Current Search: Self in literature (x) » info:fedora/fau:CurrentETDs (x)
View All Items
Pages
- Title
- Work ln Progress.
- Creator
- Robinson, Nick R., Bradley, William, Florida Atlantic University
- Abstract/Description
-
Consistent with Vivian Gornick's "idea of self," Work In Progress is, in many ways, a classic coming-of-age story in which the boy, Nicky, along his life-journey, struggles to discover who he is. If Work In Progress is unusual, it is in the degree and the detail that it delves into its major themes, which I discuss below. Second, Work in Progress is unusual in the number of purposeful stylistic variations employed across the project's books. Nicky's story is told in seven books, each of which...
Show moreConsistent with Vivian Gornick's "idea of self," Work In Progress is, in many ways, a classic coming-of-age story in which the boy, Nicky, along his life-journey, struggles to discover who he is. If Work In Progress is unusual, it is in the degree and the detail that it delves into its major themes, which I discuss below. Second, Work in Progress is unusual in the number of purposeful stylistic variations employed across the project's books. Nicky's story is told in seven books, each of which is a standalone, personal essay. Through the books the reader is provided an episodic snapshot of Nicky's life. Each of the snapshots facilitate a particular view of Nicky, each is a jigsaw-puzzle-piece that, when snapped together with the other puzzle pieces, form a single, holistic image of the boy and his search for self I provide an overview of each of the seven books below. I am also endeavoring to write Work in Progress on three levels: The first level is the compelling, personal level that draws the reader to the individual, Nicky, and the group of supporting characters. The story has to be compelling enough to pull the reader through the various stylistic iterations of each of the different books. Second, through the exploration of the major themes of institutionalization, abuse, religion, and racism (including the offshoots: race-based self-hatred and the discrimination within races that Alice Walker cans colorism), I attempt to raise the story up to another level, a level of universal applicability. Specifically, I want the everyday reader, the reader who has not suffered these circumstances to know them through the reading experience, and, consequently, to relate to and with Nicky. Toward this end, I use every narrative tool and technique at my disposal including utilizing reflection in the form of stream of consciousness and dreams, for example, to put the reader into the experience instead of telling the reader what the protagonist is thinking. I also maximize the use of scene, imagery, metaphor, and dialogue, to show the reader, and to allow the reader to come to their own conclusions.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000958
- Subject Headings
- Symbolism in literature, Self in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The Glass Catamount.
- Creator
- Slattery, Robert., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
The Glass Catamount is concerned with one James Frederick Curling, a young, up-and-coming senator from Delaware. As Curling moves up through his political party, suspicion of infidelity begins to rise to the surface as a woman from his past appears and claims to know intimate details about the senator. Her intentions are unknown, but as the senator's old friend and aide, Robertson Peters, finds himself drawn in by her stories, unsure if they are truth or fabrication, the longevity of the...
Show moreThe Glass Catamount is concerned with one James Frederick Curling, a young, up-and-coming senator from Delaware. As Curling moves up through his political party, suspicion of infidelity begins to rise to the surface as a woman from his past appears and claims to know intimate details about the senator. Her intentions are unknown, but as the senator's old friend and aide, Robertson Peters, finds himself drawn in by her stories, unsure if they are truth or fabrication, the longevity of the career of the senator, and possibly even his life, come into question. Themes of truth versus reality are dealt with throughout, and the act of sexual exploration and discovery is broken down and analyzed in the context of the senator's past and what he constructs as truth, whether it was always the way he claims or not. The glass catamount of the title is a symbol of the fragility and rarity of an understood self, appearing only briefly as it passes through the trees on its climb back up the mountain.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3338857
- Subject Headings
- Short stories, American, Symbolism in literature, Self in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Her Own House.
- Creator
- Vann, Kim McCoy, Bucak, Ayse Papatya, Florida Atlantic University
- Abstract/Description
-
This collection of eight short stories explores the themes of nonconformity, selfacceptance, and transformation. Characters confront religious, racial, and moral issues, which result in overcoming some internal or external challenge. The stories are told with magical, satirical, and traditional story-telling elements. For example, "The Liberation of Mammy" is about a slave who uses her secret pancake recipe to cause a distraction that allows her to escape from bondage; "Her Own House," is...
Show moreThis collection of eight short stories explores the themes of nonconformity, selfacceptance, and transformation. Characters confront religious, racial, and moral issues, which result in overcoming some internal or external challenge. The stories are told with magical, satirical, and traditional story-telling elements. For example, "The Liberation of Mammy" is about a slave who uses her secret pancake recipe to cause a distraction that allows her to escape from bondage; "Her Own House," is inspired by the biblical burning bush story; and "Notes on a Video Honey" is the story of a young girl who doesn't complete! y understand or approve of her mother's decision to degrade herself by being mere eye candy in rap videos. Worlds similar to our own and worlds that are exaggerations of our own are intended to guide readers to ideas they may have never before considered.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000974
- Subject Headings
- Short stories--Collections, Symbolism in literature, Self in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Waking Up.
- Creator
- Parker, Pamela Cox., Florida Atlantic University, Schwartz, Jason
- Abstract/Description
-
Waking Up is an addiction novel that traces the decline of twentysomething Rabbit Reynolds. Rabbit has found a strategy for coping with her intense loneliness---anesthetic alcoholism. The novel is about her desperate need for approval, validation, and external measures of self-worth, and the ways in which that need manifests itself in substance abuse, self-mutilation, and hollow relationships. Waking Up opens with Rabbit's lowest point, then goes back in time to follow her descent and,...
Show moreWaking Up is an addiction novel that traces the decline of twentysomething Rabbit Reynolds. Rabbit has found a strategy for coping with her intense loneliness---anesthetic alcoholism. The novel is about her desperate need for approval, validation, and external measures of self-worth, and the ways in which that need manifests itself in substance abuse, self-mutilation, and hollow relationships. Waking Up opens with Rabbit's lowest point, then goes back in time to follow her descent and, finally, her first steps toward recovery.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2003
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13091
- Subject Headings
- Alcoholism in literature, Self-esteem in literature, Loneliness in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Otway.
- Creator
- Hall, Sherry L., Mitchell, Susan, Florida Atlantic University
- Abstract/Description
-
Otway is a verse collection that explores the journey of the self in isolation. The collection commences with the narrator's inability to make sense of involuntary isolation. The subsequent melancholia prompts the narrator's journey of self-exploration, which progresses outward into the natural world. This journey is signified through the narrator's travels, which bring her into direct contact with the numinous (nature). Consequently, both narrator and numen become integrated, leading to the...
Show moreOtway is a verse collection that explores the journey of the self in isolation. The collection commences with the narrator's inability to make sense of involuntary isolation. The subsequent melancholia prompts the narrator's journey of self-exploration, which progresses outward into the natural world. This journey is signified through the narrator's travels, which bring her into direct contact with the numinous (nature). Consequently, both narrator and numen become integrated, leading to the transformation of solitude as "undesirable" space into "sacred" space, one in which self-discovery can occur.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000915
- Subject Headings
- Symbolism in literature, Self-perception, Poetry--Collections
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Mornings in the Athens of America: stories.
- Creator
- Gersie, Katrina, Bucak, Ayse Papatya, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
The eleven short stories in this collection can be described as autobiographical fiction, combining true instances from the author’s life with fictional characters and events. The stories explore the themes of grief and loss, coming of age, and the importance of preserving the natural world.
- Date Issued
- 2015
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004372, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004372
- Subject Headings
- Autobiographical fiction, Short stories, American, Identity (Psychology) in literature, Self in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The hand as creator in Wallace Stevens: Perception, sensation, and the phenomenal self.
- Creator
- Johnson, Jamie, Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
- Abstract/Description
-
Wallace Stevens's poems alluding to hands yield one of his most profound topics of interest: reality (the external, natural world) versus the imagination (the internal mind). The human hand offers a unique perspective of the complex, often problematic worlds in which the artist exists. In terms of the external world, the hands are the most common means of sense experience. For many artists, the hands act as a medium through which expression of art is delivered. During inspiration, an artist...
Show moreWallace Stevens's poems alluding to hands yield one of his most profound topics of interest: reality (the external, natural world) versus the imagination (the internal mind). The human hand offers a unique perspective of the complex, often problematic worlds in which the artist exists. In terms of the external world, the hands are the most common means of sense experience. For many artists, the hands act as a medium through which expression of art is delivered. During inspiration, an artist therefore takes an experience of the world, filters it through the imagination, and then creates art by combining mind and sense experience. It is the complications involved in this process of creation that the forthcoming analysis explores. The philosophical insight of Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Husserl, and William James offers ways of interpreting the intricate creative process apparent in Stevens's poems. By visualizing the necessary altered state of perception through Stevens's language, one can then better understand the acquisition of the ideal state, or "phenomenal body."
Show less - Date Issued
- 2002
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12916
- Subject Headings
- Stevens, Wallace,--1879-1955--Criticism and interpretation, Perception (Philosophy) in literature, Self (Philosophy) in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Tennessee Williams's Guilt Inspired 'Savior' Doubles.
- Creator
- Colegrove, Isaac H., Low, Jennifer A., Florida Atlantic University
- Abstract/Description
-
This thesis documents Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams's treatment of brother/sister relationships in literary works written between 1939 and 1950. Though Williams began by exploiting his troubled relationship with his sister Rose in "The Long Goodbye" and "The Purification," two one-act plays, he revised his treatment of siblings in The Glass Menagerie and the short story "The Resemblance between a Violin Case and a Coffin." These works do not merely reveal the writer's transparent guilt...
Show moreThis thesis documents Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams's treatment of brother/sister relationships in literary works written between 1939 and 1950. Though Williams began by exploiting his troubled relationship with his sister Rose in "The Long Goodbye" and "The Purification," two one-act plays, he revised his treatment of siblings in The Glass Menagerie and the short story "The Resemblance between a Violin Case and a Coffin." These works do not merely reveal the writer's transparent guilt and shame at having neglected his sister at moments when he could have helped her, nor do they serve simply to over-write his torrid depictions of similar relationships in the earlier plays. I contend that Williams's intense guilt inspired the creation of literary doubles in both The Glass Menagerie and "The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin," not only to undo in symbolic terms the ways he had previously characterized Rose and her relationship with him and, more importantly, to express his wish that he had done more to help Rose avert her tragic fate.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000906
- Subject Headings
- Williams, Tennessee,--1911-1983--Criticism and interpretation., Brothers and sisters in literature., Doubles in literature., Split self in literature.
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Nurtured beauty: cultivating balance between chance, control, extravagance, and restraint.
- Creator
- Spivey, Kim., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Visual Arts and Art History
- Abstract/Description
-
Interested in nurturing beauty, I create paintings that reference life processes through layers of struggle, discovery, recovery and generation. Employing a metaphor of the garden, my paintings can be seen as spaces where I determine what grows, stays, is mulched, or weeded out. I seek a balance between coexisting desires of restraint and control and extravagance with a sense of coming unbound. I emphasize the painting field as a whole, while also paying deep attention to the minute, inviting...
Show moreInterested in nurturing beauty, I create paintings that reference life processes through layers of struggle, discovery, recovery and generation. Employing a metaphor of the garden, my paintings can be seen as spaces where I determine what grows, stays, is mulched, or weeded out. I seek a balance between coexisting desires of restraint and control and extravagance with a sense of coming unbound. I emphasize the painting field as a whole, while also paying deep attention to the minute, inviting the viewer to discover complex worlds at different scales within each environment I create. My intimate, domesticated painted environments offer the viewer the possibility to experience the spaces I find beautiful and to add to the conversation of where beauty resides today in contemporary art.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3172945
- Subject Headings
- Symbolism in literature, Painting, Modern, Themes, motives, Self-perception in art, Mimesis in art, Postmodernism
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- I’d rather be a sage than a cyborg: re-theorizing posthumanism through religious wisdom literature.
- Creator
- Shaw, Amy, Mason, Julia, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
The topics of identity and subjectivity are well-trodden paths in posthuman thought, and the trend has been to reduce the self to its material, social, and technoscientific components. Yet the posthuman model of subjectivity—influenced by the tenets of postmodernism—tends to be disabling because it does not focus on the subject’s agency or the possibility of liberation from social tyranny. In this thesis, I use a sampling of what I call “religious wisdom literature”—specifically, the wisdom...
Show moreThe topics of identity and subjectivity are well-trodden paths in posthuman thought, and the trend has been to reduce the self to its material, social, and technoscientific components. Yet the posthuman model of subjectivity—influenced by the tenets of postmodernism—tends to be disabling because it does not focus on the subject’s agency or the possibility of liberation from social tyranny. In this thesis, I use a sampling of what I call “religious wisdom literature”—specifically, the wisdom books of the Old Testament and contemporary Buddhist writings—to challenge the assumption that the self is indistinguishable from the ideologies that produce it. I provide models from religious texts that instead, emphasize critical agency, flexibility, and resistive power. I also suggest that focusing on these qualities may ultimately be useful in the composition classroom, where we can use “self-centered” expressivist techniques (reflective assignments, emotional awareness) to meet the social-epistemic goal of ideological critique. Ultimately, posthumanism, with its emphasis on the construction of subjectivity, is better suited to question strict materialism and inquire into the inspiring possibilities of ancient wisdom.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA0004060
- Subject Headings
- Complexity (Philosophy), Order (Philosophy) in literature, Self in literature, Spiritual life (Buddhism), Spiritual life (Judaism), Wisdom literature -- Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- A fox in faux-Joyce: The functions of autobiography in James Joyce's "Ulysses".
- Creator
- King, John., Florida Atlantic University, McGuirk, Carol
- Abstract/Description
-
In the "Scylla and Charybdis" chapter of Ulysses, the novel appears to make a problem out of its autobiographical suppositions. Stephen Dedalus argues that the works of Shakespeare have a biographical basis, and previously in Ulysses Stephen has imagined himself as a Shakespearean character. Stephen is also the protagonist of Joyce's earlier work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In the "Scylla and Charybdis" episode, the association between Joyce and Stephen seems confirmed when the...
Show moreIn the "Scylla and Charybdis" chapter of Ulysses, the novel appears to make a problem out of its autobiographical suppositions. Stephen Dedalus argues that the works of Shakespeare have a biographical basis, and previously in Ulysses Stephen has imagined himself as a Shakespearean character. Stephen is also the protagonist of Joyce's earlier work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In the "Scylla and Charybdis" episode, the association between Joyce and Stephen seems confirmed when the narrator's voice, sometimes conflated with Stephen's, reports thoughts particularly appropriate for James Joyce. This chapter, however, lures one into an autobiographical reading of Stephen that does not remain tenable throughout the novel. Apparent autobiography in Ulysses becomes a problem (rather than an easy option for interpretation) when one finds autobiographical references significantly changed in the "Circe" chapter--changed so that the essential ambiguity of Joyce's autobiographical references becomes clear.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1996
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15338
- Subject Headings
- Joyce, James,--1882-1941--Ulysses, Joyce, James,--1882-1941--Criticism and interpretation, Autobiography in literature, Self in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Only the Body Remembers.
- Creator
- Geraci, Jeanette, Bucak, Ayse Papatya, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
Only The Body Remembers is a collection of poems, lyric essays, and short stories that explore several subjects, including love (both romantic and familial), loss, grief, sexuality, identity, and obsession. The primary thematic thread that binds this collection together is somatic memory -- the way the body records experiences, and the strong emotional charge these recorded experiences carry.
- Date Issued
- 2017
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004838
- Subject Headings
- Symbolism in literature., Identity (Philosophical concept), Identity (Psychology), Self (Philosophy), Mind and body.
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Paradise Revealed.
- Creator
- Ditusa, Michael, Schwartz, Jason, Florida Atlantic University
- Abstract/Description
-
South Florida is a collective of eclectic personalities who often transplant themselves from all across the country. They are often seeking a new opportunity, or running away from the baggage of their past. This collection of fiction stories seeks to explore the lives of the people who populate the area and serve the rest of the world who descend on the area annually seeking their own personal one to two week paradise. The collection sees those often living lives of quite desperation, while...
Show moreSouth Florida is a collective of eclectic personalities who often transplant themselves from all across the country. They are often seeking a new opportunity, or running away from the baggage of their past. This collection of fiction stories seeks to explore the lives of the people who populate the area and serve the rest of the world who descend on the area annually seeking their own personal one to two week paradise. The collection sees those often living lives of quite desperation, while at the same time returning to their jobs in the service industry night after night smiling. Juxtaposing the faith-based life against the backdrop of the night life, the characters are all on a journey to discover their own paradise the area offers. Sometimes they find it in small moments they experience. Sometimes they find it on the open road leaving.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000910
- Subject Headings
- Florida--Social life and customs--Fiction., Symbolism in literature., Self-realization., Short stories, American.
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Le moi et l'autre dans Robinson Crusoe de Daniel Defoe et Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique de Michel Tournier.
- Creator
- Peric, Milica., Florida Atlantic University, Munson, Marcella L.
- Abstract/Description
-
Daniel Defoe's seminal novel Robinson Crusoe reflects major philosophical currents of the Enlightenment and brings them to bear on diverse issues: scientific advances, new economic models, British colonialization, the relation of the Other to the self. But if Robinson Crusoe presents Friday as Other who fulfills a crucial role by helping Robinson as narrating subject successfully complete the journey of self-knowledge, Michel Tournier's postmodern revision, Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique...
Show moreDaniel Defoe's seminal novel Robinson Crusoe reflects major philosophical currents of the Enlightenment and brings them to bear on diverse issues: scientific advances, new economic models, British colonialization, the relation of the Other to the self. But if Robinson Crusoe presents Friday as Other who fulfills a crucial role by helping Robinson as narrating subject successfully complete the journey of self-knowledge, Michel Tournier's postmodern revision, Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique , has a quite different teleological aim. Through constantly shifting narrative and theoretical perspectives Vendredi undertakes a forceful critique of key aspects of the Western tradition which Robinson Crusoe confidently hailed: Lockean and Cartesian reasoning, traditional framing dichotomies central to the Western tradition (Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel), modern conceptions of the thinking subject. Vendredi ultimately suggests the inability of the postmodern subject to know itself while simultaneously critiquing those Western traditions whose perspectives are founded on hegemonic globalization.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2003
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13097
- Subject Headings
- Defoe, Daniel,--1661?-1731--Robinson Crusoe, Tournier, Michel--Vendredi, ou, Les limbes du Pacifique, Self (Philosophy) in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The quest for selfhood in Ursula Le Guin's "The Wizard of Earthsea" and "The Farthest Shore".
- Creator
- Durbeej, Jerry K., Florida Atlantic University, Collins, Robert A.
- Abstract/Description
-
In A Wizard of Earthsea and The Farthest Shore, Ursula K. Le Guin presents the theme of selfhood, of maturity, and of identity through the character heroes of Ged and Arren. Of these two, Ged experiences the quest for selfhood on two levels: first, from boy to manhood, and then from manhood to the awareness of death. Both novels deal with the struggle to create, which is primarily a struggle with self, with one's own powers, and with the need to control these powers and their consequences. I...
Show moreIn A Wizard of Earthsea and The Farthest Shore, Ursula K. Le Guin presents the theme of selfhood, of maturity, and of identity through the character heroes of Ged and Arren. Of these two, Ged experiences the quest for selfhood on two levels: first, from boy to manhood, and then from manhood to the awareness of death. Both novels deal with the struggle to create, which is primarily a struggle with self, with one's own powers, and with the need to control these powers and their consequences. I have examined WOE through the perspective of Ged's coming of age, his initiation and apprenticeship, and his relationship with the "shadow." I have discussed the shadow as a metaphor for darkness in relation to modern man's age of despair and loss of hope. In this area I have referenced ideas by Carl G. Jung. In TFS I have explored Ged's second cycle of selfhood through his encounter with death and how this encounter is seen as an abyss providing the ultimate confrontation which can guide the spirit toward creation, regeneration, and redemption. From this perspective I have explored the abyss through some discussion by Martin Heidegger. Arren's quest for selfhood is also examined, on a secondary level, through his relationship with Ged and his destiny for kingship.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12713
- Subject Headings
- Le Guin, Ursula K,--1929---Wizard of Earthsea, Le Guin, Ursula K,--1929---Farthest shore, Self in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The painful state of pleasure in Charlotte Brontèe's Jane Eyre.
- Creator
- Cannon, Michelle., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
- Abstract/Description
-
The heroine of Charlotte Brontèe's Jane Eyre is torn between her physical desire to remain close to Mr. Rochester and her psychological need for distance from him. Jane's need for distance tends to dominate her desire for closeness, and this internal conflict is reproduced externally in her relationship with Rochester, with Rochester's desire for physical proximity conflicting with Jane's desire for distance. These internal and external power struggles create a healthy sense of tension...
Show moreThe heroine of Charlotte Brontèe's Jane Eyre is torn between her physical desire to remain close to Mr. Rochester and her psychological need for distance from him. Jane's need for distance tends to dominate her desire for closeness, and this internal conflict is reproduced externally in her relationship with Rochester, with Rochester's desire for physical proximity conflicting with Jane's desire for distance. These internal and external power struggles create a healthy sense of tension necessary both to Jane, and to her relationship with Rochester because it prevents either of them from being fully satisfied, and ensures that both remain in a perpetual state of self-inflicted suffering. The suffering these characters impose on themselves and each other is necessary for the preservation of desires, which would be destroyed by fulfillment. Through my reading of the novel we gain a greater understanding of how the pain of unfulfilled desires becomes synonymous with pleasure, and the beneficial role pain, tension and unfulfilled desires plays in the text.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/209985
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Self in literature, Criticism and interpretation, Desire in literature, Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- That's SO last century: fashion and modiality in Melville's Typee.
- Creator
- DeBerry, Tealia., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
A literary text is a means for critics to analyze societal influence on the author, and both fashion and body modification serve this same function because they are legible texts with which to interpret the psychological motivations of the wearer in the cultural context in which he or she lives. Fashion theorists such as Roland Barthes and J.C. Flugel have detailed the reasons that they believe dress evolves throughout time, and the following thesis applies their theories to Melville's first...
Show moreA literary text is a means for critics to analyze societal influence on the author, and both fashion and body modification serve this same function because they are legible texts with which to interpret the psychological motivations of the wearer in the cultural context in which he or she lives. Fashion theorists such as Roland Barthes and J.C. Flugel have detailed the reasons that they believe dress evolves throughout time, and the following thesis applies their theories to Melville's first novel Typee. In the first chapter, entitled, "Moral Fibers: Dress as the Extension of Self," much emphasis is given to archetypes of dress such as the veil, the corset and military uniforms in the Orient and the Occident. The second chapter, "Cut From the Same Cloth: Body Modification as Semiotic Modality," discusses ritualistic tattooing as a mode of literary expression.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/215287
- Subject Headings
- Clothing and dress, Psychology, Fashion, Social aspects, Self-perception in literature, Fashion in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Hanging in the balance: the lure of Nietzsche's Apollonian and Dionysiac impulses in Kate Chopin's The Awakening.
- Creator
- Salamin, Jessica., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
This thesis represents a study of Kate Chopin's groundbreaking novel, The Awakening. Further, it applies Nietzsche's principles of Dionysiac and Apollonian impulses to the literary analysis of the novel. I argue that the protagonist of the novel, Edna Pontellier, embarks on a quest to determine how she may live an authentic life - that is, a life whereby she is true to herself above all others. Ultimately, her search for self is overwhelmed by the imbalance of the Apollonian and Dionysiac...
Show moreThis thesis represents a study of Kate Chopin's groundbreaking novel, The Awakening. Further, it applies Nietzsche's principles of Dionysiac and Apollonian impulses to the literary analysis of the novel. I argue that the protagonist of the novel, Edna Pontellier, embarks on a quest to determine how she may live an authentic life - that is, a life whereby she is true to herself above all others. Ultimately, her search for self is overwhelmed by the imbalance of the Apollonian and Dionysiac impulses against which she struggles. Because Edna cannot successfully mediate this struggle, she reaches the conclusion that she may only attain a truth to her self if she finds that truth in death.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/216407
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Aesthetics, Self in literature, Women and literature, History
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- A search for self in the postmodern novel: Don DeLillo's Americana, Mao II, and Falling Man.
- Creator
- Neudecker, Jaime Frances., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
- Abstract/Description
-
In my thesis I look at three novels by Don DeLillo: Americana, Mao II, and Falling Man. These three novels, published in 1971, 1991, and 2007 respectively, represent the full range of DeLillo's body of work, and demonstrate a clear progression of the major themes in his writings. Each of these novels presents a protagonist who is on a journey of self-discovery, effectively seeking what many critics have identified as an outdated form of self--a Modernist notion of self. The problematic nature...
Show moreIn my thesis I look at three novels by Don DeLillo: Americana, Mao II, and Falling Man. These three novels, published in 1971, 1991, and 2007 respectively, represent the full range of DeLillo's body of work, and demonstrate a clear progression of the major themes in his writings. Each of these novels presents a protagonist who is on a journey of self-discovery, effectively seeking what many critics have identified as an outdated form of self--a Modernist notion of self. The problematic nature of identity in these novels is exacerbated by changes in representation and warfare, particularly the perceived loss of originality and the rise of terrorism. Thus, I not only trace the continuation of the search for self in these novels, but also DeLillo's inclusion of terrorism in the novel. The changes in warfare give rise to an anxiety that further complicates the search for self in America.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/77681
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Psychology in literature, Self-actualization (Psychology)
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Studied girlhoods: consciousness, context, and negotiation of identity in the memoirs of Dorothy Allison, Mary Karr, and Barbara Robinette Moss.
- Creator
- Dilgen, Regina., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature
- Abstract/Description
-
Dorothy Allison's Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, Mary Karr's The Liars' Club, and Barbara Robinette Moss's Change Me into Zeus's Daughter are memoirs published in the 1990s of girlhoods in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This dissertation uses and expands upon the approaches of the multi-disciplinary Girls' Studies in analyzing how these memoirists theorize their own girlhoods. Each memoirist represents her experience in a culture that attempts to marginalize, silence, and define her....
Show moreDorothy Allison's Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, Mary Karr's The Liars' Club, and Barbara Robinette Moss's Change Me into Zeus's Daughter are memoirs published in the 1990s of girlhoods in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This dissertation uses and expands upon the approaches of the multi-disciplinary Girls' Studies in analyzing how these memoirists theorize their own girlhoods. Each memoirist represents her experience in a culture that attempts to marginalize, silence, and define her. An application of the foundational work on girlhood in developmental psychology provides for an analysis of each memoirist's depiction of girlhood as a time of authentic insight and developing agency. Referencing feminist literary criticism allows for an interpretation of how the girls at the center of these works develop agency through growing awareness of the circumstances of their marginalization. And a semiotic literary interpretation adds to the analysis of these works as creative autobiogra phical writing in affording a close reading of how the memoirists portray younger selves learning to read the signs and texts of a culture and becoming aware of their status as girls in working-class families. Each memoirist uses a dual vocal presentation as both the adult memoirist and a younger self give shape to the narrative. Each memoirist represents a distinct southern space intersecting with specifics of the era to form a cultural moment. Social Construction Theory makes available a basis for considering how the memoirists narrate their increasing understanding of race and gender within these specific contexts as well as their resistive voicing of these insights., Through a Cultural Studies focus this dissertation examines how each memoirist represents a younger self's negotiations with cultural products of the era that work to construct girlhood. Adding to this unpacking of how the memoirists study their own girlhoods, the tools of Postco for an analysis of how the memoirists theorize their own girlhoods in ways that parallel these approaches. This dissertation adds to the evolving field of Girls' Studies in using contemporary theoretical frameworks to interpret how girlhood is constructed, represented, and negotiated with in these memoirs.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3332175
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Self in literature, Popular culture, Working class women
- Format
- Document (PDF)