Arts and Humanities Commons^™

An Analysis Of The Themes Of Guilt And Atonement In The Writings Of Tennessee Williams, James Curry

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The themes of guilt and atonement have been analyzed in selected writings of Tennessee Williams. Research concerning these two themes has been developed simultaneously with Williams’s concept of the universe and man. Many of Williams’s characters seek a form of atonement or purification for their guilt which has arisen due to their “incompleteness and unnatural desires.” Williams’s basic concept concerning the universe is that it is fragmented, a universe not completed by its Creator. Consequently, Williams envisions man and his nature to be likewise incomplete. It is this incompletion in man which causes him to have “unnatural desires,” labeled as …

Jane Austens' Attitude Toward The Position Of Women, Carol Burford

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Jane Austen's attitude toward the position of middle-class women at the end of the eighteenth century is examined in the context of her life and thought and the women characters in her six novels. Comparisons are made with the position of women today regarding marriage, work, and the goals of the women's liberation movement. Jane Austen shared with feminists a recognition of the need for self-fulfillment. Because she was a realist, she provided fulfillment for her heroines through the only vehicle that was available to most women of her time--marriage. The solution she worked out for satisfying this need in …

Gertrude & Volumnia: Their Influences On Their Sons At The Climaxes Of The Plays, Laddawan Bunchoo

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The examination of the climaxes of the two plays Hamlet, and Coriolanus, illustrates that the two mothers, Gertrude and Volumnia, have destructive influences on their sons. The closet scene in Hamlet reflects that Gertrude's second marriage and her choice of Claudius shatter Hamlet's Idealization of her in the role of the faithful wife and the virtuous mother. Hamlet's inaction and destruction are caused in part by his mother's influence.

Volumnia's influence both shapes and destroys her son. She rears him as the embodiment of her chivalric ideal of nobility. The climactic scene in this play reveals that Coriolanus' …

Individuality & Art: The Search For Fulfillment In Willa Cather's Heroines, Nancy Moore

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Willa Cather believed very firmly in two things: individuality and art. The purpose of this study is to show Cather's intense dedication to the pursuit of individual artistic achievement as depicted by the heroines of seven Cather novels: O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), My Antonia (1918), A Lost Lady (1923), My Mortal Enemy (1926), Lucy Gayheart (1935), and Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940). Cather was concerned about whether or not woman as artist could succeed or be forever bound by sexual limitation. She devoted her life to the worship of art and the belief that …

A Comparative Study Of German And Kentucky Moon Beliefs, Katherine Martin

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A body of moon beliefs from Kentucky was compared with a body of moon beliefs from Germany to discover similarities and dissimilarities between the two and to ascertain how well a body of beliefs (specifically moon beliefs) can be transferred from the Old World to the New World. The presence of a German culture in Kentucky was established and parallels were drawn between the structure, function, and esthetic aspects of both groups of beliefs. The Kentucky moon beliefs that migrated from 'Germany showed a surprising persistence, considering the move to America, change of language, and exposure to unfamiliar cultures. Some …

Parallelisms In Attitude Of Vietnam Veterans & Veterans Of The Indian Wars As Reflected In Memoirs & Oral Traditions, Charles Martin

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Oral narratives of Vietnam War veterans, collected at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, were paralleled to the written narratives of the Indian War soldiers abstracted from existing diaries, journals and autobiographies. A statistical analysis was applied to the Vietnam War texts to discern the attitudes of the informants as a group. Informants' attitudes towards the enemy and the enemy's guerrilla fighting style were shown to be similar to the attitudes of the Indian War soldiers in both areas. Both sets of similar attitudes resulted in high levels of frustration which produced occasional atrocities. By the application of folklore and folklore fieldwork, in …