Thesis (M.A.)--Creighton University, 2008. / Bluebrary (DSpace). Title from title page (viewed Mar. 8, 2010). Abstract. "Works cited": leaves 61-63.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 1997. Graduate Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-188). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL:http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ27368.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisors: Mary Jean Pfaelzer and Peter X. Feng, Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references.

In my thesis I look at adopted characters in nine nineteenth-century works: Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's Aurora Leigh, George Eliot's Silas Marner, Rudyard Kipling's Kim, and both Bleak House and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. From these works we see that the figure of the adopted child both destabilizes and expands the Victorian concept of the family, a concept which the literature of the time was often concerned to reinforce. Since adoption implies the injection of a foreign element into the fabric of family life, it serves to underline the fragility of blood-ties. In this sense, the adopted child functions as a figure of subversion and instability within the heart of the family. But because adoption also implies a looser acceptance of what family means, it may serve to expand the definition of kinship. The tension between these two ideas is dealt with in my thesis. No two novels treat adoption in the same way and the possibilities for adoptive relationships are endless, with potential for good and bad relationships, allegory and realism, expansion and deconstruction of the family. / 150 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2008. / Title from title screen (viewed 29 Apr. 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of English, Faculty of Arts. Degree awarded 2008; thesis submitted 2007. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.