English Department Theses and Dissertations

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Wrapped Up in Books: The Inner Life of Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence
(2007-04-19T19:48:32Z) Reeves, Nancee C.; Schultz, Jane E.; Eller, Jonathan R., 1952-
Few in the world value books more than writers do. They have an understanding of literature that it is hard for a non-writer to grasp – an awareness of the importance of words and stories, and their place in society. Therefore, when a writer has one of his own characters read a book, it generally means something. To pass over such a detail, to ignore the clues carefully placed, is to deprive oneself of the full meaning of a work. Every action, item, and movement in a novel contributes to the end, to the purpose and meaning of the work. A character in a novel might toss a book aside, think nothing of having an empty library, or merely note a title in passing. But to the writer, and so also to the reader, these actions are of great significance. This paper looks at The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton and analysis the reading material of its hero, Newland Archer, in order to come to a better understanding of this character, Wharton’s narratives in general, and of Wharton herself. Newland Archer is a character who is in significant ways defined by the books he acquires and reads. Each book has been picked with such care it is possible to get a good idea of what type of person Archer is merely by looking at what he reads. It is therefore important to ask what his reading list says about him and why Wharton would have invested so much time in building this list. Wharton has made Archer’s library his autobiography.
Frank Miller's Ideals of Heroism
(2007-05-18T13:39:25Z) Jones, Stephen Matthew; Bingham, Dennis, 1954-; Touponce, William F.; Karnick, Kristine Brunovska, 1958-
This project responds to previous available literature on the subject of heroism, which tends to deal with either an isolated work or with genre- and archetype-specific analysis, and applies their concepts to case studies of Frank Miller’s various heroic models. In particular, this project addresses the film Sin City and the graphic novel The Dark Knight Strikes Again, arguing that DK2 serves as a departure of sorts from Miller’s ideals of heroism in his middle years (such as those presented in Sin City), as the protagonist becomes more of a revolutionary engaged in revamping society than the vigilante or “lone wolf” on the fringes of society. With the aforementioned sources as a general background, it is evident that Miller’s heroic ideals shift in their active capacity and scope but remain more or less steady in their strong individual sense of ethical duty. In addition, these sources aid in establishing the comparisons Miller actually invites to traditional, “archetypal” understandings of the hero as well as to the particular heroic form of Ayn Rand, which he explicitly references in DK2. Miller’s response to these previous models bolsters the assertion that theories of heroic ideals are inherently political as they deal with representations of the kind of person a hero must be, in turn involving issues of gender, ethnicity and class.
Unraveling Walt Whitman
(2007-05-18T13:43:46Z) Cristo, George Constantine; Eller, Jonathan R., 1952-; Schultz, Jane E.; Touponce, William F.
Explores Walt Whitman's use of Thomas Carlyle's language of textiles, as well as the relation of this language to modern science.
Stranger in the Room: Illuminating Female Identity Through Irish Drama
(2007-05-23T16:41:31Z) Johnson, Amy R.; Eller, Jonathan R., 1952-
This thesis centers on a country that has produced some of the greatest and most important English language dramas of the past two centuries. Within this cultural context, this thesis is also about a feminine revival in Irish theatre and how this can be a powerful tool to incite change. Early in history, Irish writers, and specifically dramatists, recreated a type of theatre that captured the true essence of what it meant to be Irish by representing their struggles, frustrations and humor. The Irish talent for storytelling connects back to its Gaelic roots and has remained a constant in the life of a culture that has passed down this art form for centuries. The focus of this thesis is to examine three contemporary Irish plays by prominent playwrights who came to the world of theatre from very different backgrounds. Each play is written by a different hand, yet all share a vital common denominator: the interaction of female character groups – groups that are central to the action of each play. What incited my interest in these three plays – Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, Anne Devlin’s Ourselves Alone and Marina Carr’s The Mai – was the playwright’s ability to expose what had been silenced in Irish history for so long. Each female character portrays one important aspect of Irish womanhood that has been tragically understated in the nation’s literature since the death of John Millington Synge: woman’s struggle between what she wants to be and who she is expected to be. These three plays will be scrutinized in terms of three elements of social control contributing to woman’s struggle in Irish society: myth, church and patriarchal tradition.
A Model for Developing Law Lecture Comprehension Lessons for Non-Native Speakers of English from Video-taped Authentic Materials
(2007-06-26T19:15:11Z) Martin, Lynne Rohmerien; Upton, Thomas A. (Thomas Albin)
The goal of this thesis was to create a model of how video-taped law lectures (authentic materials) can be used in designing individual lessons which will, in general, incorporate current EAP practices and standards in aiding the LL.M. students to improve their lecture listening comprehension skills. More specifically, my model will show how within each lesson the video-taped law lectures can be used to target either a particular linguistic form or lecture construct feature for which studies have shown to be problematic in L2 lecture comprehension. Moreover, this model will further demonstrate how these lessons should address lecture organization specific to the study of law, as well as show how general lecture listening strategies can be presented as an integral part of every lesson.
Logging in, Blogging "Out": Gay College Age Males and the Blogosphere
(2007-07-10T12:39:27Z) Williams, Alan Neal; Harrington, Susanmarie
Scholarly research in the genre of blogging has to date been minimal. This study examines part of that genre, specifically blogging by gay males between the ages of 18 and 25, and explores how these bloggers use specific textual and visual markers to publicly identify as gay.
Dear Birthmother: A Linguistic Analysis of Letters Written to Expectant Mothers Considering Adoption
(2007-07-20T19:08:40Z) Cohen, Mary Ann D.; Harrington, Susanmarie; Upton, Thomas A. (Thomas Albin); Shepherd, Susan
Last Word in Art Shades: The Textual State of James Joyce's Ulysses
(2008-03-06T16:35:24Z) Tully-Needler, Kelly Lynn; Davis, Ken, 1945-; Eller, Jonathan R., 1952-; Touponce, William F.
James Joyce’s Ulysses is a work of art that engendered scandal in every stage of its production, dissemination, and reception. The work is now hailed as the prose monument of modernism, a twentieth-century masterpiece, and revolutionary in its stylistic technique, its foregrounding of language and psychological drama, and its ambiguity. Ulysses is, in truth, a simple tale, about a lifetime of one day, in a world of one place, in the lives of one people, played out on a stage of pages. The telling of the tale is far from simple—it is among the greatest literary artifacts of our cultural heritage. But the text of Ulysses continues to be entangled in the tension of its status as both a literary artifact, created by an artist, and a cultural artifact, influenced by the aspects of its currency. Among the many questions the novel begs is, who controls the meaning of a work of literary art? This thesis begins to answer that question. Chapter 1 surveys available materials and outlines four waves in the history of textual scholarship of Ulysses. This chapter reads like the prose version of a library catalogue. Sorry, it is a symptom of academese. Chapter 2 outlines the history of censorship and suppression of Ulysses. Chapter 3 gives a historical context to legalizing the work and discusses the implications of the ban upon the development and reliability of the text. Chapter 4 outlines the second scandal of Ulysses, at the close of the twentieth century, now commonly referred to as the Joyce Wars. Chapter 5 discusses the influences upon Gabler’s editorial method and the resultant text. Together, these chapters tell the story of the book's creation and life in print.
Sara's transformation: a textual analysis of Frances Hodgson Burnett's Sara Crewe and A Little Princess
(2008-04-15T19:55:32Z) Resler, Johanna Elizabeth; Eller, Jonathan R., 1952-
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s life revolved around her love of story-telling, her sons, nature, and the idealized notion of childhood. Burnett had an ability to recapture universal aspects of childhood and transform them into realistic stories containing elements of the fantastic or fairy tales. Her ability to tell stories started at a young age when she and her sisters were given permission to write on old pieces of paper. Burnett’s love for storytelling, reading, and writing was fostered in her parents’ household, in which a young Burnett was given free reign to explore her parents’ book collection and also left unhindered to imagine and act out stories by herself and with her sisters and close friends. Later her love for telling tales became a means of providing for her family—beginning with short story submissions to magazines. Although Burnett did not necessarily start out writing for children her career ended up along that path after the success in 1886 of her first children’s book, Little Lord Fauntleroy. After this success, she was a recognizable author on both sides of the Atlantic. Sara Crewe; or, What Happened at Miss Minchin’s, the 1887–88 serial publication in St. Nicholas magazine and the 1888 short story publication both were titled the same, and the subsequent reworkings of Sara’s world in the forms of two plays, A little un-fairy princess (England, 1902), and A Little Princess; Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe, Now Told for the First Time (United States, 1903), and the 1905 full-length novel which retained the American 1903 play’s title, outlines the creative process that Burnett undertook while exploring the world of Sara Crewe. By examining the above forms, readers and scholars gain an insight into not only the differences between the forms, but also a view of how the author approached adapting an already published work, and the influence of editors on an authors work. The examination of the development of Sara’s timeline will bring light onto Burnett’s growth as a writer and specifically her transition into her role as a children’s literature author.
English for Academic Public Speaking
(2008-04-16T12:59:54Z) LeBeau, Stephen Allen, Jr.; Upton, Thomas A. (Thomas Albin); Goering, Elizabeth M.; Davis, Ken, 1945-
With a basic understanding of the connection between EAPS and the goals of public speaking I will focus on issues especially challenging to EAPS students due to cultural and language differences, which include: communication apprehension, understanding your audience’s frame of reference, rhetorical organization, and non-verbal communication.

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