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Title: "The Voice of society": Dickens' surprising lesson in diplomacy spoken by the "innocent" table in Our Mutual Friend.
Creator: Hernandez, Patricia., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Abstract/Description: In Our Mutual Friend Dickens plays with the idea of people becoming things and things becoming people. One such person, who is initially introduced as a table, is Melvin Twemlow. This member of the aristocracy plays an almost comical, minor role within one sub-plot of the novel, but over the course of the novel progresses from a "feeble" character into a strong, morally authoritative voice. Dickens concludes his novel with a debate concerning who is, or should be, "the voice of society" and...
Show moreIn Our Mutual Friend Dickens plays with the idea of people becoming things and things becoming people. One such person, who is initially introduced as a table, is Melvin Twemlow. This member of the aristocracy plays an almost comical, minor role within one sub-plot of the novel, but over the course of the novel progresses from a "feeble" character into a strong, morally authoritative voice. Dickens concludes his novel with a debate concerning who is, or should be, "the voice of society" and the last word of the debate is given to the mysterious table-man character. Rather than allowing a central protagonist to champion his thoughts, Dickens surprises his readers by making an exemplary moral figure of a mild, minor character from among the ranks of the pompous aristocracy. Twemlow's speech makes a familiar Dickensian point about the need for social reform in a strange, politically incorrect way.
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Date Issued: 2007
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/40950
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, English fiction, Criticism and interpretation, Literature and society, History, Class consciousness in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

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)

Title: " Merely to officiate light": the subordination and glorification of God the Son in Paradise Lost.
Creator: Cruikshank, Kathryn H., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Abstract/Description: This thesis considers the role and function of God the Son within the anti-Trinitarian system John Milton envisions in his epic poem, Paradise Lost. In the poem, God the Father frequently acts independently of His Son, and the divine attributes that traditionally describe the Son, including His timelessness, no longer apply to the character Milton constructs. Despite this apparent degradation, Milton still elevates the Son and considers Him to be a character worthy of our respect. To account...
Show moreThis thesis considers the role and function of God the Son within the anti-Trinitarian system John Milton envisions in his epic poem, Paradise Lost. In the poem, God the Father frequently acts independently of His Son, and the divine attributes that traditionally describe the Son, including His timelessness, no longer apply to the character Milton constructs. Despite this apparent degradation, Milton still elevates the Son and considers Him to be a character worthy of our respect. To account for this seeming paradox, I propose a reading of Paradise Lost that does not dismiss Milton's heretical belief in a subjected Son, but rather uses it as a way envision a new form of power. To do so, I compare the relationship between God the Father and His Son in terms of light and sun imagery, to demonstrate how power is divided and distributed between the two, according to the scientific principles of Milton's day. In addition, I consider how Michel Foucault's concept of the docile body both applies to the Son and explains His deference to the Father. Through these analyses, I hope to demonstrate that the Son's power exists as the result of properly exercising His free will, a will that would not have been His own had He been one with His Father.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/209988
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Religion, Symbolism in literature, God in literature, Religion and literature, Criticism and interpretation
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Inviting but frustrating over-simplification: (re)reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
Creator: Smith, Kathryn M., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Abstract/Description: Many critics and readers assume that Tess of the d'Urbervilles is simply the tragedy of a ruined country maiden and that the sexually-driven scenes are the most important aspects of the novel. In my thesis, however, I argue that Thomas Hardy created a novel centered on his complex heroine, Tess, not on simplistic notions of sexual ruination and sensational plot developments. In other words, Tess is an autonomous, detailed character who cannot be relegated to the usual stereotypes of Virgin,...
Show moreMany critics and readers assume that Tess of the d'Urbervilles is simply the tragedy of a ruined country maiden and that the sexually-driven scenes are the most important aspects of the novel. In my thesis, however, I argue that Thomas Hardy created a novel centered on his complex heroine, Tess, not on simplistic notions of sexual ruination and sensational plot developments. In other words, Tess is an autonomous, detailed character who cannot be relegated to the usual stereotypes of Virgin, Whore, Mother, etc. Through my reading, we gain a greater understanding of the novel as a whole, instead of as a fractured, deterministic, and plot-driven tragedy. I begin my argument by examining Hardy's subtitle, "A Pure Woman," asserting that our focus should be on the word "Woman" and Tess's subjectivity, not reductive concepts of "purity" or chastity. In Chapter Two, I examine two significant scenes that occur in Alec's carriage, showing how many critics' readings underestimate Tess as helpless, and arguing that she fights against her oppressor in covert ways. My third chapter continues this defense of Tess by critiquing the critical debate surrounding the sexual encounter in "The Chase". I posit that the entire debate is flawed and that Tess should be defined based upon her actions and not simply her sexuality. Lastly, in my conclusion I present a broader defense of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, in which I assert that the ambiguous plot scenes in Tess are conscious attempts by Hardy to subvert traditional assumptions about what is important in a novel. My goal in this thesis is to critique popular but simplistic interpretations of Tess of the d'Urbervilles which diminish Tess's role; instead, I emphasize the way her character, in the words of critic Kathleen Blake, "invites but frustrates oversimplification."
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Date Issued: 2007
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/11601
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Social change in literature, Literature and society
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: "...At the ear of Eve": hearing, gender, and the physiology of the fall in John Milton's Paradise lost.
Creator: Pollari, Niina., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Abstract/Description: The organ of hearing, in John Milton's Paradise Lost, is inextricably connected with both the physical and the spiritual; it is the point of entry through which Satan's words enter Eve's brain, subsequently process, and lead eventually to the fall of mankind. Its symbolic importance is also indisputable, as it is a metaphor for the feminine passivity and penetrability that make Milton's Eve a particularly vulnerable target. There is, however, already a pre-existing connection between the ear...
Show moreThe organ of hearing, in John Milton's Paradise Lost, is inextricably connected with both the physical and the spiritual; it is the point of entry through which Satan's words enter Eve's brain, subsequently process, and lead eventually to the fall of mankind. Its symbolic importance is also indisputable, as it is a metaphor for the feminine passivity and penetrability that make Milton's Eve a particularly vulnerable target. There is, however, already a pre-existing connection between the ear and its role in Paradise Lost. The seventeenth-century medical texts of Milton's contemporaries gender the physiology of the ear and the process of hearing and therefore contribute to its importance in the pivotal temptation scene; that is, the rhetoric surrounding the physiology of the ear is the down fall of humankind in the epic poem. As a result of the dangerous connection between science and language, Milton's characters are already predestined to sin.
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Date Issued: 2006
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/11583
Subject Headings: Symbolism in communication, Fall of man, Body, Human, in literature, Literature and science, History
Format: Document (PDF)

Criticism and interpretation (4)	+ -
History (3)	+ -
Literature and society (2)	+ -
Symbolism in literature (2)	+ -
Body, Human, in literature (1)	+ -

Class consciousness in literature (1)	+ -
English fiction (1)	+ -
Fall of man (1)	+ -
God in literature (1)	+ -
Identity (Psychology) in literature (1)	+ -
Literature and medicine (1)	+ -
Literature and science (1)	+ -
Religion (1)	+ -
Religion and literature (1)	+ -
Sex role in literature (1)	+ -
Social change in literature (1)	+ -
Symbolism in communication (1)	+ -

17th century (2)	+ -
19th century (2)	+ -
16th century (1)	+ -

Paradise lost. (2)	+ -
Our mutual friend. (1)	+ -
Tess of the d'Urbervilles. (1)	+ -
Twelfth night. (1)	+ -

Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College (5)	+ -
Cruikshank, Kathryn H. (1)	+ -
Hernandez, Patricia. (1)	+ -
Pollari, Niina. (1)	+ -
Puehn, Amanda M. (1)	+ -

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