English Language and Literature Commons^™

Lost At Sea, Dylan Thomas

Bryant Literary Review

One dark day
my love was washed away

Hoo Doo Interests, Allison Whittenberg

Bryant Literary Review

MaMa Fontaine stirs gumbo in a big rusty pot
telling me that joy is squashing a pregnant roach

A Fried Egg, Ellen Cooney

Bryant Literary Review

a fried egg
a small sun

A Scarlet Tanager Alights On A Branch, John Grey

Bryant Literary Review

The stopping, admiring,
is all on my side.

Class Mate, John Kristofco

Bryant Literary Review

"Hey, has anybody seen my Hawthorne?" Terrence Terrill poked his head into the small living room.

The Repressive Role Of Technology In American And British Dystopian Novels Of The Cold War, Gabriela Wolk

HIM 1990-2015

The Cold War was a time of extreme conformity, with an equally extreme reaction against forced conformity. Representations of such reactions were not to be omitted in the literature of the time. Throughout the novels, the characters and society itself are repressed into an alternate state of being. This investigation analyzes the role that technology plays in this process in Fahrenheit 451, Sirens of Titan, 1984, Lord of the Flies, and A Clockwork Orange. The novels were all written during the Cold War and follow a dystopian society. Society is controlled and maintained in its respective disarray through the utilization …

Minding The Gap: Connecting The Mirror Cities Of London In The Novels Of Neil Gaiman And China Miéville, Miranda Hill

Honors Theses

Cities in reality that are transformed into cities in literature create the opportunity for two thematic elements: firstly, the Gothic feeling of the uncanny is created because the two cities are similar and yet dissimilar to one another. Secondly, satirical elements are introduced when the author uses the city within literature to expound upon issues within the city in reality. Neil Gaiman and China Miéville employ different perspectives to recreate the historical city of London within their novels, but their results are the same, and both the uncanny and satire are achieved. In Gaiman’s Neverwhere (1996), and Miéville’s Perdido Street …

Underworld Journeys In The Faerie Queene And The Lord Of The Rings: Exploring The “Belly Of The Whale” Of Joseph Campbell’S Monomyth And The Effect On The Hero’S Return From Adventure, Kayla M. Kirkendall

Honors Theses

This paper examines Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth—the idea that great myths (heroes’ journeys) throughout history adhere to a single, basic structure. The most important step of this structure is arguably the Belly of the Whale/Descent into the Underworld, as can be seen in the Redcrosse Knight of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (Book One) and Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. These individual heroes reveal that the way in which they overcome (or fail to overcome) their underworlds determines the success or failure of the character as a Campbellian hero. Most importantly, …

A Few Good Men And Women : The Rhetorical Constitution Of Military Personnel Identity., Ashly Bender Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine the public negotiation of service member identity by multiple stakeholders as a way to better understand the available rhetorical strategies for affecting ideological constructions of identity. While current Rhetoric and Composition research attends mostly to student-veterans, I draw on cultural and rhetorical theorists, such as Louis Althusser, Kenneth Burke, Maurice Charland, to identify the rhetorical approaches used to construct military personnel identity, particularly in the post-9/11 era. Through analysis of films, recruiting materials, and the publicly-shared stories of personnel, I extend current understandings of constitutive rhetoric and rhetorical identification—which tend to focus on the work …

The Broadsheet- Issue 12, Merrimack College

The Broadsheet

Merrimack College's English Department newsletter.

This issue features:

• Gail Caldwell Interview
• English Awards
• Aherne Poetry Contest Winners
• Next to Normal Review
• Grand Budapest Hotel Review
• Senior Reflection

Beyond Constructing And Capturing: An Aesthetic Analysis Of 1968 Film, Chandler Warren

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study revisits conversations surrounding the global moment of 1968 and the forms of radical filmmaking that occurred during that time. Focusing on the Newsreel collective and the Dziga Vertov Group from the United States and France respectively—groups that utilized very distinct filmmaking methodologies and produced disparate aesthetics—the study argues that traditional leftist film critique must be rethought by acknowledging the revolutionary opportunities afforded to filmmakers through aesthetic elements like voiceovers or intentionally manipulated relationships between image and sound of specific shots. Instead of judging radical films within a spectrum of revolutionary efficacy, the reflexivity afforded to the filmmaker by …

"Compulsion": The Fictionalization Of The Leopold-Loeb Case And The Struggle For Creative Control Of "The Crime Of The Century", Maria L. Zambrana

All NMU Master's Theses

When an artist releases a project into the global marketplace, it is difficult to say that it is “their” project from that point onward. Once an artistic work is made accessible to the public, it all but becomes public property as it is reinterpreted and re-released in different forms. In the case of literature, everything from plagiarism to unauthorized publishing can take place. Some methods of “stealing,” such as fan fiction, have less of an impact and can be viewed as harmless appreciation (as long as there is no profit being made). But other forms of theft, like the illegal …

Not So Magical: Issues With Racism, Classism, And Ideology In Harry Potter, Tiffany L. Walters

All NMU Master's Theses

Although it is primarily a young adult fantasy series, the Harry Potter books are also focused on the battle against racial purification and the threat of a strictly homogeneous magical society. This thesis examines the intricacies and depth of the racial ideologies presented in the books, as well as how they can be equated with historical and real world issues. More specifically, this thesis will study the delineations of human and non-human beings, and how the institutional biases they struggle against are supported by traditional principles. Though these are important ideas worthy of discussion, I also hope that further examination …

Agency And Afro-Pessimism: Richard Wright And Ayi Kwei Armah, Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah

Honors Scholar Theses

Various scholars in Ethnic Studies have made the claim that people of color in the United States have constituted a colony within. That is to say, by virtue of the effects of institutional racism racialized bodies in the United States have experienced a form of colonialism unique to the American context. Examining the connections between forms of subjectivity in the United States and in Africa, this paper attempts to extend the concepts “social life” and “social death” to the literature of continental Africa. Through a close reading of Ayi Kwei Armah’s “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born,” and Richard …

Privately Deviant, Publicly Disciplined: The Violent Seizure Of Female Narratives In The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, The Woman In White, And Lady Audley’S Secret, Amanda K. Hand

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In Victorian England, women were subjects within their patriarchal society. What Anne Brontë, Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon emphasize and “sensationalize” is the subjugated marriage relationship, violently portraying men forcing their wives into submission. Brontë’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Collin’s The Woman in White, and Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret provide examples of men attempting to control the women in their lives. These novels deploy moments of violent seizure to dramatize and critique the inequalities inherent in the strict Victorian marriage laws. However, despite this usurpation of the female narrative, the insurgent testimony of the female voice persists in the mind …

(Re)Constructing The Hybrid: Negotiating Transcultural South Asian Women's Subjectivity, Zoya Haroon

English Honors Projects

My project explores the transcultural South Asian woman as postcolonial hybrid subject. I do so by comparing two novels by transnational South Asian feminist authors (Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee and Anita and Me by Meera Syal) and using ethnographic work to complement my literary analysis of hybridity with the lived experience of South Asian women at Macalester. I contextualize my project within postcolonial and women of color feminist theory. Ultimately, I seek to contribute to the existing literature on transcultural South Asian women’s subjectivity and to place their experience alongside that of other women of color.

Honors project in English …

Jess's Search For An Understanding Of Truth In Fred Chappell's Kirkman Tetralogy, Alex L. Blumenstock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Fred Chappell’s Kirkman tetralogy, narrator Jess Kirkman synthesizes a multiplicity of perspectives for understanding the nature of truth. Blurring the distinction between art and life, Jess's narrative structure mirrors the imaginative reconstruction of experience; the novels are largely non-chronological emotive interactions with and reflections of his most salient memories and imaginings. Synthesizing an impressive cacophony of voices, Jess's stories both describe and apply the wisdom and tales Jess acquires from and with his family members. Each story informs the prior and the next, and the rhizomatic interaction between language, narrative, and reader explores Jess's numerous identities and understandings as …

Themes Of Self-Laceration Towards A Modicum Of Control In Nineteenth Century Russia As Expressed By Dostoevsky In The Brothers Karamazov, Jonathan Ball

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The majority of the academic discourse surrounding Dostoevsky and his epic, The Brothers Karamazov, has been directed toward the philosophic and religious implications of his characters. Largely overlooked, however, is the theme of laceration. In the greater scope of laceration stands the topic of self-laceration. Self-laceration refers to the practice of causing harm to the self in a premeditated and specifically emotionally destructive fashion. The cause of this experience is varied and expressed in as many ways as there are individuals. The struggle in the Russian psyche between viewing the world as fatalistic or as more of an existential …

Value And Truth In Literature: The Critic Versus The Reader From Henry James' Perspective As Applied To Reader Response Theory, Marilyn M. Vickery

All Theses

Based on Reader Response Theory, without an audience and interpretation a piece of literature does not have value and does not elicit a truth. It has to communicate. Further, Henry James in his work is not only saying that interpretation by a reader is of vital importance in creating value and truth, he implies that there are different types of readers and he specifically, in the works cited, seems to differentiate between the role of a literary critic and a casual reader. He creates narrators at varied levels of education and knowledge on purpose to elicit from the reader different …

Redefining The Unrepentant Prostitute In Victorian Poetry, Marijana Stojkovic

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Poets such as Thomas Hardy, Augusta Webster, and Amy Levy portray prostitutes who seem guiltless about their choice of profession. Hardy's Amelia seems to symbolize the mutation of a pure country girl into a soiled disciple of evil; yet in the poem the changes in her life brought on by prostitution are evident in her drastically changed physical appearance and mannerism. Webster's Eulalie is an intelligent and well-spoken woman who undermines the stereotypical generalizations about prostitutes, relocating the source of the Great Social Evil from her profession to the institutionalized educational failure that trains women for nothing better than housekeeping. …

Everest, Rebecca A. Seaman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Everest is a creative writing project and an analysis of that project that focuses on the creative writing experience. The creative project is composed of two individual short stories focusing on themes of journeying and personal development. The stories are entitled, “Everest,” and “Shenyang.” They are based on personal experience and important life questions.

“The Bedroom And The Barnyard: Zoomorphic Lust Through Territory, Procedure, And Shelter In ‘The Miller’S Tale’” & Haunchebones, Danielle N. Byington

Undergraduate Honors Theses

“The Bedroom and the Barnyard: Zoomorphic Lust Through Territory, Procedure, and Shelter in ‘The Miller’s Tale’” is an academic endeavor that takes Chaucer’s zoomorphic metaphors and similes and analyzes them in a sense that reveals the chaos of what is human and what is animal tendency. The academic work is expressed in the adjunct creative project, Haunchebones, a 10-minute drama that echoes the tale and its zoomorphic influences, while presenting the content in a stylized play influenced by Theatre of the Absurd and artwork from the medieval and early renaissance period.

Rewriting Composition : Moving Beyond A Discourse Of Need., Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This essay argues that calls to end, move beyond, or expand composition participate in a discourse of need that accepts and reinforces the legitimacy of dominant, and restricted, definitions of not only composition but also alternatives to it: what we are led to believe is “new,” “different,” and therefore “better” than composition as conventionally defined. I analyze the operation of this discourse in David Smit’s The End of Composition Studies, Sidney Dobrin’s Postcomposition, and calls to make up for composition’s ostensible lacks by supplementing it with rhetoric or multimodal composition or by renaming it “writing studies.” Drawing on …

Graphic Memoir As A Tool For Imaginative Leaping, Shay Larsen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The idea for this capstone was sparked in the last semester of my third year of undergraduate research at Utah State University. I had been researching the ways in which creative nonfiction writers approached the realm of surreality in their work with my honors contract advisor, Dr. Jennifer Sinor. Sinor herself had written a piece ("Holes in the Sky") that dealt heavily in abstractions paralleled with the works of American artist Georgia O'Keeffe. While discussing the difficulties of expressing surreality in writing I made an offhand comment along the lines of "makes you wish you'd been a painter instead of …

Understanding Second-Person Point Of View In Fiction, Anastasia L. Hawke

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This thesis consists of a critical introduction followed by a short story and reflection. The critical introduction introduces and analyzes second-person point of view. The first section establishes a working definition for second-person narrative and maps out its unique relationship between narrator, protagonist, and reader. The second section explores the way second-person point of view is taught. The third and last section of the critical introduction focuses on the effects second-person point of view has on fiction narratives.

The short fiction “Pregnancy and Other Dysfunctions” following the critical introduction demonstrates a narrative effectively using second-person point of view. It follows …

The Underground Gang: Cyclist Group Identity As Expressed Through Folk Art, Folk Events, Narratives, And Community Spaces, Anna P. Christiansen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis is a study of the “underground” cycling community in Ogden, Utah. This thesis establishes a groundwork understanding of the nature of underground cycling culture, particularly in relation to identity. Using folkloric definitions of identity and subculture as my foundation, I conducted fieldwork with the Ogden cycling community to examine four different facets of cyclist activities: folk art, folk events, narratives, and the community’s use of space. Each of the four facets also illustrated the different levels of identity, shifting from individual levels, outward to the performance of identity as an individual and group within a larger local and …

A Painted Void, Kevin Larsen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This creative thesis contains four original short stories and a literature review written by Utah State University student Kevin Larsen. The four short stories were written and revised in 2013 under the mentorship and guidance of Professor Jennifer Sinor. Works for the literature review were selected by Kevin Larsen after reading extensively within the horror and magical realism genres.

Horror and magical realism both are well established genres with their own rules and tendencies. By pulling from both genres, these stories explore ideas and themes of horror fiction using the structure and setting that magical realism allows. This isn’t to …

"We Want To Get Down To The Nitty-Gritty": The Modern Hardboiled Detective In The Novella Form, Kendall G. Pack

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

My novella explores the character of a detective, Whitney Sloat, who lives and works in the hardboiled tradition, distant from reality. The characters of this fictionalized
Ogden, Utah act as they would in a hardboiled novel, but without the actual criminal element of that world.

Whitney and the characters that inhabit the novella are more products of detective fiction than inhabitants of that world. In line with Geraldine Pederson-Krag’s analysis of the primal scene as it applies to detective fiction, Whitney and those he associates with enact the detective fantasy and gratify their “infantile curiosity with impunity.” The world crumbles …

The Legend, The Madman, And The Prophet A Memoir About Fathers And Sons, Erik K. Thalman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Legend, the Madman, and the Prophet is a memoir about fathers and sons, about the experience of being a son of a man of the Rocky Mountains, a legend grown old. The narrative centers around my struggle with the fact that my father had grown old and sick while I was still young, and my consequent search for other fathers, employing two primary examples—a martial-arts instructor from my high-school years who was later exposed as a pedophile, and the eccentric figure of my ex-girlfriend’s wealthy and traditional Egyptian-American father. The memoir relates the story of my father’s impact on …

Propaganda Powers Social Reform: The Visual Rhetoric Of Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, And Norman Rockwell, Shelly Stock Halling

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The scope of this thesis is an examination of visual rhetoric and its societal impacts. The framework is an historical timeline from the end of the 19^th century to the middle of the 20^th century. The thesis is an interdisciplinary activity that embeds Art History in American Studies. It is beneficial to scholars in a variety of fields, including, but not limited to: English, American Studies, Art History, Photography, Sociology, Anthropology, and History. It braids together the theoretical perspectives of propaganda, visual rhetoric, and advocacy. The thesis is based on library research with no outside funding.