This research examines the relationship between the attitudes of fictional writers and those of society toward American Indians from colonial America to the present. A content analysis was used to validate the hypothesis. In order to show changing attitudes and different schools of thought, this research was arranged into four time periods: "The Ethnocentric Conquerors," "The Ethnocentric Romantics," "The Ethnocentric Acculturationists," and "The Revisionists." The findings demonstrate that there is a close correlation between the attitudes of fictional authors and those of society during a given time period,

Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn contains three character types which serve as models for the protagonists of certain twentieth century writers. The distinguishing characteristics of Tom, Jim, and Huck reappear in the central figures of later American novels, novels dealing explicitly with the relationship between human perception and consequent behavior. The contrasting perceptions of Mark Twain's characters provide his novel with thematic tensions that, in distinct and enlarged forms, become basic interests of major twentieth century writers. The tragedy of fixed perceptions in a world of constant flux concerned William Faulkner in Absalom, Absalom! and F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby. Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March and Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel depict heroes dissatisfied with but undaunted by the limitations of human perceptions. Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye illustrate the evolution to maturity of George Willard and Holden Caulfield. Mark Twain's conscious presentation of three different and conflicting characters creates an appropriate categorization of types which elucidates thematic patterns in later American novels. The triangular conflict of perceptions in Mark Twain's novel can be traced in any number of modern American novels, and the character types defined by Tom Sawyer, Jim, and Huck Finn can be applied to many more works than are considered here. All of the works treated in this paper are novels of initiation; their protagonists are. young men encountering life and confronting America. The fact that these characters are widespread throughout modern literature indicates the seriousness with which the American writer is committed to arriving at an understanding of the power and limitations of human perceptions.

No description available.

There remain two recurring criticisms of John Updike's fiction. The first comes from feminist critics who condemn his negative portrayal of women, accusing his fiction of denigrating women. The second comes from late twentieth century critics who accuse him of avoiding political and historical discussions in his fiction. However, it is my contention that Updike is willing to address both of these concerns, and I arrive at such an argument by carefully analyzing his collection of short stories compiled in Too Far To Go: The Maples Stories. Within these stories, Updike's female characters illustrate the shifting gender paradigms over the course of the fifties, sixties, and seventies amidst the middle-class, suburban American milieu. Updike's women act as agents of history providing testament to the shifting gender paradigms and historical, cultural, political, and social milestones of a maturing country and its growing pains. / by Cindy M. Rosen. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis is a contribution to the ongoing debate over standards of criticism for the novel in Africa. After reviewing the three main approaches, the 'Afro-centric', the 'Euro-centric ' and the 'syncretic', and highlighting their shortcomings, I hope to demonstrate that if the devices of point of view ' are used properly they may provide a valuable tool for a useful reading of the novels. Point of view is seen as a holistic device and not, as Lubbock and others suggest, a question of 'the relationship of the narrator to the story'. The views of Boris Uspensky, Gerard Genette and Susan Lanser on this subject are modified to suit the eclectic and comparative designs of the study. Point of view is thus seen as the means through which a given device operates in a specific context, what it reveals, and how it relates to other textual elements. Four main categories are proposed, namely the dramatized, the inward, the multiple and the communal perspectives. These categories demonstrate the flexibility of method which point of view allows and they show how novels from different backgrounds may be examined under one 'convention' without depriving such novels of their originality. Twenty novels by British, American and African novelists are subsequently divided into these four categories and each of the novels is described, allowing them to define one another. The communal perspective is found to be a unique feature of the five African novels examined in the last three chapters. These novels require the reader to modify his opinions about point of view, for the novelists seem to speak on behalf of their communities. The communal pose thus becomes a literary device. It is a device which manifests itself in the case of the novels of Chinua Achebe, Ayi Kwei Armah and Gabriel Okara through the skilful use of character, language and setting. The reader who comes to the novels with the conviction that character is a paradigm of traits will need to bear in mind that traits in these novels are what are normally known as characters in other novels and that in the novels, therefore, characterisation is largely transferred from the individual person to the communal personality. This is the contribution these African novelists have made to world fiction. It is nevertheless shown that this distinct feature need not deny a common ground from which the critic of the African novel can define the novels' themes and methods and that ultimately the isolation which the three main approaches seem to recommend is neither desirable, nor is it helpful as a way of making the reader aware of the form and content of the novels.

Esta disertación conecta la teoría de la transculturación narrativa de Ángel Rama con la tradición intelectual latinoamericana que aportó sus características más distintivas. Las teorías de Rama fueron influidas por dos tradiciones latinoamericanas. Una es de carácter político y tiene su origen en la Reforma de Córdoba de 1918. La otra, de carácter epistemológico y se remonta a la década de 1930, cuando comienza el culturalismo en Latinoamérica. Mi investigación se ocupa de un grupo de intelectuales uruguayos que trabajaron en torno al semanario Marcha [1939-1974]: Carlos Quijano [1900-1984], Julio Castro [1908 -desaparecido en 1977] y Arturo Ardao [1912-2003]. También me ocupo de dos intelectuales brasileños, Antonio Cândido [1918] y Darcy Ribeiro [1922-1997], quienes continuaron con la tradición culturalista que inauguraron en Latinoamérica autores como Gilberto Freyre [1900-1987] y Fernando Ortiz [1881-1969]. Recuperar las redes intelectuales que acompañaron el proceso de articulación de la transculturación narrativa nos permite comprender mejor las tesis de Rama por dos razones. Primero, porque enmarca esta teoría dentro de algunos de los debates políticos y culturales más importantes de la Guerra Fría. Y segundo, porque se aproxima a la manera como Rama comprendió la historia latinoamericana y su coyuntura política y socio-cultural durante las décadas de 1960 y 1970. El objetivo de la teoría de la transculturación narrativa es describir el proceso por el cual las manifestaciones literarias latinoamericanas pasan de la dependencia a la autonomía cultural. Como el proceso descrito se despliega dentro de la estructura social, para comprenderlo es necesario analizar la interacción entre las obras literarias y la sociedad que las rodea, de esta forma las ciencias sociales --antropología, sociología, economía-- son instrumentos de análisis indispensables para comprender una obra o tradición literaria. Este marco general de análisis es descrito por Rama como el culturalismo. En el caso de Rama, una lectura desde los estudios literarios puede dar por sentado que el culturalismo fue tan sólo un método de análisis alternativo al estructuralismo francés. Aunque esta perspectiva sea en parte correcta, no es del todo precisa. El culturalismo al que se refiere Rama es el mismo que practicaron los cientistas sociales en Latinoamérica desde la década de 1930. Recuperar la historicidad de la transculturación narrativa no solo nos permite comprender la genealogía de esta teoría sino recuperar y hacer visibles algunas tradiciones intelectuales contra-hegemónicas que desarticuló la Guerra Fría en Latinoamérica.

No description available.

No description available.