It will be the purpose of this thesis to comment upon the eight novels by Marta Brunet. The novels will be examined in detail, giving special consideration to her emphasis on fatalism and destiny, and will examine critical opinion of her work and draw conclusions as to the author's place in the modern Latin American novel.

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Frederick Buechner is an American novelist, born in 1926, who, since 1950, has created eight novels and five works of nonfiction. Although his work has been reviewed and admired by prestigious critics, no lengthy study has yet appeared. Yet the merit of Buechner's work deserves wider critical attention. This study does not attempt to deal comprehensively with Buechner's twenty-five year span of creativity. Instead it presents a consideration of what has been Buechner's most consistent concern throughout his work: his attempt to justify the ways of God to contemporary man. This study is unique in that much of it is based upon a personal conversation with the author rather than on secondary sources. On March 15, 1976, a personal interview was granted with Mr. Buechner in Hobe Sound, Florida. It was a rare opportunity to question an author about his works and his life, especially since this interview occurred simultaneously with the writing of this paper. In addition to the personal interview, Buechner's nonfictional works were used to illuminate his fictional themes. The religious dimension is present in Buechner's works from the beginning, even before he had formally studied theology. Although Buechner is still a relatively young novelist who will no doubt add to his present achievements, he is already unique among modern novelists in that he does not hesitate to deal with religious concepts as literal truths.

This study shows how the Grotesque Hero evolves from the grotesque victim in selected American novels from 1919 to 1972. In these novels, contradictory forces create a cultural dilemma. When a character is especially vulnerable to that dilemma, he becomes caught and twisted into a grotesque victim. The Grotesque Hero finds a solution to the dilemma, not by escaping his grotesque victimization, but by accepting it and making it work for him. The novels paired according to a particular contradictory dilemma include: Winesburg, Ohio and The Crying of Lot 49, As I Lay Dying and Wise Blood, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Dick Gibson Show, Cabot Wright Begins and Second Skin, The Day of the Locust and The Lime Twig, and Expensive People and The Sunlight Dialogues.

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This dissertation is mainly based on the reading of three American novels to explore how female characters deal with their illegitimate pregnancies and how their solutions re-shape their futures and affect their inner growth. Chapter 1 discusses Dorinda Oakley's premarital pregnancy in Ellen Glasgow's Barren Ground and draws the circle of limits from Barbara Welter's "four cardinal virtues" (purity, submissiveness, domesticity, and piety) which connect to the analogous female roles (daughter, sister, wife, and mother). Dorinda's childless survival reconstructs a typical household from her domination and absence of maternity. Chapter 2 examines Ántonia Shimerda's struggles and endurance in My Ántonia by Willa Cather before and after Ántonia gives birth to a premarital daughter. Ántonia devotes herself to being a caring mother and to looking after a big family although her marriage is also friendship-centered. Chapter 3 adopts a different approach to analyze Charlotte Rittenmeyer's extramarital pregnancy in The Wild Palms by William Faulkner. As opposed to Dorinda and Ántonia who re-enter domesticity to survive, Charlotte runs out on her family and dies of a botched abortion. To help explain the aftermath of illicit pregnancies, I extend or shorten John Duvall's formula of female role mutations: "virgin>sexually active (called whore)>wife" to examine the riddles of female survival and demise. The overall argument suggests that one way or another, nature, society, and family are involved in illegitimately pregnant women's lives, and the more socially compliant a pregnant woman becomes after her transgression, the better chance she can survive with her baby.

(in English): The focus of this thesis is on the narrative strategies of Mario Vargas Llosa in two selected novels: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (Tía Julia y el escribidor, 1977) and Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (Pantaleón y las visitadoras, 1973). Selection of the books is based on the richness of their formal techniques. In the analysis, the most important aspect is the narrator, the composition of the work and the structural schemes used by the author in his narrative strategy. The stylistic experiments and variations of language based on the type of speaker and genre are also part of the analysis. Vargas Llosa works very well with a wide range of narrative means, trying to capture the inexhaustible diversity of reality and reflect it in the structure of his works. Vargas Llosa's books draw reader's attention to the form, forcing them to reflect and to constantly re- evaluate their interpretation of the text. Construction of the novels is complicated and well elaborated. The reader must be active. The aspect that distinguish Mario Vargas Llosa's work from the rest is the abundant range of narrative techniques and the high level of rationality. Mario Vargas Llosa uses very innovative methods, he experiments with form and the structure of the work. The goal of this thesis is not a...

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