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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.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000958
Subject Headings: 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.
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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.
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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.
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Date Issued: 2008
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000915
Subject Headings: Symbolism in literature, Self-perception, Poetry--Collections
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."
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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.
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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: 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.
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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: 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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: 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.
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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)

FAU Theses and Dissertations (10)	+ -
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Self in literature (5)	+ -
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Self (Philosophy) in literature (2)	+ -
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