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"UNNATURAL CONDUCT & FORCED DIFFICULTIES": AUSTEN, READING, AND THE PARADOX OF THE FEMININE IDEAL
Title
"UNNATURAL CONDUCT & FORCED DIFFICULTIES": AUSTEN, READING, AND THE PARADOX OF THE FEMININE IDEAL.
Creator
Dickens, Faith, Oliver, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Though some scholars have maintained that Jane Austen closely adheres to the ideology of courtesy novels and conduct literature, I argue that Austen uses her knowledge of this ideology to reveal the flaws in reader assumptions about the presumed commonsensical nature of the courtesy novel and its feminine ideal. Austen is familiar with the conventions of eighteenth-century fiction, but, rather than adopting its tropes in her own work, she uses realism to parody its excesses and...
Show moreThough some scholars have maintained that Jane Austen closely adheres to the ideology of courtesy novels and conduct literature, I argue that Austen uses her knowledge of this ideology to reveal the flaws in reader assumptions about the presumed commonsensical nature of the courtesy novel and its feminine ideal. Austen is familiar with the conventions of eighteenth-century fiction, but, rather than adopting its tropes in her own work, she uses realism to parody its excesses and improbabilities; this realism then works against reader expectations and exposes paradoxes inherent in the courtesy novel and in conduct-book literature itself. In my thesis I observe how Austen uses courtesy novel tropes to expose or even mock the courtesy novel's inherently unrealistic qualities, and I do so by examining the act of "reading" in her novels: specifically, I argue that the literal reading that Austen's characters engage in does not produce the expected outcomes predicted by conduct books and courtesy novels; that the figurative reading of one character by another demonstrates the dangerousness and unsuitability of the heroine as "open book," as conduct books and courtesy novels urged her to be, as well as the irrationality and hypocrisy of acting the part of "closed book" to her intended lover; and, finally, that the act of reading an Austen novel is intended to prevent the absorption or interpretation of unrealistic ideals, through insistence on (more) realistic outcomes and through narrative intervention.
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Date Issued
2011
Identifier
CFH0004095, ucf:44784
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004095
REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CATHOLIC INQUISITION IN TWO EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GOTHIC NOVELS: PUNISHMENT AND REHABILITATION IN MATTHEW LEWIS' THE MONK AND ANN RADCLIFFE'S THE ITALIAN
Title
REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CATHOLIC INQUISITION IN TWO EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GOTHIC NOVELS: PUNISHMENT AND REHABILITATION IN MATTHEW LEWIS' THE MONK AND ANN RADCLIFFE'S THE ITALIAN.
Creator
Fennell, Jarad, Oliver, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
The purpose of this thesis is to determine how guilt and shame act as engines of social control in two Gothic narratives of the 1790s, how they tie into the terror and horror modes of the genre, and how they give rise to two distinct narrative models, one centered on punishment and the other on rehabilitation. The premise of the paper is that both Matthew G. Lewis's The Monk and Ann Radcliffe's The Italian harness radically different emotional responses, one that demands the...
Show moreThe purpose of this thesis is to determine how guilt and shame act as engines of social control in two Gothic narratives of the 1790s, how they tie into the terror and horror modes of the genre, and how they give rise to two distinct narrative models, one centered on punishment and the other on rehabilitation. The premise of the paper is that both Matthew G. Lewis's The Monk and Ann Radcliffe's The Italian harness radically different emotional responses, one that demands the punishment of the aberrant individual and the other that reveres the reformative power of domestic felicity. The purposes of both responses are to civilize readers and their respective representations of the Holy Office of the Inquisition are central to this process. I examine the role of the Inquisition in The Monk and contrast it with the depiction of the same institution in The Italian. Lewis's book subordinates the ecclesiastical world to the authority of the aristocracy and uses graphic scenes of torture to support conservative forms of social control based on shame. The Italian, on the other hand, depicted the Inquisition as a conspiratorial body that causes Radcliffe's protagonists, and by extension her readers, to question their complicity in oppressive systems of social control and look for alternative means to punishment. The result is a push toward rehabilitation that is socially progressive but questions the English Enlightenment's promotion of the carceral.
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Date Issued
2007
Identifier
CFE0001654, ucf:47227
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001654
BITE ME: SADOMASOCHISTIC GENDER RELATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY VAMPIRE LITERATURE
Title
BITE ME: SADOMASOCHISTIC GENDER RELATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY VAMPIRE LITERATURE.
Creator
Nathanson, Shelby, Oliver, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
While the term sadomasochism might conjure cursory images of whips, chains, and leather-clad fetishists, this thesis delves deeper into sadomasochistic theory to analyze dynamics of power and powerlessness represented by a chosen sample of literary relationships. Using two contemporary works of vampire literature�Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series�I examine how power is structured by and between male and female characters (and vampires and...
Show moreWhile the term sadomasochism might conjure cursory images of whips, chains, and leather-clad fetishists, this thesis delves deeper into sadomasochistic theory to analyze dynamics of power and powerlessness represented by a chosen sample of literary relationships. Using two contemporary works of vampire literature�Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series�I examine how power is structured by and between male and female characters (and vampires and humans), and particularly emphasize the patriarchal messages these works' regressive sexual politics engender. Psychoanalysis and feminist theory are employed to support my overarching argument following the gendered dynamics of male sadism and female masochism (and vampire sadism and human masochism), as this dyad reflects men's and women's "normalized" roles of power and powerlessness, respectively, in today's society. Sadomasochistic relationships as depicted in this literature are created through mutual contracts or, what I refer to as, sociocultural sadomasochism to reflect the gendered power imbalances inherent in patriarchy. By concluding with readers' responses to these franchises, this thesis further attempts to determine why such unequal and oppressive relationships are desirable. Since vampires as Gothic figures embody what specific cultures dread yet desire, this literature possesses frightening implications�gender roles are conservative and masculinity is privileged in fiction and, by extension, in twenty-first-century American culture.
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Date Issued
2014
Identifier
CFH0004548, ucf:45204
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004548
"A Laudable Ambition Fired Her Soul": Conduct Fiction Helps Define Republican Womanhood, Community, and Education in the Works of Judith Sargent Murray, Hannah Webster Foster, and Susanna Rowson
Title
"A Laudable Ambition Fired Her Soul": Conduct Fiction Helps Define Republican Womanhood, Community, and Education in the Works of Judith Sargent Murray, Hannah Webster Foster, and Susanna Rowson.
Creator
Workman, Jessica, Logan, Lisa, Kamrath, Mark, Oliver, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
This study examines the major works of Judith Sargent Murray, Hannah Webster Foster, and Susanna Haswell Rowson, three major writers of the 1790s whose writing responds to the ideologies of the early American Republic. I suggest that Murray, Foster, and Rowson write conduct fiction which responds to the changing attitudes toward women and education after the American Revolution. Using fiction, these authors comment on the republican woman, the need for women's education, and the necessity for...
Show moreThis study examines the major works of Judith Sargent Murray, Hannah Webster Foster, and Susanna Haswell Rowson, three major writers of the 1790s whose writing responds to the ideologies of the early American Republic. I suggest that Murray, Foster, and Rowson write conduct fiction which responds to the changing attitudes toward women and education after the American Revolution. Using fiction, these authors comment on the republican woman, the need for women's education, and the necessity for women to gather in communities for support. Despite the prevailing notion that reading too many novels would corrupt young women, Judith Sargent Murray's novella, The Story of Margaretta (1786), Hannah Webster Foster's novels, The Coquette (1797) and The Boarding School (1798), and Susanna Rowson's novels, Charlotte Temple (1794) and Reuben and Rachel; or, Tales of Old Times (1798), were some of the most popular books in the late eighteenth century. If these novels were not meant to be read by young women, who were the authors' primary audience, why were they so popular? This project situates these questions in the political environment the authors were writing in to show that a relationship exists between what women were reading and how authors of conduct fiction helped facilitate the changing roles of women in the early Republic.
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Date Issued
2011
Identifier
CFE0004180, ucf:49039
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004180
The Machine, the Victim, and the Third Thing: Navigating the Gender Spectrum in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood
Title
The Machine, the Victim, and the Third Thing: Navigating the Gender Spectrum in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.
Creator
Anderson, Lindsay, Oliver, Kathleen, Logan, Lisa, Murphy, Patrick, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
This thesis explores Atwood's depiction of gender in Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. In an interview from 1972, Margaret Atwood spoke on survival: (")People see two alternatives. You can be part of the machine or you can be something that gets run over by it. And I think there has to be a third thing.(") I assert that Atwood depicts this (")third thing(") through her characters who navigate between the binaries of (")masculine(") and (")feminine(") in a third realm of gender. As the...
Show moreThis thesis explores Atwood's depiction of gender in Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. In an interview from 1972, Margaret Atwood spoke on survival: (")People see two alternatives. You can be part of the machine or you can be something that gets run over by it. And I think there has to be a third thing.(") I assert that Atwood depicts this (")third thing(") through her characters who navigate between the binaries of (")masculine(") and (")feminine(") in a third realm of gender. As the female characters(-)regardless of their passive or aggressive behavior(-)engage in a quest for agency, they must overcome bodily limitations. Oryx(-)the quintessential problematic, oppressed feminine figure(-)and Ren are both associated with sex as they are passed from man to man throughout their lives. Furthermore, as other females (namely, Amanda and Toby) adopt masculine traits associated with power in an attempt at self-preservation both before and after the waterless flood, men in the novels strive to subvert this power through rape to remind these women of their confinement within their physical bodies and to reinstitute the binary gender system. The men also span the gender continuum, with Crake representing the masculine (")machine(") and Jimmy gravitating toward the feminine victim. Crake, who seems to live life uninhibited from his body, appears to escape the bodily confinements that the women experience, while Jimmy's relationship to his body is more complex. As Jimmy competes to (")out-masculinize(") Crake, and Amanda and Toby struggle to avoid both identification with and demolition by the machine, readers of the novels are invited to think beyond the (")machinery(") of gender norms to consider gender as a continuum instead of a dualistic factor.
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Date Issued
2012
Identifier
CFE0004351, ucf:49459
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004351
Genetic Engineering as Literary Praxis: A Study in Contemporary Literature
Title
Genetic Engineering as Literary Praxis: A Study in Contemporary Literature.
Creator
Evans, Taylor, Campbell, James, Oliver, Kathleen, Murphy, Patrick, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
This thesis considers the understudied issue of genetic engineering as it has been deployed in the literature of the late 20th century. With reference to the concept of the enlightened gender hybridity of Cyborg theory and an eye to ecocritical implications, I read four texts: Joan Slonczewski's 1986 science fiction novel A Door Into Ocean, Octavia Butler's science fiction trilogy Lilith's Brood (-) originally released between 1987 and 1989 as Xenogenesis (-) Simon Mawer's 1997 literary novel...
Show moreThis thesis considers the understudied issue of genetic engineering as it has been deployed in the literature of the late 20th century. With reference to the concept of the enlightened gender hybridity of Cyborg theory and an eye to ecocritical implications, I read four texts: Joan Slonczewski's 1986 science fiction novel A Door Into Ocean, Octavia Butler's science fiction trilogy Lilith's Brood (-) originally released between 1987 and 1989 as Xenogenesis (-) Simon Mawer's 1997 literary novel Mendel's Dwarf, and the first two books in Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction MaddAddam series: 2003's Oryx and Crake and 2009's The Year Of the Flood. I argue that the inclusion of genetic engineering has changed as the technology moves from science fiction to science fact, moving from the fantastic to the mundane. Throughout its recent literary history, genetic engineering has played a role in complicating questions of sexuality, paternity, and the division between nature and culture. It has also come to represent a nexus of potential cultural change, one which stands to fulfill the dramatic hybridity Haraway rhapsodized in her (")Cyborg Manifesto(") while also containing the potential to disrupt the ecocritical conversation by destroying what we used to understand as nature. Despite their four different takes on the issue, each of the texts I read offers a complex vision of utopian hopes and apocalyptic fears. They agree that, for better or for worse, genetic engineering is forever changing both our world and ourselves.
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Date Issued
2012
Identifier
CFE0004373, ucf:49438
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004373
The Great Mirror of Fandom: Reflections of (and on) Otaku and Fujoshi in Anime and Manga
Title
The Great Mirror of Fandom: Reflections of (and on) Otaku and Fujoshi in Anime and Manga.
Creator
Graffeo, Clarissa, Jones, Anna, Oliver, Kathleen, Akita, Kimiko, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
The focus of this thesis is to examine representations of otaku and fujoshi (i.e., dedicated fans of pop culture) in Japanese anime and manga from 1991 until the present. I analyze how these fictional images of fans participate in larger mass media and academic discourses about otaku and fujoshi, and how even self-produced reflections of fan identity are defined by the combination of larger normative discourses and market demands. Although many scholars have addressed fan practices and...
Show moreThe focus of this thesis is to examine representations of otaku and fujoshi (i.e., dedicated fans of pop culture) in Japanese anime and manga from 1991 until the present. I analyze how these fictional images of fans participate in larger mass media and academic discourses about otaku and fujoshi, and how even self-produced reflections of fan identity are defined by the combination of larger normative discourses and market demands. Although many scholars have addressed fan practices and identities through surveys and participant observation, many of these studies work with Western groups of fans whose identities may not be consistent with those of Japanese otaku and fujoshi, and fewer studies have addressed the way these fans are reflected in the very media (anime and manga) they consume. I examine both negative and positive depictions of otaku and fujoshi, as well as the representations of fan gender identities and sexualities, across a broad range of anime and manga, including Rusanchiman (Ressentiment), Genshiken, N.H.K. ni Y?koso (Welcome to the N.H.K.), Otaku no Video, Kuragehime (Princess Jellyfish), Oreimo, and M?s? Sh?jo Otakukei (Fujoshi Rumi). The varied depictions of otaku and fujoshi in these works illustrate the tension between otaku and fujoshi identities and normative social roles, the problematic elements of identities defined through consumerism, and the complexities of the interaction between fans' fictionalized and lived desires.
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Date Issued
2014
Identifier
CFE0005172, ucf:50663
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005172