Arts and Humanities Commons^™

So How Does Elastic Grammar Create Meaning In Children’S Literature?: Storytelling And Elastic Grammar In Haroun And The Sea Of Stories (1990), Inkheart (2003), And A Monster Calls (2011), Kate Lomas Glendenning

Theses : Honours

So why is grammar an unsung hero that rarely receives acknowledgement? And why do the first two sentences of this abstract start with coordinating conjunctions? This thesis will explore elastic grammar: a term I coined to recognise style devices that are traditionally thought of as grammatically incorrect but are used to create a deeper level of meaning within fiction. The analysis of the elasticity of grammar will be conducted through close readings of three children’s books and three elastic grammar devices. Since each novel’s primary focus is storytelling, this thesis analyses elastic grammar that relates to storytelling. The three elastic …

Waiting For A Queer Change: Gender Identity Through Performative Waiting And The Boudoir Chronotope In Call Me By Your Name, Gregory R. Clarke

Theses : Honours

This thesis analyses André Aciman’s novel, Call Me By Your Name (2007), in light of its portrayal of a nineteen-eighties gay relationship that is not entirely defined by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Rather than the abjection associated with illness and death, I focus on the narrative’s evocation of pleasure and love for its protagonists, Elio and Oliver, who do not identify as exclusively gay. My argument focuses on Elio exemplifying and undermining Roland Barthes’ trope of the lover-who-waits as historically ‘feminine’ in A Lover’s Discourse. In doing so, I demonstrate how Barthes’s work prefigures Judith Butler’s gender performativity theory.

First, …

Writing In Light: Giving Silences Their Say In Janette Turner Hospital's "The Last Magician", Niva Kaspi

Theses : Honours

The last magician (1992) by Janette Turner Hospital tells the story of Lucy, the novel's narrator, who is trying to piece together the mystery disappearance and possible murder of three people. Gabriel, Lucy's boyfriend, and Charlie Chang, a photographer, have gone missing while searching for Cat, Charlie's childhood friend. The story shifts between present time Sydney and a tragedy that took place a generation earlier in rural Queensland, involving the death of Cat's younger brother, Willy. The novel draws on conventions of the mystery genre, so that readers desire to know what has happened to several missing characters, even as …

Repressive Bodies, Transgressive Bodies : Dracula And The Feminine, Sharon Kostopoulos

Theses : Honours

Dracula has long been associated with the repressive qualities of Victorian society and the oppression of the emerging New Woman. However, taking into account that the novel is part of the gothic genre, a genre which endeavours to infringe the social boundaries in any given era, this thesis will demonstrate an equally visible and potent transgressive feminine element playing out in Dracula. Using Michel Foucault's idea of discourse to show how subjects are generated, the novel can be seen as facilitating both productive and repressive ideas of femininity. Power, as it operates through discourse, tends to produce its own resistance, …

Contrast And Didacticism In The Novels Of Jane Austen, Brittany Morgan Woodhams

Theses : Honours

The first aim of this thesis is to explore Jane Austen's use of contrast in terms of characterisation. The second is to look at how contrast becomes a tool of didacticism, both for the characters within the novels and for readers of the novels. This study encompasses Austen's six completed novels and traces the development of the techniques she used to evoke contrast. Austen used contrast in a variety of ways. Primarily it was used to construct and illuminate characters, but Austen also used it to introduce characters into the narrative, to compare two or more characters, and to structure …

Mourning Eros: Hieroglyphic Love And Loss In H.D.'S Helen In Egypt, Shauna Karine Dorotich

Theses : Honours

H.D. and Lacan both articulate a philosophy of love that exists beyond the sexual relationship. This thesis highlights the concordance between their later writings on love, with a specific focus on Lacan's Book xx; On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge, 1972 - 1973 (Encore), and H.D.'s Helen in Egypt. Initially, I address the paradox of erotic love to explicate the way fantasy results in the death of the woman within the sexual relationship. I then argue that a subject must experience a phase of mourning the fantasy of erotic love in order to progress to …

Gender Performativity In H.D.'S Sea Garden, Angela Sanigar

Theses : Honours

Sea Garden was the first book of poetry written by H.D. in 1916. Read through the lens of Judith Butler's theory of performativity, the book can be interpreted as an investigation of gender and identity in ways that challenge the confines of heteronormativity. Ultimately, I will argue that the poems work in ways close to Judith Butler's sense of 'queer', although as will become clear, my 'queer' reading of H.D.'s Sea Garden differs from the dominant queer readings of her work that currently exist. To this end, I will then discuss how Sea Garden operates as a community of different …

Notions Of Truth In Contemporary Narrative : Where The Truth Lies, Cherie Smilovitis

Theses : Honours

Creative nonfiction narratives have in recent times become increasingly popular. This thesis sets out to examine what is at the heart of the unique reading experience that creative nonfiction narratives offer readers. It begins with an analysis of various definitions of both creative nonfiction and fiction in order to establish the way, or ways in which they are held to differ or be distinguishable from one another. Though various definitions assert that there are distinct differences between fiction and creative nonfiction narratives, several make mention of occasions where the boundaries between the two may become indistinct. On such occasions, as …

All That We Have To Cling To" : Mothers And Motherhood In The Plays Of Tennessee Williams, Trina Di Crescenzo

Theses : Honours

This thesis explores the characterisation of motherhood within the plays of American playwright. Tennessee Williams. A central part to my argument is that these mothers are abandoned and left alone because of their own personal complexities. After investigating the life of Edwina Dakin Williams and the influence that she had on her son's life and work. I will proceed to examine the nature of the mother in the Following plays: • The Glass Menagerie • The Rose Tattoo • Battle of Angels • Orpheus Descending • Suddenly Last Summer. All of the plays are “major” works of the writer, with …

T(H)Ree Rhizome(S) On 'Close/Open' Encounters With Kinsella's Pastoralism Of The 'Radical' Kind, Klyth Tan Soo-Hong

Theses : Honours

In his elaborative Landbridge 'statement of intent', Western Australian and International poet John Kinsella - whose phenomenal rise since the '90s is now a worldwide literary success story that needs no introduction - asserts a profound interest for the 'pastoral radical' (Kinsella, ed. Kinsella, Landbridge, 1999): “I'm particularly interested in the 'pastoral radical'- in blending the so-called pastoral tradition with the lingui.stically innovative. This 'hybrid' ironises the pastoral construct but allows for genuine movement through rural spaces. Landscape is central to my project - ways of seeing, questions of occupation and space, the position and relevance of the so-called 'lyrical …

Writing In The Mainstream And Against The Current : Loaded By Christos Tsiolkas, A. R. Hughes

Theses : Honours

The aim of this thesis is to highlight the significance of Christos Tsiolkas's first novel, Loaded (1995), as a Grunge text within the milieu of Australian literature. Grunge is a problematic genre in that it is difficult to define and is surrounded by major contradictions relating to its production and reception. Tsiolkas maintains that Grunge seeks to represent the contemporary local experience of living in Australia and the journey of Loaded's protagonist, Ari, reflects this by representing the nuances of contemporary Australian society on the margins. This representation seeks to undermine the 'homogeneous picture of what it means to be …

The Characters And Dramaturgy Of Tennessee Williams : An Analysis Through The Presentation Of Two One-Act Plays, Lucy Eyre

Theses : Honours

An analysis into the background of Tennessee Williams strongly suggests that the two one-act plays, This Property is Condemned and The Lady of Larkspur Lotion are autobiographical accounts, being that the characters arc based either on Williams himself family members or friends, and indeed, the plays arc representations of the era in wh1ch they were written. Also, a simultaneous investigation into the dramaturgy of these plays shows Williams' innovative “use of all the resources of the contemporary stage” (Boxill 23). and the rehearsal process and workshop presentation was an exploration and discovery into how these resources can be implemented …

Representations Of Class, Social Realism And Region In "Eleven Months In Bunbury" By James Ricks, Joshua J. K. Ledger

Theses : Honours

The aim of this thesis is to explore representations of class, social realism and region in Eleven months in Bunbury by James Ricks. This novel stands outside dominant literary theory in its representations of class, realism and regionalism. It also presents opportunities to consider ideology and class through the eyes of a working class person, in the language of the class that it depicts. Thus it speaks to a class which rarely has its point of view and lives represented in conventional literature. It is therefore a useful literary and social document.

A Queer Love : The Gay Male In Young Adult Literature, Skot John Arbery

Theses : Honours

The purpose of my thesis· A Queer Love: The Gay Male in Young Adult Literature -is to offer an analysis of seven young adult novels that incorporate the construction and representation of while male homosexuality. I intend to explore what it is that can be learnt from these texts about 'being gay'. It is my assertion that I will be able to show that, although taboos have been shifted in young adult literature to allow the exploration of issues relating to gay adolescence, that which is condoned as acceptable 'gay behavior' remains restricted. I propose that in order for gay …

Jack Maggs : A Differend Convict(Ion) By Peter Carey, Timothy D. Langley

Theses : Honours

This thesis is an analysis of Peter Carey's novel Jack Maggs and its attempt at writing back to Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. I will analyse the (de)construction of language games between Jack Maggs and Great Expectations; show how Carey as a post-colonial settler writer writes back to the centre, to Dickens' text as a canonical Victorian novel, through intergrating the very notion of the Victorian novel, and in his own terms giving the convict a "history". I will explore how Carey writes competing language games of "science" and "narrative" (as identified by Lyotard) within Jack Maggs and how they produce …

The Destruction Of The Outsider In The Plays Of Tennesee Williams, Warren Herbu

Theses : Honours

This thesis explores the theme of the Outsider in the plays of American dramatist, Tennessee Williams. My central line of argument is that these Outsiders are defeated and destroyed by a number of complex personal and societal forces. After defining what it means to be an Outsider in a Williams play, I will proceed to investigate why and how the figure of the Outsider is destroyed in the following: - 27 Wagons Full of Cotton - Portrait of a Madonna - A Streetcar Named Desire - Orpheus Descending - Suddenly Last Summer - Sweet Bird of Youth. The first two …

Dead Mothers, Lonely Daughters : Negotiating Intersubjective Space In Young Adult Fiction, Anna-Claire Walsh

Theses : Honours

This thesis examines the effect of maternal absence on the ability of three central female characters to develop intersubjective relationships in three novels for young adults. The theoretical framework is Jessica Benjamin's psychoanalytic theory of 'intersubjectivity' which seeks to transcend split complementarities such as active-passive creating a model that synthesises traditionally opposed terms. Benjamin situates maternal subjectivity as the foundation from which a baby's identity is constructed and attributes women with both active and passive qualities. The relationship between mother and infant consequently acts as a paradigm for understanding the interaction between adult subjects in later life. Chapter One introduces …

Nene Gare, A Biographical Study: Australian Novelist, 1919-1994, Rosina Squarcini

Theses : Honours

This thesis undertakes an introductory biographical study of Australian writer, Nene Gare, and a critical reading of her work with special reference to The Fringe Dwellers. The author of this study has sought to establish the basis for that novel's positive literary reception. The research has been directed at correcting, in part, the comparative neglect of this writer. Nene Gare's life and work has been surveyed in the belief that this study will contribute to the current knowledge of twentieth-century Australian fiction writers as well as showing the critical reception to Nene Gare's work as a part of Australian …

Moral Dilemmas And Cases Of Conscience : Trollope's Morality In The Warden And The Last Chronicle Of Barset, Hannah Louise Rogers

Theses : Honours

This thesis offers an exploration of Trollope's morality in The Warden and The Last Chronicle of Barset. Existing critical work which explores Trollope's morality often argues either for or against Trollope's moral relativism. This thesis argues, instead, that Trollope's morality unifies aspects of both theoretical perspectives. It reconciles the polarisation of Trollope's moral absolutism and moral relativism, taking the middle-ground. In doing so, it makes evident the contradictions and extremes in existing Trollopian criticism.

The thesis places Trollopian morality within the historical and socio-cultural context of Victorianism. It focuses on the Victorian consciousness of change, securing a definition …

The Sacrifice Of Les Murray, Jill Reading

Theses : Honours

Les Murray's vivid and evocative poetry has made him a major Australian literary figure. Critics routinely note the sophisticated, often highly wrought nature of Murray's poetic language and acclaim his technical virtuosity, including gifts for pun, paradox, aphorism, idiom and metaphor. The themes of both Murray's poetry and his non-fiction prose often revolve around the divisions he sees in Australia between cultures, between society and people, and within individuals themselves. Despite his efforts to bring healing to these schisms, however, the poet is criticised for his frequent dogmatism and didacticism, which mark his work as divisive. Although Murray professes to …

Loneliness Underneath Laughter : Aspects Of Alienation In The Early Plays Of Tom Stoppard, Steven Hounsome

Theses : Honours

This thesis investigates the various states of alienation that exist in the early plays of the British dramatist Tom Stoppard. By first defining alienation (and discussing the areas of contention which surround the concept), it proceeds to argue that whilst Stoppard has been greatly revered as a comic writer his works are equally consequential for their sensitivity and insight. They depict a prolificacy of characters who fail to assimilate with their society, can no longer relate to those around them and, as is often the case, reach for, but never manage to grasp a sense of their own identity. The …

The Legal Issues In Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice And Jonson's Volpone, Felicia A. Matthew-Stubbs

Theses : Honours

The aim of this thesis is to explore the legal issues within William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and Ben Jonson's Volpone. I will attempt to discover the extent to which both plays can be seen as indicative of English jurisprudence applicable to Early Modern England. I shall commence by investigating The Merchant of Venice through outlining the process of signing and sealing a contract, defining the roles of The Court of Chancery and The Court of Common Law and relating the judgements made by Portia and the Court to statutes, precedents and procedures applicable to the sixteenth and seventeenth …

Imagining Machines: Time & Image In The Shorter Poems Of William Carlos Williams, Stuart Campbell

Theses : Honours

A discussion of time and image in the shorter poems of William Carlos Williams. The particular focus is Williams' short poems published between the Great War and World War II. The relationship between the form of the poems, and Williams' theories on poetry, as expressed in Spring and All, and The Wedge is examined. In turn, Williams' theories are viewed in the context of Imagism, Objectivist poetics, and the modernist machine aesthetic. Williams' application of these theories is seen to create a poetic form that generates images in the reader's imagination in synchrony with the moment.

A Cave Of Their Own: A Comparative Examination Of Recurring Social And Psychological Themes In Gothic Fiction And Gothic Youth Subculture Through The Song Lyrics And Fiction Of Nick Cave, Bradley M. Hunter

Theses : Honours

The aim of this thesis is to examine the Gothic phenomenon as it pertains to late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century fiction, and extrapolate its social and psychological concerns as they relate to the Gothic revival in the late nineteenth-century Decadent movement and late twentieth-century gothic subculture. This examination focuses on recurrent social and psychological themes in eighteenth/nineteenth-century Gothic fiction, the late nineteenth-century Decadent movement and twentieth-century gothic music and subculture, which, in turn, are compared to the themes and motifs of the song lyrics and fiction of Nick Cave. Within this context, the recurring theme of the psychological exploration of …

Fear Of Diminishing Fortunes In Middlemarch, Mirella Scarvaci

Theses : Honours

This thesis offers an interpretation of George Eliot's novel, Middlemarch, which focuses on the historical qualities of Eliot's writing. The thesis invites the need to challenge earlier interpretations of the novel and to develop new theories about the text. The main focus of this research is to show Eliot's presentation of the fear of diminishing fortunes within Middlemarch society. Historical materials are used to verify Eliot's portrayal of the past in Middlemarch. To supplement this, secondary historical sources with a traditional approach will be challenged by recent historical material to ascertain whether Eliot's Middlemarch is a true portrayal of the …

An Investigation Of Dominant Ideologies Operating Within The Text Historia By Australian Playwright Noëlle Janaczewska, Nicole G. Kelly

Theses : Honours

The 'reality' of contemporary Australia is based upon hegemonic perceptions of society, which categorise and classify subjects and groups. These perceptions are based upon dominant ideologies that make sense of and order the world in a particular way. Where 'minority' groups are concerned, their experience, their way of life and their way of 'being' is seen to deviate from the hegemonic perception; they don't fit into the dominant ideology and are therefore constituted as 'different', which through Western polarisation sees them marginalised as the 'Other' seen as somehow more deviant than those who fit the dominant ideology. Noelle Janaczewska's play …

Postmodernism And Children's Picture Books, Jane Siddall

Theses : Honours

No abstract provided.

Chief Seattle's Speech(Es): Ambivalent Idealizations And Emplacing The Uprooted 'Origin', Paul J. O'Malley

Theses : Honours

This thesis traces the narcissistic dynamics behind mounting idealizations of a Native American Indian, Chief Seattle, and his renowned speech of 1854. In my work I draw from psychoanalytic, poststructuralist, 'post-colonial', and translation theories, as well as from contemporary Indian scholarship. I develop my own provisional model of what I term "Narcissistic Drift", providing a means of charting the intertextual dynamics driving colonial representations of otherness to converge progressively with stereotypical norms. Where previous Seattle studies have tended to concern themselves with issues of textual 'authenticity', I build on such work to consider how an indigenous speech 'uprooted' from its …

Migrant Woman As 'Undecidable' : Migrant Subjectivity, The Crocodile Fury By Beth Yahp And The Mule's Foal By Fontini Epanomitis, Sally Cloake

Theses : Honours

In this thesis I demonstrate how a notion of decentred subjectivity better describes marginal subject positions than the concept of unified subjectivity which depends on a discriminatory binary conceptualisation. I identify the migrant position as an aporia from which to deconstruct such concepts as unified subjectivity, as the migrant refuses classification according to dichotomous structures. I use Derridean metaphors to show the falseness and unexamined essentialism inherent in binary oppositions. I use a combination of theorists, and especially Helime Cixous, to augment my primarily Derridean reading of migrant subjectivity within the texts: The Crocodile Fury by Beth Yahp and The …

New Plays For Old : Jonson's Orton And Orton's Jonson, Josephine M. Wayling

Theses : Honours

The aim of this thesis is to ascertain to what extent Ben Jonson's play Volpone can be constructed through Joe Orton's play Loot. I will attempt to discover how far Loot can be said to be of use in re-examining Volpone in a different light since the emergence of Orton's brand of comic drama. I shall start by looking at influences such as Erasmus and his particular brand of humour as created in The Praise of Folly, and the implications for comedy that it presents in the form of the mock encomium. The relevance of "not what …