Digital Commons Network^™

“Umble” Vampirism: Socioeconomic Scapegoats And David Copperfield, J.R. Rizzo

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The narrative framing of David Copperfield is oriented in a way that ignores the flaws of its titular hero. Dickens’ autobiographical David Copperfield is compounded to entertain readers. His social mobility refines their perception of David into a middle class gentleman who is neither aristocratic, nor working class. It is David’s narration which helps facilitate such a companionship between himself and the reader, clouding any serious criticisms behind the guise of his charm. The doubling of bias layered within the novel’s narrative structure thereby poses David as a sort-of golden boy. That is, Dickens’ adoration for his protagonist, coupled with …

Teaching Engaging Grammar Instruction In The High School English Classroom, Emily A. Erlbacher

Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning and Leadership in Education

Grammar is a fundamental component in the content area of English Language Arts. Having a strong foundation in grammar is a critical stepping stone to writing clearly and communicating with success. Despite its importance, grammar is historically not the most engaging topic for high school students. My study, consisting of a seven week action plan involving the ninth graders in an English Language Arts classroom, sought to recognize this disengagement and work to combat it in order to improve students’ writing capabilities. More specifically, the purpose of my action research was to evaluate different grammar instructional strategies recommended in existing …

Negotiating (Im)Migrant Identity In The (Un)Assimilated Nation: American Literature Of The Late Nineteenth Century, Haley M. Steffens

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation examines representations of immigration, assimilation, and multinational cultural identity in late nineteenth-century American literature, autobiography, and print culture. Through a comparative analysis of diverse authors and immigrant communities, the project explores how literary and popular culture narratives framed the expectations and limitations of assimilation for disparate populations. By contextualizing these works within historical immigration policies, labor economies, government instability, and burgeoning nationalism, this study reveals how fiction and media shaped public attitudes toward assimilation and influenced policy. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that late, long-nineteenth-century literature functioned as both a reflection of and response to national debates about immigration, …

“Sonnet 29”: The Transcendent Power Of Rich Love, Emily M. Lewan

2025 Symposium

Shakespeare's "Sonnet 29" highlights the journey of the human condition from lowly self-deprecation to high self-sentiments when affected by love. This paper analyzes the poignant fourteen lines penned by William Shakespeare and draws parallels between their sentiment and modern research on love's positive impact on preexisting low self-esteem and self-worth. "Sonnet 29" develops a story of the natural stages from self-deprecation due to low self-esteem into heightened self-worth due to the potent integration of love. Modern, scientific research by Harris and Ulrich, Răşcanu, and Zhang and Hawk, lends credence to the assessment of love's powerful and positive impact on a …

Conformable Kate: Identity And Power In The Taming Of The Shrew, Helen R. Ball

The Confluence

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare is often read as an exploration of power dynamics and abuse, leaving readers to question the extent of Katherine’s power and autonomy in her marriage to Petruchio. Some believe Katherine manages to control her husband, Petruchio, while others believe Petruchio successfully 'tames' her. This essay explores such a question and seeks to answer which character holds the most power within the play. Using textual evidence from the play, scholarship from Natasha Korda’s writing on domesticity and commodity structures in Shakespeare's time, and Gary Schneider’s ideas of the public and private sectors of …

Long Live The Cruel King Of England: A Character Analysis Of Shakespeare’S “Henry V”, Georgia L. Coomer

The Confluence

This essay revisits Shakespeare's "Henry V," questioning the common belief that the character embodies the ideal Christian king and heroic military leader. Through careful textual analysis and references to existing literary scholarship, it argues that beneath Henry's esteemed image lies a ruler driven by political strategy, moral ambiguity, and a willingness to act ruthlessly. The analysis highlights three key aspects of Henry’s character: first, his tendency to shift moral responsibility onto others, especially in his discussions with Canterbury about the war with France; second, his capacity for imaginative cruelty, as seen in his threatening speech at Harfleur; and third, his …

Animalistic Intimacy: The Role Of The Cat In Asian American Self Actualization, Evelyn Riley

Articulāte

No abstract provided.

Deutsche Indianertümelei: Germany’S Fascination With Native Americans, Sophia Scime

Articulāte

No abstract provided.

“What Success Looks Like:” Abbott Elementary As Feminist Imagination, Ava King

Articulāte

No abstract provided.

Volume 30

Articulāte

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Articulāte

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Echoes Of The Plague: The Black Death And The Evolution Of Religious Music In Medieval Italy, Emily Bost

Articulāte

No abstract provided.

Langston Hughes And The “Afro-American Narrative” Tradition, Paul Haynes

Theses and Dissertations

After introducing Langston Hughes and defining Robert B. Stepto’s “Afro-American narrative” tradition, Chapter One presents a biography of Hughes from his birth in 1902 until he came under the patronage of Charlotte Osgood Mason in 1927. Chapter One also addresses the aesthetic expectations of the Harlem Renaissance and the extent to which Hughes either met or failed to meet those expectations. Chapter Two presents a reading of Not without Laughter as an integrated narrative, addressing how Hughes’s authenticating strategies and Mason’s authenticating devices evenly control the novel. Chapter Three presents a reading of Hughes’s short-story cycle, The Ways of White …

Túrin Was Dead: To Begin With. Death, Fate, And A Happy Ending In The Book Of Lost Tales, Thomas Hillman Phd

Journal of Tolkien Research

The final weight of the Tale of the Children of Húrin is crushing. Only the prophecy that Túrin will slay Melkor in the Last Battle offers any relief. Yet its first version, “Turambar and the Foalókë,” has an ending one might call happy. For Túrin’s death is not the end of his story, but its turning point. A coda details the afterlife of Túrin and Nienor, which begins in sorrow and ends in joy, but it is Fionwë, not Túrin, who kills Melkor (LT I 219; II 116). By the “Sketch of the Mythology” in 1926 Túrin has replaced Fionwë, …

“Restless And Uneasy…Thin And Stretched”: The Ring, The Ringbearers, And Bodies In Psychological Crisis In Tolkien’S The Lord Of The Rings., Sara Brown

Journal of Tolkien Research

The attachment that Tolkien’s Ring-bearers have for the Ring, a twisted and perverted form of love, is sterile and barren; it leaves those affected unable to settle and form fruitful, loving relationships with others, an effect that Tolkien referred to as a “Ring-restlessness.” Gollum, Bilbo, and Frodo all suffer, to their own degree, from the psychological crisis caused by the Ring that renders them uneasy and agitated. This paper examines this crisis through a psychological lens, exploring how the Ringbearers are living in discord with their true selves, and struggling with the meaninglessness of life that the Ring leaves behind.

Grief, Grieving, And Permission To Mourn In The Quenta Silmarillion, Dawn M. Walls-Thumma

Journal of Tolkien Research

Tolkien asserted on multiple occasions that death was a primary theme of his work, and there are over ninety deaths of named characters in the Quenta Silmarillion alone. In reading the Quenta Silmarillion as historiography, the universality and psychologically powerful experience of death, grief, and mourning allows the narrators of the Quenta Silmarillion to shape how readers perceive characters, events, and themes in the text. Assuming Pengolodh as the primary narrator, this paper investigates how Tolkien used a limited, flawed, and biased narrative point of view as a strategy to shape reader responses and theme. Characters who die in the …

Mourning And Melancholia In The Lord Of The Rings, Ali Mirzabayati

Journal of Tolkien Research

This paper analyzes how Denethor and Théoden respond differently to the deaths of their sons in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Initially consumed by grief, Théoden embraces hope with Gandalf's support, while Denethor descends into despair. Employing Freud's essay "Mourning and Melancholia" (1917), we examine how Théoden and Denethor illustrate differing reactions to mourning and melancholy in the face of loss. Recognizing developments in psychoanalytic theory, the paper moves beyond simple binaries to offer a nuanced exploration of grief and attachment in Tolkien's narrative.

The Only Thriller J.R.R. Tolkien (Never) Wrote: Jungian Shapes Of Evil In “The New Shadow”, Martin Hauberg-Lund Laugesen, Bo Kampmann Walther

Journal of Tolkien Research

J.R.R. Tolkien's The New Shadow, a fragment set in the Fourth Age of Middle-earth, offers a rich but often overlooked exploration of the psychological and cultural implications of peace following the defeat of Sauron. Although Tolkien abandoned the project, dismissing it as a mere “thriller”, the text presents significant insights into the dynamics of generational conflict, the origins of Evil, and the moral challenges of a post-heroic world. This paper examines The New Shadow through a dual lens: first, by contextualizing Tolkien’s depiction of good and evil within Christian ethical frameworks, and second, by applying Carl Gustav Jung’s psychological …

The Moral Function Of Invented Languages In J.R.R Tolkien's Legendarium, Mareike Huber

Journal of Tolkien Research

For J. R. R. Tolkien, the languages he invented for Middle-earth came first, the stories second. Much of his linguistic creation was based on the idea that the sound of a language can create a sense of pleasure or displeasure in those hearing it, irrespective of the meaning behind the words. This can be seen in the ways the sound of the elvish languages on the one hand and Tolkien’s other invented languages such as Khuzdul or the Black Speech on the other, are described not only by Tolkien himself but also by readers of his works. The way a …

Tolkien And Attachment Theory : A Theory To Bind Them All?, Lelie Bremont

Journal of Tolkien Research

Tolkien and Attachment theory: One Theory to Bind Them All?

Ever since the first publication of The Hobbit in 1937, Tolkien’s works have been dominating the fantasy genre, often imitated but rarely equalled. Dozens of scholars over decades have looked for the reason behind this success, the secret ingredient that made Middle-earth so compelling.

Nicole Guédeney is a French psychiatrist specializing in Attachment Theory. Attachment Theory emerged in the early 20^th century and combines psychology with anthropology and ethnology to explore the early attachments created between a baby and the adults surrounding them and how these attachments determine the …

Perceiving The Perceiver: “Viewing” Sauron Through The Gestalt Theory Of Perception, Cameron Bourquein

Journal of Tolkien Research

This paper uses Gestalt theory, the Gestalt laws of perception, and the reception theory of Wolfgang Iser to elucidate the character “Sauron” as he appears in The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, and Tolkien’s wider legendarium. It argues firstly that Sauron’s high degree of indeterminacy and ambiguity suggests he can be read as a gestalt entity, one the reader creates by mentally constructing a whole from (seemingly) disparate parts. Building on the semiotics work of Nagy (2013), it argues that Sauron in The Lord of the Rings can be read as gestalt across the spatial, …

Fears And Pains And Rages: The Psychology Of Gandalf's Anger, Nicholas Birns

Journal of Tolkien Research

We are used to seeing emotions in Tolkien as coded morally. Lust or possessiveness is evil whereas care and forbearance are good. There are some emotions, though, that cross these moral boundaries and one of these is anger Moreover, anger in Tolkien is very coded in terms of gender, as it is nearly always male rage. After examining the cases of Saruman and Wormtongue (angry because the world will not cooperate with their plans) and Thingol (angry because he realizes he has just postponed his doom rather than staved it off), we will examine the case of Gandalf. Gandalf is …

Ztc Eng 151 Syllabus: College Writing, Nicolette Guida

Open Educational Resources

This syllabus provides a curriculum for an introduction to research writing. In this course, students develop introductory skills for academic research writing, work on critical thinking and analysis skills, and build an awareness of the rhetorical situation both in texts read in class and in their own writing. This course focuses on the impact that culture has in shaping behavior and life experiences. Included course texts are centered on the exploration of the different cultural groups that people occupy and the specific cultural norms, values and beliefs for each of these groups. This is zero textbook cost (ZTC) course, so …

Children As Legacy: Fostering A Viable, Interracial Future In Chesnutt’S The Marrow Of Tradition, Allison Marchand

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Charles W. Chesnutt believed The Marrow of Tradition (1901) would be his magnum opus. In a letter to Booker T. Washington, he described it as “by far the best thing I have done” and in another, described how he sent it to Theodore Roosevelt, hoping it might help the president understand the race problem (McElrath 159; 169). The novel details the events of and leading up to a race riot in the fictional Wellington, North Carolina. Inspired by the 1898 coup d’etat and massacre in Wilmington, North Carolina, Chesnutt wrote The Marrow of Tradition with “the hope that it might …

“What Ship Will Bear Me Ever Back”: Woundedness And The Western Sea, Janet Brennan Croft

Journal of Tolkien Research

The sea journey into the West is a multi-faceted symbol-system in Tolkien’s works. It is connected with healing, loss, and the numinous. A character may sail to find peace, to lay down burdens, or to challenge the gods or to beg their help. I will be considering both Tolkien’s literary inspirations in medieval and Arthurian literature, and the personal resonances arising from the significant sea voyages (to England as a young child, and to and from France during the Great War) which twice upended his life.

Cover And Front Matter

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Wyatt Shot First Storytelling, Justice, And The Creation Of A Hero In Stuart Lake’S Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, Esther C. Lay

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Absent Mothers And Their Effects On The Heroines' Self-Actualization In Jane Austen's Final Three Novels, Gillian Carter

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Thou Swearest Thy Gods In Vain: The Victory Of Christ As Deus Ex Machina In King Lear Over Apollo In Euripides's Orestes, Aaron B.Y. Gorner

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

The Interconnectedness Of Fun Home On Page And Stage, Livia M. Nocito

English and Creative Writing Independent Study Projects

In Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, instances of Alison’s emotional “rise,” or openness in being queer, and Bruce’s “descent,” or need to conform, in the book are further supplemented by translations made into the musical through leitmotif and musical composition. This cements not only their roles as Daedalus and Icarus respectively in the metaphor Alison presents in her memoir, but also highlights their lived experiences in a way that truly extends Alison’s liberation as a lesbian to be elevated in grandeur and Bruce’s stifling life to be as damning as Icarus’s fall into the sea.