This thesis examines how a memorial’s narration, stakeholders, and assigned purposes have led to the creation of the National September 11 Memorial. This thesis argues that the stakeholders, the...Show moreThis thesis examines how a memorial’s narration, stakeholders, and assigned purposes have led to the creation of the National September 11 Memorial. This thesis argues that the stakeholders, the creators (the LDMC and the designers), financers, family advocacy groups, and politicians, have constructed a complex memorial that not only serves a cathartic or political purpose, but that also raises questions about the current state of memorialization, its purpose and urgency, in modern American society. By defining the National 9/11 Memorial as a cathartic memorial, a narrative of healing has been created. At the same time, a narrative of victimization has been assigned to the memorial. This victimization offers political capital to the American political apparatus, but also proves to be problematic for certain family advocacy groups of firefighters and policemen who perished in the attacks; these family members desire a heroic memorial to remember their loved ones. These conflicting narratives raise questions about how the memorial will be used and interpreted in the future.Show less
Throughout the years, young adult dystopian fiction has become a well-known and widely-read genre. Simultaneously, the division of the world into typically masculine or feminine matters has changed...Show moreThroughout the years, young adult dystopian fiction has become a well-known and widely-read genre. Simultaneously, the division of the world into typically masculine or feminine matters has changed as well. This same idea applies to literary genres. Science fiction has been dominated by male characters and writers throughout the years, for instance in books such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, or in television series like Star Trek and Babylon 5. Nevertheless, the more contemporary young adult dystopian novels, as a subgenre of science fiction, have seen an emergence of other heroic protagonists, namely girls. These girls, such as Katniss Everdeen in Suzanne Collin’s Hunger Games, are suddenly able to exert agency in a genre that initially mainly had male protagonists, and in which female characters were merely supporting those real heroes. In fact, the modern female protagonists use their gendered traits to drastically change the society they live in. While these capacities were usually not given to young women in dominant patriarchal societies, nowadays it has been made possible by the increasing presence of conventions of the romance genre in science fiction, and its subgenre, dystopian fiction. The combination of the conventions of both genres results in a change of subject matter of dystopian fiction, but also a change in the intended audience. This is because both genres have a different focus as well, as the focus of science fiction is scientific and technical developments and societal problems, whereas the focus of romance fiction is romantic behaviour, emotions, and relationships. The increasing popularity of contemporary young adult dystopian fiction shows that adolescents are ready for a change. My thesis will analyse the portrayal of female characters in a popular Young Adult dystopian fiction series, namely Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (2008-2010), and it will examine how the genres of science fiction and romance have merged together, and what the consequences have been. To ensure a thorough analysis that is supported by relevant and substantiating theories, the thesis is divided into two parts. The first part contains thorough analyses of the romance genre, the science fiction genre, and the latter’s subgenre dystopian fiction. The focus is on these genres, for the reason that the text in question, The Hunger Games, fuses these genres, and one of the objectives of this thesis is to place Young Adult dystopian fiction between the two seemingly conflicting genres, in order to show that these two genres have combined their characteristics. By examining these genres individually, I shall eventually demonstrate to what extent these genres merged together, and what the consequences have been in terms of role division and the distribution of power between the male and female characters. The second part of my thesis explores the portrayal of female characters in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, to research the extent to which certain characteristics of the romance genre and the strong female characters have invaded the science fiction and dystopian genre, and what the effects have been in this particular series. In other words, the second part will demonstrate how romance in The Hunger Games has resulted in the creation of a strong female character, Katniss Everdeen, who exerts agency and who is able to use her femininity in order to rebel against and change the government of Panem. This part consists of three chapters, all of which contain an analysis of one book of the trilogy. The three analyses will show how the female protagonist in the series has obtained agency by embracing her own femininity, which has been made possible by the addition of important characteristics of the romance genre, and how this change in agency, created by the combination of the two genres, enables her to fight against and bring down the totalitarian government, and create a better place for all Panem’s citizens.Show less
This thesis examines the depiction of pastoral nature in four novels set in the Interbellum period and written in the 1940s, using ecocritical theory to explore how these authors view the English...Show moreThis thesis examines the depiction of pastoral nature in four novels set in the Interbellum period and written in the 1940s, using ecocritical theory to explore how these authors view the English landscape. The chosen novels, Philip Larkin’s A Girl in Winter, Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and L.P. Hartley’s The Shrimp and the Anemone, show different views on the English rural landscape but also share elements like childhood innocence and country estates. The analysis focuses on topics such as nostalgia, escapism and “Englishness”, using ecocritical concepts, for example retreat and return and the machine in the garden. The text argues that although nature is often idealised in connection with the past, the authors do not represent the landscape before the war as a merely idealised one. Realistic aspects disturb the harmony and nostalgic elements can become active examples for the future, which shows that the pastoral can be a functional genre in the field of ecocriticism.Show less
Through the application of theory developed by Deleuze and Guattari this essay digs into the disruptive potential of the surreal and mythic imagery present in Hedayat's novel 'The Blind Owl'. The...Show moreThrough the application of theory developed by Deleuze and Guattari this essay digs into the disruptive potential of the surreal and mythic imagery present in Hedayat's novel 'The Blind Owl'. The whirlpool of time and space in 'The Blind Owl', ensuing from a mixture of linear and cyclic time-frames, allows for a scrutiny of the novel along the lines of (Deleuzian) concepts such as aion and chronos, spiritual and bare repetition and the spiritual automaton.Show less
One thing that stands out when looking at Alfred Hitchcock's films is the director's interest in domestic space. By looking at the 'Hitchcock House' from top to bottom, from outside to inside, this...Show moreOne thing that stands out when looking at Alfred Hitchcock's films is the director's interest in domestic space. By looking at the 'Hitchcock House' from top to bottom, from outside to inside, this thesis argues that domestic architecture in Hitchcock's films has a symbolic function. Influenced by Victorian literature and German Expressionism, Hitchcock's 'topography' is characterized by houses whose architectural style, rooms and elements reflect the narrative and the protagonists' characters. In addition, Hitchcock's houses at times become characters in their own right, trapping and wounding their inhabitants. Besides that Hitchcock attributes a symbolic meaning to his domestic sets, he also uses them to play with the private/public contrast, one of the most important conventions of social space.Show less
This thesis tests the premise that there is a connection between bodily trauma and meaning, and thus between words and wounds, reflected in the metaphorical usage of the word ‘wound’ in Shakespeare...Show moreThis thesis tests the premise that there is a connection between bodily trauma and meaning, and thus between words and wounds, reflected in the metaphorical usage of the word ‘wound’ in Shakespeare’s plays Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus. Conceptual metaphor theory, which claims that our thinking is metaphorical in nature, is used to ascertain the underlying metaphorical concepts that demonstrate that ‘wounds’ are indeed connected to the concept of meaning. The linguistic analyses are aided by the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP). Moreover, the metaphor of the wounded body reflects both the language and the political realities of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.Show less
This thesis follows in the great popularity of first Suzanne Collins’s “Hunger Games” trilogy and later Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” trilogy, both works of dystopian fiction aimed at young adults....Show moreThis thesis follows in the great popularity of first Suzanne Collins’s “Hunger Games” trilogy and later Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” trilogy, both works of dystopian fiction aimed at young adults. This thesis will argue that the identities of the female protagonists of these trilogies are both formed, moulded, by their respective oppressive (dystopian) societies, but that they eventually take their own fates and that of their societies in their own hands in order to change it for the better, thus becoming active agents in their own lives. Although Katniss Everdeen remains a pawn of the system which requires her to perform various (gender) roles until the very end, her conclusion signifies that she has learned to discriminate between the real and the appearance of the real: she kills President Coin, the next evil dictator, and allows a peaceful and stable future for herself as well as for the entire nation. Similarly, Tris Prior is for a long time confined to thinking according to her society’s faction system, but she ultimately recognizes the fallibility of this system which only creates prejudice, social division, and limits identity formation. Tris is essential in taking down this faction system and allowing her society a chance to start afresh.Show less
The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings, where Duke William defeated King Harold. It is generally believed that the Bayeux Tapestry...Show moreThe Bayeux Tapestry depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings, where Duke William defeated King Harold. It is generally believed that the Bayeux Tapestry provides a biased account of the Conquest and has a pro-Norman view. This thesis will demonstrate how, despite the fact that the Tapestry is commissioned by a Norman patron, the Tapestry reveals a sympathetic attitude towards Harold, and that this is probably the influence of the English embroiderers. The Tapestry provides, in comparison with Norman, Anglo-Norman and English written sources, an unbiased account of the Conquest: neither pro-Norman nor pro-English. The influence of a Norman patron and English embroiderers is illustrated through certain scenes of Harold and William and the relationship between the main narrative and the commentary in the borders of the Tapestry.Show less
Compared to the protagonist of the classic Who series, since 2005 the Doctor has darkened considerably. This finding of moral complexity in the character best shows itself in ambiguities in the way...Show moreCompared to the protagonist of the classic Who series, since 2005 the Doctor has darkened considerably. This finding of moral complexity in the character best shows itself in ambiguities in the way in which the Doctor addresses and discusses (with 'laymen' in the show, such as his companions, or passers-by who somehow get involved) the show’s monsters and villains, and himself.Show less
