This thesis will discuss how Le Guin has adapted both the standard medieval dragon and the dragons in the narratives of Tolkien and Lewis in her own work, The Books of Earthsea.
The main effort of this thesis is a detailed mapping of the hero’s journeys of Victor Frankenstein and his Monster, through Joseph Campbell’s monomyth model, in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The...Show moreThe main effort of this thesis is a detailed mapping of the hero’s journeys of Victor Frankenstein and his Monster, through Joseph Campbell’s monomyth model, in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Subsequently, a comparative analysis of their hero’s journeys reveals great similarities throughout the novel, mirroring their intertwined existences. Most notably, their shared failing of the Atonement with the Father stage of the monomyth model is what causes their journeys to end and causes them to become failed heroes. There are two narrative elements in Frankenstein that essentially doomed the heroes to this outcome by uniquely hampering the heroes’ agency within the monomyth model: dual protagonists and Gothic doubles. The combined presence of these elements in the same novel makes it nigh unimaginable for heroes to successfully face the Atonement with the Father, due to the hero’s agency being compromised and the default antagonism of Gothic doubles.Show less
This thesis analyzes two American novels as interventions in the cultural memory of slavery. By considering Toni Morrison's seminal novel Beloved (1987) and Nathan Harris's contemporary text The...Show moreThis thesis analyzes two American novels as interventions in the cultural memory of slavery. By considering Toni Morrison's seminal novel Beloved (1987) and Nathan Harris's contemporary text The Sweetness of Water (2021) as documents of cultural memory, this thesis argues that they contribute to an understanding of the history of slavery and reflect cultural changes in how it is remembered publicly.Show less
This study analyses the representation of different ghosts in Anglophone novels taking place during Vietnam’s twentieth-century history and how the novels and ghosts challenge the dominant cultural...Show moreThis study analyses the representation of different ghosts in Anglophone novels taking place during Vietnam’s twentieth-century history and how the novels and ghosts challenge the dominant cultural narratives. Within this thesis, I argue that these ghosts are presented in different manners depending on how the novel challenges the dominant narrative and memory, whether the ghosts and characters in the novel enact the cultural norms in the United States or Vietnam, and which kind of haunting is observable in the novel. Regardless of these factors, the ghosts challenge the dominant collective narrative in a specific imagined community, a collection of communities as a whole, such as the dominant collective memory prevalent in the United States or Vietnam, or on a worldwide scale. The thesis focuses on the following three novels. The first of these novels is She Weeps Each Time You’re Born (Barry 2014), where ghosts are present as metaphysical entities that try to pass on into the afterlife through recounting their deaths whilst simultaneously introducing formerly silenced information and ghosts as unobservable entities where trauma and grief haunt the living. The second novel analysed is On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Vuong 2020), which presents the intertextual ghosts that serve as metaphors as trauma influences the character’s everyday lives and the family becomes similar to a ghost due to their invisible existence in the United States after immigrating. The third novel is The Mountains Sing (Phan Quế Mai 2020), where a character nicknamed Wicked Ghost is similar to a metaphysical ghost and haunts the neighbourhood and protagonist’s family. Alongside the character nicknamed Wicked Ghost are the unobservable ghosts of trauma and grief which haunt the protagonist and her family, as well as the ghost as a metaphor for the absent presence of historical events institutionally forgotten. These novels discuss events before, during, and after the Vietnam War from the perspective of a Vietnamese author and Vietnamese characters, and all three novels include a variety of ghosts that are either metaphysical or intertextual. Thus far, little research has been done on such novels, as their increased representation is recent. This study then serves as a starting point for other academic research that might surround ghosts’ function in Anglophone literature on conflicts in Vietnam.Show less
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
This thesis provides a Jungian perspective on Joyce's representation of Stephen Dedalus' developmental journey to adulthood and his quest to become a successful artist. It analyses the parallels...Show moreThis thesis provides a Jungian perspective on Joyce's representation of Stephen Dedalus' developmental journey to adulthood and his quest to become a successful artist. It analyses the parallels between Joyce's conception of the unconscious mind and Jung's intricate map of the psyche found in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Ulysses (1922).Show less
This thesis explores the views on gender and gender differences that can be found in three works of Virginia Woolf. The focus is on questions of whether there are differences between men and women,...Show moreThis thesis explores the views on gender and gender differences that can be found in three works of Virginia Woolf. The focus is on questions of whether there are differences between men and women, and if there are, what these differences are and whether they natural or cultural. When reading the works To the Lighthouse, Orlando: A Biography, and A Room of One's Own together, a clear preference for the view that differences between men and women are socially constructed rather than the result of biology can be found.Show less
This thesis analyses two Young Adult adaptations of Shakespeare plays (Hannah Capin’s Foul is Fair for The Tragedy of Macbeth and Dot Hutchinson’s A Wounded Name for The Tragedy of Hamlet), and...Show moreThis thesis analyses two Young Adult adaptations of Shakespeare plays (Hannah Capin’s Foul is Fair for The Tragedy of Macbeth and Dot Hutchinson’s A Wounded Name for The Tragedy of Hamlet), and examines how changes in the setting, the characterisation, and the community influence the agency of the female main character.Show less
