You are here

FAU Collections » FAU Research Repository » FAU Theses and Dissertations

telegraphist's odyssean journey in Henry James's "In the Cage"

Download pdf | Full Screen View

Date Issued:
1996
Summary:
Henry James's In the Cage offers a character, a young female telegraphist, who constantly applies theories to and comes up with interpretations of the people, objects, and events that make up the world outside her cage. The experiences she undergoes with the telegrams' ambiguous messages and her customers' strange actions compel her to weave an intricate drama that not only clears up the ambiguities but also allows her to play an important role. She creates a subjective reality through which she can embark on an exciting, dangerous adventure. This reality, however, is not immutable. When faced with new sets of circumstances, new flashes from the outside world, she struggles to re-work her interpretations and re-create her fiction; like Odysseus, she is forced to submit to an overwhelming external power and find a new path on which to travel.
Title: The telegraphist's odyssean journey in Henry James's "In the Cage".
209 views
35 downloads
Name(s): Olson, Peter J.
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Pearce, Howard D., Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 1996
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 59 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: Henry James's In the Cage offers a character, a young female telegraphist, who constantly applies theories to and comes up with interpretations of the people, objects, and events that make up the world outside her cage. The experiences she undergoes with the telegrams' ambiguous messages and her customers' strange actions compel her to weave an intricate drama that not only clears up the ambiguities but also allows her to play an important role. She creates a subjective reality through which she can embark on an exciting, dangerous adventure. This reality, however, is not immutable. When faced with new sets of circumstances, new flashes from the outside world, she struggles to re-work her interpretations and re-create her fiction; like Odysseus, she is forced to submit to an overwhelming external power and find a new path on which to travel.
Identifier: 9780591161489 (isbn), 15346 (digitool), FADT15346 (IID), fau:12114 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1996.
Subject(s): James, Henry,--1843-1916--In the cage
James, Henry,--1843-1916--Criticism and interpretation
James, Henry,--1843-1916--Technique
Homer--Odyssea
Ambiguity in literature
Narration (Rhetoric)
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15346
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.