Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Cartooning From Life: A Graphic Guide To Using Non-Fiction Comics In Education, Maxwell Zawatsky

Masters Theses

The world is a visual place nowadays. Media, books, movies, art, and more constantly surround us. What might we do if we consciously incorporate this visual stimulus into our educational spaces? What might we learn about ourselves and the world around us?

In this comics thesis, non-fiction comics are the focus. Through personal reflection and semi-structured interviews with three cartoonist-educators, non-fiction comics’ role in current and future pedagogical practices is explored, with the aim of thinking about how these types of works encourage exploration of oneself, others, and the world at large. I offer three guiding tenets for educators who …

How To Walk On Water: Living Through The Absurd, Esther Du

Masters Theses

Set in a speculative world submerged by water, this thesis constructs a fragmented, nonlinear narrative that reflects on survival, memory, and displacement in the aftermath of catastrophe. Through three interwoven chapters—The Outcast, The Researcher, and The World—the project explores the emotional and psychological landscapes of individuals navigating a post-apocalyptic existence where the past is irretrievable and the future uncertain. Using an interdisciplinary form of visual storytelling, writing, and sound, the work draws from personal experience and collective trauma to examine how people reconstruct identity and meaning after loss. Rather than offering a definitive answer to existential …

A Call For Planetary Kinship: The Development Of New Forms Of Subjectivity In Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation, Jennifer Kinne

Masters Theses

This thesis joins a vibrant conversation on the importance of storytelling in an age of climate change through an analysis of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, a strange and prophetic novel whose environments and characters are confronted with significant ecological devastation and transformation. It explores the ways in which VanderMeer opens liminal spaces between the human and nonhuman through his usage of the New Weird genre, uncanny and abcanny imagery, and monstrous characters.

In my first chapter, I will explore the emerging world of New Weird fiction and argue that this genre is uniquely suited to addressing climate change, namely because of …

“The Ugly Truth”: Examining War Trauma And Therapeutic Storytelling Through The Works Of Tim O’Brien, Meredith Ivy Fedewa

Masters Theses

Within this work, a close study on the relationship between trauma and storytelling is examined through three of Tim O’Brien’s works: The Things They Carried, Going After Cacciato, and In the Lake of the Woods. Through the application of psychoanalysis, specifically the work of Jacques Lacan, and modern trauma theory, the relationship between individual identity and the traumatizing encounter of the Real is examined through O’Brien’s concepts of Story Truth versus Happening Truth, as well as how those concepts work together to navigate one’s trauma story. Through weaving the aforementioned theory with each text, O’Brien is seen …

"Comic"Ally Calling For Cultural Competency: Using Graphic Narratives To Teach Social Justice In The Writing Classroom, Travis Moody

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Material Encounters: Making Memory Beyond The Mind, Ariel Wills

Masters Theses

Can acts of making carry the memories of our embeddedness within the world? This thesis explores how making things can nurture a sense of kinship that cuts across the organic and inorganic, erasing the distinction between living and dead, material and spiritual. Through handwork such as art-making, sewing, knitting, cooking, woodworking, and beyond, the burden of remembering and of archiving is shared across human and non-human bodies, cultivated through practices of making, and through the materials themselves. By recounting the stories of my family’s experience as Jewish immigrants in the United States, I aim to reveal how their domestic practices …

“You Never Get It Out Of Your Bones”: The Christ-Haunted Security Of Jean Louise “Scout” Finch In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird And Go Set A Watchman, Corley E. Humphrey

Masters Theses

Harper Lee’s novels To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman emphasize the struggle of mid-twentieth century Southern identity as Southerners searched for security, and she does so particularly in her main character, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. Throughout the novels, Jean Louise fights to find a balance within herself as she learns to decide what to accept or reject from her Southern culture. Using New Historicism and Southern Female Gender Studies, this thesis analyzes the character development of Jean Louise “Scout” in the novels and the traits she consistently accepts—discrimination and respect, honor of family, grace—and the ones she …

The Cast Of A Giant's Shadow, Angela Kay Steineman

Masters Theses

Adapting fairy tales and folklore has been an ongoing endeavor by storytellers and artists since the very first story was repeated. The evidence can be seen in the many versions of fairy tales like those of the sleeping beauty, from Giambattista Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” to Walt Disney’s Maleficent. However, unlike their European counterparts, adaptations of American tales outside of children’s literature are not as ubiquitous. My writing rectifies this by adding to the resurging interest as seen in recent retellings like Matt Bell’s Appleseed: The Monstrous Birth (2019).

In an effort to reframe the American tall tale …

"There Is Nothing Else Like It": The Innovative Personality Of Lowney Turner Handy, Nathan Crews

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Cormac Mccarthy’S Border Trilogy And The Modern American Identity Crisis, Michael G. Cox

Masters Theses

The narrative trope of the American western is a long-standing literary convention rooted in a convoluted history of conquest, exploration, settlement, and exploitation. At the heart of the western genre is the idyllic vision of self-reliance. From its inception, the United States developed westward, pushing the limits of self-governance into the farthest reaches of empty terrain. As a result, the frontier has long been a symbol of personal liberty, a place where travelers and homesteaders have the freedom to achieve private independence in its purest form. Hollywood has done much to nurture this nostalgic image of prairie life. Iconic silver …

Meeting The Stranger: Closing The Distance In Ernest Hemingway’S A Moveable Feast, Brett Joseph Raszinski

Masters Theses

This thesis provides an in-depth analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s memoir, A Moveable Feast. The analysis focuses on how AMF functions as a memoir, given its complicated publication history. The thesis uses the 2009 Restored Edition, which is most closely associated with Hemingway’s original manuscripts. He crafts his memories of Paris between 1921-1926, develops interactive scenes for twenty-first century readers to discover his story, and constructs a blended voice that closes the distance between his present and his past by writing about his writing process. This thesis adds to the academic conversation of A Moveable Feast, attempting to present how important …

Comparing Cultural Context Through New Historicism: The Impact Of Form Upon Content In The Serialized And Novelized Versions Of F. Scott Fitzgerald’S The Beautiful And Damned, Anna Sweeney

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I analyzed the differences between the serialized portions and subsequent novelization of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and Damned. To conduct this research, I studied the seven issues of Metropolitan magazine from September 1921 to March 1922 in which the serialized portions of The Beautiful and Damned were published, and read them against the novel. I found that the omissions and additions between the two modes of text, including the advertisements and illustrations present within the serialized portions, greatly altered the nuances and meanings of the finished novelized product. This project revealed that there is currently a …

What’S In The Potato Barn: A Discourse Of Redemption In Three Of Kurt Vonnegut’S Novels, Rebecca Tutton Parker

Masters Theses

This thesis discusses how three of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels (Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, and Bluebeard) become a discourse on redemption when using Linda Hutcheon’s historiographic metafiction. Starting with Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut opens the discussion about redemption by creating a character struggling with PTSD who is unable to be redeemed. In Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut continues the discourse by introducing Rabo Karabekian who opens Vonnegut as character’s mind to the idea that redemption is possible. By Bluebeard, Rabo Karabekian is able to obtain redemption for both himself and for his author. By studying these three books together it becomes clear that Rabo …

Restoring What Has Been Lost: The Mythic Journey Of Shakespearean And Tolkien Heroes After The Fall In Eden, Taylor Loforti

Masters Theses

In order for man to understand where he is going, he must first remember where he began. The intertwining link between the beginning, the in-between journey, and the end of a story, or narrative, has been present since the ancient years of literary criticism. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle explains that a unified and effective narrative should have a beginning, middle, and end, and the even more ancient realm of mythology tends to follow this format not only in its written structure, but also in its thematic and archetypal construction. These three main segments of a mythic narrative are later …

Iarwain Ben-Adar On The Road To Faerie: Tom Bombadil's Recovery Of Premodern Fantasy Values, Greta Rogers

Masters Theses

This thesis project discusses J. R. R. Tolkien's character Tom Bombadil as an agent of recovery of premodern fantasy values. Several premodern fantasy works espouse a sense of harmony with the world as God’s created order, a value that is missing from some postmodern fantasy works. Tolkien’s Tom Bombadil is examined as a means to recover that acceptance of the created order.

Introducing The Hero Of Stasis: An Examination Of Heroism In David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest And The Pale King, Gregory Robert Peterson

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Shifting Focus: The Role Of Visual Literacy In The Twenty-First Century English Classroom, Bryanna Tester

Masters Theses

Ultimately, the English language arts classroom seeks to help make students “literate” members of society. Due to the dominance of images in twenty-first century communication, the term “literate” has also slowly shifted to include an individual’s ability to effectively and accurately communicate with verbal text as well as with visual images and symbols. Although students are native image-viewers, they are not able to be image-readers without instruction and training on how to critically “read” images. Therefore, an English teacher’s literary curriculum is not strictly bound to the written and spoken word. Instruction in reading and writing written texts are vital …

Incongruity And Social Expectations: Cultural Identity In Carson Mccullers’ Southern Gothic Novel The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Emily Page

Masters Theses

This study explores Carson McCullers’ novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) in order to determine 1) the text’s relationship to cultural measures for identity in the 1930s and 40s American South and 2) the categorization of the novel as a Southern Gothic novel. The novel depicts cultural conflicts in the South and presents an intimate perspective of the corruption and prejudices between members of the southern community. Southerners in the novel fall into adopting ideal standards for race, gender, and class, judging and determining how people in different levels of each should act within the community. These culturally …

Choosing A Moral Compass: The Journey Towards Moral Maturity In Harry Potter, Tricia Mieden

Masters Theses

This thesis examines Harry Potter’s moral development and illustrates how a reader’s involvement with literature complements moral education in the classroom. Using Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development as a guide, this thesis considers how Harry solidifies his moral commitments as he matures and, as a result, becomes more aware of how his moral principles influence his actions. Through an analysis of Harry’s cognitive reasoning, which is evidenced through the narration, readers are able to develop a similar awareness to the ways their moral principles influence their choices

Keep Moving Forward: A Postcolonial Interpretation Of Narration In Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible", Katherine Pagan

Masters Theses

Barbara Kingsolver’s novel "The Poisonwood Bible" follows the fictional Price family as they embark as missionaries to the Belgian Congo in 1959. With the intent to evangelize to the native people in a remote tribe, the family is shocked at the resistance to their outside culture. Narrated by the four daughters (and occasionally their mother), "The Poisonwood Bible" gives a unique look into the shifting perspectives of the Price women. Thrust into a foreign culture, they quickly learn that in order to survive, they must adapt to the native society. Utilizing Gerard Genette’s theories on narration and perspective as a …

The Polyphonic Survivor: Dialogism And Heteroglossia In Art Spiegelman's "Maus: A Survivor's Tale", Joshua Novalis

Masters Theses

Using Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of polyphony, dialogism, and heteroglossia, this thesis will seek to show that Art Spiegelman's Maus is an innately heteroglossic work. Through the use of the graphic novel medium, a multi-perspectival blend of visual and textual narrative, Spiegelman creates a work where various key voices are allowed to speak within the work—without any one voice being given full authority over the other. Vladek Spiegelman, for example, is given the ability to speak freely, despite his narrative’s shortcomings. Although Spiegelman shows Vladek’s perspective to be flawed and inaccurate at times, Art’s interviews with Vladek provide a perspective into …

Batman As Monomyth: Joseph Campbell, Robert Jewett, John Shelton Lawrence, Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder, And The Hero’S Journey To Gotham, Andrew Thigpen

Masters Theses

In 1988, Jeffrey Lang and Patrick Trimble wrote an article called, “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow,” which explains the absence of a hero of the American monomyth in comic books. The American monomyth was proposed by Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence and describes a community in harmonious paradise threatened by evil. The normal institutions of law and order fail to defeat the evil, but fortunately, a hero from outside the community arises to resist temptation, defeat the evil, and return the community to its peaceful condition. Lang and Trimble observe the death of Superman during the events …

Deceiving, Fraudulent, And Seductive: The Discourses Of Money In Us Novels Of The Early Republic, Fabian Rempfer

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the importance of money and the representations of its various physical manifestations (such as coin, paper money) in American fiction of the 1790s. My project traces the transition from the colonies' financial dependency on Britain to their independency, relating to the monetary union created after the passage of the constitution. I argue that this shift from financial dependency to independency influences books such as Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson, Kelroy by Rebecca Rush, Ormond or the Secret Witness and Arthur Mervyn by Charles Brockden Brown. My project highlights, on the one hand, the importance of such …

Real Or Not Real: Fragmentation, Fabrication, And Composite Identity In The Hunger Games And The Mass Effect Trilogy, Tessanna Curtis

Masters Theses

As one glance at box office ratings from the past decade can attest to, twenty-first century Western society seems particularly fixated on coming-of-age stories. These stories reflect the quintessential search for identity, as explained by developmental psychologist Erik Erikson. As Erikson argues throughout his works, the fundamental task of the individual on his journey to becoming a healthy, mature adult is the formation of a personal identity and sense of self that is both unified and whole. What seems particularly ironic, however, is that these coming-of-age stories are released into a culture that is largely dismissive of Erikson’s theory of …

“First-Rate Eddication”: The Educational Roles Of Merlyn And Dumbledore, Carissa Johnson

Masters Theses

The Once and Future King (1957) and the Harry Potter series (1997-2007) are Bildungsroman stories of young, orphaned boys, Wart and Harry, who endure extraordinary circumstances and become wise, mature, and heroic. The transformation that they undergo is the effect of strong education from their teachers, the wizards Merlyn and Dumbledore. This thesis uses progressive educational theory to demonstrate the model these wizards employ. This study also utilizes a study of discourse grammar and Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development to discuss the nature of Wart’s and Harry’s education. Because of the moral education demonstrated in the stories, reading them …

Flannery O'Connor And The Poetics Of Prayer: The Analysis Of A Prayer Journal, Emily Wilson

Masters Theses

Prior to the recent discovery of her college prayer journal, kept between 1946 and 1947, knowledge of Flannery O’Connor’s religious influence and activity had been restricted to her letters and published works, such as Mystery and Manners and The Habit of Being. Works such as these shed light onto O’Connor’s background and religious views, making her Catholic faith obvious and explicit. This prayer journal exposes a new aspect of her faith – that is the personal relationship between herself and God shown through narrative. Her prayer journal makes it clear that her external expression of faith, showcased in most of …

“You Can't Ever Find A Place That's Nice And Peaceful”: The Adolescent Identity In J. D. Salinger’S The Catcher In The Rye, Whitney Thacker

Masters Theses

Many consider The Catcher in the Rye the most poignant and popular story of adolescence in American literature, challenged only perhaps by Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Reading reviews, examining the public reception, and uncovering depths of research would evidence this well. However, the value of the novel rests not in its popularity—a simple sign of its inherent value—but in its ability to resonate truth. More than merely telling a story, Salinger creates a life, or at the very least a glimpse of a life, through the actions and attitude of his ornery adolescent character Holden Caulfield. This …

Mad To Be Sincere: Authenticity, Irony, And Kerouac’S Response To Modern Reality, Jonathan Michael Devin

Masters Theses

This project explores the qualities of sincerity, authenticity, and irony in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. The thesis asserts that that On the Road is neither ironic nor authentic, but, rather, that it both possesses aspects of traditional sincerity and anticipates the New Sincerity movement in contemporary literature. Through observing the characteristics of traditional sincerity and New Sincerity in the novel, the thesis amends the novel's critical position by showing a level of complexity, foresight, and nuance in the text. Ultimately, the thesis shows Kerouac's response to modern reality, presenting the limitations of authenticity and irony while esteeming the …

American Dreams And Dystopias: Examining Dystopian Parallels In The Great Gatsby And To Kill A Mockingbird, Samuel Nathan Harris

Masters Theses

In this study I consider the recent trend of dystopian fiction in literature—both the broader genre of dystopias of the past century or so, and the contemporarily popular subgenre of young adult dystopian fiction—and examine whether certain American novels, while not typically considered dystopias, can fit into this genre or at least be established as having some parallels with works of this genre. Based on certain shared archetypes of the genre, such as “speculative myth,” a governing “ritual habit,” and a dissatisfied narrator or protagonist, I here propose that other American classics, specifically F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and …

Flannery O'Connor's Redemptive Violence In Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club And Invisible Monsters, Caitlin Elliot

Masters Theses

Underground fight clubs, transsexuals, shotguns: these are the images that come to mind when one thinks of Chuck Palahniuk’s fiction—for many critics and readers, merely the stuff of pulp fiction. However, many of Palahniuk’s novels use violence to critique American culture while offering hope for the redemption of his characters and society as a whole. Thus, the violence in his works serves a purpose beyond mere shock value. The function of Palahniuk’s violence, I argue, reflects the poetics of Flannery O’Connor. Her works contain culturally-driven narratives with strange and grotesque circumstances that lead her characters to moments of redemption, and …