English Language and Literature Commons^™

The "Jaded Traveller": John Jasper's Failed Psychic Quest In Charles Dickens's The Mystery Of Edwin Drood., Linda Poland Pridgen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a Jungian study of John Jasper, the central character in Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Jasper fails to achieve psychological wholeness because he suffers from what Carl G. Jung calls dissociation of consciousness, a malady that prevents Jasper from entering the process of individuation--a process of self-discovery. Jasper's boredom, self-alienation, hypocrisy, and secret double life impede his search for self.

Faced with projections of his anima and shadow self, Jasper has many opportunities for psychological and spiritual growth. But rather than integrate the aspects of his personality that each of the anima and shadow …

A Comparative Analysis Of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle And Emile Zola's Germinal., Mouhamedoul Amine Niang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to demonstrate that Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was modeled upon Emile Zola's Germinal. A comparative analysis of their novels is the method by which the latter statement is substantiated. A close reading of these works unveils their overlappings in terms of characterization, theme and narrative. Following the introduction, the second chapter focuses on both authors' character constructions with the purpose of tracing the modeling process. The third chapter is a discussion of their similar thematic issues. The penultimate chapter deals with the identical formats of the writers' plots. Authorial differences are also considered in this work, but …

Isaac Bashevis Singer: Speak English, Think Yiddish-- Adaptation Versus Assimilation., Susan L. Gardberg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Critics use the words "vanished culture" to describe Isaac Bashevis Singer's work for Polish Jewry had been destroyed. However, Singer's characters survive the travails of anti-Semitism and resettle in America. This study explores Singer's Polish Jews to determine whether they assimilate into their new culture; or maintain their strong Jewish traditions and adapt to the freedoms of America.

Singer's life is analyzed, including the people and places that have influenced his work. Two of Singer's works are examined in this thesis. Chapters Three and Four explicate an allegorical short story, "The Little Shoemakers." Singer writes a fairytale view of a …

If Only I Knew: The Stranger In The Twentieth-Century Short Story., Ryan S. Otto

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study is divided into two major parts. The first explores the variations of the stranger genre in the American twentieth-century short story by examining the short works of Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, and David James Duncan. The second provides five original works of fiction that represent my understanding of the genre. Observations in the first section fall into three basic categories: "The Mysterious Stranger: Character," "The Tough Guy: Conflict," and "The Nature of Knowing: Theme." "The Character in Transition" chapter relates my observations in the critical study to the structure …

Jane Eyre And The Postcolonial Bildungsroman., Patricia R. Payette

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is often considered a classic Bildungsroman and an early example of feminist fiction because its plot concerns the progress of a lonely and outspoken orphaned girl whose self-determination and independence eventually lead her to wealth and a successful marriage. However, as the novels by three twentieth-century Caribbean authors illustrate, the paradigm of female development presented in Jane Eyre is not applicable to females from the West Indies who are faced with racial and cultural barriers that are part of growing up in a colonized society. Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy (1990), and …

Visionaries Of The American West : Mari Sandoz And Her Four Plains Protagonists, Lisa R. Lindell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The authorial reputation of Mari Sandoz has long rested in the shadow of other writers of her era. First of all, Sandoz wrote from and about a relatively remote region of the United States. In addition, she firmly refused to produce popular works at the expense of sacrificing the truth she perceived and wished to express. Consequently, Sandoz has often been classified as a regional writer and her works have been overlooked by many readers and critics. Her status as a woman, her unconventional writing style, point of view, and subject matter, and the blending of historical and fictional elements …

Matthew Arnold, The Development Of A Social Critic, Annette Hoines

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since time began, mankind has learned to cope with change as a consistent element of life. History is partly a record of man's response to changes in people, in physical circumstances, in social conditions, in moral attitudes. Change, therefore has always been an integral part of living, but in Victorian England, the changes taking place were so tremendous, so numerous and so widespread in their effect as to have a dominating influence on the work of certain authors or the period. The Victorian period, during the decades 1850 – 1870, rife with change and turbulence, saw the rise of Matthew …

C.S. Lewis's Interplanetary Trilogy: "An Imaginative Realization Of Doctrine", Marcia K. Houtman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength are, in a sense, escape fiction; but they are also much more than that. Lewis's Christianity is something that cannot be separated from his fiction; although he perhaps did not begin writing the trilogy with the idea of making it a Christian apologetic and, in fact, claimed that he never started writing anything with a moral in mind, his faith was so completely a part of him that it could not help expressing itself even when he did not have that intention in mind. According to Austin Farrer in his …

The Puritan Tradition In The Novels Of Robert Herrick, Allen D. Towery

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No Abstract

Brighton Rock: Growth In Psychological Insight, Sister Catherine Madigan Dc

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis, presented at Xavier University in 1969, examines Graham Greene's novel "Brighton Rock" as a significant early step in Greene's development of psychologically complex characterization. Madigan argues that the novel represents the first sustained combination of three elements in Greene's fiction: the "thriller" plot structure, the "Catholic element" as a framework of belief opposing his characters' actions, and genuine psychological depth, distinguishing it from both his earlier thrillers and his lighter "entertainments."

The thesis compares "Brighton Rock" to Greene's short story "A Drive in the Country," which shares a similar plot but, due to its brevity and narrative point …

The Theory Of Elective Affinities In The Dramatic Love Poems Of Robert Browning, Harry C. Tartt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis, submitted to Xavier University in partial fulfillment of requirements for a Master of Arts degree in 1969, examines Robert Browning's treatment of romantic love in his dramatic poems through the theoretical lens of elective affinities, which is a concept borrowed from chemistry and first applied to human relationships by Johann Wolfgang Goethe in his 1809 novel Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities). The study traces the origins of the chemical theory of elective affinities from seventeenth-century analytical chemists including Hermann Boerhaave and Torbern Bergmann through Goethe's literary application of the concept to four lovers whose passions operate as blind, irresistible forces …

A Study Of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Patrick Davis Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

[No abstract provided.]

Reactions To Edgar Allan Poe At Home And Abroad, Sr Brigid Donoghue D.C

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most enigmatic names in American literature is that of Edgar Allan Poe. Born in America of Americans, the major portion of his works were written in his native country and, with the exception of an occasional phrase or two used to create effect or atmosphere, all is works were written in his native tongue.

A Comparison Of The Responses Of Students And Teachers Concerning What Was Taught In High School Senior English., Beatrice Lewis Reynolds

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Methods Used By John William De Forest In Translating His Personal War Experiences Into Realistic Fiction As Shown In Miss Ravenel's Conversion., Elizabeth Maxwell Bright 1923-2010

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the last half of the nineteenth century, novels, short stories, articles and poems written by John William De Forest appeared in the pages of such popular magazines as Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Galaxy, along with literary contributions from Mark Twain, Whittier, Longfellow. Henry James. and William Dean Howells. De Forest, however, has been forgotten by both the reading public and the literary historians since that time, while the literary reputations of the other men have increased; yet it is to this obscure writer that modern critics such as Carl Van Doren, Alexander Cowie, Arthur Quinn. and Van …

The Structure Of Whitman's Song Of Myself., Jane Kinney Hill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Shelley's Hymn To Intellectual Beauty., Mona Belle Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Kentucky Autobiography And Kentucky Culture., William F. Keirce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to trace the historical development of autobiographical writing in Kentucky; to analyze the literary and philosophical characteristics of these works and, by this means, to divide these writings into several categories; and, finally, to reveal by an interpretation of these autobiographies, certain cultural aspects of Kentucky life and society. As thus stated, the intentions of this study are several; but, actually, all these aims are inseparably related part. of a single general problem which is to investigate Kentucky autobiographical writing as a whole in order to better understand the individual works in that literature.

Milton's Religious Attitude In Samson Agonistes., Milton Gerald Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The criticism of Milton's Samson Agonistes has generally centered about interpretation of its autobiographical content and the interpretation of its classical form. The aim of this thesis is to show the relation of the inner, psychological form to the Puritan tradition. The biblical story from which Samson was derived, Judges 13-16, offers little to the scholar in understanding the psychological impetus of Samson. It is mainly a treatment of a pagan narrative demonstrating the snares inherent in trusting a woman with secrets. Samson finally regains his strength and pulls down the temple at Gaza and the narrative ends.

A Study Of Virginia Woolf., Virginia Powell Reid

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No abstract provided.

Significant Modern Interpretations Of Joan Of Arc., Virginia Quarrier Wynn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Five hundred years have passed, and Joan remains a living breathing presence, when those others of her day have become little more than names, a museum of labelled shadows. What is the explanation of this continued interest in a young girl who lived for only nineteen short years in the first part of the fifteenth century? Before attempting to answer this question, let us briefly summarize the facts of her life: she was born, it is believed, on January 6, 1412 in Domremy, a small town in north-eastern France. There, at the age of thirteen, she first heard voices and …

Shelley's God., Albert Stutzenberger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

English Contemporary Opinion Of The American Civil War, Vorice Jackson Waters

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis, submitted to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Xavier University in partial fulfillment of requirements for a Master of Arts degree in 1947, presents a survey of British public opinion during the entirety of the American Civil War. Drawing on contemporary newspapers, pamphlets, letters, diaries, parliamentary speeches, and official government records, the study analyzes the conflicting opinions expressed by individuals, organizations, and government officials in England from the outbreak of hostilities through the conclusion of peace. The thesis finds that English upper and middle classes generally sympathized with the Confederacy, influenced by historical parallels to the …

Tragic Implications Of Man's Frustration By Society In Three Of Dreiser's Novels., Susan Mae Robinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to examine three of Dreiser's major novels in order (1) to show that his philosophy of life is exemplified in his fiction and (2) to determine whether or not his ideas undergo any change. The three novels chosen for this study are The "Genius", An American Tragedy, and The Bulwark, because they cover a span of American life, as Dreiser saw it, from the time of his greatest productivity until his death--a period of thirty years. The first part of the thesis will contain: (1) a general background of the period of which Dreiser …

The Relationship Of Seventeenth Century And Twentieth Century Metaphysical Poetry., Joseph E. Duncan 1921-1991

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Mutations Of The Gothic Romance., Sarah Virginia Rose

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Martha Finley's Fiction For Girls., Virginia Haggard Rost

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Christmas Story In American Literature., Katharine Allyn See

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Concept Of God In The Poetry Of The American Negro, Sister Mary Helena Jones Ssf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis, submitted to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Xavier University in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in 1943, traces the evolving concept of God in the poetry of the American Negro from the era of slavery through the early 1940s. Sister Mary Helena Jones examines the poets' treatment of the divine attributes of God, including His Power, Love, Justice, Goodness, Immutability, and Mercy, and His relation to man as Saviour, Friend, Master, Shepherd, and King, arguing that this faith, once central to Black religious and poetic expression, has weakened over …

A Critical Analysis Of Negro Character In The American Novel Of The South 1935-1940, Alice Veronica Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I have observed in reading novels by both white and Negro authors that only certain types of Negroes have been portrayed. The question kept rising in my mind, Why? Usually it is the highly colorful, sensational, immoral type that is shown to the exclusion of the self-respecting, decent living, ordinary, everyday Negro.