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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Similarities And Differences: The Evolution Of Ann Radcliffe, Maximillian D. Patton May 2021

Similarities And Differences: The Evolution Of Ann Radcliffe, Maximillian D. Patton

English Department Theses

By looking at specific elements and the somewhat formulaic use of these elements within each of Radcliffe’s published works this paper looks at how Radcliffe evolved as an author and how this evolution within her works contributed to the evolution of the gothic genre in general during the time period in which she was writing and shortly thereafter. It focuses on how each of these elements, such as certain character archetypes, settings and themes, along with other more minor elements share certain characteristics from text to text within Radcliffe’s body of works but are still adapted to suit each individual …


"I Want To Melt Into Her Body": Sexual Empowerment And A Feminist Recentering Of The Female Characters In Dracula By Bram Stoker, Carmilla By J. Sheridan Lefanu, And Villette By Charlotte Bronte, Carson Leigh Pender May 2021

"I Want To Melt Into Her Body": Sexual Empowerment And A Feminist Recentering Of The Female Characters In Dracula By Bram Stoker, Carmilla By J. Sheridan Lefanu, And Villette By Charlotte Bronte, Carson Leigh Pender

Graduate Theses

Simone de Beauvoir argues in The Second Sex, “The normal sexual act [of intercourse] effectively makes woman dependent on the male and the species. It is he–as for most animals– who has the aggressive role and she who submits to his embrace. . . coitus cannot take place without male consent, and male satisfaction is its natural end result” (385). Essentially, de Beauvoir argues that the act of sex cannot exist without the presence of man, but particularly for heterosexual women, the act of sex is dependent on the presence of, responsibility of, and response of men. However, despite the …


From Byronic To Gothic Blood Sucker: Subversion Toward A Non-Gendered Identity, Hannah Hoover May 2021

From Byronic To Gothic Blood Sucker: Subversion Toward A Non-Gendered Identity, Hannah Hoover

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Analyzing Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and linking trends of the Byronic hero that have merged into a variety of genres reveal that the hero is a mode of subversive gender expression, which has evolved within the Gothic through feminine desire. Delving into Bram Stoker’s Dracula will provide unique insight into the audience’s desires/expressions of gender. Finding the transition point from the monster vampire of Dracula to Stephanie Meyer’s desirous, sparkling boy-next-door in Twilight will track the trajectory of gender and sexual norms through time. From the foundational adaptation of the Byronic hero in Wuthering Heights to the repressed vampiric desire …


The Pedagogy Of Terror: Women's Education In The Gothic Novel, Faith Borland Mar 2021

The Pedagogy Of Terror: Women's Education In The Gothic Novel, Faith Borland

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the distinction between terror and horror that Robert Hume first established in his 1969 article on categories of the gothic novel, a distinction that I redefine as a scholar working after the #Metoo movement and broader cultural recognition of the terror that women face in their everyday lives. “Terror” illustrates the sustained sensations produced in women’s lives as powerless and marginalized. Eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twenty-first-century women writers of the gothic, including Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, depict female characters who overcome terror through domestic, scientific and medical, familial, experiential, cultural, and academic education. Linking recent …


The Making Of Monsters: Creativity And Morality In Gothic Novels Frankenstein And The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Elisa Klaassen Jan 2021

The Making Of Monsters: Creativity And Morality In Gothic Novels Frankenstein And The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Elisa Klaassen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study examined Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which foreshadows the Victorian period, and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, which reflects on it. The two novels are both monster stories that share many similarities, including themes of creativity and morality. However, the two novels are distinctly different in surprising ways. This thesis serves as an examination of their differing treatments of creativity and morality. In its examination, it reveals the ways in which Shelley couples these themes, foreshadowing Victorianism, while Wilde decouples them, reflecting and refracting on Victorian themes. Thus, this study reveals some of the major cultural changes that …