Repository logo
 

English - Student Works

Permanent link for this collection

Browse

Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 20 of 58
  • Item
    Same author, same stories, different unity: a close comparative reading of a selection of stories from Raymond Carver’s What we talk about when we talk about love and beginners
    (2023) Carter, Kaitlyn; Copland, Sarah
    This essay provides a close comparative reading of three stories from Raymond Carver’s short story cycles Beginners and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. A working definition of short story cycles is developed and referenced in the evaluations of these stories—this definition utilizes literary scholar Gerald Lynch’s work on the sub-genre. The close comparative analyses of “Why Don’t You Dance?”, “One More Thing”, and “Gazebo” reveal that both collections meet the criteria of short story cycles, however Beginners has a stronger unity that achieved through its shared themes. This supports the argument that Carver’s editor, Gordon Lish, exchanged Carver’s unity of theme in Beginners for a weaker unity of style in What We Talk About.
  • Item
    Moralism in a mad world: Samuel Johnson’s “Business of the biographer”
    (2023) Jutras, Jessica
    One of the most prolific authors of the eighteenth century, Samuel Johnson, strives toward intentional moralistic authorship, especially in The Rambler and The Idler periodicals, where he considers such topical studies as biography and conceptions of reality. While exploring Johnson’s publications on moralism, a contradiction between his public statements and personal actions was uncovered. This contradiction begged investigation into the validity and authority of Johnson’s moralism while asking the age-old question of why writers write.
  • Item
    "Man is driven in total by his insecurities": Tony Soprano's Castration
    (2022) Martens, Kairo
    HBO’s massively successful and influential crime drama series The Sopranos helped to usher in a new wave of complex, boundary-pushing narratives by confronting audiences with a fresh and subversive portrait of crime, family, and the legacy of Freud in American culture at the turn of the 21st century. The series centers around the daily life of mobster Tony Soprano as he navigates the challenges posed to his business by the RICO Act, to his family and marriage by his double life, and to his mental health by his deteriorating sense of power and identity. Previous analyses of the series have recognized that Freudian psychoanalysis is a major theme in the series as Tony visits psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi to find the root causes of his depression and anxiety, but few have produced psychoanalytic readings of the series itself. Through a scene-by-scene analysis of the series pilot through a Freudian lens, this essay examines how the characterization of Tony (and others) engages with the Freudian themes of castration anxiety and the Oedipus complex in a self-conscious manner and comes to the conclusion that Tony’s neurosis is driven by an unconscious resentment of his mother.
  • Item
    Mother, maiden, matron: the origin of Morgan le Fay, as it pertains to Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur
    (2022) A., Y.
    The origin of the Arthurian mythos has long engrossed scholars and enthusiasts alike for centuries, and, perhaps, no character has bewildered scholars more than Morgan le Fay. Throughout the many iterations of the Arthurian legend, Morgan le Fay has been characterized in incompatible ways; as both an ally and foe to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. In Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, this juxtaposed characterization is fully established as he characterizes Morgan le Fay as both King Arthur's chief antagonist as well as the figure who welcomes him into Avalon at the end of the text. This essay serves to exam the origin of Morgan le Fay as a literary character and, by examining and understanding her influences, justify her conflciting and inconsistent portrayls in the Arthurian continuum, specifically within Malory's epic poem.
  • Item
    Tarrying with trauma while improvising gender in Alice Munro’s 1978 collection Who Do You Think You Are?
    (2022) Sorensen, Brianna; Robinson, Jack
    Alice Munro’s 1978 collection of linked stories, Who Do You Think You Are? enacts what Lorraine York calls Munro’s theory of fiction as “tarrying with difficult emotions and knowledges.” Judith Butler’s seminal 1988 theory of gender performativity postulated that improvising gender incurs obvious and covert social punishments, but that performing gender includes the possibility of innovation. Rose, the protagonist, succumbs to and contests norms imposed on women in the southwestern Ontario township of Huron County during the 1940s to 1970s. This thesis explores Rose surviving punitive social conventions in her cultural context which are contiguous with trauma. For Rose, failure to conform is what Jack Halberstam defines as “queer failure”: it is a triumph of personal authenticity over gender essentialism and an acceptance of human imperfection. In the journey towards self-knowledge, Rose’s surviving trauma and defying gender scripts cause the “sticky affects” of shame and humiliation identified by Amelia DeFalco; the feeling that women are not afforded hope; and, in stressful situations, emotional dissociation and emotional economies, as identified by DeFalco and York. Rose’s marriage fails because of a sadomasochistic power struggle. Rose tarries with disconnection from others and from self; however, she innovates gender and subverts the intergenerational cycle of victimvictimizer by achieving a sense of community and strengthening personal authenticity, which Margaret Atwood says is, for “Munro’s women,” “an essential element, like air.”
  • Item
    Tarrying with trauma while improvising gender in Alice Munro’s 1978 collection Who Do You Think You Are?
    (2022) Sorensen, Brianna; Robinson, Jack
    Alice Munro’s 1978 collection of linked stories, Who Do You Think You Are? enacts what Lorraine York calls Munro’s theory of fiction as “tarrying with difficult emotions and knowledges.” Judith Butler’s seminal 1988 theory of gender performativity postulated that improvising gender incurs obvious and covert social punishments, but that performing gender includes the possibility of innovation. Rose, the protagonist, succumbs to and contests norms imposed on women in the southwestern Ontario township of Huron County during the 1940s to 1970s. This thesis explores Rose surviving punitive social conventions in her cultural context which are contiguous with trauma. For Rose, failure to conform is what Jack Halberstam defines as “queer failure”: it is a triumph of personal authenticity over gender essentialism and an acceptance of human imperfection. In the journey towards self-knowledge, Rose’s surviving trauma and defying gender scripts cause the “sticky affects” of shame and humiliation identified by Amelia DeFalco; the feeling that women are not afforded hope; and, in stressful situations, emotional dissociation and emotional economies, as identified by DeFalco and York. Rose’s marriage fails because of a sadomasochistic power struggle. Rose tarries with disconnection from others and from self; however, she innovates gender and subverts the intergenerational cycle of victimvictimizer by achieving a sense of community and strengthening personal authenticity, which Margaret Atwood says is, for “Munro’s women,” “an essential element, like air.” Presentation notes.
  • Item
    Textual odalisque: from Roxolana to Hürrem Sultan
    (2022) A., Y.; Krys, Svitlana
    My thesis examines the trajectory of literary depictions of the enigmatic figure of Hürrem Sultan (otherwise known as Roxolana, circa. 1502-1558), the legal wife of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and the first Haseki Sultan, or Imperial Consort, of the Ottoman Empire. It will first consider Hürrem’s emergence on the European stage as a product of Orientalist discourse, then focus in detail on her more recent Ukrainian and Turkish cultural depictions. To assist my analysis, I will employ the theory of re-Orientalism, which is defined by Lisa Lau as an approach that determines “how cultural producers with eastern affiliations come to terms with an orientalized East, whether by complying with perceived expectations of western readers, by playing with them or by discarding them altogether." I will examine the Ukrainian opera Roksoliana (by Denys Sichynsky, 1911) and two contemporary Turkish productions, the television show Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century, 2011, Tims Productions) and the play Gayri Resmi Hurrem (Unofficial Roxelana, by Ozen Yula, 2003) to show how they question, critique, and dispel Orientalist tropes associated with Roxolana in the western European imagination.
  • Item
    Textual odalisque: From Roxolana to Hürrem Sultan
    (2022) A., Y.; Krys, Svitlana
    My thesis examines the trajectory of literary depictions of the enigmatic figure of Hürrem Sultan (otherwise known as Roxolana, circa. 1502-1558), the legal wife of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and the first Haseki Sultan, or Imperial Consort, of the Ottoman Empire. It will first consider Hürrem’s emergence on the European stage as a product of Orientalist discourse, then focus in detail on her more recent Ukrainian and Turkish cultural depictions. To assist my analysis, I will employ the theory of re-Orientalism, which is defined by Lisa Lau as an approach that determines “how cultural producers with eastern affiliations come to terms with an orientalized East, whether by complying with perceived expectations of western readers, by playing with them or by discarding them altogether." I will examine the Ukrainian opera Roksoliana (by Denys Sichynsky, 1911) and two contemporary Turkish productions, the television show Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century, 2011, Tims Productions) and the play Gayri Resmi Hurrem (Unofficial Roxelana, by Ozen Yula, 2003) to show how they question, critique, and dispel Orientalist tropes associated with Roxolana in the western European imagination.
  • Item
    Comparative analysis of survivor identity and traumatic memory
    (2022) Gagnon, Alexandra; Lipes, Regan
    Traumatic memory and survivor identity are intertwined. When traumatic events occur, such as the Holocaust, the experiences which the survivors undergo will permanently change their perception of self and the world around them. This paper will analyze the relationship of traumatic memory and survivor identity in the graphic novel series Maus: A Survivors Tale, Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, and the documentary Hiding and Seeking, and will discuss their similarities.
  • Item
    Contrasting nature, gender, and genre in Anne Finch's "A Nocturnal Reverie"
    (2021) Martens, Kairo
    Anne Finch came to be considered one of the most influential female figures of the Augustan era because of her free, intimate exploration of nature and gender through poetry as well as her ability to seamlessly blend both classical and modern genres. In this article, Finch's unique style, voice, and perspective are examined in the context of "A Nocturnal Reverie," the final poem in her only published collection in 1713. "A Nocturnal Reverie" best showcases Finch's subtle but subversive style as she revisits scenes from John Milton, criticizes the idyllic presentation of mankind's relationship with nature, and makes a proto-feminist argument against woman's confinement to the domestic sphere all while operating under the pretext of nature poetry.
  • Item
    From science as solution to science as suspect: science fiction and the canonical decline of technoidealism
    (2021) Fuhrer, Nathan
    Edified in Isaac Asimov's canonical Foundations trilogy, the exemplification of science as a panacea to human quandaries--herein referred to as technoidealism--is a central element of the 1950's science-fiction canon. Faced with a period of upheaval and a wave of new science fictions authors, this article explores the manner in which this assumption is modified, complicated, and popularly rejected. Drawing on the work of authors such as Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick, Jeff Somers, and Iain Reid, the technoidealist impulse serves to highlight the utopian current undergirding Asimov's work and the genre's complication of the human-science relationship. In drifting from its nascent futurist idealism, the literary endorsement of "science as solution" has veered toward "science as suspect" through a complication and reproval of the technoidealist assumption.
  • Item
    Intersectionality and empathy in Afrofuturist feminist dystopian narratives: Octavia Butler’s Parable of the sower and Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown girl in the ring
    (2021) Gartner, Lindsey
    This article analyzes dystopian fiction’s representation, critique, and attempted rectification of oppressive social structures related to violence against women, black motherhood, and (dis)ability. The 1990s novels Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson represent what dystopian critics call “patriarchy on steroids.”. Drawing on feminist narrative theory and Afrofuturism theory, this article extends the scholarly discussion of feminist elements in both texts by analyzing representations of physical and sexual violence, which critics have largely overlooked, and the intersectional representation of black motherhood. Although Butler and Hopkinson depict violence against women and black motherhood in different ways and use different narrative techniques, both offer amplified reflections of the real-world intersectional and diverse experiences of women. Butler’s and Hopkinson’s young female protagonists challenge the societal oppressions and inequities they face through empathic reasoning: Butler’s Lauren reframes her embodied hyperempathy (dis)ability as a gift, enabling her to found an equitable community amidst violent social collapse, and Hopkinson’s Ti-Jeanne reframes her temporary zombification as an opportunity to empathize with other characters’ trauma, enabling her to defeat the violent gang leader Rudy. Lauren and Ti-Jeanne thereby imagine new positions for themselves and for women in general.
  • Item
    The wolf in the woods: ontological concerns in Empire of Wild
    (2021) Lantz, Derek
    A close reading of the cause and treatment of lycanthropy in Cherie Dimaline's Empire of Wild is used to discuss differences between Indigenous and Western views on justice, community, monstrosity, and human nature. Utilizing Rupert Ross's Returning to the Teaching: Exploring Aboriginal Justice to provide first-hand understanding of Indigenous justice concepts, Empire of Wild uses myth to provide a moral impetus for community-driven justice models. This paper looks at how myth is integrated into the story, how it differs from other lycanthrope myths, and what the ramifications of that difference means for both the plot and message of Empire of Wild.
  • Item
    Comparing the role of the outsider in Beowulf and Marie de France’s Lanval
    (2020) Krentz, Courtney
    The character of the outsider can be identified in a diverse range of medieval works, including the Old English heroic epic and the Middle English lai. Indeed, both Beowulf and Marie de France’s Lanval prominently feature characters who are outsiders, although these characters are presented quite differently within each work. In Beowulf, the characters of Grendel and his mother are outsiders with respect to the heroic society of Beowulf and his kingdom, and in Lanval, Marie de France’s titular character begins his lai in a melancholic state as he struggles to understand why his king neglects him and favours the other retainers. While both of these works feature outsiders, though, the reasons why they are outcast from their respective societies are quite different. Grendel and his mother are outcast because they are descendants of Cain, whose bloodline God condemned after Cain killed his brother Abel. As a method of taking vengeance for his exclusion, Grendel attacks the court of King Hrothgar every night for many years, killing as many of Hrothgar’s loyal retainers as he possibly can. Conversely, Marie de France does not suggest that Lanval bears any similar condemnation; instead, she indicates that he is unjustly cut from society because his king forgets him and the other retainers are jealous of him. Despite these differences between Grendel and Lanval, both characters function to comment upon the nature of their respective civilizations; however, where Grendel effectively reaffirms the importance of the hall and the king’s relationship with his retainers, Lanval does the opposite, and instead serves to question whether life in King Arthur’s court actually benefits those who live within it.
  • Item
    Intrusion, immersive or irregular: classifying the fantasy of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell with the intertextual influence of Sir Orfeo
    (2020) Kulchisky, Alyssa
    Often when we think of fantasy we think of far off places or some magical world completely removed from our own. We think of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia or J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Even J. K. Rowling’s wizards and witches are distinctly divided from and inaccessible to non-magical people. But what happens when this Other Place comes into contact with our world? Susanna Clarke explores this type of contact in her novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Relating the adventures of two magicians in early nineteenth century England, the novel describes what happens when the magic of the Faerie realm interacts with our world or, more specifically, with England. The ultimate effect is one where each place does not exist independently of one another but rather are ontologically connected. Unpacking the particulars of this existential coexistence and identifying the exact nature of Clarke’s fantasy is no easy task. For this it is helpful to turn to Farrah Mendlesohn’s Rhetorics of Fantasy, a book dedicated to the classification of five different types that a fantasy work might fall into: portal-quest, immersive, intrusion, liminal and irregular. Despite the thorough detail that Mendlesohn achieves in outlining and explaining each category, Clarke’s novel remains exceedingly difficult to place. In addition to Mendlesohn’s book then, we must also turn to the outside influence of other primary texts, like the Middle English poem Sir Orfeo, to classify the intricate fantasy that is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
  • Item
    Rewriting history through Midnight's Children
    (2020) Seyidova, Leila
    In Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, the novel’s protagonist, Saleem Sinai, born at the hour of India’s independence in August of 1947, represents India. Saleem uses major historical events such as Partition, the violent division of the Indian state into Pakistan and India, to move the plot along. Saleem’s telepathic powers allow him to enter other people’s minds just as the novel demonstrates the state penetrating the citizen’s minds to create a nation. Furthermore, Saleem’s construction of history through the pickle jars representing each chapter in his life parallels Rushdie’s construction of history through the novel. In Midnight’s Children, Rushdie explores the problems of heterogeneity in relation to the hegemonic ideology of nationalism. In this essay, I argue that in Midnight’s Children, Rushdie rewrites history. By transgressing the boundaries between history and fiction, Rushdie reveals the ways in which nationalism relies on the discursive construction of history.
  • Item
    More precious than a coyote
    (2020) Spak, Jordana; Hutchinson, Chris
    “More Precious Than a Coyote” examines the meaning of togetherness and acceptance of one’s identity in the life of a young Cree woman named Nica, who struggles to accept the ancestral powers passed down to her from her kokum. Nica’s powers manifest at an early age – dreams of animals and fruit. Her dreams are a power that she sees as alienating. Additionally, her own mother’s denial and abandonment of their Cree heritage and their ancestral powers push Nica inward while Kokum’s love and acceptance pulls Nica towards recognizing the preciousness of the power she holds and of where she comes from. As the narrative moves between the past and the present, Nica’s struggle continues from the time her powers manifest to the present time when her dreams are visited by a coyote. Interweaved within the intergenerational drama between Nica’s family is her complicated relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Darren. As Nica attempts to live a half-life of mundane routines – all in the hopes of quelling and detaching from her dreams – Darren’s sudden reappearance on her doorstep forces her to make a choice. Just like her mother and her kokum before her.
  • Item
    Sequestered spaces, and what is within and without in regards to Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series
    (2020) Letendre, Casey; Perschon, Mike
    Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series re-imagines the Napoleonic Wars in a world where dragons have always existed alongside human society. Temeraire focuses on its protagonist Captain William Laurence and his dragon, Temeraire. Laurence’s life is upended when he acquires Temeraire’s egg as a spoil of war and becomes the dragon’s captain. He is forced to leave the normal society he knew to enter the one crafted around dragons and working life within the Aerial Corps. Temeraire belongs to both the historical fantasy and alternate history subgenres. Understanding the interactions of these two subgenres is key to understanding the truly re-imaginative aspects of Novik’s work. Through these blended subgenres, Novik creates a world that allows for large amounts of agency to be given to her female characters without disrupting the historical setting that earns the series its place in the historical fantasy subgenre. The addition of dragons into our history leads to spaces sequestered specifically for dragons within British society; these spaces allow room for what can be considered fantastical characterizations of women when contrasted against morals held during the Napoleonic Wars of 1803 to 1815. The women of the Aerial Corps exemplify personal expression and agency that aligns with modern reader values; they are inherently at odds with their contemporary societal expectations. Novik begs the question of how the lives of British female officers can be justified to exist within the setting she has created for Temeraire, her answer being heterotopias - spaces that exclude and excuse these women from normal society.
  • Item
    Treating and tracking infection: doctors, disease, and the type-writer girl in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
    (2020) Rhem, Kit; Martin, Daniel
    While the eponymous vampire of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula has intrigued scholars through myriad interpretations of fin de siècle fears and anxieties, those who treat and manage the living infection that is vampirism are often ignored in favor of an exciting, terrifying monstrosity. Though the defeat of the vampire is only possible through the combination of a handful of middle-class professionals, none are as crucial to the process of gathering and disseminating information than Mina Harker. Mina, the only woman in the Crew of Light, mitigates the anxiety of the men surrounding her through the presence of her period-typical femininity, acting as the "heart" of the crew while disparaging the rise of the New Woman that threatened gender roles and expectations. However, her role is larger than that of a mere wife or woman; Mina works to mitigate anxieties through her growing collection of letters, articles, diary entries and more, information that proves vital to tracking and destroying the vampire. Through an examination of the rise of professionalism and the role of the Type-Writer Girl at the end of the nineteenth century, Mina Harker is exposed as the primary weapon against an undefined creature designed to provoke fear through familiar means of infection.
  • Item
    The politics of gender in Azeri-Russophone literature
    (2020) Seyidova, Leyla; Grewal, Sara
    Sevinc Jafar’s novel Fakhriya (2018), first written in Russian and then translated by Javid Abbasov to Azeri, focuses on one Azeri woman’s experience during the Karabakh war (late 1980s-1994). The Karabakh war was an ethnic and territorial conflict in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (backed by Armenia) and the Republic of Azerbaijan. During the Karabakh war, Armenian troops demonstrated horrific brutality, especially towards women, whom they brutally and sometimes publicly sexually assaulted (Isgandarova 176). In my thesis, I will argue that despite the cultural hegemony under Russian colonialism, women in Azerbaijan used the discourse of colonial modernity to transcend traditional gender roles. I will explore the ways in which colonial language politics implicitly inform constructions of gender in Soviet and independent Azerbaijan; indeed, the fact that Jafar’s work was written in Russian suggests that it remains the language of modernity in Azerbaijan. As I will show, Jafar uses Russian to express women’s experiences of sexual violence during the Karabakh war beyond the gender roles that dictate the limits of appropriate speech in Azeri.