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HENRY JAMES, VIRGINIA WOOLF, AND FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: INTERIORITY, CONSCIOUSNESS, TIME, AND SPACE IN THE MODERNIST NOVEL AND THE HOME
Title
HENRY JAMES, VIRGINIA WOOLF, AND FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: INTERIORITY, CONSCIOUSNESS, TIME, AND SPACE IN THE MODERNIST NOVEL AND THE HOME.
Creator
Michaelsen, Carol, Smith, Ernest, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
During the Modernist period, generally defined between the years 1890 and 1945, artists were attempting to break away from previous forms and styles. For example, writers like Henry James and Virginia Woolf sought to change the novel by exploring the consciousness of characters, while playing with the ideas of time and space to create the present moment. The thesis explores the modernist techniques used by James and Woolf, but also connects the work of the writers with the architecture of...
Show moreDuring the Modernist period, generally defined between the years 1890 and 1945, artists were attempting to break away from previous forms and styles. For example, writers like Henry James and Virginia Woolf sought to change the novel by exploring the consciousness of characters, while playing with the ideas of time and space to create the present moment. The thesis explores the modernist techniques used by James and Woolf, but also connects the work of the writers with the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Using Joseph Frank's theory of spatial form, my work explores the similarities between Wright's designs of private residences with the design of space in the novel. All three artists, I argue, are working with spatial form, blending interior with exterior, to provide the reader and the dweller with the opportunity to experience an organic unity, which ultimately results in a freezing of the moment. In addition to Frank's theory, I also incorporate Stanley Fish and Reader Response theory and William James's Principles of Psychology. The reader and the dweller must actively engage with the structure, whether a text or the home, to develop and realize the possibilities of spatial form. Also, William James's ideas about the mind and consciousness influenced Henry James and Virginia Woolf, especially in their focus on character, rather than description. I have chosen James's The Turn of the Screw and The Wings of the Dove along with Woolf's To the Lighthouse and The Waves to study with Wright's Prairie and Usonian residences. Each chapter looks at one novel and Wright's corresponding work during approximately the same time period. By connecting literature and architecture, the thesis provides new ways of thinking about the two disciplines, especially concerning interiority and consciousness. James, Woolf, and Wright are all experimenting with time and space to create a unified experience, and the striking parallels between their work deserves more attention.
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Date Issued
2006
Identifier
CFE0001280, ucf:46925
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001280
'NO HOME HERE': FEMALE SPACE AND THE MODERNIST AESTHETIC IN NELLA LARSEN'S QUICKSAND AND SYLVIA PLATH'S THE BELL JAR
Title
'NO HOME HERE': FEMALE SPACE AND THE MODERNIST AESTHETIC IN NELLA LARSEN'S QUICKSAND AND SYLVIA PLATH'S THE BELL JAR.
Creator
Cherinka, Julianna N, Mathes, Carmen Faye, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
In her 1929 essay "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf famously asserts that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction" (4). This concept places an immediate importance on the role of the Modernist female subject as an artist and as an architect, constructing the places and spaces that she exists within. With Woolf's argument as its point of departure, this thesis investigates the theme of female space in two Modernist texts: Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928)...
Show moreIn her 1929 essay "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf famously asserts that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction" (4). This concept places an immediate importance on the role of the Modernist female subject as an artist and as an architect, constructing the places and spaces that she exists within. With Woolf's argument as its point of departure, this thesis investigates the theme of female space in two Modernist texts: Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928) and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963). The respective protagonists of Quicksand and The Bell Jar, Helga Crane and Esther Greenwood, each undertake journeys to obtain spaces that are purely their own. However, this thesis positions each space that Helga and Esther occupy as both male-constructed and male-dominated in order to address the inherent gendering of space and its impact on the development of feminine identities. This thesis focuses specifically on the roles of the mother, the muse, and the female mentor, tracking the spaces in which Helga and Esther begin to adhere to these roles. Expanding on Lauren Berlant's theory of cruel optimism, this thesis will use the term "cruel femininity" to support its intervening claim that the respective relationships that Helga and Esther each have with their own feminine identities begin to turn cruel as they internalize the male-dominated spatial structures surrounding them. Overall, this thesis argues that there is no space in existence where Helga and Esther can realize their full potential as human beings, as long as the spatial structures within their communities continue to be controlled by hegemonic, patriarchal beliefs.
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Date Issued
2018
Identifier
CFH2000412, ucf:45708
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000412
"BUT THIS IS WHAT I SEE; THIS IS WHAT I SEE": RE-IMAGINING GENDERED SUBJECTIVITY THROUGH THE WOMAN ARTIST IN PHELPS, JOHNSTONE, AND WOOLF
Title
"BUT THIS IS WHAT I SEE; THIS IS WHAT I SEE": RE-IMAGINING GENDERED SUBJECTIVITY THROUGH THE WOMAN ARTIST IN PHELPS, JOHNSTONE, AND WOOLF.
Creator
Wayne, Heather, Jones, Anna, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Since the publication of Laura MulveyÂÂ's influential article ÂÂ"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,ÂÂ" in which she identifies the pervasive presence of the male gaze in Hollywood cinema, scholars have sought to account for the female spectator in her paradigm of gendered vision. This thesis suggests that women writers have long debated the problem of the female spectator through literary depictions of the female artist. Women...
Show moreSince the publication of Laura MulveyÂÂ's influential article ÂÂ"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,ÂÂ" in which she identifies the pervasive presence of the male gaze in Hollywood cinema, scholars have sought to account for the female spectator in her paradigm of gendered vision. This thesis suggests that women writers have long debated the problem of the female spectator through literary depictions of the female artist. Women writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuriesÂÂ--including Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edith Johnstone, and Virginia WoolfÂÂ--recognized the power of the woman artist to undermine the trope of the male gazing subject and a passive female object. Examining PhelpsÂÂ's The Story of Avis (1877), JohnstoneÂÂ's A Sunless Heart (1894), and WoolfÂÂ's To the Lighthouse (1927) illustrates how the woman artistÂÂ's active vision disrupts MulveyÂÂ's ÂÂ"active/male and passive/femaleÂÂ" binary of vision. PhelpsÂÂ's painter-heroine Avis destabilizes the power of the male gaze not only by exerting her own vision, but also by acting as an active object to manipulate the way she is seen. Johnstone uses artist Gasparine to demonstrate the dangers of vision shaped by either aesthetic or political conventions, suggesting that even feminist idealism can promote the objectification of its heroines. Finally, Woolf redefines the terms of objectification through painter Lily Briscoe, whose vision imbues material objects with subjectivity, thereby going beyond the boundaries between male and female to blur the distinction between subject and object. Through their novels, Phelps, Johnstone, and Woolf suggest that depictions of human experience need to be radically re-thought in order to adequately represent the complexity of subjectivity.
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Date Issued
2010
Identifier
CFE0003291, ucf:48491
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003291