This thesis is an exploration of how male trickster figures operate in the Gothic fiction of 20th century American female authors. Specifically, I look at the short stories “The Daemon Lover” by Shirley Jackson, “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by...
My thesis explores the later work of author J.D. Salinger, including two narratives featured in Nine Stories, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," and "Teddy," and Franny and Zooey, "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters," and "Seymour: an Introduction." Through my analysis I argue that the religious nature of Salinger's fiction...
This thesis situates a discussion of Thoreau's later natural history essays in the context of the author's other writings. Beginning with an examination of the writings of Thoreau's friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, this paper examines Thoreau's relation to and departure from Emerson's understanding of time, place, and pattern...
Throughout the course of this thesis, I argue that the prose of David Foster Wallace, specifically his posthumously published novel The Pale King, inhabits a middle ground between universal sincerity and the particularized authenticity of postmodern irony. I examine Lionel Trilling's definitions of sincerity and authenticity before moving toward an...
In this thesis I explore the ways in which twenty-first century Americans have access
to Geoffrey Chaucer and his works. I look at issues surrounding Chaucer within the
canon debate, high school history and literature textbooks, and Chaucer in popular
culture, such as in movies like A Knight's Tale. I...
My thesis, entitled “The Clerk’s Tale: Literal Monstrosities and Allegorical Problems,” argues that Chaucer’s Clerk is engaging both sides of a binary system. The Clerk has situated himself in a precarious position between two major schools of thought in the medieval culture, Franciscan and Dominican; the former promotes the will...
Ralph Ellison died without ever completing his second novel. After his death, the executor of his literary estate, John F. Callahan, edited Ellison's work into a novel published under the title Juneteenth. This thesis examines the problems posed by Ellison's posthumously released text, especially the issues of authorial intent and...
Recent conflicts in America concerning the environment (the harvesting of old growth timber in the Pacific Northwest, or the proposed opening of public lands in southern Utah to mining interests, for instance) have precipitated a personal examination of "historical others" (Jensen 64), individuals that possess very different sensibilities from a...