This dissertation examines the techniques and themes of William Burroughs by placing him in the American Pragmatist tradition. Chapter One presents a pragmatic critical approach to literature based on Richard Rorty and John Dewey, focusing on the primacy of narration over argumentation, redescription and dialectic, the importance of texts as experiences, the end-products of textual experiences, and the role of critic as guide to experience rather than judge. Chapter Two uses this pragmatic critical lens to focus on the writing techniques of William Burroughs as a part of the American Pragmatist tradition, with most of the focus on his controversial cut-up technique. Burroughs is a writer who upsets many of the traditional expectations of the literary writing community, just as Rorty challenges the conventions of the philosophical discourse community. Chapter Three places Burroughs within a liberal democratic tradition with respect to Rorty and John Stuart Mill. Burroughs is a champion of individual liberty; this chapter shows how Burroughs' works are meant to edify readers about the social, political, biological, and technological systems which work to control individuals and limit their liberties and understandings. The chapter also shows how Burroughs' works help liberate readers from all control systems, and examines the …

As a teacher of American literature in high school, I have become conscious of the importance of teaching students of that age level the lore and poetry of their native state. Poems of nature or local color in their own country will hold their interest when material from more distant points seems dull and uninteresting. Through my teaching I have become interested in the poetry of the Southwest and have enjoyed reading the poetry and knowing the poets through personal interview or correspondence.

This thesis endeavors to show how Charles Dickens revealed himself and his life in his works.

This study presents details about Richard Steele's efforts at the reformation of manners in the Tatler by determining against what behavior Steele directed his wit, how he proposed to reform what he found objectionable, and the degree of consistency in his views.

This study arranges symptoms of polarity into a causal sequence# beginning with the origin of contrarieties and ending with the ultimate effect. The origin is considered as the fall of man, denoting both a mythic concept and a specific act of betrayal. This study argues that a sense of separateness precedes the fall or act of separation; the act of separation produces various kinds of fragmentation; and the fragments are reunited through paradox. Therefore, a causal relationship exists between the "fall" motif and the concept of paradox.

This investigation attempts to uncover a unity of both meaning and technique as reflected in eight of Katherine Anne Porter's best known and most characteristic stories-- "Old Mortality," "Noon Wine," "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," "Flowering Judas," "A Day's Work," "The Cracked Looking-Glass," "He," and "Holiday." An analysis of each story reveals that the core of Katherine Anne Porter's work is a "delicate balancing of rival considerations" specifically and deliberately designed to reveal to the reader the complexity and ambiguity of any situation or human relationship. The ambiguity within her stories is therefore deliberate. The final chapter, "The Open End and the Acceptance of Paradox," asserts that Katherine Anne Porter's technique is determined not by her classical conception of literary form, but by her philosophy of life.

This thesis argues that Katherine Anne Porter's novel, Ship of Fools, "is not a departure from the body of Porter's work which precedes it, but a culmination in theme and technical achievement."

This dissertation explores Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories (1959), the Ghost Writer (1979), the Counterlife (1986), the Facts (1988), Operation Shylock (1993), Sabbath's Theater (1995),and the Human Stain (2000), arguing that Roth relishes the telling of the story and the search for self within that telling. with attention to narrative technique and its relation to issues surrounding reality and identity, Roth's narratives stress unreliability, causing Roth to create characters searching for a more complex interpretation of self. Chapter I examines Roth’s negotiation of dual identities as Neil Klugman in Goodbye, Columbus feels alienated and displaced from Christianized America. the search for identity and the merging of American Christianity and Judaism remain a focus in Chapter II, which explores the implications of how, in the Ghost Writer, a young Nathan Zuckerman visits his mentor E.I. Lonoff to find him living in what he believes to be a non-Jewish environment—the American wilderness. Chapter II also examines the difficulties of cultural assimilation in "Eli, the Fanatic," in which Eli must shed outward appearances of Judaism to fit into the mostly Protestant community of Woodenton. Relative to the negotiation of multiple identities, Chapter III considers Sabbath’s attempt, in Sabbath’s Theater, to reconcile his …

This thesis endeavors to show how Edmund Spenser used classical mythology, and his variations from it, in his work The Faerie Queene.

Robert Penn Warren, historian, short story writer, teacher, critic, poet, and novelist, has received favorable attention from literary critics as well as the general reading public. This attention is merited, in part, by Warren's narrative skill and by his use of imagery. A study of his novels reveals that his narrative technique and his imagery are closely related to his interest in myth.

There are two general approaches to myth, the literal and the symbolic. The literal method considers myth a record of man's responses to factors external to himself, while the symbolic approach evaluates myth as the externalization of internal conflicts. The purpose of this paper is to examine several examples of each type of scholarship and to show the efficacy of both in gaining a complete understanding of the Oedipus myths.

This thesis investigates the similarities in the study of time and space in literature and science during the modern period. Specifically, it focuses on the portrayal of time and space within Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim (1899-1900), and compares the ideas presented with those later scientifically formulated by Albert Einstein in his special and general theories of relativity (1905-1915). Although both novels precede Einstein’s theories, they reveal advanced complex ideas of time and space very similar to those later argued by the iconic physicist. These ideas follow a linear progression including a sense of temporal dissonance, the search for a communal sense of the present, the awareness and expansion of the individual’s sense of the present, and the effect of mass on surrounding space. This approach enhances readings of Dracula and Lord Jim, illuminating the fascination with highly refined notions of time and space within modern European culture.

Considered as a whole, the seven novels written by Frank Norris contain enough of naturalism to justify classifying him as a naturalist. His failure to fully comprehend the implications of the naturalistic philosophy results in both strengths and weaknesses. He fails in The Octopus to maintain the objective point of view that the naturalists set for themselves, and a looseness of conception and a diffuseness of effect result. By allowing the ranchers freedom of choice in the matter of the means to be employed against the railroad, he achieves something very close to tragedy. Vandover, too, has a choice, and the novel suffers as a study in determinism, but Vandover becomes a more interesting character than he would have been without will.

The purpose of this paper is to trace some of the accepted characteristics of the devil to their origins through a study of folklore and ancient religions. The characteristics include the principal form taken by each devil and trace its beginnings through folklore; the animals connected with these devils; powers allotted to these devils; and purposes served by these devils.