In this thesis, I explore depictions of fascism in 1930s American literature. Specifically, I analyse William Faulkner’s Light in August, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and Sinclair Lewis’s...Show moreIn this thesis, I explore depictions of fascism in 1930s American literature. Specifically, I analyse William Faulkner’s Light in August, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here. The former two novels do not explicitly engage with fascism, but aspects of the texts were linked to fascism by their authors. Faulkner retroactively referred to the character Percy Grimm from his book as a fascist, and Steinbeck linked the agriculture sector in California, which features heavily in his novel, to fascism. Lewis engages with fascism directly in It Can’t Happen Here as he envisions a fascist dictatorship in the United States. These texts are relevant today as fascism is not a concept of the past. They can be used to discuss visions of fascism in 1930s American Literature and what fascism may look like in the United States. I use a combination of close reading and the theory provided by Robert O. Paxton in The Anatomy of Fascism, as well as additional sources for necessary historical context to analyse each of the novels. I will argue that while only one of the novels explicitly engages with fascism, all three texts portray fascism to some extent and can be used to identify possible bases of fascist action.Show less
Adaptations of alternate history scenarios allow for an exploration of contemporary issues and concerns in a distanced yet familiar world. Each chapter of this thesis covers a case study of a...Show moreAdaptations of alternate history scenarios allow for an exploration of contemporary issues and concerns in a distanced yet familiar world. Each chapter of this thesis covers a case study of a recent adaptation of such an alternate history narrative: The Man in the High Castle (2015-2019), The Plot Against America (2020) and Watchmen (2019). These case studies explore how the adaptation revises the original text in order to captivate a contemporary audience and expose present-day issues in America. Through these case studies, this thesis proposes that, rather than functioning as warnings, the alternate America settings in these adaptations function as a reflection of actual America in the late 2010s, which allows for an exploration and critique of American society’s response and susceptibility to ideological and populist movements in times of crisis, and an reconsideration of racial inequality as America’s defining issue.Show less
This thesis analyzes the depiction of Abraham Lincoln in two novels of the previous decade that include elements of the supernatural: Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) by George Saunders, and Abraham...Show moreThis thesis analyzes the depiction of Abraham Lincoln in two novels of the previous decade that include elements of the supernatural: Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) by George Saunders, and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (2011) by Seth Grahame-Smith. With a focus on Lincoln's images as Savior of the Union and as The Great Emancipator, this thesis demonstrates in what ways the novels use the supernatural in their portrayal of the President and how this use contributes to the cultural memory of Lincoln that continues to exist in the United States today.Show less
This thesis will analyse representation of disability in young adult fiction (YA). YA literature is a blooming genre, that could challenge readers' views about controversial topics. However,...Show moreThis thesis will analyse representation of disability in young adult fiction (YA). YA literature is a blooming genre, that could challenge readers' views about controversial topics. However, instead they often reinforce pre-existing stereotypes and literary tropes, upholding portrayals of disability as "other." David Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder argue in Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse, that, even though there are many fictional characters with disabilities, instead of accurate representation, disability is most often used as 'narrative prosthesis', a crutch on which the narrative depends. For example, if Captain Ahab had not lost his leg, his desire to kill Moby Dick - and thus the narrative - would not have existed. Analysing disability representation in YA shows that disability is still mostly used as a narrative device, despite a growing demand for more complex representation. By presenting the reader with marginalised, depressed, cured, dead, unmentioned and villainous disabled characters in the interest of driving the plot, the texts present disability as an encompassing characteristic instead of presenting disabled characters as complex people who happen to have a disability. Disability is a broad term that covers a scope of physical and mental conditions. Some novels, for example Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, include multiple forms and functions of disability, depending on the relation between the author and the disability. This thesis shows that there is a relation between authors' close familiarity with a specific disability and accurate representation, and that authors unfamiliar with their subject matter, often treat disability as a crux around which the story develops. Although, authors can have characters voice views which are not their own, close familiarity seems to avoid certain pitfalls in disability representation occurring in novels by authors less familiar with their subject matter. In other words, there is a link between the extent of authors' knowledge of a disability and its representation by the author. Using Mitchell and Snyder's critical theory of narrative prosthesis, I will analyse Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas and Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.Show less
In my analysis of Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers (2004), Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005) and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969), I will look...Show moreIn my analysis of Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers (2004), Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005) and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969), I will look at the ways in which writers employ various literary techniques (fragmentation, syntax disruption, ellipses, text/image layout, repetitions, symbols, photograph insertion, intertexts, framing of panels, and so on) in order to represent the unspeakable and evasive nature of traumatic experiences. The use and interplay of these techniques in the image-text setting of the two novels and Spiegelman’s graphic narrative leads to the construction of discursive events that help the reader understand and feel emotionally engaged with the narrator’s story, thus encouraging empathetic reading and contributing to secondary witnessing of the narrator’s trauma on the part of the reader.Show less
