Literature in English, North America Commons^™

"Failed Love" In The Drama Of Edward Albee, Steven Leonard Long

Masters Theses

The plays of Edward Albee are frequently examinations of characters who are unable to love or to be loved. A central and recurring conflict which runs through many of Albee's plays is the conflict which stems from the lack of success which the characters often experience as they strive to find love. The uncertainty and ambiguity which surround the abstraction called "love" leave the characters with feelings of unhappiness, frustration, fear, self-hatred, and despondency. Though the individuals in Albee's plays are aware that love is the ingredient which is missing from their lives, none knows how to go about alleviating …

Mark Twain's Confidence Men, Sharon K. Scruton

Masters Theses

In Mark Twain's literature the confidence man has special talents, but he is also subject to human failings. Through the characters of Huck Finn and Hank Morgan (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court) Twain exposes the traps into which a con artist, as a creative talent, can fall. Twain knows these traps, both from experience and from fears of what the future holds. Hank Morgan becomes an extension of Huckleberry Finn. He is a figure who, as he progresses, leaves the best talent of a con artist behind--the talent of instinct. The natural abilities of insight and …

The Law And Mark Twain, Jeff Andrew Weigel

Masters Theses

Varying concepts of law are an essential part in many of Mark Twain's works. Twain's position as an observer and critic of society is often reflected by the way he represents law and justice in his stories. His dislike of injustice and cruelty caused him to focus on these "legal" problems as a way of revealing and attacking various injustices in society. My thesis examines Twain's perception of law as he exposes it in Roughing It, Pudd'nhead Wilson, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The general objective of my …

Nature Vs Society In The Works Of Stephen Crane, Rodney R. Parker

Masters Theses

The five works of Stephen Crane I chose to discuss in this thesis are: "The Open Boat," "A Mystery of Heroism," "The Blue Hotel," Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, and The Red Badge of Courage. All of these works are representative of the fictional vision of Stephen Crane. A persistent theme that Crane uses in virtually all of his stories is the relationship between the human and the natural worlds. The world of nature is one of indifference. It shows no interest in the activies of mankind, and is, in fact, incapable of doing so. But Crane's …

Ratiocination, Romanticism And Realism In The Detective Story: A Study Of Poe, Doyle And Hammet, Timothy Jay Roberts

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Timothy Jay Roberts on December 3, 1984.

Vol. 4, No. 4 (1984), W. Mcneil Reed, Kenzaburo Ohashi

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 4, No. 3 (1984), William Boozer

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 4, No. 2 (1984), Jack Ewing

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No abstract provided.

Vol. 4, No. 1 (1984), William Boozer, Evans Harrington

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Time In John Cheever's The Housebreaker Of Shady Hill, Charles M. Elliott

Masters Theses

The problem of time is a central concern in John Cheever's short story collection The Housebreaker of Shady Hill. The characters in these stories--upper-middle class suburbanites--live in a sometimes chaotic and disconnected world in which they find it difficult to attain some sense of continuity in their relationships with time. In trying to come to grips with their time and space, many of Cheever's characters express an immoderate devotion to their past, present, or future and neglect to see the bits and pieces of their experiences as interrelated. The characters who are happy and whole in these stories, however, …

"Training" And Twain's Discovery Of Its Role In His Major Novels, Gary Dale Ervin

Masters Theses

Twain's career as a novelist began with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Before that time he wrote pieces for newspapers and magazines and short stories. The success of Tom Sawyer inspired Twain to write further novels. The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn took seven years to compose, During that time, Twain was forced to face several pitfalls that often confront a writer. One of those pitfalls was a concept he called "training."

The training of an individual in effect is the raising of that individual--the instillation of values and beliefs in a person as he is raised. The process applies …

Vol. 3, No. 4 (1983), William Boozer, Michel Gresset

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No abstract provided.

Vol. 3, No. 3 (1983), Cary Wilkins, Rollin Woodyatt, James W. Silver

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No abstract provided.

Vol. 3, No. 2 (1983), William Boozer, Orin Borsten

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 3, No. 1 (1983), Paul Flowers, Stuart Purser

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Freedom At Midday: Elements Of Existentialism In The Works Of Ambrose Bierce, Sharon A. Winn

Masters Theses

Ambrose Bierce exhibited a number of elements of existential thinking both in his life and in his writing. But he was ambivalent about his philosophical stance, and it is difficult to know whether he was the utter pessimist he has been called, or whether his attitude toward the universe admitted a certain optimism.

Much of Bierce's thought parallels modern existentialism, which has three main tenets: a belief that there is no God and the universe is, therefore, irrational; a descent into despair; and a choice of life or death.

Bierce insisted that the universe is irrational, and he repeatedly discussed …

Vol. 2, No. 4 (1982), William Boozer, Louis Daniel Brodsky, Robert W. Hamblin

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No abstract provided.

Vol. 2, No. 3 (1982), Paul Flowers

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No abstract provided.

Vol. 2, No. 2 (1982), Noel Polk, Carl Petersen, Christine Liska, Robert Liska

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No abstract provided.

Vol. 2, No. 1 (1982), William Boozer, Dean Faulkner Wells

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No abstract provided.

There's No Place Like Home: The Haunted House As Literary Motif, Mary Catherine Mcdaniel

Masters Theses

This thesis traces the development of the haunted house in British and American literature and covers a time span of roughly two hundred years. Its approach is chronological: beginning with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, it examines the use of the Bad Place as a literary motif, emphasizing the consistencies in its development while noting the inconsistencies as well. From Walpole to Stephen King, we see that the haunted house has continuously represented two things. On one hand, it may serve as a repository for unexpiated sin. The traditional haunted house, in fact, is nothing more than the …

A Room Of One's Own: The Women's Room, Lou Ellen Crawford

Masters Theses

The recent resurgence of feminism has been accompanied by the development of feminist fiction. Identifying those characteristics by which feminist fiction adds to the American novel a new and valid perspective, feminist criticism has also flourished. Feminist critics agree that fiction with a new perspective demands critical evaluation from that same perspective; and Cheri Register provides a concise, thorough list of five elements which comprise effective feminist fiction. Of Register's five criteria, Carol Heilbrun stresses the equalizing, conciliatory influence of androgyny. Recent feminist authors have written many novels which perform one or more of the functions prescribed by Register. Three …

The Pessimistic Themes Of The Mysterious Stranger As Reflected In Mark Twain's Previous Novels, Judy Dale Hill Walker

Masters Theses

The purpose of the thesis is to demonstrate that the pessimism exhibited in the themes of The Mysterious Stranger is evident in the themes of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1874-1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1877-1882), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1876-1885), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1888-1889), and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1891-1894). The thesis also demonstrates that the pessimism becomes more dominate as the novels progress chronologically through the repetition of the themes and the increasing number of themes being treated.

The introduction briefly discusses the arguments over the origins of Twain's pessimism as set forth by …

Vol. 1, No. 4 (1981), Lawrence Wells, William Boozer

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No abstract provided.

Vol. 1, No. 3 (1981), William Boozer, Thomas E. Lamar, Jack Ewing

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No abstract provided.

Vol. 1, No. 2 (1981), Phil Mullen, Howard L. Bahr, M. Thomas Inge

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No abstract provided.

Vol. 1, No. 1 (1981), William Boozer, Dean Faulkner Wells, Willie Morris

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

The Endlessly Elaborating Poem: A Comparative Study Of Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, And The American Experimental, Long Narrative Poem, Paul Freidinger

Masters Theses

Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, British and American poetry was expected to employ rigid metrical and rhythmical patterns. Any verse that did not conform was considered devoid of aesthetic merit. In addition, some critics, Edgar Allan Poe being one of those, argued that there was no place for a long poem in poetry. Walt Whitman and Wallace Stevens, two proponents of the long narrative poem, both wrote in free verse and, thus, directly confronted these traditional theories.

This study demonstrates that the verse of Whitman and Stevens constitutes a new approach to poetic style and structure. A …

The Biblical View Of The Fall Of Man In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, Lois Darlene Hanson

Masters Theses

"The story of the fall of man!" One can easily tell that The Fall is the main topic in The Marble Faun. Hawthorne, in this romance, is asking whether man's fall in the Garden of Eden was for man's betterment or not. He is also asking if sin is our power of regeneration, for without the sin of Adam and Eve there would have been no need for a savior. This theory is known as the Fortunate Fall of Man.

Hawthorne is suggesting within The Marble Faun that our sin is both original and renewable--it is something that we …

The Influence Of Women In Vardis Fisher’S Western Literature, Sylvia L. Alderton

Masters Theses

Vardis Fisher, a writer who wrote about the early west, uses his life experiences and extensive historical research as a basis for his western novels. With his background in the Antelope region and his historical research, Fisher presents both women in the Antelope hills and women in the hazardous far west surroundings. He instills in the reader a panoramic view of the pioneer women as they experience life in the old west.

The Antelope women are isolated in their environment with little social contact. They are effected physically, psychologically, and economically in this remote area. Most of the women overcome …