In act I, scene 2 of Shakespeare's Hamlet, one of the key themes presented is the theme of order versus disorder. Gertrude's hasty marriage to Claudius and their lack of grief over the recent death of King Hamlet violate Hamlet's sense of order and are the cause of Hamlet's anger and despair in 1.2. Rather than contrast Hamlet with his uncle and mother, Olivier constructs an Oedipal relationship between Hamlet and Gertrude--unsupported by the text--that undermine's the characterization of Hamlet as a man of order. In contrast, Tony Richardson presents Claudius' and Gertrude's actions as a violation of the order in which Hamlet believes.

An episodic novel set in rural north Texas in the 1920s, this thesis concerns the life of Lizzie Brown and her son Luke. Suffering from a series of emotional shocks combined with a chronic hormonal imbalance, Lizzie is hospitalized shortly after Luke's fourth birthday. Just as she is to be discharged, he husband dies unexpectedly. Viewed by society as incompetent to care for Luke and operate her ranch alone, she finds herself homeless. She returns to her brother's home briefly, but eventually is declared NCM and institutionalized. The story also concerns Luke, his relationships with his father and other relatives who care for him in Lizzie's absence. As he matures, he must deal with society's attitudes regarding mental illness and orphans. The story ends with Lizzie's funeral when he is twenty.

This thesis explores the major themes of William Cullen Bryant's poetry. Chapter II focuses on Bryant's poetic theory and secondary criticism of his theory. Chapter III addresses Bryant's religious beliefs, including death and immortality of the soul, and shows how these beliefs are illustrated by his poetry. A discussion of the American Indian is the subject of Chapter IV, concentrating on Bryant's use of the Indian as a Romantic ideal as well as his more realistic treatment of the Indian in The New York Evening Post. Chapter V, the keystone chapter, discusses Bryant's scientific knowledge and poetic use of natural phenomena. Bryant's religious beliefs and his belief in nature as a teacher are also covered in this chapter.

In examining Dostoevsky's treatment of faith in The Brothers Karamazov, critics often focus solely on "The Grand Inquisitor." Dostoevsky, however, refutes the Inquisitor's views through the movement of the three Karamazov brothers toward faith. The three Karamazov brothers, as a collective personality, represent the fundamental needs of man and the corresponding aspects of faith, each brother being an individual study of the necessity of integrating soul, heart and mind into faith. The crises that each brother faces force each one to develop a fuller dimension of faith. The final effect of integrating the soul, heart and mind in faith is active love.

John Cheever uses nature imagery, particularly images of light and water, to support his main themes of nostalgia, memory, tradition, alienation, travel, and confinement in his five novels. In the novels these images entwine and intersect to reveal Cheever's vision of an attainable earthly paradise comprised of familial love and an appreciation of the beauties and strengths of the natural world.

Sodek's Gold is a novel based on individuals the writer has known in the Caribbean who have been placed in fictitious circumstances. Included are social issues, conditions, and dialects found there. The main character, David Sodek, is an Englishman working in the Caribbean who discovers an ancient coin and becomes obsessed with finding more. Sodek's search is impeded by the strongarm Mostyn, but with the help of his friend Elbert he recovers an underwater cache of golden treasure. Elbert is killed. Sodek avenges Elbert's death but ultimately relinquishes the gold and himself to the sea. The theme of the work involves Sodek's obsessive personality as seen in his increasingly pedantic and destructive search, and in his unrealistic belief that money buys freedom. Included between chapters are vignettes comparing the characters and nature, and foreshadowing following events.

This analysis of Keats's poem proffers evidence and arguments to support the contention that The Eve of St. Agnes presents allegorically the poet's speculations regarding the relationship between eros and agape, speculations which include a sharp criticism of Christianity and a model for a new, more "humanistic" system of salvation. The union of Madeline and Porphyro symbolizes the reconciliation of the two opposing types of love in an apocalyptic marriage styled on the Biblical union of Christ and the Church. The irony inherent in the poem arises from Keats's use of Christian myths, symbols, and sacraments to accomplish this purpose.

The investigation concerns a 1982 suit brought by Texas novelist Benjamin Capps and his publishers against the author and publisher of an historical novel, Sacajawea, alleging that the book contained approximately 145 instances of copyright infringement. Parallel-column exhibits of passages from the novel by Anna Lee Waldo and from Capps's writings illustrate the evidence submitted in court. The publishing history of the novel, brought out by Avon Books, is related, as well as the story of readers' discoveries of suspicious material and the ultimate litigation. A comparison is made of the original novel and a revised edition published in 1984. Using the Sacajawea case as a reference point, the study considers the state of ethics in the contemporary literary world.

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.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the coexistence of time in Gabriel Garcfa Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude as a cause of the supernatural events, the hereditary memory, and the solitude and to examine the effects of this mythical time frame on character development, plot, narrative structure, and theme. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter introduces the parchments as creators of mythical time. The second, third, and fourth chapters investigate the effects of this unconventional time. Supernatural events, clairvoyance, and solitude are all examined as effects. The final chapter correlates the writing of the parchments with the writing of the novel and explains the effects of unconventional time on the reader. Thus, this thesis illustrates how the coexistence of time functions of two levels: the level of the parchments and the level of the novel.

Eudora Welty and Wallace Stevens share important aesthetic beliefs, especially regarding uses of the creative imagination by artists in acts of creation and characters in acts of living. A close reading of seventeen of Welty's stories, accompanied by references to related ideas in many of Stevens' poems, reveals how the imagination functions as epistemology and eucharist, while governing the shape of individual human views of the quotidian. The more abstract patterns of thought in their later works seem to move Welty closer to belief in a world beyond the quotidian than they do Stevens.

One rarely sees the names James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway together in the same sentence. Their obvious differences in writing styles, nationalities, and lifestyles prevent any automatic comparison from being made. But when one compares their early short story collections, Dubliners and In Our Time, many surprisingly similarities appear. Both are collections of short stories unified in some way, written by expatriates who knew each other in Paris. A mood of despair and hopelessness pervades the stories as the characters are trapped in the human condition. By examining the commonalities found in their methods of organization, handling of point of view, attitudes toward their subjects, stylistic techniques, and modes of writing, one is continually brought back to the differences between Joyce and Hemingway in each of these areas. For it is their differences that make these artists important; how each author chose to develop his craft gives him a significant place in literature.

This thesis consists of three original short stories: "August Morning," "Weekend Idyll," and "Free Ride." In addition, an appendix has been added which contains "Hamilton House Roundabout," the original version of "Weekend Idyll." It is included to illustrate the dramatic changes that can occur in the writing process. "August Morning" focuses on a young man's struggle to gain his freedom from his family, particularly his overbearing father. Whether or not he succeeds is ultimately up to the reader. "Weekend Idyll" follows a young woman as she tries to live a dream she has long believed in. Ultimately, her vision is shattered. The final story, "Free Ride," centers on a hapless teenager who finds happiness only in the exhiliaration of racing. Ultimately, it kills him. I wrote stories rather than an analysis primarily for practical reasons. As a teacher I found an exercise in writing more readily transferrable to my classroom.

A collection of poetry.

Walker Percy differs from other American novelists in that he started writing fiction relatively late in life, after being trained as a physician and after considerable reading and writing in philosophy. Although critics have appreciated Percy's skills as a writer, they have seen Percy above all as a novelist of ideas, and, accordingly, the majority of critical articles and books about Percy has dealt with his themes, especially his philosophical themes, as well as with his philosophical sources. This study explores, therefore, the critical response to philosophical ideas in Percy's five novels to date, as evidenced first by reviews, then by the later articles and books. The critical response developed gradually as critics became aware of Percy's aims and pointed out his use of Christian existentialism and his attacks upon Cartesianism, Stoicism, and modern secular gnosticism. These critical evaluations of Percy's philosophical concerns have sometimes overshadowed interest in his more purely artistic concerns. However, the more a reader understands the underlying philosophical concepts that inform Percy's novels, the more he may understand what Percy is trying to say and the more he may appreciate Percy's accomplishment in expressing his philosophical ideas so skillfully in fictional form. Critics and readers may …

This study focuses on the praeceptor amoris, or teacher of love, as that persona appears in English poetry between 1500 and 1660. Some attention is given to the background, especially Ovid and his Art of Love. A study of the medieval praeceptor indicates that ideas of love took three main courses: a bawdy strain most evident in Goliardic verse and later in the libertine poetry of Donne and the Cavaliers; a short-lived strain of mutual affection important in England principally with Spenser; and the love known as courtly love, which is traced to England through Dante and Petrarch and which is the subject of most English love poetry. In England, the praeceptor is examined according to three functions he performs: defining love, propounding a philosophy about it, and giving advice. Through examining the praeceptor, poets are seen to define love according to the division between body and soul, with the tendency to return to older definitions in force since the troubadours. The poets as a group never agree what love is. Philosophies given by the praeceptor follow the same division and are physically or spiritually oriented. The rise and fall of Platonism in English poetry is examined through the praeceptor …

Seamus Heaney's 1979 volume of poems, Field Work, contains ten sonnets written while the Northern Irish author lived for four years in a nineteenth-century cottage near Dublin. These sonnets, dealing with art, language, nature, and politics, reflect Heaney's major themes and are typical of his poetic techniques. This study analyzes the content of the ten sonnets as well as their technical aspects.

Through narrations presenting juxtaposition of conditions and ambivalence of conclusions, writers in the Hawthornian tradition compel the reader to interpret for himself the destiny of the creative protagonist. In these works the creative self is often threatened with psychical annihilation by its internal conflicts between pragmatic needs and aesthetic goals, social responsibility and professional dedication, idealistic pursuits and materialistic desires. Works in this tradition show creativity evolving from conflicting forces within the creative self. Female characters in the novels function as the creative imagination, leading the self towards creative consummation, sometimes bearing the creation itself, and always suggesting mythical figures associated with creativity. Male characters represent either the withdrawn, sensitive, idealistic ego, or the active, materialistic will. Confrontation between these internal forces produces the apocalyptic revelation enabling the self to transcend its condition by renewing contact with the creative source, the unconscious psyche. For these writers the unconscious has roots in myth, legend, dreams, and memory and is opposed to sterile conditions producing fragmentation of the creative self. In the Hawthornian tradition, the American Revolution separated the self from existence in the timeless universal givens and propelled it into assuming the determination of history. Bereft of traditional guidance and belief …

This study is an examination of the beast motif associated with Stephen Dedalus in Joyce's Ulysses. The motif has its origins in Joyce's earlier novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In Ulysses the beast motif is related to Stephen's feelings of guilt and remorse over his mother's death and includes characterizations of Stephen as a fox, a dog, a rat, and a vampire. The motif consistently carries a negative connotation. Several literary sources for the imagery of the beast motif are apparent in Ulysses, including two plays by John Webster, a poem by Matthew Prior, medieval bestiaries, and a traditional Irish folk riddle. The study of the continuity of the beast motif in Ulysses helps to explain the complex characterization of Stephen Dedalus.

This thesis examines time, death, and choice in Philip Larkin's poetry, arguing that his approach to these themes is not deterministic, but existential. The argument is based on the similarity between Larkin's views and those of three existential philosophers. Larkin's view of time, like Heidegger's, is that men live not in long stretches of time, but in processions of unconnected yet similar moments. A constant underlying sadness, like Kierkegaard's despair, makes each moment reminiscent of death. Like Sartre, Larkin finds meaning in his choices, and struggles to live authentically without expectation. Although Thomas Hardy influenced Larkin, given these similarities, Larkin's poetry cannot rightly be called deterministic. It is an attempt to preserve experience for its own sake.

In Book IV of Paradise Regained, Satan tempts Christ by offering him the learning of the Greek philosophers, poets, and orators. Christ's response is a vehement denigration of Greek literature, which seems to contradict the praise of the classics found in Milton's prose works of the 1640s. Interpreting the condemnation of Greek learning in Paradise Regained as a modification of the poet's early attitudes, the present study examines the biographical, political, theological, and scientific factors which influenced Milton's thought and altered his opinions on the value of classical literature.

The forty-four poems of this collection reflect the diversity of ideas which intrigue the poet, the attitudes by which she chooses to live, the relationships which are important to her, and the emotions which influence all of those ideas, attitudes, and relationships.

This thesis consists of three short stories dealing with loss. "A Solemn Music" depicts Frederick's attempt to maintain his comfortable life apart from Nature, which, in the form of cicadas, is bent on moving him from his complacency. "The Waker" explores Floyd's reactions to the death of a girlfriend. "Appetites" relates the story of Allen's encounter with a beauty pageant queen and his subsequent attempt to begin a relationship with her.

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.