Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Journeys: A Critical Analysis Of The Diary Of Sarah L. Wadley, Regina C. Davis

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

As a young woman living in Louisiana during the Civil War, Sarah Lois Wadley documented in her diary the fractured, conflicted perspective that was her experience as a woman living in the war ravaged South. Her writing is evidence of the confusion she felt as a result of the discrepancy between the expectations of Southern patriarchal society and her own needs as a woman. Wadley’s diary is a complex text similar to a novel in that it relates events through a construct that reflects her response to her reader’s/society’s expectations. From a deconstructionist perspective, the power of Wadley’s text lies …

Reading Mainstream Possibilities: Canadian Young Adult Fiction With Lesbian And Gay Characters, Paulette Rothbauer

Data and Test Instruments

No abstract provided.

John Irving, Female Sexuality, And The Victorian Feminine Ideal, Tara Coburn

Masters Theses

In an interview about The Cider House Rules, John Irving states, "It is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel" (qtd. in Herel, para. 18). However, in book reviews, jacket blurbs, literary criticism, and Irving's own writing, readers and critics and Irving often assert that he is a neo-Victorian novelist, and the Victorians were a notoriously political bunch. Though Irving does not admit to the political nature of his writing, the way he treats feminist politics in his fiction has drawn particular notice by the media, who often label him as a feminist writer. …

The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring: A Critical Look At Flower Imagery In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Elizabeth Peloso

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Oswald Review Undergraduate Research And Criticism In The Discipline Of English: Volume 4 Fall 2002

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

This Man's Heart: Masculinity In The Poetry Of E.E. Cummings, Willis John Whitesell Iii

Masters Theses

"This Man's Heart: Masculinity in the Poetry of E.E. Cummings" explores changing masculinity in the life and poetry of E.E. Cummings. The relationship between Cummings and his father, his first male role model, became strained when Cummings was a teenager finding his own male identity. As he rebelled against his father, a Unitarian minister, he began writing poetry in a modernist style under the direction of a new mentor, Ezra Pound.

Cummings' early modernist poems criticize conventional male roles and configurations of masculinity as outdated. As Cummings continued to grow as a man and writer, he confronted new realities which …

Linda Grace Hoyer Updike: Woman, Author, And Mother, Leslie Hoffman

Library Summer Fellows

Linda Grace Hoyer was a brilliant individual. She graduated from Ursinus College at the age of nineteen, received a master's from Cornell University, and after many years of diligent work, published two novels and a myriad of short stories. She lived an unusual life: reflective, feminine in her thought processes, but nevertheless somewhat stubborn in a time when women were meant to fill a subordinate role. I have found through my research that Hoyer's brilliance did not lie in her intellect and writing alone. In fact, as demonstrated by her literature's autobiographical nature, her brilliance as a writer seemed to …

The Oswald Review Undergraduate Research And Criticism In The Discipline Of English: Volume 3 Fall 2001

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Style Guide For Books In Comparative Cultural Studies, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Purdue Books In Comparative Cultural Studies, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Del Relato A La Pantalla: La Alteridad En Cabeza De Vaca, Cesar Valverde

Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Masculinidad Natural Y Masculinidad Autoconsciente En Don Segundo Sombra Y El Reino De Este Mundo, Cesar Valverde

Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Hour Of Millennium: A Representation Of The Communion Ritual In "Babette's Feast", Pamela Lane

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

"That Damned Morality": Willa Cather's Reaction Against Victorian Female Roles In O Pioneers! And Tje Song Of The Lark, Sarah Elizabeth Moore Horne

Theses & Honors Papers

Reacting against Victorian ideal that influenced her childhood, Cather creates numerous gender reversal throughout her fiction. This thesis notes the gender ironies contained within her works to conclude that Cather was herself a liberal, demanding that society’s status quo be eliminated. While America’s political climate did affect Cather’s work, her political ideologies remain difficult to interpret when contrasted with her fiction. Throughout much of her fiction, Cather attempts to raise the social status of certain facets of society and dispels many myths concerning gender.

Giving Her A Voice: The Representation Of The Black Woman In Four Short Stories, Jennifer Sheeler

Theses & Honors Papers

Black women have had to work very hard to pull themselves up the social ladder. Literature reflects society, and the black female experience in the South is a part of American society which has not been overlooked by its literature. This thesis examines short stories by the similarities and tempered differences to develop a closer understanding of the true black female experience. The examination found that the gender and race of each author of the four short stories does not correspond to the amount of power each one gives to his or her black female character the way the reader …

Perspectives On History: New Orleans's Women In William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! And Anne Rice's The Feast Of All Saints, Stacey Morgan Ford

Theses & Honors Papers

The thesis examines the perspectives on history in New Orleans ' women in William Faulkner 's Absalom, Absalom and Anne Rice's The Feast of All Saints. This thesis looks at historical sources, the most detailed and unbiased of which have been written within the last twenty-five years. The information is then applied to the works of Faulkner and Rice. The thesis concludes that both of the writes provide portrayals which serve their own purposes. Faulkner’s image of the world is vivid, but, it is still only an image, a picture. Faulkner’s purposes serve only as the symbol of slavery at …

Reading Elizabeth Bishop As A Religious Poet, Cheryl Walker

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

Elizabeth Bishop is usually described as a modernist poet with a skeptical mind. This essay contests the critical tendency to dismiss religion as a serious concern in her poetry, by first challenging the widespread dismissal in the United States of all religious approaches to modern poetry and then challenging the tendency to disclaim attempts to read Elizabeth Bishop in religious terms. The essay includes a close reading of “The End of March” as a text which invites intertextual commentary from a Christian perspective.

Nación Y Masculinidad En La Narrativa Decimonónica: El Caso De Sab Y Aves Sin Nido, Cesar Valverde

Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Modelos Masculinos En El Cautiverio Feliz: El Ideal Medieval Y El Presente Degradado, Cesar Valverde

Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Battling The Dragons: The Heroic Journeys Of The Ladies Of Avalon In Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists Of Avalon, Dawn E. Owen

Theses & Honors Papers

This study uses Pearson’s theory of twelve archetypes and the heroic journeys of the ladies of Avalon in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon to determine which archetypes are active in the lives of the ladies Avalon wrote about. In the book, women are seen as more than obstacles, aids, or rewards to males. They are the heroes who refuse to be defined by patriarchal terms. The female characters go on their own quests and seek to transform themselves and the world. Although culture and society affect each of the women, the success of each woman’s journey is determined …

Sex/Textual Conflicts In The Bell Jar: Sylvia Plath's Doubling Negatives, Renée C. Hoogland

English Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Strength Within--Love: The Story Within The Story, Wanda T. Talbott

Theses & Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

From Belle To Whore: Southern Stereotypes In John Pendleton Kennedy's Swallow Barn And William Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury, Sandra Compton Simmons

Theses & Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Antimodern, Modern, And Postmodern Millay: Contexts Of Revaluation, Cheryl Walker

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

In this chapter, Walker examines questions concerning renewed scholarly interest in Edna St. Vincent Millay toward the end of the twentieth century. Specifically, these questions center on whether to rethink the principles of establishing the canon of American literature--indeed, whether the poet changes literary fashions or literary fashions change the poet. Walker's answer is the latter, and her essay examines how Millay is different received through three different periods: antimodern, modern, and postmodern. She argues that whether a poet becomes central to literary study has less to do with the "quality" of the poetry than with complex cultural factors that …

The Double In The Bell Jar, Kimberly Kae Allen

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on Sylvia Plath and the idea of doubleness in The Bell Jar. Plath's past experiences are closely linked to the novel. Her psychological breakdown and recovery provided Plath with basic plot structure. It also influenced Plath's preoccupation with the concept of the double. In forming these double characters, Plath studied several psychoanalysts, including Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank.

Women And Family In The Fiction Of Barbara Kingsolver, Laura Ann Gussett

Theses & Honors Papers

Realizing the situations facing the American family and the changes it underwent, Kingsolver chooses to use her works as a means to explain how nontraditional families can succeed in American society. Kingsolver describes the evolution of Taylor Greer from a woman trapped in a hopeless situation into one with opportunities for success. Taylor discovers who she is but additionally learns through her relationships and from nature’s cycles that her interdependence with others permits the simultaneous growth of her identity and family. Her new found acquisition of an abused child, her new-found motherhood, and her decision to establish close ties with …

The Inner Voice, Janis Ruth Bagnall Cochrane

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The scope of this project is two-fold. The key purpose is to demonstrate the relationship between the voice of Lee Smith, a Southern writer from Appalachia and the voice of the author, another Southern writer from the Outer Banks. The foremost conclusion that has been drawn is that a writer's voice comes from deep inside the writer's unconscious. It is a product of generations of experiences that have embedded themselves in the writer's psyche. Some of the assumptions and prejudices surrounding southern women are discussed to some degree.

The second purpose is for this writer to show her work. This …

The Female Body As Icon: Edna Millay Wears A Plaid Dress, Cheryl Walker

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

The female body has never been so prominently displayed or so critically examined as it is today under the dominance of late capitalism. The results of this display, we can now see, have been mostly negative: women regard themselves at best self-consciously, at worst with disgust. Given this emphasis on self-scrutiny, it comes as no surprise that middle-aged women experience a reduction of self-confidence regarding their physical presences and a concomitant increase in self-dissatisfaction. It is also worth noting that a querulous tone often afflicts them as they grow older, suggesting that they are at odds not only with others …

A New Sense Of Time In Female Development: Linearity And Cyclicity In Atwood's Surfacing And Cat's Eye, Diana L. Unes

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Grupo Ubú: El Edificio De La Identidad En Barriendo Sombras, Cesar Valverde

Scholarship

No abstract provided.