Teilw. zugl.: @Habil.-Schr. / Literaturverz. S. [211] - 232.

This dissertation seeks to explore the perceived intricate relationship that exists between constructed identity, discrimination and violence as portrayed in Bessie Head's trilogy from varying perspectives, including aspects of postcoloniality, materialist feminism and liminality. Starting with a background to some of the origins of racial hybridity in Southern Africa, it looks at how racial identity has subsequently influenced the course of Southern African history and thereafter explores historical and biographical information deemed relevant to an understanding of the dissertation. Critical explorations of each text in the trilogy follow, in which the apparent affinities that exist between identity, discrimination and violence are analysed and displayed. In conclusion the trilogy is discussed from a largely sociological perspective of hope in a utopian society. / English Studies / M.A.(English)

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-91) / My thesis focuses on the representation of marginalized voices and trauma in the selected fiction of Tsitsi Dangarembga and Yvonne Vera. I analyze three novels written by the Yvonne Vera—Without a Name (1994), Under the Tongue(1996) and The Stone Virgins(2002) set during the Zimbabwe liberation struggle period and postcolonial Zimbabwe dissident era respectively and Nervous Conditions(1988) and its sequel, The Book of Not (1996), by Dangarembga set during the 1960s to 1970s colonial Rhodesia period (the colonial name for Zimbabwe) and during the period of white‐minority rule in Rhodesia to the attainment of independence in 1980. I analyze these novels from the feminist/womanist, gender and postcolonial literary models. The rational for grouping these theoretical models in the analysis in this thesis is that they commonly highlight from a gender perspective the complex factors which oppress and marginalize women in the colonial and postcolonial contexts in which the two authors set their writings. These literary paradigms highlight the oppression of women from an African perspective and all acknowledge the need to address all factors which oppress and subordinate women (gender, race, class) if total emancipation for them is to be achieved. I also posit that Vera and Dangarembga offer discourses that challenge the silencing of narratives of oppression and violation in their novels selected for analysis in this thesis. The thesis has five chapters. In Chapter 1, I set out the argument of the thesis and give a brief history of gendered colonialism and the historical period which provides a setting for the fiction of the two authors. Next, I describe the conceptual framework I will use in analyzing the works of the two postcolonial Zimbabwe female writers. Then I will outline the research questions and hypothesis and expose the research methodology and approach that will serve as my vehicle for data collection, analysis and interpretation. In Chapter 2, I will focus on gender, class and race and discuss the ways Dangarembga explores these factors in Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not. I will also discuss innovate ways women explore to champion their freedom and voice in the fiction of Dangarembga. Chapter 3 focuses on the novels of Yvonne Vera— Without a Name, Under the Tongue and The stone Virgins —which articulate narratives of violated subjects and silenced voices. I will discuss the ways Vera explores to show how narratives of violated subjects are silenced by patriarchy, colonialism and masculine narratives of nationalism in these novels. Chapter 4 focuses on narratives of trauma. Using theories of trauma, I will analyze Without a Name, Under the Tongue and The Stone Virgins by Vera and show how these narratives articulate colonial and postcolonial trauma and female child trauma. I will also discuss The Book of Not by Dangarembga and show how the novel articulates colonial and racial trauma. My discussion of the novels of Vera and Dangarembga in this chapter will show that these novels work out traumatic experiences in the colonial and postcolonial eras and will also reveal the challenges of representing tra / English Studies / M.A. (English)

(in English): The aim of this work is to analyse selected short stories of the Argentinian writer Silvina Ocampo, which combines the element of violence, cruelty and crime. The work is focused on the original elements of fantastic, which are often referred to as "fantastic everyday life" and puts it in connection with the motive of violence and the presence of crime. In the introduction, it summarizes the author's work and outlines the concept of modern fantasy and its difference from the traditional form. It briefly introduces the concepts of violence and cruelty from the perspective of literature, philosophy and psychology. The short stories selected for analysis are based on the short story sets Viaje olvidado, Autobiografía de Irene, La furia and Las invitadas. A detailed analysis of short stories aims to examine the motive for violence in relation to fantasy and childhood elements. It examines child characters, perpetrators and victims of violence, which takes place in a fantastic setting. In the end, it compares the tools of fantasy construction such as metamorphosis, duality or elements of irony.

The Western settlement era is only one part of United States national history, but for many Americans it remains the most significant cultural influence. Conversely, the settlement of Canada's western territory is generally treated as a significant phase of national development, but not the defining phase. Because both nations view the frontier experience differently, they also have distinct perceptions of the role violence played in the settlement process, distinctions reflected in the historical record, literature, and films of each country. This study will look at the historical evidence and works of the imagination for both the American and Canadian frontier experience, focusing on the years between 1870 and 1930, and will examine the part that violence played in the development of each national character. The discussion will also illustrate the difference between the historical reality and the mythic version portrayed in popular literature and films by demonstrating the effects of the depiction of violence on the perception of American and Canadian history.

It is widely accepted that description was used by eighteenth-century writers for the purposes of documentary or ornamentalization. That it was also used to manage the emotions of readers is less often discussed. “Dispassionate Descriptions” corrects this imbalance by attending to the ways in which descriptions in certain scientific and poetic works from the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries were used to dampen the intense emotions that scenes of violence and death tend to inspire, be they sympathy, anger, or love. Writers ranging from William Harvey to James Thomson to John Gabriel Stedman, I argue, taught their readers how to remain dispassionate in the face of suffering and injustice by describing moving bodies and scenes in terms of their physical features alone. By presenting the blood spurting from the wounds of vivisected animals in relation to the regular beat of the heart, a drowning cat in terms of the movements of its head and paws, and the dance of enslaved persons in terms of its irregular beat, the writers I study demonstrated how the disorderly movements of pain or rebellion could be read as expressive of overarching classificatory schemes. Through cultivating dispassion for movements commonly thought to incite passionate responses, these writers worked to maintain the ethical and political status quo. By examining the emotional work descriptions of motion do, “Dispassionate Descriptions” traces an alternative history of how motion from the 1660s to the 1790s was understood outside of the predominant frameworks of mechanism and vitalism. While motion was regarded as inextricable from the literary and scientific discourses of this period, scenes of motion, as I demonstrate, were paradoxically also thought to facilitate emotional retreat. They were thus used by writers to advance a mode of ethics that prized non-interference and the disavowal of moral responsibility.

This dissertation examines the role of "acceptable" feminine violence in Restoration and eighteenth-century drama and fiction. Scenes such as Lady Davers's physical assault on Pamela in Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) have understandably troubled recent scholars of gender and literature. But critics, for the most part, have been more inclined to discuss women as victims of violence than as agents of violence. I argue that women in the Restoration and eighteenth century often used violence in order to maintain social boundaries, particularly sexual and economic ones, and that writers of the period drew upon this tradition of acceptable feminine violence in order to create the figure of the violent woman as a necessary agent of social control. One such figure is Violenta, the heroine of Delarivier Manley's novella The Wife's Resentment (1720), who murders and dismembers her bigamous husband. At her trial, Violenta is condemned to death "notwithstanding the Pity of the People" and "the Intercession of the Ladies," who believe that although the "unexampled Cruelty [Violenta] committed afterwards on the dead Body" was excessive, the murder itself is not inexcusable given her husband's bigamy. My research draws upon diverse archival materials, such as conduct manuals, criminal biographies, and legal records, in order to provide a contextual grounding for the interpretation of literary works by women. Moving between contemporary accounts of feminine violence and discussions of pertinent literary works by Eliza Haywood, Susanna Centlivre, Delarivier Manley, Aphra Behn, Mary Pix, and Jane Wiseman, the dissertation examines issues of interpersonal violence and communal violence committed by women.

Este presente trabalho visa a analisar, sob a ótica da Literatura Comparada, a temática da violência em obras de literatura infantil e juvenil. Além da teoria literária comparativista, usaremos também as teorias de discurso e dialogismo bakhtinianas e o conceito de prática social, apresentada na obra do lingüista Izidoro Blikstein. Nosso objetivo primordial é observar como a prática social, ou práxis, influencia o tratamento do tema da violência em obras de literatura infantil e juvenil. A escolha do tema de pesquisa se deu em função da crescente discussão sobre a presença de elementos violentos nos meios de entretenimento e arte infantis. Na escolha do corpus, procuramos abranger épocas diferentes, para que fosse possível analisar como a práxis de cada período influencia o tratamento temático nos textos infantis e juvenis. Assim, do século XIX, temos Sofia, a desastrada e Meninas Exemplares, da Condessa de Ségur. Do século XX, selecionamos Sangue Fresco, de João Carlos Marinho e do século XXI, De Mãos Atadas, de Álvaro Cardoso Gomes. / This present paper will analyze, through the Comparative Literature theory, the violence theme on childrens and young peoples books. In addition to the comparative literary theory, we will use the bakhtinian theories of discourse and dialogism, and the social practice concept, introduced by the linguist Izidoro Blikstein as well. Our main objective is to observe how the social practice, also known as praxis influences the violence theme on children´s and young peoples books. The choice of the project theme was made due to the crescent discussion regarding the presence of violence in children´s means of entertainment and art. As we chose the corpus, we intended to embrace different periods, so it would be possible to analyze how the praxis of each time influences the theme treatment on children´s and young peoples literature. Thereby, from de 19th century, we have Sofia, a desastrada and Meninas Exemplares, by the Comtesse du Ségur. Representing the 20th century we chose Sangue Fresco, by João Carlos Marinho and from our 21st century, we have De Mãos Atadas, by Álvaro Cardoso Gomes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

This research provides an analytical reading of five southern African war novels, in a transnational study of the experience of war as represented by the novels' authors. In order to situate the texts within a transnational tradition of writing about modern warfare, I draw on Paul Fussell's work on the fictional writings of the Second World War in combination with Tobey Herzog's work on the writings of America's war in Vietnam. Through a reading of Sousa Jamba's Patriots and Mark Behr's The Smell of Apples. I illustrate that while these and other southern African war texts can be situated within a transnational tradition of writing about modern warfare, they also extend the tradition by adding new and previously silenced voices. I then turn to a focus on specific experiences of southern African anti-colonial war as represented in Pepetela's Mayombe and Mark Behr's The Smell of Apples. These texts are read in light of Franz Fanon's extensive writings on the nature of colonial violence and with a focus on the role of the victim and perpetrator in violent resistance to colonial oppression. Following this, and keeping with my examination of the experience of war in southern Africa, I read Pepetela's Mayombe. Sousa Jamba's Patriots and Chenjerai Hove's Bones with a view to highlighting their writing of women in times of war. Using the work of Florence Stratton, this section exposes the great difficulties faced by women in times of war as a result of war's complicity in the maintenance of patriarchal societal structures. Finally, I read Chenjerai Hove's Bones and Mia Couto's Under the Frangipani as post-war texts so as to highlight the authors' use of organic images to imagine post-war futures that are not tainted by the experience of war. In examining this topic, I aim to suggest that all of the texts studied show war to be a continuum that results in failed societies. I therefore read the texts as active interventions that seek to break the destructive cycle of the region's wars in the hope of better and constructive futures. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.