This study shows how the Grotesque Hero evolves from the grotesque victim in selected American novels from 1919 to 1972. In these novels, contradictory forces create a cultural dilemma. When a character is especially vulnerable to that dilemma, he becomes caught and twisted into a grotesque victim. The Grotesque Hero finds a solution to the dilemma, not by escaping his grotesque victimization, but by accepting it and making it work for him. The novels paired according to a particular contradictory dilemma include: Winesburg, Ohio and The Crying of Lot 49, As I Lay Dying and Wise Blood, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Dick Gibson Show, Cabot Wright Begins and Second Skin, The Day of the Locust and The Lime Twig, and Expensive People and The Sunlight Dialogues.

Many contemporary writers maintain that a prime requisite of poetry is autobiographical sincerity. They would have the poet commit himself to an openness with his audience that is usually reserved for only the most intimate relationships. The thirty-two poems of this thesis were written as a reaction to current confessional trends and postulate that the creation of fictions to live by is an intrinsic part of the human process. Central to the work is the idea that past fictions, traditions, and myths are no longer functional, and no workable fictions have yet been created. The overriding image of the work is that of a dance in a mirrored room where illusion and reflection are difficult to separate from reality and where the dancers move without knowledge of the meaning of their movement.

To provide an annotated bibliography of criticism on the writings of Nathaniel Lee, Thomas Otway and Nicholas Rowe from 1900 to 1974 for students and scholars is the purpose of this study. The bibliography contains brief evaluations of each of the works, which are divided into the following categories: articles, books and chapters in books, and dissertations. An additional chapter includes those works which deal with two or more of the authors. The appendix contains a selected list of foreign language publications that concern the three playwrights.