The American Romantic writers laid a broad foundation for the historic and heroic Abraham Lincoln who has evolved as our national myth. The writers were attracted to Lincoln by his eloquent expression of the body of ideals and beliefs they shared with him, especially the ideal of individual liberty and the belief that achievement of the ideal would bring about an amelioration of the human condition. The time, place and conditions in which they lived enhanced the attraction, and Lincoln's able leadership during the Civil War strengthened their estimation of him. His martyrdom was the catalyst which enabled the Romantic writers to lay the foundation of the Lincoln myth which has made his name synonymous with individual freedom everywhere even today.

"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is a novel that focuses upon the severe emotional trauma of a young boy coping with his father's death. For Johnny Freeman, the seemingly innocent setting of a typical American elementary school becomes a dangerous psychological battlefield, his most threatening "enemy" being his teacher, Miss Holloway, a first-year instructor beginning her career with only textbook knowledge and stubborn determination. Johnny Freeman and Miss Holloway clash the first day of school and set into motion a war of minds, wills, and emotions. Neither will relent; each is driven for various complex reasons to dominate the other. Their personalities demand that only one of them will emerge as the winner in this struggle, creating a psychological fight for survival with terrifying and deadly consequences for the loser.

The thesis systematically explicates Dostoevsky's portrayal of the origin of human evil on earth through the novel The Brothers Karamazov. Drawing from the novel and from Augustine, Pelagius, and Luther, the explication compares and contrasts Dostoevsky's doctrine of original conflict against the three theologians' views of original sin. Following a brief summary of the three earlier theories of original sin, the thesis describes Dostoevsky's peculiar doctrine of Karamazovism and his unique account of how human evil originated. Finally, the thesis shows how suffering, love, and guilt grow out of the original conflict and how the image of Christ serves as an icon of the special kind of social unity projected by Zosima the Elder in The Brothers Karamazov.

Although Anthony Trollope has traditionally been considered an anti-feminist author, studies within the past decade have shown that Trollope's later novels show support for female power and sympathy for Victorian women who were dissatisfied with their narrow roles in society. A feminist reading of two of his earliest novels, The Warden and Barchester Towers, shows that Trollope's feminism is not limited to his later works. In The Warden, Trollope acclaims female power and "woman's logic" through female characters and the womanly warden, Septimus Harding. In Barchester Towers, Trollope continues to support feminism through his positive portrayals of strong, independent women and the androgynous Harding. In Barchester Towers, the battle of the sexes ends in a balance of power.

"Retro" is a novel which attempts to depict the psychological reality of the spiritually isolated individual characterized in traditional gothic novels, in this case the alienated individual in the contemporary American South. The novel follows the doctrine set down by Roland Barthes, Frank Kermode, and other postmodern critics, which holds that, as Kermode puts it, "all closure is in bad faith." Therefore, rather than offering resolution to the problems and events presented in the text, the novel attempts instead to illustrate the psychological effects its main character experiences when confronted with a world that offers only irresolution and uncertainty. The novel's strategy is to depart from conventional, realistic modes of narration and to adopt instead certain characteristics of satire, surrealism, and the type of grotesque often associated with the gothic novel.