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cross cultural perspective on the issue of gender and contamination in urban legends
Title
A cross cultural perspective on the issue of gender and contamination in urban legends.
Creator
Herndon, Kirstin Renee., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Abstract/Description
In his article, "The Kentucky Fried Rat : Legends and Modem Society", Gary Alan Fine suggests that American society is a folk community in which urban legends play the role of negotiating changes in social structure and other aspects of daily life (Fine 2005). Fine's argument, however, is limiting in that it only considers urban legends within the United States and fails to encompass those from abroad. As such, this thesis expands Fine's original argument to a global scale by examining urban...
Show moreIn his article, "The Kentucky Fried Rat : Legends and Modem Society", Gary Alan Fine suggests that American society is a folk community in which urban legends play the role of negotiating changes in social structure and other aspects of daily life (Fine 2005). Fine's argument, however, is limiting in that it only considers urban legends within the United States and fails to encompass those from abroad. As such, this thesis expands Fine's original argument to a global scale by examining urban legends, crossculturally, that involve instances of women being brutalized and objects or people being contaminated. Ultimately, the thematic elements and grotesque imagery that are used in these two categories of legends are a symbolic expression of tensions surrounding the movement of women out of the home and the increased global spread of urbanism.
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Date Issued
2010
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3335105
Subject Headings
Urban folklore, Sex role in literature, Feminist theory, Legends
Format
Document (PDF)
Black woman as an erotic being in Spanish-Caribbean narrative
Title
Black woman as an erotic being in Spanish-Caribbean narrative.
Creator
Henry, Marlyn Fay., Florida Atlantic University, Erro-Peralta, Nora
Abstract/Description
Characterization of Black women as erotic beings in Spanish-Caribbean narrative has shifted significantly from 1880 to 1990. Their representation as totally submissive and erotic beings has evolved into that of socially conscious and self accepting Black women. In Villaverde's Cecilia Valdes (1882), Cecilia and Maria de la Regla are depicted as objects of male sexual desires. Diaz's Pascua in Cumboto (1948) and Asturias' Mulata de tal (1963), although eroticized, insinuate an underlying...
Show moreCharacterization of Black women as erotic beings in Spanish-Caribbean narrative has shifted significantly from 1880 to 1990. Their representation as totally submissive and erotic beings has evolved into that of socially conscious and self accepting Black women. In Villaverde's Cecilia Valdes (1882), Cecilia and Maria de la Regla are depicted as objects of male sexual desires. Diaz's Pascua in Cumboto (1948) and Asturias' Mulata de tal (1963), although eroticized, insinuate an underlying androgynous nature which makes them more assertive in their use of sexuality. However, it is contemporary women writers who dismantle the erotic stereotype: Ferre's "Cuando las mujeres quieren a los hombres" (1974) portrays a Black prostitute who, advances socially and economically. Cabrera's Nana in "La tesorera del diablo" (1971) is the bearer of ancestral knowledge and moral values, and Cartagena Portalatin's Aurora, in "La llamaban Aurora," (1978) speaks forcefully on social issues and fully accepts herself as a Black woman.
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Date Issued
1994
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15115
Subject Headings
Latin American literature--History and criticism, Caribbean literature (Spanish), African American women in literature, Sex symbolism, Sex role in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Anti-Victorian attitudes in Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure"
Title
Anti-Victorian attitudes in Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure".
Creator
Magrath-Singer, Jennifer Lara., Florida Atlantic University, Buckton, Oliver
Abstract/Description
Published in 1895, Jude the Obscure was Thomas Hardy's last novel. With the approach of the turn-of-the-century, Victorian England experienced profound changes in its social structure. The writing of novels about oppressed women was popular in the late nineteenth century. As the narrative voice in Jude, Thomas Hardy sought to challenge the current conditions for women and men in society. His novel explores the reality of these conditions, and his characters, namely Sue Bridehead and Jude...
Show morePublished in 1895, Jude the Obscure was Thomas Hardy's last novel. With the approach of the turn-of-the-century, Victorian England experienced profound changes in its social structure. The writing of novels about oppressed women was popular in the late nineteenth century. As the narrative voice in Jude, Thomas Hardy sought to challenge the current conditions for women and men in society. His novel explores the reality of these conditions, and his characters, namely Sue Bridehead and Jude Fawley, show readers what can happen when people are unable to adapt to the laws and conventions set forth by society.
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Date Issued
2001
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12820
Subject Headings
Hardy, Thomas,--1840-1928--Jude the obscure, Hardy, Thomas,--1840-1928--Characters--Women, Sex role in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Grendles Modor: Representation in a linguistic landscape
Title
Grendles Modor: Representation in a linguistic landscape.
Creator
Ciufo, Patience Corinne., Florida Atlantic University, Faraci, Mary
Abstract/Description
Beowulf has inspired readers and listeners since the eighth century, first as a performance then as a written poem. It is an epic tale of Anglo-Saxon warriors, life, and history. Recently, studies of Beowulf have introduced questions of twentieth-century gender stereotypes that provide a new understanding of the epic's characters and themes. However, these studies have delivered too simple a reading of complex characters like Grendel's mother and have led scholarship away from the poem. To...
Show moreBeowulf has inspired readers and listeners since the eighth century, first as a performance then as a written poem. It is an epic tale of Anglo-Saxon warriors, life, and history. Recently, studies of Beowulf have introduced questions of twentieth-century gender stereotypes that provide a new understanding of the epic's characters and themes. However, these studies have delivered too simple a reading of complex characters like Grendel's mother and have led scholarship away from the poem. To bring critics back to the poem, this study attempts to make the poem a landscape. When the total landscape, the language, style, alliteration, and violence (physical and emotional), is studied, the poem is opened up to more than just simple readings. In a landscape reading, Grendel's mother becomes a force strong enough to disrupt the structure of the language and to battle the barriers between female and male, warrior and monster, and pagan and nonpagan. A landscape that is as violent as the characters is discovered, one in which all life is celebrated.
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Date Issued
1998
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15542
Subject Headings
Beowulf--Characters, English poetry--Old English, ca 450-1100--History and criticism, Stereotype (Psychology) in literature, Sex role in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Oh, Fanny! What a deep voice you have: Masculinist narration in John Cleland's "Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure"
Title
Oh, Fanny! What a deep voice you have: Masculinist narration in John Cleland's "Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure".
Creator
Cohen, Ilana., Florida Atlantic University, Anderson, David R.
Abstract/Description
John Cleland, author of Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, employs a female narrative voice, but his novel reinforces traditional gender roles of male domination and female submission. By co-opting his female narrator, Cleland makes Fanny appear to be a willing and available sexual partner. His pornographic novel depicts sexual situations that raise virile men to the position of authority and devalue both men and women who are submissive, not "masculine." The most devalued and...
Show moreJohn Cleland, author of Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, employs a female narrative voice, but his novel reinforces traditional gender roles of male domination and female submission. By co-opting his female narrator, Cleland makes Fanny appear to be a willing and available sexual partner. His pornographic novel depicts sexual situations that raise virile men to the position of authority and devalue both men and women who are submissive, not "masculine." The most devalued and objectified character in the novel is Fanny herself, even though the novel portrays her as happy and satisfied.
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Date Issued
1997
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15415
Subject Headings
Cleland, John,--1709-1789--Criticism and interpretation, Cleland, John,--1709-1789--Memoirs of a woman of pleasure, Point of view (Literature), Sex role in literature, Women in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Hawthorne's play on gender and sexuality in "The Blithedale Romance"
Title
Hawthorne's play on gender and sexuality in "The Blithedale Romance".
Creator
Rubin, Brooke J., Florida Atlantic University, Blakemore, Steven
Abstract/Description
Feminist critics have primarily concentrated on the character of Zenobia, Nathaniel Hawthorne's premier feminist in The Blithedale Romance, to unravel Hawthorne's stance on the emergent sexual politics of the time. This thesis not only examines the importance of Zenobia but also analyzes the significance of Hawthorne's allusions to gender and sexuality constructs in terms of his other characters: Coverdale, Hollingsworth, Priscilla, Westervelt, and Moodie. In addition, I argue that Hawthorne...
Show moreFeminist critics have primarily concentrated on the character of Zenobia, Nathaniel Hawthorne's premier feminist in The Blithedale Romance, to unravel Hawthorne's stance on the emergent sexual politics of the time. This thesis not only examines the importance of Zenobia but also analyzes the significance of Hawthorne's allusions to gender and sexuality constructs in terms of his other characters: Coverdale, Hollingsworth, Priscilla, Westervelt, and Moodie. In addition, I argue that Hawthorne's purpose is to experiment with societal constructs of gender and sexuality among his central characters, a literary experiment that inadvertently subverts his ostensible traditional, patriarchal perspective. In essence, my reading aims to reorientate the conventional presuppositions and gender conventions that have dominated Hawthorne criticism for the past 150 years.
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Date Issued
2006
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13353
Subject Headings
Hawthorne, Nathaniel,--1804-1864--Blithedale romance, Hawthorne, Nathaniel,--1804-1864--Political and social views, American fiction--19th century--Criticism and interpretation, Women in literature, Sex role in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
"One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!"
Title
"One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!": twinship and doubling in Twelfth Night.
Creator
Puehn, Amanda M., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Abstract/Description
This thesis considers the relationship between scientific advances, identity formation, and literature in an early modern print culture. As medical theorists made their discoveries and defended their work they did so within the literary world; turning to the printed word to cultivate their personal identity and rebut dissenting colleagues. Subsequently, playwright William Shakespeare employed common medical knowledge within his plays. Twelfth Night presents male and female twins within the...
Show moreThis thesis considers the relationship between scientific advances, identity formation, and literature in an early modern print culture. As medical theorists made their discoveries and defended their work they did so within the literary world; turning to the printed word to cultivate their personal identity and rebut dissenting colleagues. Subsequently, playwright William Shakespeare employed common medical knowledge within his plays. Twelfth Night presents male and female twins within the scope of a comedy that plays upon the issues of cross-dressing and mistaken sexual identity. During the Renaissance, it was believed that male and female seed was co-present in every person and through dominance a distinct sexual identity was developed. This thesis argues that while Shakespeare initially convoluted this by allowing one of the twins to cross-dress; he resolved the anatomical doubling by presenting both characters together on stage at the close of the play.
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Date Issued
2010
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3335455
Subject Headings
Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Identity (Psychology) in literature, Sex role in literature, Literature and medicine, History
Format
Document (PDF)
identidad fronteriza a travâes de las experiencias generacionales en Sirena Selena vestida de pena
Title
La identidad fronteriza a travâes de las experiencias generacionales en Sirena Selena vestida de pena.
Creator
Magdaleno, Ariana Heydi., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature
Abstract/Description
Afro-Puerto Rican Mayra Santos-Febres's novel Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2000) demonstrates the intrinsic social relationship that exists between generations in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. The historical similarity between these regions permits a comparison in life stories of marginalized peoples. Puerto Rican godmothers and transvestites Martha Divine and Valentina Frenesâi prepare goddaughter, quinceänera and bolerista Sirena Selena in her performance in order to launch a career...
Show moreAfro-Puerto Rican Mayra Santos-Febres's novel Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2000) demonstrates the intrinsic social relationship that exists between generations in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. The historical similarity between these regions permits a comparison in life stories of marginalized peoples. Puerto Rican godmothers and transvestites Martha Divine and Valentina Frenesâi prepare goddaughter, quinceänera and bolerista Sirena Selena in her performance in order to launch a career and conquer the strategies of survival. Meanwhile, Dominican millionaire Hugo Graubel manages his life publicly as a heterosexual husband and privately as a gay man and strongly attempts to capture enigmatic Sirena Selena. Whereas the Dominican, pre-adolescent, poor, and mulatto Leocadio discovers the veiled world of tourism that offers alternate possibilities of economic survival. The previous generations' transgression of society's binary definitions created alternate spaces that continue to pave the way for future generations that will refuse and resist conforming to static patriarchal and heterosexual mainstream classifications.
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Date Issued
2009
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/369190
Subject Headings
Criticism and interpretation, Identity in literature, Sex role in literature, Literature and society, Homosexuality and literature
Format
Document (PDF)
use of the bastard identity
Title
The use of the bastard identity: from Victorian subverters to superheroes in the twenty-first century and beyond.
Creator
Dessler, Ryan., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
This project explores the use if illegitimacy within Western discourse over the last three centuries. Illegitimacy was used in Victorian literature as a literary device to drive plot but evolved into a touchstone for Western discourse to explore the bounds of what is considered respectable society. Over time, as illegitimacy has become more mainstream, I contend illegitimate identities have been utilized to serve as a mirror for Western hegemony. In the first chapter, I explore the origins of...
Show moreThis project explores the use if illegitimacy within Western discourse over the last three centuries. Illegitimacy was used in Victorian literature as a literary device to drive plot but evolved into a touchstone for Western discourse to explore the bounds of what is considered respectable society. Over time, as illegitimacy has become more mainstream, I contend illegitimate identities have been utilized to serve as a mirror for Western hegemony. In the first chapter, I explore the origins of illegitimacy being used as a literary device in novels by Victorian authors Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. In the second chapter, I examine the role illegitimacy plays in the origin stories of canonical comic book superheroes Batman and Superman. Lastly, in the third chapter, I scrutinize the role illegitimacy plays in defining the human condition within science fiction as human culture continues to advance technologically towards a post human world.
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Date Issued
2012
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3355567
Subject Headings
Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Literature and society, History, Literature and society, History, Comic books, strips, etc, Criticism and interpretation, Illegitimacy in literature, Sex role in literature, Sensationalism in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Power politics
Title
Power politics: gender and power in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Wilkie Collins's No Name.
Creator
Smith, Rebecca Ann., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
While literary critics acknowledge Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Wilkie Collins's No Name as sensation novels that were considered popular literature during the 1860s, many critics often fail to recognize the social and political implications embedded within these texts. In No Name, for instance, Collins's use of a heroine that is disinherited and deemed illegitimate by the law emphasizes the overpowering force of patriarchy. In response to patriarchal law, therefore, the...
Show moreWhile literary critics acknowledge Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Wilkie Collins's No Name as sensation novels that were considered popular literature during the 1860s, many critics often fail to recognize the social and political implications embedded within these texts. In No Name, for instance, Collins's use of a heroine that is disinherited and deemed illegitimate by the law emphasizes the overpowering force of patriarchy. In response to patriarchal law, therefore, the heroines of Lady Audley's Secret and No Name attempt to improve their social positions in a society that is economically dependent upon men. Braddon's Lady Audley and Collins's Magdalen Vanstone are fictional representations of women who internalize the inequality of patriarchy and strive to contest male domination. By centering their novels on heroines who endeavor to defy Victorian social norms, Braddon and Collins highlight the problem of the female in a male-dominated society.
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Date Issued
2009
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/210519
Subject Headings
Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, English fiction, Criticism and interpretation, Literature and society, Sex role in literature, Patriarchy in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Gender and the abject in the symbolic landscapes of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm
Title
Gender and the abject in the symbolic landscapes of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm.
Creator
McAdams, Janine., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
The literature of the fin de siáecle challenged established societal norms through its use of avant-garde literary forms and controversial subject matter. This study will examine the use of landscape metaphors in two major works of fin de siáecle literature, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm, in order to reveal how these texts critique and re-vision the social dualities of gender. A wide range of literary...
Show moreThe literature of the fin de siáecle challenged established societal norms through its use of avant-garde literary forms and controversial subject matter. This study will examine the use of landscape metaphors in two major works of fin de siáecle literature, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm, in order to reveal how these texts critique and re-vision the social dualities of gender. A wide range of literary theories-including, feminist theory, semiotics, and ecocriticism-are used to interpret these authors' influential narratives. This thesis will also apply Julia Kristeva's theory of the abjects-representing the permeability of the physical and social bodies-to critically examine the literal and metaphorical landscapes of Stevenson's city and Schreiner's farm. Thus, these visionary texts embody an organic and feminist understanding of the self as a permeable social construct that exists free of borders.
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Date Issued
2010
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2683128
Subject Headings
Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Sex role in literature, Semantics (Philosophy), Avant-garde (Aesthetics)
Format
Document (PDF)