This paper examines the metaphoric structures that underlie Chopin's major novel, The Awakening, as well as those underlying selected short stories. Drawing on the modern theory of metaphor described by Mark Turner, George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson, the author argues that conceptual metaphors are the structural elements that underlie our experiences, thoughts, and words, and that their presence is revealed through our everyday language. Since these conceptual structures are representative of human thought and language, they are also present in literary texts, and specifically in Chopin's texts. Conceptual metaphors and the linguistic forms that result from them are so basic a part of our thinking that we automatically construct our utterances by means of them. Accordingly, conceptual metaphor mirrors human thought processes, as demonstrated by the way we describe our experiences.

Alfred Lord Tennyson's The Princess: A Medley has posed interpretative difficulties for readers since its 1847 debut. Critics, editors, and artists contemporary with Tennyson as well as in this century have puzzled over the poem's stance on the issue of the so-called Woman Question. Treating Tennyson as the first reader of the poem yields an understanding of the title character, Princess Ida, as an ambassador of Tennyson's optimistic and evolutionary views of human development and links his work to that of visionary educators of nineteenth-century England. Later artists, however, produced adaptations of the poem that twisted its hopefulness into satirical commentary, reduced its complexities to ease the task of reading, and put it to work in various causes, many ranged against the improvement of women's condition. In particular, a series of editions carried The Princess into various nations, classrooms, and homes, promoting interpretations that often obscure Tennyson's cautious optimism.

America has adopted as its own the Eden myth, which has provided the mythology of the American dream. This New Garden of America, consequently, has been a masculine garden because of its dependence on the myth of the Fall. Implied in the American dream is the idea of a garden without Eve, or at least without Eve's sin, traditionally associated with sexuality. Our canonical literature has reflected these attitudes of devaluing feminine power or making it a negative force: The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, and The Sound and the Fury. To recreate the Garden myth, Americans have had to reimagine Eve as the idealized virgin, earth mother and life-giver, or as Adam's loyal helpmeet, the silent figurehead. But Eve resists her new roles: Hester Prynne embellishes her scarlet letter and does not leave Boston; the feminine forces in Moby-Dick defeat the monomaniacal masculinity of Ahab; Miss Watson, the Widow Douglas, and Aunt Sally's threat of civilization chase Huck off to the territory despite the beckoning of the feminine river; Daisy retreats unscathed into her "white palace" after Gatsby's death; and Caddy tours Europe on the arm of a Nazi officer long after Quentin's suicide, …

Women's and men's responses regarding perceived speaker sex and the politeness of given utterances were examined through the use of a questionnaire administered to 90 people, 45 men and 45 women. The questionnaire required respondents to rate the politeness of each utterance and label each as being more likely spoken by a man or by a woman. Factors possibly affecting perceptions--such as power, prestige, and the stereotypical conversational structures of both men and women--were addressed through others' research in this area. Additionally, all tested sentences were analyzed in light of linguistic politeness theory regarding on-record and off-record speech. This analysis details each utterance through examining the type of politeness strategy each utterance typifies.

In this collection of poems and essays, the author demonstrates two different methods for examining the same theme: the notion of "home"—how to get there, how to remain there and bear articulate witness to the forces which drive that author to write. The introduction sets forth an explanation for the use of the specific form chosen for expression, with an analysis of the intent behind that form. In these essays and poems, the author accounts for her years on the Texas Panhandle, in Montana, and a year spent teaching in Prague, Czechoslovakia. These locations furnish the moments and incidents of conflict and resolution that make up the dramatic incidents of the included material.

Both Chaucer and the Gawain-poet use the Matters of Troy and Thebes as material for a critique of courtly life, applying these literary matters to the events and actions in and around Ricardian England. They use these classical matters to express concerns about the effectiveness of the court of Richard II. Chaucer uses his earlier works as a testing ground to develop his views about the value of duty over courtly pursuits, ideas discussed more completely in Troilus and Criseyde. The Gawain-poet uses the Matter of Troy coupled with the court of King Arthur to engage in a critique of courtly concerns. The critiques presented by both poets show a tendency toward duty over courtly concerns.

Eudora Welty's short story "Flowers for Marjorie" appears in A Curtain of Green and Other Stories, her first volume of collected stories published in 1941. Since the story's publication, literary scholars have interpreted the protagonist's murder of his wife, and the unusual events that follow, in terms of somatic realities that inform the text. This thesis is a psychoanalytic rereading/rewriting of "Flowers for Maijorie" that attempts to analyze its text as a possible dream narrative. By psychoanalytically rereading/rewriting the narrative in this story as a possible dream narrative, this thesis will attempt to demonstrate how the reader might experientially break through its previous resistance to interpretation, which should encourage a better understanding of the story's narrative ambiguities. The originality of this examination lies in its detailed analysis of the story's text from a psychoanalytic economy, thus providing perhaps the most detailed analysis of its text to date.

In my preface I have tried to show what a diary is, why they might be of interest to others, why I think they are valid and should be considered as such. I have defended my diary as being worthy material for a thesis, or myself as worthy of being called a writer. (Traditionally, writing in a diary doesn't qualify one as being a writer, even though you might write millions of pages and spend your entire lives doing it.) Edited selections of my diary make up the body of the thesis. These selections are divided into four main sections which suggested themselves during editing. To summarize the diary as a whole, I would say it's about human relationships.

This dissertation discusses the complicated relationship (known as the comitatus) of kings and followers as presented in the heroic poetry of the Anglo-Saxons. The anonymous poets of the age celebrated the ideals of their culture but consistently portrayed the real behavior of the characters within their works. Other studies have examined the ideals of the comitatus in general terms while referring to the poetry as a body of work, or they have discussed them in particular terms while referring to one or two poems in detail. This study is both broader and deeper in scope than are the earlier works. In a number of poems I have identified the heroic ideals and examined the poetic treatment of those ideals. In order to establish the necessary background, Chapter I reviews the historical sources, such as Tacitus, Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the work of modern historians. Chapter II discusses such attributes of the king as wisdom, courage, and generosity. Chapter III examines the role of aristocratic women within the society. Chapter IV describes the proper behavior of followers, primarily their loyalty in return for treasures earlier bestowed. Chapter V discusses perversions and failures of the ideal. The dissertation concludes that, contrary …

The purpose of this study is to investigate how John Milton uses music imagery in his English poetry. This is accomplished through consideration of the musical milieu of the late Renaissance, particularly of seventeenth century England, through examination of the symbolic function of music imagery in the poetry, and through study of the significance of music imagery for the structure of the poem. Milton relies on his readers' familiarity with sounds and contemporary musical forms as well as with the classical associations of some references. Images of practical music form the greater part of the imagery of music that Milton uses, partly because of the greater range of possibilities for practical images than for speculative images. The greater use of speculative images in the early poems indicates the more idealistic stance of these poems, while the greater number of practical images in the later poems demonstrates Hilton's greater awareness of the realities, of the human situation arising from the years spent as apologist for the Puritan cause and as Latin Secretary of State. Music imagery is important as a structural device for Milton. He uses music images to provide unity for, to "frame," and to maintain decorum in the poems. …

This dissertation demonstrates that the optimal account of English phonology denies phonemic status to oral glides. That is, it shows that all instances of phonetic [y] and [w] are predictable by rule. These occurrences include the following: formative initial glides, such as those in yet and wet; post-consonant, pre-vocalic [w] in such forms as quit, guava, and white and post-consonant, pre-vocalic [y] in such forms as cute, few, million, onion, and champion; the [y] following the tense vowels in bite, beet, bate, and boy and the [w] following the tense vowels in bout, boot, boat, cute, and few; and, finally, the post-vocalic centering glide [h] in spa, cloth, beer [bihr], and bear. The new proposals, described and justified in Chapter III, have the effect of eliminating the glides [y] and [w] from the inventory of underlying phonemes of English. From this flows what is perhaps more significant: they render the feature [Syllabic] completely redundant in the lexical representations of English formatives.

As a young man of twenty-one in 1886, William Butler Yeats announced his ambition to unify Ireland through heroic poetry. But this prophetic urge lacked structure. Yeats had only some callow notions about needing self-possession and appropriate control of his imagery. As a result, his search for essential knowledge and experience soon led him into occult and symbolist vagueness. Yeats' mind grew flaccid, and his art languished in preciosity for over a decade. Lotos-eating had replaced prophetic fervor. However, early in the new century, as Yeats neared middle age and permanent mediocrity, he recovered his early zeal and finally found the means to give it artistic shape. Through daily theatre work he had discovered tragedy. And through personal trials he had developed a tragic sense. Hence, an entire tragic perspective was born, one that would dominate Yeats' mind and art the rest of his life. Locating the contours of Yeats' shift in-viewpoint, then, provides the key to understanding the man and his mature work. The present study does just that, tracing the origin, development, and elaboration of Yeats' tragic perspective, from its theoretical underpinnings to its poetic triumphs. Above all, this study supplies the basic context of Yeats* careers why …

This dissertation presents a thematic study of the novels of John Nichols. Intended as an introduction to his major works of fiction, this study discusses the central themes and prominent characteristics of his seven novels and considers the impact of the Southwest on his work. Chapter One presents biographical information about Nichols, focusing on his political awakening and subsequent move to Taos, New Mexico. A visit to Guatemala, after the publication of The Sterile Cuckoo. his first novel, brought Nichols to a realization that America was not a benevolent world power. He began to consider capitalism a voracious, destructive economic system, a view which informed the subjects and themes of his five novels written after The Wizard of Loneliness. In 1969, Nichols left New York City, moving to Taos, New Mexico, an area with a history of physical and economic aggression against its predominantly Native American and Hispanic population. The five polemical novels, all set in northern New Mexico, were written after this move. Chapters Two through Four discuss Nichols's seven novels, analyzing theme and reviewing critical response. /V Chapter Two discusses The Sterile Cuckoo (1965) and The Wizard of Loneliness (1966), novels written prior to Nichols's political awakening. Both …

Very little of the huge corpus of Beowulf criticism has been directed at discovering the function and meaning of myth in the poem. Scholars have noted many mythological elements, but there has never been a satisfactory explanation of the poet's use of this material. A close analysis of Beowulf reveals that myth does, in fact, inform its structure, plot, characters and even imagery. More significant than the poet's use of myth, however, is the way he interlaces the historical and Christian elements with the mythological story to reflect his understanding of the cyclic nature of human existence. The examination in Chapter II of the religious component in eighth-century Anglo-Saxon culture demonstrates that the traditional Germanic religion or mythology was still very much alive. Thus the Beowulf poet was certainly aware of pre-Christian beliefs. Furthermore, he seems to have perceived basic similarities between the old and new religions, and this understanding is reflected in the poem. Chapter III discusses the way in which the characterization of the monsters is enriched by their mythological connotations. Chapter IV demonstrates that the poet also imbued the hero Beowulf with mythological significance. The discussion in Chapter V of themes and type-scenes reveals the origins of …

Red Dresses for Funerals contains a scholarly preface concerning the nature of factuality versus credibility in the writing of fiction. Four original short stories are included in this thesis. "A Night With Lawrence Welk" explores the relationship between a patient and student intern psychologist. "Red Dresses for Funerals" is about a wedding that plays a significant role in a variety of the characters' lives. "Trace Elements" is the only story involving young children. "Trace Elements" explores the beginning of understanding of some of the grimmer aspects of reality. "Expectations, Great and Otherwise" addresses the issue of denial. These stories are linked by their setting, a small town in Texas.

One aspect of the current revaluation of Victorian thought and literature is the examination of the crisis of religious faith, in which the proponents of doubt and denial took different directions: they became openly cynical and pessimistic; they turned from religion to an aesthetic substitute; or they concluded that since mankind could look only to itself for aid, the primary duties of the individual were to find a tenable creed for himself and to try to alleviate the lot of others. The movement from the agony of doubt to a serene, or at least calm, humanitarianism is the subject of this study. The discussion is limited to four novelists in whose work religious doubt and humanitarianism are overt and relatively consistent and in whose novels the intellectual thought of the day is translated into a form appealing to the middle-class reader. Their success is attested by contemporary criticism and by accounts of the sales of their books; although their work has had no permanent popularity, they were among the most discussed authors of their time.

The style and themes central to Bukowski's prose have roots in the literary tradition of the grotesque. Bukowski uses grotesque imagery in his writings as a creative device, explaining the negative characteristics of modern life. His permanent mood of angry disgust at the world around him is similar to that of the eighteenth-century satirists, particularly Jonathan Swift. Bukowski confronts the reader with the uglier side of America--its grime, its corruption, the constricted lives of its lower class--all with a simplicity and directness of style impeccably and clearly distilled. Bukowski's style is ebullient, with grotesquely evocative descriptions, scatological detail, and dark humor.

This screenplay, dealing with the theme of anger, is divided into three acts: setup, confrontation and resolution, respectively. Beginning in medias res, flashbacks are employed for expositions of the two main characters, Connor Tracy, alias the Angry Charmer, and Howard Goldberg. Act I opens with Connor at the wheel of a van, driving wildly, Howard accompanying. The setup is established. Act IlI returns to the careening van and then flashbacks to the college meeting of Connor and Howard. By the end of the act, the two, now unwilling relatives, go off on a European trip together. The confrontation has begun in earnest. Act III resolves the problem of Connor's anger through the purgative experi ences of the vacation, in particular the climactic ending.

A commonplace among Hardy critics is that as a young man Hardy lost his Christian faith and entered a serious religious disillusionment. The mainstream of Hardy criticism has followed the general consensus that Hardy suffered keenly as a result of this experience and looked back on Christianity with poignant nostalgia. If his view is not purely nostalgic, traditional criticism has insisted, then it seems at worst only ambivalent. The purpose of this dissertation is to argue that Hardy's attitude toward Christianity as revealed in his novels is not only not ambiguous, but, as a matter of fact, is specifically anti-Christian, often to the point of vehemence; that his treatment of various components of Christianity in his novels is aggressively anti-Christian; and that the feeling is so pronounced that the novels may be read as anti-Christian propagandistic tracts. This dissertation evaluates Hardy's cynical view of and attack on Christianity by examining his treatment of its symbols, such as its architecture, and its practitioners, both clergy and laity. Furthermore, since Hardy's attitude is shown not only in specific comments and particular situations but also in general tone, attention is directed toward the pervasive irony with which Hardy regards the entire panoply of …

Eleven short fictions are introduced with a discussion of genre. Genre is looked at as being a matter of degree ranging from absolute prose on one end of the spectrum to a very specific form of poem with conventions of its own such as the Shakespearean Sonnet on the other end of the spectrum. The analysis is made in an appeal for the short-short story (or sudden fiction) as being a genre of its own. It is argued that regardless of what category a fiction may fall into (and some of the distinctions seem arbitrary), that what is most important is success at conveying a meaningful experience.

Winnie Verloc's role in "The Secret Agent" has received little initial critical attention. However, this character emerges as Conrad's hero in this novel because she is an exception to what afflicts the other characters: institutionalism. In the first chapter, I discuss the effect of institutions on the characters in the novel as well as on London, and how both the characters and the city lack hope and humanity. Chapter II is an analysis of Winnie's character, concentrating on her philosophy that "life doesn't stand much looking into," and how this view, coupled with her disturbing experience of having looked into the "abyss," makes Winnie heroic in her affirmative existentialism. Chapters III and IV broaden the focus, comparing Winnie to Conrad's other protagonists and to his other female characters.

This study traces archetypal images in selected prose fiction by Edgar Allan Poe and shows his consistent use of such imagery throughout his career, and outlines the archetypal images that Poe uses repeatedly throughout his works: the death of the beautiful woman, death and resurrection, the hero's journey to the underworld, and the quest for forbidden knowledge. The study examines Poe's use of myth to establish and uphold archetypal patterns. Poe's goal when crafting his works was the creation of a single specified effect, and to create his effects, he used the materials at hand. Some of these materials came from his own subconscious; however, a greater portion came from a lifetime of study and his own understanding of the connections between myth and archetypal images.

The Usenet is a global computer conferencing system on which users can affix textual messages under 4500 different categories. It currently has approximately 4,165,000 readers, and these .readers have appropriated language by adapting it to the Usenet's culture and medium. This thesis conceptualizes the Usenet community's appropriation of language, provides insights into how media and media restrictions cause their users to appropriate language, and discusses how future media may further cause users to appropriate language. With the Usenet we have a chance to study a relatively new community bound by relatively new technology, and perhaps we can learn more about the appropriation process by studying the two.

The problem scrutinized in this thesis is the relationship between Robert Grosseteste, mentioned in the colophon of William of Shoreham's "Song to Mary," and the author of said poem. The influence of Grosseteste on William of Shoreham appears to be extensive. Many similarities of organization, diction, and, especially, imagery, exist in the works of both men. The images of the windowpane, the mirror, and Mary as a castle are found in more than one instance in both Grosseteste's Chasteau d'Amour and in several of Shoreham's poems. Moreover, the borrowed imagery in Shoreham's poetry is unquestionably superior to any other in his works. It is the conclusion of this thesis that Robert Grosseteste was a considerable influence on the works of William of Shoreham.