English Language and Literature Commons^™

From Selflessness To Selfishness: Various Types Of Deception In Four Of Twain's Novels, Kay L. Smith

Masters Theses

An interesting feature of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson is the use of disguise and deception. The basis of much of the novels' actions concerns people who, for varied reasons, set out to fool other people. Other individuals or groups of people are self-deceived.

Motivations for the deception vary. Some entail selfless concerns of protecting a loved one. Some illustrate desires to maintain one's own safety and well-being. Still others involve negative, base qualities such as greed, …

Fitzgerald's Use Of The Four Elements In The Great Gatsby, John Philip Hawkins

Masters Theses

A great deal has been written about the conscientious effort that went into the design of F. Scott Fitzgerald's popular novel, The Great Gatsby, with its various allusions and numerous symbols. A careful reading of this novel will unveil the author's preoccupation with numerous metaphysical images, particularly the four elements--air, earth, water, and fire--which are considered to be the essential components of all matter.

Fitzgerald uses the four elements in The Great Gatsby to coordinate mood and physical settings, to give dimension to the settings, and to bring characters into sharper focus. The novel employs four settings, each one …

Saul Bellow's Henderson The Rain King: A Fusion Of The Comic And The Serious, George William Russo

Masters Theses

Bellow's comic vision points to a compromise between the romantic notion that self-perfection is attainable and the pessimistic notion that man is ultimately impotent and thus destined to fail. Through Henderson, Bellow shows that although man does not--and ultimately cannot--completely free himself of somatic demands and limitations, he is nevertheless not defeated by them and thus not left a victim of emotionless observations.

Bellow draws upon four sources in Henderson's nature to create the humor in the novel and highlights Eugene Henderson as a comic hero by dramatizing that Henderson proves to be his own ironist. These sources can be …

The Symbol Of The Mirror In Le Roman De La Rose, Trijntje Zwolsman Ouwinga

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Alcohol On Ernest Hemingway's Fictional Characters, Gary Nelson Thomas

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Oedipa In Quest Of Herself In The Crying Of Lot 49, James Edward Osborn

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Depiction Of Blacks In The Works Of Ernest Hemingway, Sheila Marie Foor

Masters Theses

Ernest Hemingway, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, is one of America's outstanding literary figures. Criticism of his work has been voluminous--ranging from bitterly derogative to superlative--with most of it focusing upon the famous 'Hemingway code hero,' upon his crisp, concise writing style, and upon his much-publicized personal life.

One example of negative assessment by critics is the one concerning black portraiture in Hemingway's fiction. However, no work deals exclusively with this aspect of his writing. The purpose of this thesis is, first, to present a general discussion on the nature of prejudice and examination of black …

Melville And Beckett: A Legacy Of Pessimism, Jeanette Elaine Bahnke

Masters Theses

Though separated by nearly a century and by two different cultures, Herman Melville and Samuel Beckett complement each other's concept of man and his world. This concept is the concept of pessimism, which each man adopted and expanded throughout his works.

Both authors lament the concept that man must struggle to attempt unachievable goals, yet both also insist that the only way to maintain a type of balance is to "go on."

The Beckettian-Melvillian hero, consequently, is a "thought-diver." As he strips layers from the Self, he simultaneously strips layers from the cosmos. Thus, the stripping of the Self and …

L. Frank Baum And The Technology Of Love, Robert Bruce Goble

Masters Theses

L. Frank Baum, throughout his books of fantasy, especially the Oz series, gradually resolves the conflict of pastoralism and technology by developing a technology managed by love. Baum uses magic as a representation of both pastoralism and technology. Fairy magic, the capacity for love, represents pastoralism, and ritual magic, the capacity for good or evil depending upon who wields it, represents technology. Baum deals with the ways in which ritual magic or technology can be misused through selfishness and ignorance and points out how destruction can be avoided if technology were managed by not greed for power and money but …

The Rite Of Initiation In Pinter's The Birthday Party, Richard C. Slocum

Masters Theses

The paper is an attempt to give full treatment to elements in Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party which suggest the rite of initiation practiced in primitive societies. A few critics have touched upon the subject of initiation in the play, but they fail to discuss it in detail.

Extensive comparisons are made between Charles Eckert's summary of initiation rituals and the actions and characters in the play. The initiate is isolated from society as a preliminary to the rite of initiation; Stanley is isolated in a seaside boarding house. The initiate is secluded in a dark and threatening place; Stanley …

The Role Of Betrayal In Selected Drama Of Tennessee Williams, Craig E. Sanderson

Masters Theses

Much of the critical analysis of Tennessee Williams' drama concerns itself with the inherent conflict between ideals and reality in the universe as perceived by Williams. Such analysis, however, has not considered this conflict as a source of betrayal, or betrayal as a dominant theme in Williams' drama. In at least four of his plays it becomes evident how each of the individual characters in Williams' drama endures the conflict of reality and ideals, and the extent to which their respective approaches to the resolution of this struggle result in betrayal. Four plays--all regarded as among his most successful and …

From Rendezvous To Picket Fence: Tracing The Changing Frontier And Novelistic Development In A. B. Guthrie, Jr.'S Western Pentology, Raymond Charles Schmudde

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

V. S. Naipaul: The Development Of His View Of Man, Kim Lin Forrester

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to examine V.S. Naipaul's view of the human condition as it develops from a local and comic perspective to a more universal and tragic awareness. The first group, entitled "The Mystic, the Politician, and other Eccentrics," is comprised of his first three novels--The Mystic Masseur, The Suffrage of Elvira, and Miguel Street. Each work is a highly satiric examination of a society in which the author perceives no sign of any intellectual depth as he moves rapidly from one humorous episode to another. The characters are generally of the lower …

The Troubled Ecstasy Of Yeats's "Purgatory" And "At The Hawk's Well", Gregory Michael Sadlek

Masters Theses

A great amount of W. B. Yeats's writing attests to his fascination with the preternatural. Indeed, it seems that Yeats felt the sacred experience to be somehow central in the living of a full life. Further, in his essay "The Celtic Element in Literature," he proposed that all great literature arises out of the passion which flows from the sacred experience. Yeats thought that drama as well as poetry, then, must plumb this core of life. And in his essay "The Tragic Theatre" he declared that great tragedy deals with feelings and experiences which are universal and timeless and which …

The Acceptance And Rejection Of Courtly Love By The Lovers In Chaucer’S Troilus And Criseyde, Michael Jerome Baldwin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

William Blake's Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience: From Innocence To Experience To Wise Innocence, Robert W. Winkleblack

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Female Initiates In Faulkner, Nancy Joan White

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Howells, Marriage, And Swedenborg: The Influence Of Swedenborg's Teachings On Howells' Portrayal Of Marriage In His Novels, Nancy Danner Marlow

Masters Theses

Over one-half of Howells' novels are concerned with marriage and courtship. Like many other aspects of his thinking, Howells' ideas of marriage were influenced by the teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth century Swedish scientist and theologian. The bulk of Swedenborg's teachings regarding marriage are found in his The Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conjugial Love, published in 1768. Howells showed the influence of Swedenborgianism on the marriages in his novels in three major areas: the actual marriages in his novels, matters relating to marriage, and marital failures.

An important element in Swedenborgianism is the belief in marriages in heaven. …

Page And Stage: A Structural Investigation Of Agatha Christie's "Three Blind Mice" And "The Mousetrap", Martha Morrow

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Sound And The Fury: A Study Of Jason Compson And His Relationships With Women, Shari J. Fitzgerald

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Father And Sons In Bernard Malamud's The Natural And The Assistant, John Timothy Dailey

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Endless Journey: William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying And John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath: A Comparative Study, Sherri L. Lawrence

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Joe Christmas: A Hero In Conflict In Faulkner's Light In August, Carole Booker Winkleblack

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Illusion Vs. Reality In The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Glendora S. Plath

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Beckett's Manipulation Of Audience Response In Waiting For Godot, Robert Carl Themer

Masters Theses

This thesis examines one of the many paradoxes of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot--that although on the surface Beckett reduces his characters to the barest minimum in human terms, the spectator still finds himself, mysteriously, identifying with those pathetic stage creatures and their plights.

The dual purpose of this paper is to examine the methods Beckett used to foster this sense of spectator-character likeness and to assess its impact upon the spectator. It explores the contrast between the near-caricatures, Pozzo and Lucky, and the more complexly humanized Vladimir and Estragon. It discusses Beckett's universalization of character, time, place, and …

Romanticism And Evangelical Christianity In William Cowper's The Task, Carol V. Johnson

Masters Theses

In The Task, dated 1785, William Cowper clearly anticipates certain major themes in early nineteenth-century British Romantic poetry. In his individual presentation of the central Romantic themes of this "transitional" work, however, Cowper differs significantly from the major Romantic poets whose work his own most resembles. This is largely due to the strain of Evangelical Christianity that pervades the poem, as the result of his contact with the Evangelical Revival that swept England during the second half of the eighteenth century. The orthodox Christian doctrine and morality that underlie the Romantic themes in The Task, together with the …

Predestination As A Motif In Faulkner's Light In August, Virginia A. Riegel

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Theme Of Othello, James Irving Krumrey

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Existential Elements In The Works Of Ernest Hemingway, Carl Klemaier

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

ComparacióN De Las Novelas DoñA Perfecta Y Silas Marner, Margarita Means

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.