Anton Chekhov pursued two careers simultaneously throughout his life—that of a doctor as well as a writer of prose and drama. It is not surprising, therefore, to discover many physicians amongst his characters but it is puzzling that the portrayal of doctors is frequently unflattering despite his admitted indebtedness to the profession. The thesis herein proposed is that the poor image Chekhov presents points to the necessity of self-determination in matters of emotional and spiritual health; if the doctors are incapable of healing themselves and those in their care, the patients might well take the biblical directive, "Arise! Take up thy bed and walk." In his stated desire to show people how bad and dreary their lives are, thereby assisting them in fashioning better lives, Chekhov's prescription is one of self-help. The short stories—Late-Blooming Flowers, Anyuta, Ward No. 6, The Head Gardener's Tale and The Doctor's Visit—and the plays— Platonov, Ivanov, The Seagull, The Wood-Demon, Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters—have been examined; beneath the incompetence and villainy of the doctors an affirming statement is discovered in the otherwise melancholy canon of Chekhov. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this investigation is to arrive at an understanding of Fritz von Unruh's work by examining the author's modes of characterization. Unruh repeatedly introduces kindred characters, character types, and configurations of characters, but uses differing methods of characterization to portray them. By investigating the works completed between 1910 and 1932 and by relating Unruh's techniques of characterization to the total structure of these works, a pattern may be observed which demonstrates that Unruh gradually adapts pre-Expressionist methods of characterization to those typically associated with Expressionism, by depersonalizing hi; characters and by subordinating them to the portrayal of one central figure. This pattern has its roots in the pre-war dramas, culminates in the works completed during the war, and attenuates in the post-war plays. The various stages of this metamorphosis are ultimately related to the message-oriented nature of the works. In the early plays, the conventions of pre-Expressionist drama are gradually adapted to suit the portrayal of contemporary Wilhelminian reality and of a central figure who fights for a reintroduction of the ideals of the past. In the works completed between 1914 and 1918 the author subjects his major characters to a transformation: he presents the figures as types, uses a form of character fragmentation, and makes the plot development as well as the scenic and dialogue composition subservient to the propagation of the ideas incorporated by the central characters. In the post-war plays, finally, each of these modes of character delineation is increasingly less subservient to the major figures, but characterizes the negative, unredeemed world about them, against which they have to assert themselves. In these plays, the redemption of man is no longer sought in a past or present reality, but in a realm in which objective reality is transfigured and transformed. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

This thesis is a study of Robinson's general mental and philosophical development and the forces which contributed to it, the kinds and sources of Robinson's characters and the method and importance of their portrayal, Robinson's single portraits of men, Robinson's portrayal of women characters, Robinson's historical portraits, and the relationship of the short poems to Robinson's total work.

São poucos os estudos sobre as personagens femininas dentro de La Comédie Humaine, e estes se tornam ainda mais restritos quando tratam daquelas que aparecem no romance Le père Goriot. Nesse sentido, este trabalho pretende analisar como são construídas e organizadas dentro da narrativa, tendo em vista que sua composição é realizada de acordo com uma estratégia, bem como sua organização no texto. Outrossim, as personagens femininas são de grande importância na narrativa balzaquiana, apesar de aparentemente ocuparem apenas o segundo plano, pois são elas que, na maioria das vezes, vão auxiliar as personagens masculinas em seus projetos de ascensão social, a ponto de Rastignac, por exemplo, só ter conseguido sucesso por intermédio de sua tia, Mme de Beauséant. Isso sem contar a dona da pensão, Mme Vauquer, que é a primeira a ser descrita durante a narrativa e tem importância capital no destino de outras figuras hospedadas em seu estabelecimento. Por outro lado, a técnica mais conhecida utilizada por Balzac e que foi por ele desenvolvida é o retorno de personagens. No entanto, há outras de grande importância, e uma delas é o fato de que, para conseguir criar a quantidade de personagens existente dentro de La Comédie Humaine, foi necessário recorrer a um recurso de economia, ou seja, apresentar várias delas com características semelhantes, podendo ser ligadas duas a duas. Procuramos desenvolver esse aspecto ao longo deste trabalho, juntamente com as questões que permeiam o papel das figuras femininas, assim como o arrivismo e a sua importância para as masculinas. / There are few studies about the female characters in La Comedie Humaine, and these are even more restricted when they treat about those which appear in the novel Le Pere Goriot. Thus, this paper intends to examine how they are constructed and arranged within the narrative, considering that their composition is performed according a kind of strategy, as well as your organization in the text. Furthermore, the female characters are very important in Balzac\'s narrative, although apparently only occupying the background, because they are who, in most of the cases, will help the male characters in their projects of social mobility, until the point of Rastignac, for example, has only achieved success with the help of his aunt, Mme de Beauseant. This without counting the owner, Mme Vauquer, who is the first character to be described in the narrative and who has a capital importance in the destiny of other figures that are hosted on her property. Moreover, the technique most known and used by Balzac and which was developed for him is the return of characters. However, there are other techniques also very important, and one of them is the fact that, to achieve to create the amount of characters existing in La Comedie Humaine, it was necessary to apply a resource of economy, or, in other words, to present lots of characters showing similar characteristics and connected two by two. We were seeking to develop this aspect throughout this work, together with the questions that underlie the role of the female characters, as well as the arrivisme, and this importance for the male.

Cette thèse est faite de deux parties. La première partie est un article rédigé conjointementavec Martin Puchol et Jialin Zhu. La deuxième partie est une série de résultats obtenus par moi-même liés au théorème de Riemann-Roch-Grothendieck pour les fibrés vectoriels plats. Dans la première partie, nous donnons une preuve analytique d'un résultat décrivant le comportement de la torsion analytique en théorie de de Rham lorsque la variété considérée est séparée en deux par une hypersurface. Plus précisément, nous donnons une formule liant la torsion analytique de la variété entière aux torsions analytiques associées aux variétés à bord avec des conditions limites relative ou absolue le long de l'hypersurface. Dans la deuxième partie de cette thèse, nous raffinons les résultats de Bismut-Lott pour les images directes des fibrés vectoriels plats au cas où le fibré vectoriel plat en question est lui-même la cohomologie holomorphe d'un fibré vectoriel le long d'une fibration plate à fibres complexes. Dans ce contexte, nous donnons une formule de Riemann-Roch-Grothendieck dans laquelle la classe de Todd du fibré tangent relatif apparaît explicitement. En remplaçant les classes de cohomologie par des formes explicites qui les représentent en théorie de Chern-Weil, nous généralisons ainsi des constructions de Bismut-Lott. / This thesis consists of two parts. The first part is an article written jointly with Martin Puchol and Jialin Zhu, the second part is a series of results obtained by myself in connection with the Riemann-Roch-Grothendieck theorem for flat vector bundles. In the first part, we give an analytic approach to the behavior of classical Ray-Singer analytic torsion in de Rham theory when a manifold is separated along a hypersurface. More precisely, we give a formula relating the analytic torsion of the full manifold, and the analytic torsion associated with relative or absolute boundary conditions along the hypersurface. In the second part of this thesis, we refine the results of Bismut-Lott on direct images of flat vector bundles to the case where the considered flat vector bundle is itself the fiberwise holomorphic cohomology of a vector bundle along a flat fibration by complex manifolds. In this context, we give a formula of Riemann-Roch-Grothendieck in which the Todd class of the relative holomorphic tangent bundle appears explicitly. By replacing cohomology classes by explicit differential forms in Chern-Weil theory, we extend the constructions of Bismut-Lott in this context.

La globalización afecta en varios aspectos a los diferentes países del mundo y prueba de esta inevitable convergencia de culturas es el anime y el impacto que éste ha tenido y sigue teniendo a nivel mundial. Por ello, en el siguiente trabajo de investigación se tiene como objetivo general, hacer un análisis del proceso de transculturación del anime Naruto en la generación Y y Z de la comunidad otaku en Lima desde el año 2000 hasta la actualidad, y teniendo como objetivos específicos, analizar la influencia del anime en la formación de su identidad y analizar de qué manera la narrativa del anime influye en que este se mantenga como un fenómeno global. Estudiosos como: Luis Vidal y Alessandra Gamarra, han tomado a Naruto para explicar, por un lado, la influencia cultural que ejerce el anime y la formación de una nueva subcultura a partir de ésta. Por otro lado, la representación del odio y la violencia bélica en los caminos del dolor de Pain. En otros países de Latinoamérica también se han venido desarrollando diferentes estudios en relación al anime y su influencia, desde un punto de vista audiovisual como sociológico. Por último, en cuanto a los sujetos de estudio en esta investigación: se tiene al anime de Naruto y personas dentro de los 18-30 años, fanáticos del anime. / Globalization affects in different aspects the different countries of the world and proof of this inevitable convergence of cultures is anime and the impact that it has had and continues to have worldwide. Therefore, in the following research work, the general objective is to make an analysis of the transculturation process of the Naruto anime in generation Y and Z of the otaku community in Lima from 2000 to the present, and having specific objectives , analyze the influence of anime on the formation of their identity and analyze how the anime narrative influences that it remains a global phenomenon. Scholars such as: Luis Vidal and Alessandra Gamarra, have taken Naruto to explain, on the one hand, the cultural influence exerted by anime and the formation of a new subculture from it. On the other hand, the representation of hatred and war violence in Pain's pain paths. In other Latin American countries, different studies have also been carried out in relation to anime and its influence, from an audiovisual and sociological point of view. Finally, as for the study subjects in this research: you have Naruto anime and people within the range of 18-30 years old, anime fans. / Trabajo de investigación

Weasels and mink (Mustela and Neogale) can be difficult to distinguish osteologically due to similarities in morphology, thus suggesting the need for an accurate tool in distinguishing among taxa. This study utilized a combination of character state and stepwise discriminant function (DFA) analyses to examine potential distinguishing features of skull and tooth morphology. Measurements and ratios were collected from all 18 extant musteline species, as well as the extinct Neovison macrodon, Mustela rexroadensis, Mustela meltoni, Mustela gazini, and Mustela jacksoni. Unidentified musteline specimens from the Gray Fossil Site were also included. Results of the character state analysis and DFA proved fairly reliable in distinguishing both extant and fossil taxa. The character state analysis revealed six useful morphological characters to aid in distinguishing between genera while the DFA demonstrated reliable separation of genus, species, and clade. For both analyses, morphology of the carnassials (P4, m1) and M1 contributed most to distinction.

In this paper Lewontin’s notion of “quasi-independence” of characters is formalized as the assumption that a region of the phenotype space can be represented by a product space of orthogonal factors. In this picture each character corresponds to a factor of a region of the phenotype space. We consider any region of the phenotype space that has a given factorization as a “type”, i.e. as a set of phenotypes that share the same set of phenotypic characters. Using the notion of local factorizations we develop a theory of character identity based on the continuation of common factors among different regions of the phenotype space. We also consider the topological constraints on evolutionary transitions among regions with different regional factorizations, i.e. for the evolution of new types or body plans. It is shown that direct transition between different “types” is only possible if the transitional forms have all the characters that the ancestral and the derived types have and are thus compatible with the factorization of both types. Transitional forms thus have to go over a “complexity hump” where they have more quasi-independent characters than either the ancestral as well as the derived type. The only logical, but biologically unlikely, alternative is a “hopeful monster” that transforms in a single step from the ancestral type to the derived type. Topological considerations also suggest a new factor that may contribute to the evolutionary stability of “types”. It is shown that if the type is decomposable into factors which are vertex irregular (i.e. have states that are more or less preferred in a random walk), the region of phenotypes representing the type contains islands of strongly preferred states. In other words types have a statistical tendency of retaining evolutionary trajectories within their interior and thus add to the evolutionary persistence of types.

Families in much of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha fiction are built upon traditional patriarchal structure with the father as head and provider and the mother or mother figure in charge of keeping the home and raising the children. Even though the roles appear to be clearly defined and observed, the families decline and disintegrate.

This paper explores the role of children and childhood in Nathaniel Hawthorne's fiction. Moreover, it asserts that the child and childhood are keys to a better understanding of Hawthorne's fiction.