In the course of this dissertation, I will interrogate traditional representations of the heroic figure within the fantasy genre. I will argue that the tropes established by some of the most renowned fantasy texts are undergoing a process of evolution and that Steven Erikson (who is the special focus of my discussion) seeks to revision the heroic mould through his construction of Coltaine of the Crow Clan in Deadhouse Gates (2001). Deadhouse Gates centres on Coltaine, who is tasked with escorting tens of thousands of refugees across four hundred leagues of hostile territory. This re-evaluation of fantasy modes has significant ramifications for the future development of the genre as a whole. In order to explore how Erikson interrogates heroic representation, I briefly establish some of the distinctive characteristics of fantasy. I then explore how some major fantasy texts represent heroism, before investigating Erikson’s particular response to these traditions. / English Studies / M. A. (English)

[pt] Traição, infidelidade e adultério são temas que geram até hoje diversas reações e opiniões nas pessoas. Em diferentes momentos históricos e culturais podemos dizer que o ser humano vivenciou as três situações de formas diversas. Por ora foram socialmente aceitos, e em outros momentos, punidos e vistos como pecado. Mas existe um consenso com relação à reação frente à descoberta de uma traição, que é o fato de ser geradora de muito sofrimento, decepção e de um sentimento de condenação por parte de quem a descobre. Com o advento da Internet, surgem os relacionamentos virtuais e, por conseguinte, novas facetas começam a ser reveladas com relação à infidelidade. A comunidade virtual Orkut serviu de pano de fundo para este trabalho, pois lá existe uma liberdade de acesso por parte dos seus membros às informações pessoais, fotos e mensagens que são trocadas. A possibilidade de visualização de conteúdos que possam denunciar a infidelidade ou a traição por parte de alguém é muito grande. Desta maneira, o presente trabalho teve como objetivo principal investigar os principais sentimentos e opiniões dos usuários do Orkut a respeito da infidelidade online. Foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa com dez sujeitos, usuários do Orkut, através de entrevistas online. Quinze depoimentos da comunidade Eu descobri pelo Orkut também foram analisados. Os resultados revelaram principalmente que a troca de mensagens mais ardentes, carinhosas ou ilícitas pelo Orkut é considerada como traição pelos sujeitos, assim como a visualização de fotos de outros homens e mulheres. / [en] Betrayal, infidelity and adultery are subjects that cause several reactions and opinions on people, until today. In different historical and cultural moments, we can say that the human being lived those situations differently. For the time being, they were socially accepted, and in other moments, punished and seen as sins. But there is a consensus in relation to the reaction of people facing the discovery of a betrayal, which causes a lot of pain, deception and a feeling of censure from those who find it out. With the happening of Internet, virtual relationships emerge, therefore, new strategies start being revealed in relation of infidelity. The virtual community Orkut, performed as a background for this project, because there is a freedom of access, on the behalf of the users, to personal information, pictures and messages which are swapped. The possibility to visualize the contents that may denounce the infidelity or betrayal of someone is huge. Thereby, this project had as its main goal, to investigate the main feelings and opinions from users of Orkut, about infidelity online. A quality research was performed with ten users through interviews online. Fifteen testimonials from the community Eu descobri pelo Orkut were also analyzed. The results mainly revealed that the swap of spicy, tender or illicit messages by Orkut, are considered betrayal, such as to visualize pictures from other men or women.

[pt] Esta dissertação tem como objetivo proceder a uma análise do livro O evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo, de José Saramago, romancista português contemporâneo, destacando a trajetória trágica e edípica da personagem central. Entendendo a obra de Saramago como um bildungsroman, que traz como principal tema o conflito de Jesus com a figura paterna, estabelece-se a comparação da trajetória deste herói mítico contemporâneo com o percurso de mítico de Édipo, o herói da tragédia sofocliana. Além disso, o trabalho procura destacar algumas características representativas do romance saramaguiano, como a utilização da paródia, da ironia e do intertexto para elaboração da dessacralização do discurso religioso. / [en] This work aims at analyzing the book The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, written by José Saramago, a Portuguese contemporary novelist. It emphasizes the tragic path of the central character and its similarity to the Oedipus trajectory. The novel is understood like a bildungsroman that brings as its principal theme Jesus conflict with his Father. The path of this contemporary mythical hero is then compared with Oedipus course, Sophocles tragedy hero. The essay also attempts to stress some representative features of Saramago´s novel, such as the use of parody, irony and inner text to desconstruct religious speech.

Bad Paper follows the lives of former military service members, who have received an other-than-honorable discharge, but also have service-connected post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Due to the "suck it up" culture of the military, many of these veterans would not report any psychological troubles in fear of being labeled "weak" and potentially affecting their promotions. With no outlet for their PTSD, drugs and alcohol became a way of "self-medicating," which led to their dismissal from the service. A dishonorable discharge, commonly called "bad paper," from the military disqualifies veterans from receiving help from the VA. The process to overturn this status is arduous and veterans must navigate the bureaucracy of the Veterans Affairs (VA) administration as well as the individual military branches with virtually no help from either.

[pt] Proponho um atravessamento entre rastros do pensamento de Jacques Derrida, sobretudo quanto à tradução, ao subjétil e à alteridade, no intuito de criar possíveis tensões entre Filosofia e Dança, reafirmando, ao mesmo tempo, o gesto da traição incondicional da desconstrução. A noção de traição no pensamento derridiano aparece como uma im-propriedade de todo texto em seu processo irredutível de forçamento de sentido em alteridade. Tal concepção abre uma brecha para se pensar a cena da escritura como uma travessura de atravessamento entre textos, uma passividade incondicional de passagem ao Outro – a qual, para Derrida, é o sentido radical da tradução. Nessa perspectiva, interessa discutir como a desconstrução no seu movimento de manutenção da tensão da diferença pode impulsionar uma arrombadora disseminação do pensamento que não se deixa reduzir ao uno, a identidade de um uno, e seus mecanismos de exclusão e denegação do Outro. Para tanto, assumo uma tessitura errante e, incondicionalmente, inconclusa entre textos de Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, Antonin Artaud, Homi Bhabha, Freud entre outros autores que contribuem no processo de inscrição do pensamento na pulsão do para além. Essa tessitura não busca reafirmar o que eles disseram ou se referiram ou, ainda, escrever como eles ou a respeito deles, mas inscrever diretamente neles, ou melhor, naquilo que se chama eles, subject, it, il. A proposta se mune do processo de sobreposição, altercação, impregnação e operação cirúrgica sobre a indecidível pele que atravessa autores-textos lançando-os às margens da desconstrução. Sobre as margens, a Filosofia e seus homens – dignos de nome – podem também dançar as avessas, num gesto duplo e não-dialético de contaminação e perturbação entre Dança e Filosofia, afirmando a fronteira como uma força de tensão e crise. / [en] What I propose is a crossing between traces of thought expressed by Jacques Derrida, with particular emphasis on translation, subjectile and otherness in order to create potential tensions between Philosophy and Dance, whilst at the same time reaffirming the gesture of unconditional betrayal of deconstruction. The notion of betrayal in Derridian thought appears as a no-ownership of all text in their irreducible process of a forcing of the sense in otherness. Such a conception opens up some incongruity for considering the scene from the writing as a mischievous crossing between the texts, an unconditional passivity within passage to the Other - which, for Derrida, is the radical sense of translation. From this perspective, it is interesting to discuss how the deconstruction movement in its upkeep of tension of difference can force a dissemination of thought that cannot be reduced to one, the identity of a unity, and its mechanisms of exclusion and denial of the Other. For that purpose, I assume an erring tessitura, and unconditionally, incomplete inter-texts of Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, Antonin Artaud, Homi Bhabha, Freud among other authors that contribute to the inscription process of thought on the drive towards beyond. This idea does not look to reaffirm what they said or reported, or even have respect for them or desire to write like them, instead, inscribe them directly, in what is called they, subject, it, il. The proposal is a process overlap, altercation, impregnation and surgical operation on the skin that crosses authors-texts, throwing them on the deconstruction borders. On the borders, Philosophy and its men can also dance inside out, into double and non-dialectical gesture of contamination and disturbance between Dance and Philosophy, affirming the difference as a power of tension and crisis.

Abstract Humanizing brands is an essential domain of current branding as it enhances the visibility of a brand by connecting consumers to the brand, thus contributing to strong brand equity. The term humanize used in this dissertation is not limited to brands with anthropomorphic characters, such as the M&M’s characters. Used in this context, the term also includes the ways in which consumers attribute a brand to be “close to me,” “like me,” and a “partner.” Although the research of customer-based brand equity has been well-documented over the past twenty-five years, limited attention has been given to examining the differential effect of brand favorability in forming a self-brand connection. Even more scarce are studies on the antecedents and indicators of brand betrayal. Further, up-to-date research is mostly silent as to whether temporal focus and temporal distance influence a brand’s ability to serve as a means of reflecting the consumer’s selves. To fill up these research gaps, this dissertation reports four research articles. More than two thousand samples were collected from Finland, India, and the US to examine the conceptual frameworks. First, this dissertation contributes to the literature on self-brand connection by articulating the effect of self-presentation by brand on self-brand connection. Second, it contributes to the literature of self-congruence, seen from the temporal perspective. Third, it adds to the brand betrayal literature by examining consumer anthropomorphize tendency and actual high-arousal positive states as the antecedents. It further explains the indicators of brand betrayal, consisting of failure severity and inferred negative motive. In term of managerial implications, the findings contribute to (1) the one-on-one marketing approach to branding, (2) incorporating consumer’s selves into branding considerations, and (3) assessing brand betrayal in a negative brand relationship. / Tiivistelmä Brändien inhimillistäminen on keskeinen alue vallitsevassa brändien tutkimuksessa, sillä inhimillistämällä lisätään brändin näkyvyyttä kytkemällä kuluttajat brändiin, mikä osaltaan vahvistaa brändipääomaa. Tässä väitöskirjassa käytetty termi inhimillistäminen ei rajoitu vain brändeihin, jotka käyttävät antropomorfisia hahmoja kuten M&M:n hahmot. Tässä yhteydessä termiin sisältyy myös keinoja, joita hyödyntämällä kuluttajat tuntevat brändin olevan ”lähellä minua”, ”kuten minä” ja ”kumppani”. Vaikka asiakaslähtöisen brändipääoman tutkimusta on tehty paljon viimeisen 25 vuoden aikana, vain vähän huomiota on saanut brändien suosimisen vaikutus kuluttajan minän ja brändin välisen yhteyden muodostukseen. Vielä vähemmän tutkimusta on tehty brändien pettämisen syistä ja indikaattoreista. Lisäksi olemassa oleva tutkimus ei ota juurikaan kantaa siihen, vaikuttavatko ajallinen fokus ja ajallinen etäisyys brändin kykyyn heijastaa kuluttajien minää. Näiden tutkimusaukkojen täyttämiseksi väitöskirja esittelee neljän tutkimusartikkelin tuloksia. Käsitteellisten viitekehysten testaamista varten kerättiin yli 2 000 vastaajan aineisto kolmesta eri maasta. Ensinnäkin, tämä väitöskirja edistää kuluttajan minä-brändisuhteeseen liittyvää tutkimusta kuvaamalla brändin itse-presentaation vaikutusta minä-brändisuhteeseen. Toiseksi, tämä väitöskirja kontribuoi minä-kongruenssiin liittyvään kirjallisuuteen ajallisesta näkökulmasta tarkasteltuna. Kolmanneksi, tämä väitöskirja edistää brändien pettämiseen liittyvää kirjallisuutta tutkimalla kuluttajan taipumusta antropomorfisointiin ja toteutuneita korkean innostuneisuuden tiloja. Tutkimus myös selittää brändien pettämisen indikaattoreita, jotka koostuvat epäonnistumisen vakavuudesta ja brändin negatiivisesta motiivista. Liikkeenjohdollisina päätelminä tulokset ehdottavat (1) yhdeltä yhdelle markkinointia brändäykseen, (2) kuluttajan minän sisällyttämistä brändäyskysymyksiin, ja (3) brändin pettämisen arviointia negatiivisessa brändisuhteessa.

In the course of this dissertation, I will interrogate traditional representations of the heroic figure within the fantasy genre. I will argue that the tropes established by some of the most renowned fantasy texts are undergoing a process of evolution and that Steven Erikson (who is the special focus of my discussion) seeks to revision the heroic mould through his construction of Coltaine of the Crow Clan in Deadhouse Gates (2001). Deadhouse Gates centres on Coltaine, who is tasked with escorting tens of thousands of refugees across four hundred leagues of hostile territory. This re-evaluation of fantasy modes has significant ramifications for the future development of the genre as a whole. In order to explore how Erikson interrogates heroic representation, I briefly establish some of the distinctive characteristics of fantasy. I then explore how some major fantasy texts represent heroism, before investigating Erikson’s particular response to these traditions. / English Studies / M. A. (English)

Ce mémoire de maîtrise en recherche et création explore les modalités d’une structure narrative déclinée en plusieurs points de vue singuliers qui multiplient les aléas du sentiment de trahison, lorsqu’il s’éprouve, pour un sujet, dans l’affect. Il explore en outre la relation de transmission et interroge cet acte lorsqu’il met en relation un adulte qui donne à saisir de lui-même tout ce qui permet à un enfant de se construire. Dans la partie création de mon mémoire, le « roman » Promesses et trahisons met en scène la rencontre d’un maître de musique avec son jeune élève. Nous découvrons les succès et les revers de cette relation exclusive par le biais de trois interprétations différentes. À la confession de l’élève, devenu homme et qui se souvient, succède le journal intime du maître, tel un document d’archives retrouvé et divulgué. Un autre point de vue complètera le récit sous la forme d’une lettre signée par une tierce personne, précédant un épilogue porteur d’un ultime éclairage. L’ouvrage qui nourrit la partie essai de mon mémoire s’intitule Les Portes du sang. L’auteur, Michel Del Castillo, explore une relation mère-fils (adulte et enfant) à travers quantité de témoignages qu’une narratrice tente d’opposer et de corroborer pour révéler l’insaisissable personnalité de celle qui nourrit chez son fils le sentiment de trahison. Dans les deux cas, on y trouve l’objet d’une quête identitaire dont le mystère perdure. / This Master’s thesis explores the modalities of a narrative structure declined in several singular points of view, which multiplies the variations on the theme of betrayal, when it is felt, for a human being, on the affective level. It also explores the question of transmission in a relationship where an adult allows a child to develop his own personality. In the creative part of my thesis, the « novel » entitled Promesses et trahisons recounts the relation between a music master and his young pupil. The reader discovers the successes and the setbacks in this exclusive relationship through three different points of view. After the confession of the student, who remembers as an adult his past history, we have access to the diary of the master presented as an archival document. Another point of view completes the story in the form of a letter, signed by a third party, before an epilogue, which will shed a final light on the plot. The book that inspired the essay section of my thesis is entitled Les Portes du sang. In it, the author, Michel Del Castillo, explores a mother-son relationship (adult and child) through several testimonials, which in turn a narrator tries to contrast and corroborate in order to reveal the elusive personality of the character responsible for her son’s feeling of betrayal. In both cases, one finds a quest for identity whose mystery persists beyond the text.

These seven stories chronicle the author's apprenticeship as a fiction writer. Four are written in the first-person point of view, two are in a limited third-person, and one is written in third-person objective. The stories vary considerably with respect to character, tone, and setting; however, all may be said to explore the abjection and isolation of growing up in United States.

Bentinho não é um personagem completamente inocente em suas memórias autobiográficas. Apesar de se colocar na posição de vítima, algumas atitudes suas dentro do romance Dom Casmurro, de Machado de Assis, são capazes de acusar o narrador de primeira pessoa de outras coisas além da imagem que pretende fazer de marido traído. Desta forma, este trabalho vai investigar como o personagem, através de sua versão casmurra, sai da posição de acusador para a de réu. Veremos como o personagem, que tem o poder da narrativa nas mãos, ironicamente trai a si mesmo, deixando-se mostrar, mesmo que sem claramente perceber, suas características acusatórias. Assim, encontraremos nele não só um personagem ciumento com toques de loucura, mas também uma pessoa tão dissimulada e manipuladora quanto Capitu, sua namorada e depois esposa a quem julga e condena ao longo do romance. Ser como ela leva Bento ao mesmo destino da moça: a solidão e o exílio que, no caso dele, acontece, em sua própria terra natal. Há ainda um segundo corpus sobre o qual esta análise se debruça: a microssérie Capitu (2008), exibida pela TV Globo em comemoração ao centenário de morte de Machado de Assis. Mostraremos como o trabalho audiovisual dirigido por Luiz Fernando Carvalho levou para a televisão as orientações de Machado de Assis, mantendo o mistério do Bruxo do Cosme Velho. Além disso, a microssérie também traduz em imagens a ideia de que Bentinho é um reflexo, um desdobramento de Capitu. / Bentinho is not a completely innocent character in his autobiographical memories. Despite posicioning himself as victim, some attitudes of him inside the novel Dom Casmurro, written by Machado de Assis, are able to accuse the first-person narrator of other things besides the image of betrayed husband that he wants to show. Thus, this study will investigate how the character, through his cranky old version leaves the accuser position for the defendant. We will see how the character, who has the power of the narrative in his hands, ironically betrays himself, showing, even without clearly see, his accusatory characteristics. Thus, we will find in him, not only a jealous character with some madness, but also a person who is as disingenuous and manipulative as Capitu, his girlfriend, an then, the wife who is judged and sentenced throughout the novel. Being like her, gives Bento the same destination of the girl: loneiness and exile that, in his case, happens in his own homeland. There is a second corpus on which this analysis focuses: the miniseries Capitu (2008), displayed by TV Globo in celebration of the centenary of the death of Machado de Assis. We will show how this audiovisual work directed by Luiz Fernando Carvalho presented on television the Machado de Assis guidelines, keeping the mystery of the Bruxo do Cosme Velho. In addition, the miniseries also translates into images the idea that Bentinho is a reflection, a breakdown of Capitu.