by Zhi-Quan Luo and Paul Tseng. / Cover title. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 31-34). / Research partially supported by the U.S. Army Research Office (Center for Intelligent Control Systems) DAAL03-86-K-0171 Research partially supported by the National Science Foundation. NSF-ECS-8519058 Research partially supported by the Science and Engineering Research Board of McMaster University.

The thesis examines the history of the MPR between 1924 and 1928, establishes a chronology of events and identifies the personalities involved. It describes the creation of political structures after Soviet models; the transfer of the Mongolian economy from the Chinese to the Soviet system; the growth of secular education; and the attempt to subject the organization and economic power of the Buddhist church to state control. These developments were strongly influenced by the Mongols' desire to remain independent of China and to assume the form and characteristics of powerful nation-states. However the heavy demands of allegiance to the USSR and the Comintern distorted native aspirations and compelled Mongols to give up ideas of Pan-Mongolism, Buddhist reform and an independent foreign policy. Until the end of 1926 modernization and the integration of the MPR into the Soviet system was gradual but from 1927 the Comintern ordered stricter measures of class discrimination, harsher religious policies and a more rapid construction of state capitalism. Some Mongolian leaders believed the demands unsuitable to Mongolian conditions. The Comintern fomented differences among the leadership and in 1928 most former MPRP leaders were ousted on the charge of Right Deviation. The USSR's deteriorating foreign relationships and Stalin's plan for the rapid industrialization of the USSR were root causes of this development. Unquestioning loyalty of the MPR to the USSR was required for strategic reasons. Cooperative and state forms of capitalism would facilitate the transfer of more Mongolian products to the Siberian industries. The thesis draws the conclusion that the MPRP submitted to Comintern demands in 1928 through conviction, coercion and because there was no alternative ally prepared to guarantee Mongolian independence. It also points to the experience of the MPR as a suitable development model for nomadic, pre-industrial societies. The MPR may also be compared with other states traditionally linked with China but now closely associated with the USSR.

Joseph Conrad's Nostromo is extremely complex in materials, methods, and attitudes towards life, and so is open to a number of approaches and interpretations. This paper, which is the result of an effort to see the novel as a self-contained literary form, is based on the judgment that, although the book has strong strains of realism and romance, it is essentially ironic both in its form and in the view of life which it embodies, as the terms "irony" and "ironic" are used by Northrop Frye in his Anatomy of Criticism. The paper undertakes to demonstrate some of the uses of plot and point of view in giving form to an ironic view of life. The study considers the form for its own sake as an artistic composition as well as its function in embodying an attitude towards life, insofar as these two aspects of form can be usefully separated. Certain lines in the plot-structure are traced throughout the book, but most of the paper consists of the analysis of a number of selected scenic passages considered as independent structures. This analysis is concerned with the function of the scenes as episodes in the plot, the technical methods covered by the concept of point of view and their effects, and the total effect of the scene. The paper deals primarily with the five characters: Mrs. Gould, Charles Gould, Nostromo, Decoud, and Dr. Monygham. It considers each of them as a protagonist in a line of the complex plot, and considers the treatment of each one in relation to the control of distance by means of the techniques of point of view. Mrs. Gould, whose story contains strains of both romance and irony, struggles to maintain her belief in the private values of love and compassion and in the traditional public values of integrity and reason. Each of the four men is engaged in a struggle to achieve or maintain a sense of his own value. The paper interprets this struggle in terms of the formation and transformation of identity in relation to symbols of authority, both private symbols such as parental figures and public symbols such as social class and country. The essential irony of the plot lies in two factors. The symbols of authority are either inadequate or corrupt, and the sense of one's own identity is an illusion, a belief with no objective basis. It is a psychic necessity, but it leads to self-deception and is frequently destructive. Nostromo's story, which combines strains of satire and romance, leads to a resolution full of ironic qualifications, but suggesting the triumph of the romantic egoist who rejects all symbols of authority. The handling of point of view is extremely flexible both in its use of implicated narrators and observers and in the variety of relationships between the impersonal narrator and his material. The fluidity in the handling of point of view has an aesthetic value and is also functional in presenting an ironic view of life. The use of implicated narrators emphasizes the discrepancies resulting from the insurmountable limitations of man's knowledge either of himself or of other people, and suggests that there is no ultimate truth within which these discrepancies may be reconciled. The control of distance also has ironic implications. The paper analyzes some of the technical factors in the control of distance, and finds that there is no really sustained attitude towards any of the chief male characters. The effects range from satire to tragic irony. The shifting distance is functional in creating an image of a world in which unequivocal judgments are impossible and in which, as Conrad said, "The comic and the tragic jostle each other at every step." Nostromo is an example on a vast scale of literature in the ironic mode, defined by Frye as "an attempt to give form to the shifting ambiguities and complexities of unidealized life." The working out of the complex plot and the remarkable fluidity in the handling of point of view dramatize these ambiguities and complexities but they do so in a way which helps to create artistic order from the materials of chaos. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Tragedy and comedy are, in Conrad's phrase, "but a matter of the visual angle." Tragedy focusses on the individual, comedy on the human community, but each must partake of the other for completion. The aesthetic form of a work of literature represents an order which prevails against the chaos of events, producing in the reader a tension between aloofness and involvement. Conrad's failure to find a technique capable of fully achieving this tension caused his early works to fall short of rendering a tragic vision, but his discovery of the possibilities inherent in the use of a narrator allowed his fiction from The Nigger of the "Narcissus" to Lord Jim to transcend his earlier limitations. By the time he wrote Under Western Eyes, Conrad no longer needed a narrator such as Marlow to achieve distance and was able to utilize his narrator in other ways. In doing so, he was able to create a more traditional tragedy. Almayer's Folly, the most successful of the "Maylayan" novels, presents Almayer’s tragedy as ironic comedy, and only occasionally falls into the cynicism to which its pessimistic philosophy is prey. An Outcast of the Islands. however, despite advances in characterization and plot development, is too overtly and discursively philosophical to succeed. And The Rescue, with its romantically tragic philosophy and tone, proved to be a cul-de-sac. Breaking off from work on The Rescue. Conrad found, in his experience as a seaman and in the employment of a narrator, means of liberation that allowed him to write an almost wholly positive work, a comedy of salvation through communal effort. The somewhat inconsistently used narrator allows the reader to comprehend both the decadent influence of Wait, the "nigger", and the benign influence of Singleton, who "steered with care," without losing sight of the tale as aesthetic work. Marlow, narrator of "Heart of Darkness" and Lord Jim, performs somewhat the same function, but is technically consistent and stands in a much more complex relation to the story. "Heart of Darkness" provides the tragic point of view to complement The Nigger's comedy. Lord Jim represents Conrad's first achievement of a sustained tragic vision, yet it is not a tragedy; its center is divided between Jim's tragic experience and Marlow's tragic awareness. The complex narrative method allows the reader to participate in Marlow's search for understanding through recognition of Jim as "one of us. " An image is created which has the sculptural quality of lacking inherent point of view, but which is never completely sharpened. Jim is important to Marlow for the romantic illusion to which he is true and which seems to offer a possibility of finding dignity. Stein's butterflies symbolize this dream, while his beetles symbolize the counter-illusion of the realists like Brown. Marlow, aware of the illusory nature of both, seeks an integrated vision. The language teacher of Under Western Eyes is used differently from Marlow. He is ironically presented as an impartial recorder of events, helping to clarify the political differences but human similarities between Russia and the West. Razumov is unlike Jim in that he starts from a "realistic" illusion of worldly success and is brought by circumstances to a vision of human contact, a radical transformation, and one of which he is fully aware. The novel is a tragedy in the conventional sense and is a profound treatment of the relation between a man and his society, yet, despite such effective techniques as the use of Christian allusions to establish a shared set of values, it lacks the richness of Lord Jim. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Master of Science

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1931 A41

This thesis explains that the development of the law of the carriage of goods by sea has led to the appearance of the Hague, Hague-Visby and Hamburg Rules. The existence of these different conventions plainly contributes to the breakdown of uniformity. The thesis, nevertheless, argues that international uniformity is still valuable since it reduces the legal costs significantly. However, many conflicts arise among the various countries in interpreting these conventions. Such conflicts lead to uncertainty and unpredictability, and in consequence, to the increase of legal costs. In proving the latter, the thesis examines and evaluates the conflicts of interpretations of these conventions brought on by containerisation. The thesis proves the inadequacy of various propositions on the question of how to avoid such conflicts. It argues, however, that the failure to consider foreign decisions is a significant factor of having such conflicts. In proving the latter, the thesis provides a comparative study in evaluating various courts' decisions that relate to containerisation. The thesis, however, evaluates different measures to achieve international uniform interpretations. Most of these measures are not completely satisfactory solutions to such achievement. Accordingly, the thesis examines the obstacles that may face the applicability of comparative law in practice, and the capability of avoiding these obstacles. The thesis also offers various observations in relation to how the national courts shall consider comparative law. The key point is that the divergence that characterised the interpretation of the existing conventions will reappear unless there is some obligation on national courts to consider and apply comparative law. The thesis therefore proposes that any future convention relating to the law of carriage of goods by sea shall specify that the national courts of every contracting state shall refer to the decisions of the other contracting states when dealing with questions of interpretation.