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- Title
- Drawing desires performance: dominance and submission in Will Eisner's The Spirit and Alan Moore's Watchmen.
- Creator
- Furlong, Michael., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
This thesis discusses the relationship between classic comic books and BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism.) Will Eisner's The Spirit is used to discuss sexuality and power in comics, with special attention paid to Eisner's "The Kissing Caper." The Eisner chapter explores the relationship between sadomasochism, film noir, gender dynamics and comics. Using Judith Butler, Fredric Wertham and Theodor Reik, the gender politics of The Spirit are discussed. Women's changing roles in the...
Show moreThis thesis discusses the relationship between classic comic books and BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism.) Will Eisner's The Spirit is used to discuss sexuality and power in comics, with special attention paid to Eisner's "The Kissing Caper." The Eisner chapter explores the relationship between sadomasochism, film noir, gender dynamics and comics. Using Judith Butler, Fredric Wertham and Theodor Reik, the gender politics of The Spirit are discussed. Women's changing roles in the post-World War II American workplace are linked to Eisner's BDSM themes in The Spirit from the character's origin story to the 1950s. In examining Alan Moore's Watchmen, the paper focuses on transactional power dynamics and how BDSM rituals are enacted in modern American comics. American power relationships in politics are used as a comparison and contrast to BDSM dynamics in Watchmen. Samuel R. Delany, William Moulton Marston and Pat Califia are used as theorists within the discussion of power exchanges in Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore's graphic novel. The consensual fantasy element to this power relationship is demonstrated as the underlying dynamic of the act, and not as actual punishment or nonconsensual sadism.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3332180
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Comic books, strips, etc, History and criticism, Erotic literature, History and criticism
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Edith Wharton: self-actualization through characterization in The Age of Innocence.
- Creator
- Feuerberg, Betty., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
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Edith Wharton uses characterization in the primary three characters in The Age of Innocence to explore the aspects of her life. Early adulthood is represented by May Welland Archer, who was born into New York 400, where society suppressed an individual's emotions, aspirations, and freedoms. The intermediate phase of her life is depicted in Newland Archer, who tests the confining limits of the society to which he belongs and strives to understand the role of emotions in achieving personal...
Show moreEdith Wharton uses characterization in the primary three characters in The Age of Innocence to explore the aspects of her life. Early adulthood is represented by May Welland Archer, who was born into New York 400, where society suppressed an individual's emotions, aspirations, and freedoms. The intermediate phase of her life is depicted in Newland Archer, who tests the confining limits of the society to which he belongs and strives to understand the role of emotions in achieving personal satisfaction. Wharton rejected and craved the ties of the New York 400 in the final phase of her life as portrayed in Ellen Olenska who left the 400, lived in Europe, and returned to New York. By developing these characters, Wharton attempts to retrospectively reconcile the transformations she experienced. Indeed, it will be clear that Wharton's work serves as a personal assessment of her self-actualization.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/3360784
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Women and literature, History, Feminism in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- A good woman is hard to find: discovering the voice of the woman satirist in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.
- Creator
- Paxton, Virginia A., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
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While Flannery O'Connor's characters and narrative landscape may share a history with those of other works often labeled "Southern gothic," her heavily judicious narrative voice utilizes the depravity of the South struggling to find its identity as a means to explore her vision of God's mercy and distinguishes her work as satirical criticism. This thesis analyzes her construction of a distinctive satirical narrative voice for Wise Blood, particularly as it deviates from how she initially...
Show moreWhile Flannery O'Connor's characters and narrative landscape may share a history with those of other works often labeled "Southern gothic," her heavily judicious narrative voice utilizes the depravity of the South struggling to find its identity as a means to explore her vision of God's mercy and distinguishes her work as satirical criticism. This thesis analyzes her construction of a distinctive satirical narrative voice for Wise Blood, particularly as it deviates from how she initially wrote the first chapters as presented in earlier short stories like "The Train" and "The Peeler." Here, the ways in which O'Connor revises her diction and syntax to create a satirical tone will be examined closely. For the purposes of this paper, satire is defined as a literary work aimed at utilizing irony, hyperbole, or sarcasm to reveal, critique, and correct some moral, ethical, or social phenomenon or situation that the author finds reprehensible.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/221951
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Feminism and literature, Didactic fiction, American, Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- John Updike: the role of women in his short fiction.
- Creator
- Rosen, Cindy M., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
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There remain two recurring criticisms of John Updike's fiction. The first comes from feminist critics who condemn his negative portrayal of women, accusing his fiction of denigrating women. The second comes from late twentieth century critics who accuse him of avoiding political and historical discussions in his fiction. However, it is my contention that Updike is willing to address both of these concerns, and I arrive at such an argument by carefully analyzing his collection of short stories...
Show moreThere remain two recurring criticisms of John Updike's fiction. The first comes from feminist critics who condemn his negative portrayal of women, accusing his fiction of denigrating women. The second comes from late twentieth century critics who accuse him of avoiding political and historical discussions in his fiction. However, it is my contention that Updike is willing to address both of these concerns, and I arrive at such an argument by carefully analyzing his collection of short stories compiled in Too Far To Go: The Maples Stories. Within these stories, Updike's female characters illustrate the shifting gender paradigms over the course of the fifties, sixties, and seventies amidst the middle-class, suburban American milieu. Updike's women act as agents of history providing testament to the shifting gender paradigms and historical, cultural, political, and social milestones of a maturing country and its growing pains.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/1927298
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Women in literature, American fiction, History and criticism
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Man in the age of mechanical reproduction: variations on transhumanism in the works of Smith, Delany, Dick, Wells and Gibson.
- Creator
- Herzek, Charles Barry., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
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Science fiction identifies three characteristics as definitive of and essential to humanity: 1) sentience or self-awareness, 2) emotions, and 3) most importantly, the capacity for sociability. Through the vital possession of these three traits any entity can come to be called human. In the first chapter, I examine Cordwainer Smith's "Scanners Live in Vain" and Samuel R. Delany's "Aye and Gomorrah...," two stories in which human subjects become Other than human. In the second chapter, I...
Show moreScience fiction identifies three characteristics as definitive of and essential to humanity: 1) sentience or self-awareness, 2) emotions, and 3) most importantly, the capacity for sociability. Through the vital possession of these three traits any entity can come to be called human. In the first chapter, I examine Cordwainer Smith's "Scanners Live in Vain" and Samuel R. Delany's "Aye and Gomorrah...," two stories in which human subjects become Other than human. In the second chapter, I explore the prospect of creatures, not biologically human who gain human status through an analysis of Smith's "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In the third chapter, I investigate the uniquely science fictional notion that "humanity" does not require biology through a comparison of H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau and William Gibson's Idoru.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/77644
- Subject Headings
- Characters and characteristics in literature, Humanity, Ethics, Modern
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Marie Corelli: Britain's most popular forgotten author.
- Creator
- Moss, Doris., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
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Marie Corelli was arguably the most popular British novelist of the early 1900s, yet few today even know her name. Though she is not the only author to lose popularity, her enormous influence during her lifetime deserves consideration. What people liked about Marie Corelli can shed light on why the rise of modernism is seen as such a break from the popular in literature. This paper examines two of her bestsellers, A Romance of Two Worlds and The Sorrows of Satan, in light of the fin de...
Show moreMarie Corelli was arguably the most popular British novelist of the early 1900s, yet few today even know her name. Though she is not the only author to lose popularity, her enormous influence during her lifetime deserves consideration. What people liked about Marie Corelli can shed light on why the rise of modernism is seen as such a break from the popular in literature. This paper examines two of her bestsellers, A Romance of Two Worlds and The Sorrows of Satan, in light of the fin de siƔecle, as well as the critical response to her work from both modernist and postmodern perspectives. Corelli is of interest today because her popular female characters are women who affirm traditional femininity yet also pursue and wield great power. The question I raise is whether Corelli's work is best seen as illustrative of theories about popular literature or as contradictory to them.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3172426
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Women and literature, History, Literature and society, History, English fiction, Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The philosophy of the animal in 20th century literature.
- Creator
- Johnson, Jamie, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
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The following dissertation examines the philosophy of the animal as it appears in twentieth-century British and American literature. I argue that evolutionary theory, along with the Romantic emphasis on sympathy, creates an historical shift in our perception of humans and nonhumans. Beginning with Herman Melville's classic novel, Moby-Dick, the whale represents what I call a transitional animal figure in that the whale not only shows the traditionally symbolic literary animal but also the...
Show moreThe following dissertation examines the philosophy of the animal as it appears in twentieth-century British and American literature. I argue that evolutionary theory, along with the Romantic emphasis on sympathy, creates an historical shift in our perception of humans and nonhumans. Beginning with Herman Melville's classic novel, Moby-Dick, the whale represents what I call a transitional animal figure in that the whale not only shows the traditionally symbolic literary animal but also the beginnings of the twentieth century shift toward the literal animal-as-subject. My proposed comparative analysis consists of a return to classic existential and phenomenological philosophers with animal studies in mind. A handful of critical essays in recent years have conducted just such an analysis. My contribution extends these philosophical endeavors on the animal and applies them to major literary authors who demonstrate a notable interest in the philosophy of animals. The first chapter of the dissertation begins with D.H. Lawrence, whose writings in selected essays, St. Mawr, and "The Fox" continue considerations made by Melville concerning animal being. Because Lawrence often focuses on gender, sexuality, and intuition, I discuss how a Heideggerian reading of animals in Lawrence adds value to interpretations of his fiction which remain unavailable in analyses of human subjects. In Chapter Two, I move on to William Faulkner's classic hunting tale of "The Bear" and other significant animal sightings in his fiction and nonfiction. For Faulkner, the animal subject exists in the author's particular historical climate of American environmentalism, modernism's literary emphasis on visuality, and race theory., This combination calls for a natural progression from a Heideggerian existential phenomenology: a contemporary Sartrean reading of animal being. Finally, the last chapter examines J.M. Coetzee, an author whose texts show the accumulated existential and phenomenological progression in the philosophy of the animal with a combined interest in current political and social issues surrounding animal life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/192984
- Subject Headings
- Symbolism in literature, Animals (Philosophy), Human-animal relationships in literature, Animals in literature, American prose literature, Criticism and interpretation, English prose literature, Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Reconfiguring the classic narrative of pulp fiction.
- Creator
- Gray, Alexandria S., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
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This project considers four writers that have used postmodern narrative strategies to reconfigure classic pulp science fiction tropes. The primary texts are Catherine L. Moore's "Shambleau," Eleanor Arnason's "The Warlord of Saturn's Moons", Robert Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones", and Margaret Atwood's "The Blind Assassin". Each experiments with narrative voices or uses a story-within-a-story structure. These strategies enable the authors to engage and comment on the process of how...
Show moreThis project considers four writers that have used postmodern narrative strategies to reconfigure classic pulp science fiction tropes. The primary texts are Catherine L. Moore's "Shambleau," Eleanor Arnason's "The Warlord of Saturn's Moons", Robert Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones", and Margaret Atwood's "The Blind Assassin". Each experiments with narrative voices or uses a story-within-a-story structure. These strategies enable the authors to engage and comment on the process of how traditional tropes and narratives are brought into a new context through appropriation and reconstruction.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3332251
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Pulp literature, Criticism and interpretation, Popular literature, Criticism and interpretation, Postmodernism (Literature), Feminism and literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Stormland.
- Creator
- Ferguson, Adam, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
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The narrative within this thesis follows events that transpire within a working class neighborhood over the span of three decades. The time and place in which these events occur, South Florida 1979-1989, lends itself to exploring themes such as race, class, addiction, the fragmentation of community, and the effects of these issues on the families that live there. Stylistically, the story makes three significant shifts in order to foreground each decade's dissimilarity. These shifts...
Show moreThe narrative within this thesis follows events that transpire within a working class neighborhood over the span of three decades. The time and place in which these events occur, South Florida 1979-1989, lends itself to exploring themes such as race, class, addiction, the fragmentation of community, and the effects of these issues on the families that live there. Stylistically, the story makes three significant shifts in order to foreground each decade's dissimilarity. These shifts intentionally disrupt reader expectation while a coherent narrative thread unifies the work, rendering it fragmented yet complete.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3353088
- Subject Headings
- Symbolism in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- 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.
Show less - 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)