Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

English Language and Literature Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Fiction

Institution
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 1 - 25 of 25

Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Good Girls Don't, Tess Fresco May 2024

Good Girls Don't, Tess Fresco

English Honors Theses

Set in the year 1980, "Good Girls Don't" is a bracing coming-of-age story about Cathy, a young woman in Los Angeles who dreams of escaping the city yet feels intimately bound to it. Los Angeles as a terrifyingly beautiful place, in this specific time, figures prominently in this novella; even as Cathy enjoys smoking pot with her best friend Heather, rolls her eyes at her boss at Jack In the Box, and moons over sexy surfer boys, the threat of a serial murderer targeting young women hangs over her mind. On a date one night with Jim, an older boy …

Go to article

"A Narrative Is A Living Body”: Trans-Relations In Contemporary Transmasculine Fiction, Madison Rougier Jan 2024

"A Narrative Is A Living Body”: Trans-Relations In Contemporary Transmasculine Fiction, Madison Rougier

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores how recent novels are able to expand representations of transgender experiences and promote identification with these characters and their experiences, even if the reader is not trans themself. It begins by delving into a brief history of transgender narrative and the problems associated with these narratives having been primarily in the form of memoir. It then examines how Rose Tremain’s Sacred Country, despite being one of the first instances of a fictional narrative focused on a transgender man, reflects similarly problematic narrative characteristics to those found in memoir. Proposing a concept of trans-relational reading, which promotes identifications …

Go to article

Feminist Critique And John Updike's 'Holes', Sue Norton Jun 2023

Feminist Critique And John Updike's 'Holes', Sue Norton

Books/Book Chapters

Feminism, John Updike

Go to article

Payton's Final Master's Portfolio, Payton Boshears Dec 2022

Payton's Final Master's Portfolio, Payton Boshears

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Here is my final Master's Portfolio. I did not have specialization for the English program, so for the portfolio I chose four different projects that represent the variety of courses I have taken during my time here at BGSU.

Go to article

Fantasized Masculinity Performed In American War Narratives, Shea O'Scannlain May 2022

Fantasized Masculinity Performed In American War Narratives, Shea O'Scannlain

English Honors Theses

In this thesis I wanted to explore the ways that masculinity has been written in history through the genre of fiction. The first chapter discusses traumatized white masculinity in Kurt Vonnegut's novel SlaughterHouse Five and Oliver Stone's film Born On The Fourth of July. The second chapter deals with the female Black experience in response to the white patriarchy in Toni Morrison's novel Home and HBO's television series LoveCraft Country. And finally chapter 3 deals with mythologized masculinity redeemed through violence in Martin Scorsese's film Taxi Driver and Frank Miller's comic book series The Dark Knight Returns. …

Go to article

Madwomen And Mad Women: An Analysis Of The Use Of Female Insanity And Anger In Narrative Fiction, From Vilification To Validation., Lindsay Haralu May 2021

Madwomen And Mad Women: An Analysis Of The Use Of Female Insanity And Anger In Narrative Fiction, From Vilification To Validation., Lindsay Haralu

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

This project examines the use of female insanity and anger in narrative fiction, as demonstrated by the character of the madwoman. Madness is a concept that has long been gendered female throughout Western history, in medicine, language, religion, and culture. Socially and culturally constructed madness can be used to determine the boundaries of society, the norms and values from which “madness” deviates, while the character of the madwoman can be used to demonstrate how women have challenged these boundaries and how the roles of women and definitions of femininity have changed over time. This study analyzes the madwoman trope from …

Go to article

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Girlhood In The Creation, Content, And Consumption Of Victorian Children’S Literature, Betsy Barthelemy Apr 2021

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Girlhood In The Creation, Content, And Consumption Of Victorian Children’S Literature, Betsy Barthelemy

English Honors Projects

The Golden Age of (British) Children’s Literature was famous not only for the proliferation of fiction it hosted, but also for how much of that work featured young heroine protagonists. Starting with the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and examining two other fantasy works compared with three realistic children's novels from this half-century period, this project elucidates the differences between these genres and examines how authors used the characteristics of each to empower their heroines. It argues that these fictitious heroines influenced real-world readers to create progressive futures by providing examples of rebellious girl characters finding happy endings.

Go to article

Kentuckiana, And A Dash Of Cambodia: A Collection Of Short Stories, Brodie Lee Gress Jul 2019

Kentuckiana, And A Dash Of Cambodia: A Collection Of Short Stories, Brodie Lee Gress

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The following is a collection of five short stories set in regions familiar to me: “Dewberry Park,” “YouLead,” and “The Color Violet” in Indiana; “Mens Rea” in Kentucky; and “Tory Ride” in Cambodia. Gay identity plays a role in many of these stories, and other themes explored include family, region, socioeconomics, gender, mentality, and change. These stories are concerned with people on the brink, failing and surviving all the same. Some of them are intended to weigh, and some to satirize. I hope they all nick their readers.

Go to article

Splitting The Avocado: Short Fiction On Themes Of Power, Gender, And The Hope Of Change, Abigail Mcbride Jan 2017

Splitting The Avocado: Short Fiction On Themes Of Power, Gender, And The Hope Of Change, Abigail Mcbride

Honors Projects and Presentations: Undergraduate

Being a woman who writes about life then, whatever that might mean, is what this project is about, because in that way this male seeing of the world is not silenced but rather transformed by the other side of a conversation that has always been one-sided. I read that and thought, wow, I’m doing something political, something revolutionary, something that’s part of a bigger legacy of women completely revolutionizing traditional discourse!But as I look over the stories I’ve written, I find something very different. I find something intensely personal, even private, in my own relation to gender. I thought I …

Go to article

"The Mouth Of The Void," "Hum", Hannah L. Comeriato Jan 2017

"The Mouth Of The Void," "Hum", Hannah L. Comeriato

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project presents two distinct pieces of short fiction, linked through intentional stylized language, grammatical patterns, and a sectionalized narrative structure. Each individual piece of short fiction functions independently – as separate and distinct from the other, with no explicit connection in content (i.e. recurring characters, parallel timelines etc.). However, each narrative also displays a kind of complex interaction with the other, each crafted to produce, when read alongside one another, a shared indistinct aesthetic and emotional experience. This aesthetic and emotional experience is crafted, specifically, by the use of stylized verbs, the em-dash, and alternating dialogue-based and image-based sections. …

Go to article

Lost Women, Recently Found, Maya Moverman Jan 2016

Lost Women, Recently Found, Maya Moverman

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College

Go to article

Mother's Bed: Gender Representation In Children's Literature, Karin Hanni Apr 2015

Mother's Bed: Gender Representation In Children's Literature, Karin Hanni

Senior Theses

This children's book and accompanying research paper both address gender inequity in children's literature. There is a significant imbalance of gender representation in children's literature, with the number of central male characters almost doubling that of central female characters. Additionally, the roles of males and females still tend to be stereotypical: boys are action-oriented and heroic, while girls are nurturing and passive. Further, it is believed that boys will only enjoy books about boys, while girls will enjoy books about both boys and girls. This imbalance in children's literature hurts both genders. Children not only learn to read from books, …

Go to article

Straight Record And The Paper Trail: From Depression Reporters To Foreign Correspondents, Magdalena Bogacka-Rode Oct 2014

Straight Record And The Paper Trail: From Depression Reporters To Foreign Correspondents, Magdalena Bogacka-Rode

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Straight Record and the Paper Trail: From Depression Reporters to Foreign Correspondents engages with Martha Gellhorn's The Face of War (1959), Virginia Cowles' Looking for Trouble (1941) and Josephine Herbst's The Starched Blue Sky of Spain and Other Memoirs (1991) as documentaries of struggle. Documentary as a mode of writing and image making reveals dissonance, contradictions and varied perspectives which undermine the official historical record. The three writers, I argue, by republishing their Spanish Civil War (SCW) journalism in book form intended to set their record straight. This was motivated by their commitment to the 1930s struggle and the need …

Go to article

Mcwilliams, Ellen. Women And Exile In Contemporary Irish Fiction, Maureen T. Reddy Aug 2014

Mcwilliams, Ellen. Women And Exile In Contemporary Irish Fiction, Maureen T. Reddy

Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Can The Raped Woman Speak?, Zainab El-Mansi Jan 2014

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 …

Go to article

Historical Butches: Lesbian Experience And Masculinity In Bryher's Historical Fiction, Haley M. Fedor Jan 2013

Historical Butches: Lesbian Experience And Masculinity In Bryher's Historical Fiction, Haley M. Fedor

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This project analyzes three of Bryher's historical novels, while also providing background on the shadowy figure of Bryher herself. Looking at Gate to the Sea, Roman Wall, and Ruan, each serves to represent lesbianism in a variety of coded or metaphorical ways. Various geographical locations or landscapes serve to either represent or depict homosexual desire, and also construct queer spaces for characters to traverse. Limited scholarship exists on any of Bryher's works, particularly that which looks at lesbian sexuality. The genre Bryher writes in allows for a cross-writing of lesbian characters, or gendering lesbian characters as male, and displays awareness …

Go to article

My Mother's Daughter, Monica Vanessa Martinez Jan 2013

My Mother's Daughter, Monica Vanessa Martinez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In order to address the way the Chicano culture attempts to silence its women, My Mother's Daughter is a collection of short stories narrated by Chicanas. The collection uses the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters to highlight the conflicts that lead to the silencing of Chicanas. The collection attempts to challenge this silencing by utilizing the first person perspective to give a voice to these traditionally silenced women. Another literary technique employed is the use of dramatic irony. With multiple first person narrators in the same story the collection uses dramatic irony as a way of playing up the …

Go to article

Haunted By Passion: Supernaturalism And Feminism In Jane Eyre And Villette, Laurel Lorber Jan 2013

Haunted By Passion: Supernaturalism And Feminism In Jane Eyre And Villette, Laurel Lorber

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

.

Go to article

Style And Substance: Isabel Archer As A New Type Of "Lady", Sandra Gulbicki Jan 2013

Style And Substance: Isabel Archer As A New Type Of "Lady", Sandra Gulbicki

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

.

Go to article

Mother Of Three Drowns Children And Other Stories, Laura L. Stubbins Jan 2012

Mother Of Three Drowns Children And Other Stories, Laura L. Stubbins

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A collection of short stories depicting fictional characters facing what is absent from their lives.

Go to article

Cumberland [Abstract], Megan Gannon Jan 2012

Cumberland [Abstract], Megan Gannon

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Set in a fictional town on the coast of Georgia in July of 1972, Cumberland is the story of two fifteen-year-old twin sisters, Ansel and Isabel (“Izzy”) Mackenzie, who have lived with their frugal, eccentric grandmother since the age of eight when their parents were killed in a car accident and Isabel was paralyzed. Over the years, the burden of caring for her sister has fallen increasingly on Ansel. However, as Ansel cultivates a romantic relationship with a local boy, as well as an artistic apprenticeship with a visiting photographer, her growing desires for selfhood and independence compromise her ability …

Go to article

“Margaret Atwood’S The Blind Assassin As A Modern Bluebeard”, Karen Stein Dec 2010

“Margaret Atwood’S The Blind Assassin As A Modern Bluebeard”, Karen Stein

Karen F Stein

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Mama's Boy, Jamie T. Berger Jan 2010

Mama's Boy, Jamie T. Berger

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

"Mama's Boy" is a book of fiction and nonfiction by Jamie Berger. It deals with mothers and sons and feminism and pornography and poker and love and New York and San Francisco and Western Massachusetts.

Go to article

Open, Clear Decisions: Virginian Woolf's Orlando And Clarissa Dalloway As Bisexuals, Sarah Brey May 2008

Open, Clear Decisions: Virginian Woolf's Orlando And Clarissa Dalloway As Bisexuals, Sarah Brey

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

In Orlando Virginia Woolf, shows Orlando as a person with a clear conscience who knows what he/she wants. Like Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway, who is also often regarded as a lesbian because she loves Sally fondly her whole life but chooses to marry Richard, Orlando loves Sasha regardless of what changes her body undergoes, but chooses to marry Shel. Neither Clarissa nor Orlando is forced into marriage. Both choose to marry and abandon their active lesbian tendencies because they know what is most comfortable for them. As bisexuals they show the confusion of desiring both sexes, and instead of …

Go to article

Feminist Fiction And The Uses Of Memory, Gayle Greene Jan 1991

Feminist Fiction And The Uses Of Memory, Gayle Greene

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

All writers are concerned with memory, since all writing is a remembrance of things past; all writers draw on the past, mine it as a quarry. Memory is especially important to anyone who cares about change, for forgetting dooms us to repetition;and it is of particular importance to feminists.

Go to article