"Scam King" is a full-length feature screenplay and follows standard script format. The idea behind "Scam King" came originally from the James Joyce short story "Two Gallants" in Dubliners. "Scam King" is, however, not an adaption of Joyce's story, but rather was inspired by the gaps in his story pertaining to the characters' way of life on the street.

Trapped in the Body of a Cheerleader is a feature-length comedic screenplay using juvenile witticisms and black-comedy to tell the story of a teenaged girl accepting her own identity. The introduction, a personal essay, offers the author's personal views towards screen writing, teen-oriented films, and contemporary screen comedy.

An examination of the stanzas of The Faerie Queene reveals a structural complexity that prosodists have not previously discovered. In the prosody of Spenser's epic, two formal prosodic orders function simultaneously. One is the visible structure that has long been acknowledged and studied, eight decasyllabic lines and an alexandrine bound into a coherent entity by a set meter and rhyme scheme. The second is an order made apparent by an oral reading and which involves speech stresses, syntactical groupings, caesura placements, and enjambments. In an audible reading, elements are revealed that oppose the structural integrity of the visible form. The lines cease to be iambic, because most lines contain some irregularities that are incongruent with the meter. The visible structure is further counterpointed by Spenser's free use of caesura and frequent employment of enjambment to create a constantly varying structure of different line lengths in the audible form. This study also examines precedents that Spenser could have known for the union of music and poetry. English lyric poetry written for existing melodies is analyzedand the French experiments with quantitative verse supported with musical settings are discussed. Special emphasis is given to the musical associations of the Orlando furioso, particularly its …

This study examines rhythm, syntax, sound, and diction in selected early and late poems from Dylan Thomas's Collected Poems. It demonstrates, on the basis of stylistic evidence, that the later poetry is the greater achievement. The early and later poems are different in the area of rhythm. Early poems are regularly metered with a strong iambic beat, and a majority of lines are end-stopped. Rhythms in the later, finer poems are irregular, and enjambed lines predominate. The later poems show an increased ability to match rhythm with meaning. Dylan Thomas's syntax is simpler on the surface than ordinarily supposed. Early poems contain restrictive relative clauses that result in complex deep structure and sentence stacking. The later poems contain appositive relative clauses, a change in style that results in greater clarity. Repetitive patterning is frequent during both poetic periods. Thomas shows his greatest virtuosity in the area of sound. Many techniques are common to both periods, but his achievement in making sound functional in the later poetry gives it greater dimension. In creating his unique poetic voice, Dylan Thomas uses both old and new devices. Common and uncommon rhetorical figures abound in both periods, but, in common with the other stylistic …

A poet who is a woman and a theologian writes under three pressures, or a triple bind: individuality, spirituality, and society. The desires and drives of the ego and those of spirituality often conflict, and societal expectations which gender bestows add further stress to the poet's efforts. This constant struggle destroys some poets (Plath, Sexton) and renders silent many of the rest. The following collection of poems combats the silence in four progressive sections: The first is an introductory essay which further discusses the triple bind; the second, "Between Two," illustrates spiritual relationships from despair to disillusionment; the third section, "Life in the Mirror," describes deteriorating human relationships; the final section, "Salt," presents problems resolving to a kind of negative capability. This poetry collection continues one woman's poetic struggle toward validity and acceptance.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate George Eliot's literary indebtedness to the Bible by isolating, identifying, and analyzing her various uses of Scripture in her novels. This study is an attempt to demonstrate in some detail George Eliot's literary indebtedness to the Bible, to show that in the course of her fictional career she made virtually every possible use of the Bible. She at times presents Bibles themselves as significant objects, she refers to the Bible-reading habits of various characters, and she quotes, paraphrases, and alludes to the Bible. She employs biblical words, passages, narratives, characters and objects for purposes of scene-setting, symbolism, authorial commentary, characterization, and presentation and underscoring of basic themes. Sometimes she uses the Bible to achieve a serious tone; at other times, she uses it with humorous intent. Sometimes she sounds traditionally Judaeo-Christian and employs the Bible to exhort the reader in homiletic fashion, but just as often she uses biblical material to preach her own Victorian gospel. The purpose of this study is to isolate, identify, and critically analyze these various uses of the Bible which together produce the recurrent Biblical overtones so notable in the novels of George Eliot.

This thesis contains four stories of fantasy and science fiction. Four story lengths are represented: the short short ("Dragon Lovers"), the shorter short story ("Homecoming"), the longer short story ("Shadow Mistress"), and the novel ("Sword of Albruch," excerpted here).

The thesis begins with an introduction, followed by six short stories. The stories that follow span three or four regions of the American landscape and three or four decades of the twentieth century. What drives each story is the isolation of both narrator and main character (when these are not the same) from the world of the story. In each story, there is either a sense of wanting to belong or an urge to escape, or both. The paradox--also the writer's paradox--is that if one belongs, one has no need to escape; if one escapes, one can never belong.

Hemingway claims in Green Hills of Africa that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." If this basic idea is applied to his own work, elements of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn appear in some of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories and his novel The Old Man and the Sea. All major characters and several minor characters in these works share the quality of natural innocence, composed of their primitivism, sensibility, and active morality. Hemingway's Nick, Santiago, and Manolin, and Twain's Huck Finn and Jim reflect their authors' similar backgrounds and experiences and themselves come from similar environments. These environments are directly related to their continued possession and expression of their natural innocence.

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.

"Down and Out in Paris and London" is typically perceived as non-political. Orwell's first book, it examines his life with the poor in two cities. Although on the surface "Down and Out" seems not to be about politics, Orwell covertly conveys a political message. This is contrary to popular critical opinion. What most critics fail to acknowledge is that Orwell wrote for a middle- and upper-class audience, showing a previously unseen view of the poor. In this he suggests change to the policy makers who are able to bring about improvements for the impoverished. "Down and Out" is often ignored by both critics and readers of Orwell. With an examination of Orwell's politicizing background, and of the way he chooses to present himself and his poor characters in "Down and Out," I argue that the book is both political and characteristic of Orwell's later work.

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.

This study analyzes the congruence between the objectives of secondary-level English methods courses in Texas universities and the objectives of the state-mandated high school curriculum (the essential elements) in language arts. A questionnaire was used to obtain information from 26 English methods instructors at 22 universities in Texas. The data obtained from these questionnaires reveal that these instructors strongly emphasize preparing prospective English teachers to teach the essential elements of composition. Other significant findings include: (1) the lack of emphasis in the English methods course on strategies for teaching the essential elements of language, when those elements are unrelated to composition, and (2) the lack of uniformity which characterizes the organization of the English methods course at major Texas universities.

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.

The poetry of T. S. Eliot represents intense yet discriminate expressions of desire. His poetry is a poetry of desire that extenuates the long tradition of love poetry in Occidental culture. The unique and paradoxical element of love in Occidental culture is that it is based on an ideal of the unconsummated love relationship between man and woman. The struggle to express desire, yet remain true to ideals that have deep sacred and secular significance is the key animating factor of Eliot's poetry. To conceal and reveal desire, Eliot made use of four core elements of modernism: the apocalyptic vision, Pound's Imagism, the conflict between organic and mechanic sources of sublimity, and precisionism. Together, all four elements form a critical and philosophical matrix that allows for the discreet expression of desire in what Foucault calls the silences of Victorianism, yet Eliot still manages to reveal it in his major poetry. In Prufrock, Eliot uses precisionism to conceal and reveal desire with conflicting patterns of sound, syntax, and image. In The Waste Land, desire is expressed as negation, primarily as shame, sadness, and violence. The negation of desire occurred only after Pound had excised explicit references to desire, indicating Eliot's struggle …

"The Religious Dimensions of William Faulkner: An Inquiry into the Dichotomy of Puritanism" traces a secular mode of thinking of American moral superiority and the gospel of success to its religious origins. The study shows that while the basis for American moral superiority derives from the typological correspondence between sacred history and American experience, the gospel of success results from the Puritan preoccupation with work as a virtue instead of a necessity because labor improves one's lot in this world while securing salvation in the next. By explaining how Puritanism begins as a rejection of worldliness but ends as an orgy of materialism, my study raises and addresses the paradoxical nature of the Puritan legacy: Why should the Puritan work ethic, when subverted by its logical conclusion---the gospel of success, result in the undoing of Puritan spirituality in its mission of redeeming the Old World? Furthermore, this inquiry examines the role Puritanism plays in creating the mythologies of America as the New World Garden, the white man as the American Adam, the black man as the American Ham, and the white woman as the American Eve. In the Puritan use of biblical typology, blacks and women function as the white …

This study is an examination of the rhetorical concept of the dialectic as it is realized in selected works of North American dystopian literature. The dialectic is one of the main factors in curtailing enlightenment rationalism which, taken to an extreme, would deny man freedom while claiming to bestow freedom upon him. The focus of this dissertation is on an analysis of twentieth-century dystopias and the dialectic of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor parable which is a precursor to dystopian literature. The Grand Inquisitor parable of The Brothers Karamazov is a blueprint for dystopian states delineated in anti-utopian fiction. Also, Dostoevsky's parable constitutes a powerful dialectical struggle between polar opposites which are presented in the following twentieth-century dystopias: Zamiatin's Me, Bradbury's Farenheit 451, Vonnegut's Player Piano, and Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. The dialectic in the dystopian genre presents a give and take between the opposites of faith and doubt, liberty and slavery, and it often presents the individual of the anti-utopian state with a choice. When presented with the dialectic, then, the individual is presented with the capacity to make a real choice; therefore, he is presented with a hope for salvation in the totalitarian dystopias of modern twentieth-century literature.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine Frances Harper's narrative strategy and moral didacticism in Iola Leroy: or Shadows Uplifted (1892) as she strives to achieve consubstantiality and a "heightened consciousness" within her characters and her audience while adhering to the literary and feminist paradigms of the late nineteenth century. Harper identifies with her African-American male audience's dilemma of "double-consciousness" and their veil of androcentrism. She also identifies with her Euro-American female audience's delicate and matriarchal roles, while also attempting to uplift their position of the "Other" to the "One." Finally, with her African-American female audience, Harper identifies with their complex situatedness of "double-consciousness" and the "Other," while also attempting to uplift them from a historically imposed position of selflessness to one of empowerment.

Whereas scholarly malcontents and naifs in late Renaissance drama represent the actual notion of university graduates during the time period, scholarly tricksters have an obscure social origin. Moreover, their lack of motive in participating in the plays' events, their ambivalent value structures, and their conflicting dramatic roles as tricksters, reformers, justices, and heroes pose a serious diffculty to literary critics who attempt to define them. By examining the Western dramatic tradition, this study first proposes that the scholarly tricksters have their origins in both the Vice in early Tudor plays and the witty slave in classical comedy. By incorporating historical, cultural, anthropological, and psychological studies, this essay also demonstrates that the scholarly tricksters are each a Jacobean version of the archetypal trickster, who is usually associated with solitary habits, motiveless intrusion, and a double function as selfish buffoon and cultural hero. Finally, this study shows that their ambivalent value structures reflect the nature of rhetorical training in Renaissance schools.

Elizabeth Stoddard (1823-1902) has been overlooked by most modern literary critics and scholars. She needs to be incorporated into the canon of the American novel in order to establish a deserved critical visibility and to retain it for many years to come. Her groundbreaking fiction, unconventional by any nineteenth-century standard, especially as evidenced by The Morsesons and by some of her short stories, is characterized by penetrating psychology, individuality, and enduring literary qualities.

Families in much of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha fiction are built upon traditional patriarchal structure with the father as head and provider and the mother or mother figure in charge of keeping the home and raising the children. Even though the roles appear to be clearly defined and observed, the families decline and disintegrate.

The Woman in the Box is Smiling is a collection of poems, prose poems, short-short stories, and short stories. The introduction is a personal essay which discusses form as a device used to gain control over subject matter.

This dissertation is a study of the romantic elements in Bernard Malamud's fiction that can be seen as representing a romantic ideology closely related to the romanticism of William Wordsworth.

Theories of Relativity is a post-modern novella that questions the authority of truth. Multiple perspectives are utilized in the narrative to recount how the murder of a young girl has affected the tragedy's survivors. The focus of the narrative is not to determine the innocence or guilt of the accused, but to show how perspective influences our perception of truth. Eighteen pages of prefatory remarks comprise the body of an essay that explores the parameters of truth.