Sonnettes, commonly known as "Totell's Miscellany." It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century, however, that single-volume poetry anthologies became popular. This development changed the methods editors used and the constraints they …

Can The Raped Woman Speak?, Zainab El-Mansi

Dentistry

Rape has been known since the dawn of history as a method by which women were subjugated to the power of men. This horrid experience has always been silenced for several reasons which will be investigated in this book. Literature has always been able to uncover what is barred from expression; hence, part of this book is dedicated to surveying the different literary representations of this traumatic experience. What this book is concerned with is war rape, as it gains further connotations during wars and political conflicts. War rape is depicted in the two literary texts of analysis here: Coetzee's …

“A Power Beyond The Reach Of Any Magic”: Mythology In Harry Potter, Daniella Rizza Fcrh '11

The Fordham Undergraduate Research Journal

J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter novels have over the last decade become a worldwide phenomenon, but why? It is perhaps because of the mythical elements that underlie Harry’s story, particularly the myths of the child and the hero. Comparing the Potter novels to works by mythological theorists Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, it is clear how Rowling both uses and updates traditional mythological structures and elements in the novels. The Harry Potter novels both incorporate the standard myths of the child and the hero, which accounts for the series’ immense ability to grab the reader, and update these myths, making Harry’s …

An Understanding Of Deep Rivers Through An Analysis Of Three Of Its Main Symbols, Vincent Spina

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

The aim of"An Understanding of Deep Rivers" is to analyze some of the iconographic uses in the novel from the point of view of the Andean Cosmovision. Though many inroads have already been made in this direction, when the novel first appeared much of this cosmovision was not understood at all or considered part of Andean " folklore". In the present work, the use of the Quechua term " ilia" and and that of the Southern Cross (the Chakana in Quechua) are analyzed with respect to the symbolic role they play in the novel.

“Between The Dream And Reality”: Divination In The Novels Of Cormac Mccarthy, Robert A. Kottage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Divination is a trope Cormac McCarthy employs time and again in his work. Augury, haruspicy, cartomancy, voodoo, sortition and oneiromancy all take their places in the texts, overtly or otherwise, as well as divination by bloodshed (a practice so ubiquitous as to have no formal name). But mantic practices which aim at an understanding of the divine mind prove problematic in a universe that often appears godless—or worse.

My thesis uses divination as the starting point for a close reading of each of McCarthy’s novels. Research into Babylonian, Greek, Roman and African soothsaying practices is included, as well as the …

Occupying The Pedestal: Gender Issues In Ellen Gilchrist, Karon Reese

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ellen Gilchrist's works shows the struggles of women living in a postmodern South. This dissertation explores Gilchrist's representations of southern women as they transition from the old South to modernity. Gilchrist's work depicts women who attempt to break off the pedestal of white Southern womanhood, but never quite do, often simultaneously disrupting and confirming traditional notions of a "good Southern lady." Gilchrist shows how women occupy the pedestal as a form of refuge and also as a form of protest. These are women who, as they navigate the transition to a new South, are reluctant to surrender the privilege of …

Tight Void, Brooke Burns

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a memoir that draws on the life experience of two promiscuous women, Brooke and Karen. Both characters come from upper-middle class backgrounds, have extremely similar family lives, and take two very different paths in both their education and sexual behavior. While the women both retain their strong friendship throughout the narrative, eventually, Karen, and her decision to become a prostitute, takes its toll. Though they remain supportive of one another, Karen's lifestyle of sex, drugs, and partying begin to create a disconnect between them. This thesis sheds light on the true nature of female promiscuity: its relation …