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Full-Text Articles in American Studies
“Garden-Magic”: Conceptions Of Nature In Edith Wharton’S Fiction, Jonathan Malks
“Garden-Magic”: Conceptions Of Nature In Edith Wharton’S Fiction, Jonathan Malks
Undergraduate Honors Theses
I situate Edith Wharton’s guiding idea of “garden-magic” at the center of my thesis because Wharton’s fiction shows how a garden space could naturalize otherwise inadmissible behaviors within upper-class society while helping a character tie such behavior to a greater possibility for escape. To this end, Wharton situates gardens as idealized touchstones within the built environment of New York City, spaces where characters believe they can reach self-actualization within a version of nature that is man-made. Actualization, in this sense, stems from a character’s imaginative escape that is enabled by a perception of the garden as a kind of natural …
Flipping The Castle: Evolution Of Gothic Spaces In The Domestic Sphere, Kate Lucas
Flipping The Castle: Evolution Of Gothic Spaces In The Domestic Sphere, Kate Lucas
Undergraduate Honors Theses
"Flipping the Castle" explores topics of domesticity in Gothic literature over the course of three centuries. The Gothic is a genre with roots in 18th century British literature, but more broadly, it can be described as horror that has a social function, and it is the birthplace of some of the most successful narratives in horror fiction. The aspects of the Gothic this research is concerned with is its themes of unchecked masculine aggression versus repressed femininity, its ability to adapt over time, and its preoccupation with setting, specifically the home, whether that be a medieval castle, a haunted house, …