This paper, then, purposes to examine these two characteristics of Styron's novel form--structure and point of view--as they are handled in his major works, the novels Lie Down in Darkness and Set This House on Fire, and the novella The Long March.

This study consists of an examination in detail of those facets of character, and conduct arising from character, which specifically account for the decay of the aristocracy of Yoknapatawpha; and by way of emphasis, of the specifically regenerative attitudes and actions which have sufficed to preserve various individuals of this class who have endured as fully adequate human beings.

Since horror is so prevalent in Bierce's fiction and since no concentrated study of this important element has been attempted by critics, it is proposed here to examine carefully the sources and nature of the horror in Bierce's fiction in an attempt to arrive at a better understanding of his literary technique and his contribution to American literature.

American dialect studies have progressed rapidly within the last thirty years, but the progress seems to be concentrated within the Southern and New England areas of the United States. Though there have been studies made in other areas, they are sporadic, no work of any significance having yet been published. Texas, unfortunately, is one area of rich dialectal significance which has been neglected, with the exception of Oma Stanley's work on the dialect in East Texas. Even though that work is somewhat dated in many respects, few scholars have seen fit to undertake a revision of Stanley's work or a study of other areas of Texas which would be comparable to The Speech of East Texas. Several master's theses add to the small number of studies concerned with Texas dialects, notably Roy Elders' study of the stressed back vowels in the speech of Parker County, but such studies are also too few. The present investigation was undertaken for the purpose of adding to that collection of Texas dialect studies an examination of the low-back vowels in stressed syllables, of certain diphthongs in stressed syllables, and of the change in frequency of usage of those vowels and diphthongs, occurring within recent …