Stephen Crane's Presentation of War (open access)

Stephen Crane's Presentation of War

This thesis explores the literary career of Stephen Crane, concentrating on his war works.
Date: August 1964
Creator: Wilson, Fred E.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Hoboken War Bride: A Novel (open access)

The Hoboken War Bride: A Novel

The Hoboken War Bride is a work of historical fiction set in Hoboken, New Jersey during World War II. A young soldier named Daniel and an aspiring actress named Hildy marry days after meeting, though the marriage is doomed to fail. This young couple is not compatible. Daniel ships out to basic training the day after their hasty marriage, leaving Hildy behind with his family, the Anellos, who she quickly becomes attached to. Hildy is exposed to family in a way she had never lived with her own, embracing them even though she doubts she'll ever have a future with Daniel. When Daniel returns after the end of the war, the young couple try to make their marriage work, but it fails almost immediately. Both Hildy and Daniel struggle to pick themselves up after their divorce, finding themselves making choices they never thought they would when they were younger.
Date: August 2018
Creator: Riccardelli, Charlie Frank
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ceridwen and Christ: An Arthurian Holy War (open access)

Ceridwen and Christ: An Arthurian Holy War

Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel The Mists of Avalon is different from the usual episodic versions of the Arthurian legend in that it has the structural unity that the label "novel" implies. The narrative is set in fifth-century Britain, a time of religious conflict between Christianity and the native religions of Britain, especially the Mother Goddess cult. Bradley pulls elements from the Arthurian legend and fits them into this context of religious struggle for influence. She draws interesting family relationships which are closely tied to Avalon, the center of Goddess worship. The author also places the major events during Arthur's reign into the religious setting. The Grail's appearance at Camelot and the subsequent events led to the end of the religious struggle, for Christianity emerged victorious.
Date: December 1986
Creator: Peters, Patricia Fulkes
System: The UNT Digital Library
War as a Factor in the Fiction of Ernest Hemingway (open access)

War as a Factor in the Fiction of Ernest Hemingway

This thesis is a study of war as a factor in Ernerst Hemingway's novels and stories.
Date: 1957
Creator: Smith, Betty Jean
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Concept of Leadership in Modern American War Novels (open access)

The Concept of Leadership in Modern American War Novels

This thesis explores the topic of leadership through the war novels of: Styron and Uris, Jones, Mailer and Shaw, Cozzens, Hersey and Heller and finally, Wouk and Michener.
Date: August 1968
Creator: Wiggins, Stanley C.
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Study of the Revolutionary War Novels of William Gilmore Simms (open access)

A Study of the Revolutionary War Novels of William Gilmore Simms

This thesis is a study of William Gilmore Simms' novels that deal with the Revolutionary War.
Date: 1948
Creator: Linton, Esta Louise
System: The UNT Digital Library
World War I in the Life and Poetry of Robert Graves (open access)

World War I in the Life and Poetry of Robert Graves

The purpose of this thesis is to explore in depth the effect which World War I had on the life and early poetry of Robert Graves, primarily by tracing his involvement in the war as revealed directly in his autobiography and by examining his responses to that involvement as revealed indirectly in the two volumes of poetry which he wrote during the war.
Date: August 1970
Creator: Drake, Nedra Helan
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Picaresque Novel in America since World War II (open access)

The Picaresque Novel in America since World War II

This is not intended to be a definitive study of all the picaresque novels of the last two decades. It is, instead, a representative study which includes those authors who have attained the most prominence and who have contributed most to the delineation and advancement of the picaresque genre.
Date: August 1965
Creator: Shaw, Patrick W.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Development of Myth in Post-World-War-II American Novels (open access)

The Development of Myth in Post-World-War-II American Novels

Most primitive mythologies recognize that suffering can provide an opportunity for growth, but Western man has developed a mythology in which suffering is considered evil. He conceives of some power in the universe which will oppose evil and abolish it for him; God, and more recently science an, technology, were the hoped-for saviors that would rescue him. Both have been disappointing as saviors, and Western culture seems paralyzed by its confrontation with a future which seems death-filled. The primitive conception of death as that through which one passes in initiatory suffering has been unavailable because the mythologies in which it was framed are outdated. However, some post-World-War-II novels are reflecting a new mythology which recognizes the threat of death as the terrifying face the universe shows during initiation. A few of these novels tap deep psychological sources from which mythical images traditionally come and reflect the necessity of the passage through the hell of initiation without hope of a savior. One of the best of these is Wright Morris's The Field of Vision, in which the Scanlon story is a central statement of the mythological ground ahead. This gripping tale uses the pioneer journey west to tell of the mysterious …
Date: August 1974
Creator: Hall, Larry Joe
System: The UNT Digital Library
War and Social Revolution in Afro-American Poetry Since 1960 (open access)

War and Social Revolution in Afro-American Poetry Since 1960

The problem with which this study is concerned is that of determining the role of war and social revolution in Afro-American poetry of the 1960's. For this study, four major poets were selected: Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, LeRoi Jones, and Don L. Lee.
Date: August 1973
Creator: Harmon, Sue Thompson
System: The UNT Digital Library

True War Stories: Lies, Truth, and Recovery in the Non/Fiction of Vietnam

This dissertation examines memoirs and non/fiction of the Vietnam War, written by combat veterans (Tim O'Brien, Tobias Wolff, Ron Kovic), and army nurses (Lynda Van Devanter and Joan Furey), and war correspondents (Micheal Herr), most of whom joined the antiwar movement, and used their own war wounds as incontrovertible evidence against it. Since these authors' traumatization compromised their memories of combat, their narratives feature literary devices reflective of post-traumatic stress disorder symptomatology (e.g. flashbacks, non-linear plots, repetition, disassociation). Their authenticity stems from the military jargon, lewd dialogue, and dark humor contained within. A mix of truth-telling and bullshitting paradoxically coexist in these texts; as trauma theories elucidate, improvisation (of details) does not diminish the integrity of a traumatic memory, or the memoir itself. In an era of Nixonian follies, whistleblowing became a high stakes endeavor for journalists and veterans. They exposed the military's standard operating procedures that violated the Geneva Conventions such as free-fire zones, wide-scale bombings, and chemical warfare (e.g. Napalm, Dioxin, Agent Orange). Desiring reformation, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War conducted their own Winter Soldier Investigation into the Mỹ Lai massacre, sending spokesperson John Kerry to testify during the Fulbright Hearings. Women served thanklessly in the war, …
Date: August 2021
Creator: Sawyer, Shannon Michele
System: The UNT Digital Library
Hawthorne's Romantic Transmutation of Colonial and Revolutionary War History in Selected Tales and Romances (open access)

Hawthorne's Romantic Transmutation of Colonial and Revolutionary War History in Selected Tales and Romances

The purpose of this thesis is to examine in selected tales and romances Hawthorne's intent and the effectiveness of his transmutation of American colonial and Revolutionary War history in his fiction. This study examines the most important of Hawthorne's original sources. While indicating the relationship between fictional and historical accounts as necessary to a study of Hawthorne's romantic transmutation of history, this thesis further investigates Hawthorne's artistic reasons for altering events of the past.
Date: August 1969
Creator: Clayton, Lawrence R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Miscegenated Narration: The Effects of Interracialism in Women's Popular Sentimental Romances from the Civil War Years (open access)

Miscegenated Narration: The Effects of Interracialism in Women's Popular Sentimental Romances from the Civil War Years

Critical work on popular American women's fiction still has not reckoned adequately with the themes of interracialism present in these novels and with interracialism's bearing on the sentimental. This thesis considers an often overlooked body of women's popular sentimental fiction, published from 1860-1865, which is interested in themes of interracial romance or reproduction, in order to provide a fuller picture of the impact that the intersection of interracialism and sentimentalism has had on American identity. By examining the literary strategy of "miscegenated narration," or the heteroglossic cacophony of narrative voices and ideological viewpoints that interracialism produces in a narrative, I argue that the hegemonic ideologies of the sentimental romance are both "deterritorialized" and "reterritorialized," a conflicted impulse that characterizes both nineteenth-century sentimental, interracial romances and the broader project of critiquing the dominant national narrative that these novels undertake.
Date: May 2011
Creator: Beeler, Connie
System: The UNT Digital Library
Three Days and Two Nights (open access)

Three Days and Two Nights

This novel of the Vietnam War examines the effects of prolonged stress on individuals and groups. The narrative, which is told from the points of view of four widely different characters, follows an infantry company through three days and two nights of combat on a small island off the coast of the northern I Corps military region. The story's principal themes are the loss of communication that contributes to and is caused by the background of chaos that arises from combat; the effect of brutal warfare on the individual spirit; and the way groups reorganize themselves to cope with the confusion of the battlefield. The thesis includes an explication of the novel, explaining some of the technical details of its production.
Date: August 1978
Creator: Lewis, Jay B.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Asleep in the Arms of God (open access)

Asleep in the Arms of God

A work of creative fiction in the form of a short novel, Asleep in the Arms of God is a limited-omniscient and omniscient narrative describing the experiences of a man named Wafer Roberts, born in Jack County, Texas, in 1900. The novel spans the years from 1900 to 1925, and moves from the Keechi Valley of North Texas, to Fort Worth and then France during World War One, and back again to the Keechi Valley. The dissertation opens with a preface, which examines the form of the novel, and regional and other aspects of this particular work, especially as they relate to the postmodern concern with fragmentation and conditional identity. Wafer confronts in the novel aspects of his own questionable history, which echo the larger concern with exploitative practices including racism, patriarchy, overplanting and overgrazing, and pollution, which contribute to and climax in the postmodern fragmentation. The novel attempts to make a critique of the exploitative rage of Western civilization.
Date: December 1999
Creator: Clay, Kevin M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Remembering: A Play in Three Acts (open access)

The Remembering: A Play in Three Acts

The Remembering, an original drama set in rural Georgia in 1864, is about three ex-slaves, two men and an old woman, all runaways, whose fictional encounter in a deserted church sets off a series of conflicts and, significantly, incidents of remembering past conflicts which lead them to an understanding of the war, slavery, freedom, and individual responsibility. Many of the events which the slaves, naive witnesses to a great moment in history when mobilized modern warfare was being born, and the nearby Union soldiers remember reflect upon the pervasiveness, speed, and destructiveness of the new campaign. The efforts of the characters to survive in that harsh and bitter war represent one of the primary concerns of this dramatic study.
Date: August 1977
Creator: Ford, Merle D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Napoleonic Wars in the English Novel, 1820-1880 (open access)

The Napoleonic Wars in the English Novel, 1820-1880

This thesis is a study of the novelists of the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns (veterans and non-veterans), the novelists of the naval war, and the novelists of the home front in the Napoleonic Wars.
Date: 1955
Creator: Wilson, John Townsend
System: The UNT Digital Library
Heart of an Eagle (open access)

Heart of an Eagle

This thesis consists of a poem in the form of three related dramatic monologues in free verse. The subject of the poem is King Philip's War, an Indian war which took place in New England in 1675 and 1676. The central figures in the poem are the Indian leader, Metacom (King Philip); Benjamin Church, the Englishman responsible for Metacom's death; and Metacom's wife, Melia.
Date: December 1981
Creator: Faulds, Joseph M. (Joseph Markle)
System: The UNT Digital Library
After the Planes (open access)

After the Planes

The dissertation consists of a critical preface and a novel. The preface analyzes what it terms “polyvocal” novels, or novels employing multiple points of view, as well as “layered storytelling,” or layers of textuality within novels, such as stories within stories. Specifically, the first part of the preface discusses polyvocality in twenty-first century American novels, while the second part explores layered storytelling in novels responding to World War II or the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The preface analyzes the advantages and difficulties connected to these techniques, as well as their aptitude for reflecting the fractured, disconnected, and subjective nature of the narratives we construct to interpret traumatic experiences. It also acknowledges the necessity—despite its inherent limitations—of using language to engage with this fragmentation and cope with its challenges. The preface uses numerous novels as examples and case studies, and it also explores these concepts and techniques in relation to the process of writing the novel After the Planes. After the Planes depicts multiple generations of a family who utilize storytelling as a means to work through grief, hurt, misunderstanding, and loss—whether from interpersonal conflicts or from war. Against her father’s wishes, a young woman moves in with her nearly-unknown grandfather, …
Date: May 2012
Creator: Boswell, Timothy
System: The UNT Digital Library
Robert Penn Warren's Archetypal Triptych: A Study of the Myths of the Garden, the Journey, and Rebirth in The Cave, Wilderness, and Flood (open access)

Robert Penn Warren's Archetypal Triptych: A Study of the Myths of the Garden, the Journey, and Rebirth in The Cave, Wilderness, and Flood

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.
Date: December 1971
Creator: Phillips, Billie Ray Sudberry, 1937-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Literature in the Age of Science: Technology and Scientists in the Mid-Twentieth Century Works of Isaac Asimov, John Barth, Arthur C. Clarke, Thomas Pynchon, and Kurt Vonnegut (open access)

Literature in the Age of Science: Technology and Scientists in the Mid-Twentieth Century Works of Isaac Asimov, John Barth, Arthur C. Clarke, Thomas Pynchon, and Kurt Vonnegut

This study explores the depictions of technology and scientists in the literature of five writers during the 1960s. Scientists and technology associated with nuclear, computer, and space science are examined, focusing on their respective treatments by the following writers: John Barth, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke. Despite the close connections between the abovementioned sciences, space science is largely spared from negative critiques during the sixties. Through an analysis of Barth's Giles Goat-boy, Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, Asimov's short stories "Key Item," "The Last Question," "The Machine That Won the War," "My Son, the Physicist," and Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, it is argued that altruistic goals of space science during the 1960s protect it from the satirical treatments that surround the other sciences.
Date: August 2010
Creator: Simes, Peter A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Bass Reeves: a History • a Novel • a Crusade, Volume 1: the Rise (open access)

Bass Reeves: a History • a Novel • a Crusade, Volume 1: the Rise

This literary/historical novel details the life of African-American Deputy US Marshal Bass Reeves between the years 1838-1862 and 1883-1884. One plotline depicts Reeves’s youth as a slave, including his service as a body servant to a Confederate cavalry officer during the Civil War. Another plotline depicts him years later, after Emancipation, at the height of his deputy career, when he has become the most feared, most successful lawman in Indian Territory, the largest federal jurisdiction in American history and the most dangerous part of the Old West. A preface explores the uniqueness of this project’s historical relevance and literary positioning as a neo-slave narrative, and addresses a few liberties that I take with the historical record.
Date: August 2015
Creator: Thompson, Sidney, 1965-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Xenotopia: Death and Displacement in the Landscape of Nineteenth-Century American Authorship (open access)

Xenotopia: Death and Displacement in the Landscape of Nineteenth-Century American Authorship

This dissertation is an examination of the interiority of American authorship from 1815–1866, an era of political, social, and economic instability in the United States. Without a well-defined historical narrative or an established literary lineage, writers drew upon death and the American landscape as tropes of unity and identification in an effort to define the nation and its literary future. Instead of representing nationalism or collectivism, however, the authors in this study drew on landscapes and death to mediate the crises of authorial displacement through what I term "xenotopia," strange places wherein a venerated American landscape has been disrupted or defamiliarized and inscribed with death or mourning. As opposed to the idealized settings of utopia or the environmental degradation of dystopia, which reflect the positive or negative social currents of a writer's milieu, xenotopia record the contingencies and potential problems that have not yet played out in a nation in the process of self-definition. Beyond this, however, xenotopia register as an assertion of agency and literary definition, a way to record each writer's individual and psychological experience of authorship while answering the call for a new definition of American literature in an indeterminate and undefined space.
Date: December 2017
Creator: Lewis, Darcy Hudelson
System: The UNT Digital Library

This Man is Your Friend: Knowing "Us" and "Them" in Ethnic American Literature of the Pacific Theater

This dissertation examines representations of the Pacific theater in World War II in ethnic American literature, with a focus on its rendition of US and Japanese racism and imperialism in the mid-twentieth century. Reading a range of African, Asian, Jewish, Mexican, and Native American literary writings, I investigate their modifications of the American master narrative that the Second World War was "good" and "necessary," a war fought against fascism and for democracy, justice, and freedom. Instead of such a simplistic and reductive view, ethnic American writers envision the Pacific theater as a race war between whites and persons of color and as a conflict between two imperialist nations, the United States and Japan. Ethnic Americans' racial double consciousness functions to resist an oversimplification of the Pacific theater. In these ethnic writers' work, American characters from diverse backgrounds create friendships with those of Asian nationalities, including Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Japanese. These texts are necessary because ethnic Americans' experiences are underrepresented in the traditional WWII narrative of Western masculinity, originated by Ernest Hemingway and completed by President Truman and Douglas MacArthur. As opposed to the typical white American literary and cinematic treatment of the war as fought in the land of …
Date: May 2022
Creator: Matsuda, Takuya
System: The UNT Digital Library