Master of Arts / Department of English / Katherine Karlin / Fintan O’Toole proposes that Irish modernist writers could afford to be “opaque, allusive, densely textured” (410). Contrastingly, he posits that contemporary Irish writers, who engage in the simple ritual of words, believe that “the accumulation of potent and precise detail, if it is sufficiently thoroughly imagined, will call the universe into being” (412). The later microcosmic approach to storytelling has the power to speak to the same philosophical ideas, falling away from “the high ambition of Irish modernism” (412). “Roinnt Scéalta: Some Stories about Irish People” examines financial globalization and social progress in Ireland through careful observation of daily life, simple fragments of Irish characters’ lives, stripped-down to small moments that stand for larger public truths: Irish wives still want holidays to Europe, Irish men still wish to gamble and be independent of authority in their work, young adults still emigrate to America. Yet there are new truths: Black children speak Irish in Gael scoils, children of Polish and Chinese immigrants play hurling and Gaelic football in Croke Park, and African men set up window-washing services in small Irish towns. These stories evoke the voices of the displaced to convey the ways in which Ireland is shifting, socially and economically: Frank has lost his job as a painter, and the strain it causes on his marriage forces him into a job for a large corporation; Peo, having demolished his way through Dublin to pave space for apartments he could never afford and businesses he would never patron, finds work providing simple comfort to Buffalo, who is at the mercy of state-supported healthcare and monthly welfare checks; Iarla is convinced by Seán that moving to America will remedy his sense of deflation toward the Irish job market. While the progression of social norms is queried in these stories, they still reinforce and embody many of the sweeping generalizations associated with Irish fiction. This collection delves into the minds and morals of the displaced Irish working class, focusing oftentimes on the pub and the inner-workings of local, social politics in a fictional small town on the skirt of Dublin’s southside.

Chapter One of this thesis investigates the growth and development of the Tswana short story. It commences with an evaluation of studies done on this genre and proceeds to a brief exposition of the Tswana short stories published prior to 1995. It also provides theoretical backgmund on the modern short story. The main focus of Chapter Two concerns the major themes explored in Tswana short stories. These include tradition and culture, love and marriage, the makgoweng motif, religion as well as corruption and other social problems. This thesis has discovered that the Tswana Miters not only criticise the negative aspects of these realities, but also recognise their significance and beauty. Chapter Three examines the organisational patte~ of the Tswana short story and tests it against the structural pattenl of the West. It is revealed that the Tswana short story, like short stories of other cultures, shows a continuous sequence of exposition, development and resolution. However, it occasionaHy deviates from the nonn and commences with philosophical commentaries and details irrelevant to the developmental phase. In structuring their stories, the Tswana writers also use flashback and foreshadowing to link their events. However, what has been discovered is that foreshadowing occurs less frequently than flashback in the Tswana short story. Chapter Four focusses on the word, the sentence and the paragraph and refers to other related clements such as repetition, rhetorical questions, proverbs, idioms and Biblical allusions. These elements serve to enhance the style of the Tswana short story and bring the readers into a dialogic relationship with their language and culture. Creative writing in Tswana illustrates a strong, dynamic relationship with oral tradition. Chapter Five shows how writers have cirawn from the wealth of their traditional and cultural heritage original and wlique devices to improve their works of art. The threads of oral tradition that reveal themselves in the Tswana short story pertain to the organisation of material, characterisation, setting, style and language as well as narrative perspective. In Chapter Six the findings of the earlier chapters are highlighted and recommendations for future research are outlined. / African Languages / D.Litt. et Phil.(African Languages)

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2007-01-18Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:21:20Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_amz_dr_arafcl.pdf: 1437284 bytes, checksum: a57768f1083ee10b765a92dde5c797f1 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Esta tese tem por objetivo o estudo de seis contos - A esfinge, Uma estória de Jerusalém, O diabo no campanário, Mistificação, Os óculos e Pequena conversa com uma múmia - do ficcionista, poeta e crítico norte-americano Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), mundialmente conhecido como o pai do conto moderno, a fim de analisar o modo como o autor constrói o humor e a sátira e em que medida eles constituem uma sátira ambivalente ao seu meio social. As análises revelam a existência de um compromisso do autor com a sociedade do seu tempo, que se manifesta na criação ficcional pelo viés satírico e crítico aos exageros da ideologia norte-americana do século XIX. / This dissertation aims to study six short stories - The Sphynx, A Tale of Jerusalem, The Devil in the Belfry, Mistification, The Spectacles, and Some Words with a Mummy - by the American fictionist, poet, and critic Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), world wide known as the father of the modern short story, in order to analyze how the author builds humor and satire and to what extent they constitute an ambivalent satire to his social millieu. The analyses reveal the existence of the author's compromise with the society of his time, which is manifested in his fictional creation by means of the satire and criticism of the exaggerations of XIXth century American ideology.

“Surrounded by Lights” explores the indoctrination of a society under Hitler’s control into the radical beliefs of Nazism, drawing from the author’s own familial history, as well as secondary sources. The result is the tale of a young girl named Greta who is growing up in the Banat region (an outpost of Germany) during World War II. Greta struggles to cope with the absence of her father, especially in moments of displayed violence initiated by the Reich.

Submitted by Aelson Maciera (aelsoncm@terra.com.br) on 2017-06-05T18:20:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissERNC.pdf: 2100543 bytes, checksum: 7a25a7f704131f64f02ba2de8329f44b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ronildo Prado (ronisp@ufscar.br) on 2017-06-05T18:28:47Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissERNC.pdf: 2100543 bytes, checksum: 7a25a7f704131f64f02ba2de8329f44b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ronildo Prado (ronisp@ufscar.br) on 2017-06-05T18:28:55Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissERNC.pdf: 2100543 bytes, checksum: 7a25a7f704131f64f02ba2de8329f44b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-05T18:32:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissERNC.pdf: 2100543 bytes, checksum: 7a25a7f704131f64f02ba2de8329f44b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-15 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / This work aims to study two short stories by the writer Machado de Assis, taking in consideration their thematic approximation, leading one to believe that the second short story, "Uma senhora", from 1883, would be the rewrite of a previous short story, "O segredo de Augusta”, from 1868. In order to achieve this, the analysis take into consideration the leitmotiv of the vain woman and the figure of the narrator and in what way the narrator articulates the characters throughout the narrative. Thus, the author uses the theme of a previous short story, still marked by romantic characteristics and rewrite it, guaranteeing a formal improvement in the process of rewriting. / Este trabalho tem como objetivo o estudo de dois contos do escritor Machado de Assis tendo em vista sua aproximação temática, levando a crer que o segundo conto, “Uma senhora”, de 1883, seria a reescrita de “O segredo de Augusta”, conto escrito anos antes, em 1868. Para tal, as análises levam em consideração o leitmotiv da mulher vaidosa e a figura do narrador e de que maneira este articula as personagens ao longo da narrativa. Tem-se, desta maneira, que o autor aproveita o tema de um conto de juventude, ainda marcado por características românticas, para reescrevê-lo, garantindo assim um aperfeiçoamento formal no trabalho de reescrita.

Orientador: Sylvia Helena Telarolli de Almeida Leite / Banca: Maria Celeste Consolin / Banca: Maria Célia Moraes Leonel / Resumo: Tencionamos, por meio da análise de recursos formais e estilísticos, identificar e analisar elementos cômicos e trágicos em quinze contos escolhidos de Monteiro Lobato, encontrados em Urupês, Negrinha e Cidades Mortas. Buscamos mostrar como o autor, nas histórias analisadas, lançou mão da associação entre o cômico e o trágico (e seus mecanismos) para uma possível representação do momento brasileiro contemporâneo à produção dos textos, décadas de 10 e 20 do século passado. / Abstract: We intend, by formals and stylistics resources, identify and analyse comics and tragics elements in the fifteen shorts stories chosen from Monteiro Lobato's Work, found in Urupês, Negrinha and Cidades Mortas. We sougth to showmhow the author, in these analysed stories, dipped into the association between the comic and tragic (and them mechanisms) for a possible representation of the historic brasilian moment, contemporary to the texts productions, in last 10's and 20's. / Mestre

Este trabalho tem como objetivo investigar a configuração de uma visão trágica do mundo na obra do escritor Rubem Fonseca. Para isso, em cada um de seus quatro capítulos é analisado um conto considerado exemplar no que diz respeito a essa configuração. São eles Madona (de A coleira do cão, 1965), O pedido (de Feliz ano novo, 1975), Mandrake (de O cobrador, 1979) e Meu avô (de Pequenas criaturas, 2002). O título da dissertação foi escolhido com base nos três principais fatores dessa configuração que são encontrados nos contos e que, combinados, dão a esses textos sua dimensão trágica. / This study aims to investigate the configuration of a \"tragic perception of the world\" in the work of the writer Rubem Fonseca. To do so, in each of its four chapters a short story considered exemplar regarding this configuration is examined. They are Madona (from A coleira do cão, 1965), O pedido (from Feliz ano novo, 1975), Mandrake (from O cobrador, 1979) e Meu avô (from Pequenas criaturas, 2002). The title of this dissertation was chosen based on the three main aspects of this setting that are found in the short stories and that, combined, give these texts its tragic dimension.

The thesis begins with an introductory chapter that explains the problems that short story theorists encounter when they try to define the short story genre. Part of the problem results from the lack of a definition of the short story in the Aristotelian sense. A looser, less traditional definition of literary genres helps solve some of the problem. Six short stories follow the introduction. "Billy and Me," "Queen of Hearts," "The Whiskey Man," and "Psychedelic Trash Cans" are representative of traditional short stories. "Mourning Coffee" and "Seven X Seven" might very well fit into other genres, but even these stories fit a loose definition of the short story genre.

Constatant l'essor, au Pérou et depuis quelques années, d'une littérature appelée « fantastique » qui est difficilement compatible avec les approches et définitions traditionnelles de cette écriture, nous proposons par ce travail une lecture d'un corpus de nouvelles publiées dans divers recueils et anthologies péruviennes, dans une dynamique qui tient compte de trois aspects. Il s'agit d'abord, dans une perspective scalaire, de construire un arbre phylogénétique permettant de distinguer les univers qui entourent l'expression fantastique, et de déterminer quelques traits d'un fantastique apomorphe. Ensuite, une analyse détaillée de la manière dont fonctionne, au sein du texte, le passage qui crée l'effet fantastique, permet d'explorer les ressorts d'une rhétorique originale. Le dernier temps du travail se concentre sur la dimension de la réception du texte fantastique selon trois modalités : l'influence de l'arrière-texte, de la poésie et du rêve sur la création, puis les effets du texte sur le lecteur. L'élaboration d'une constellation qui rappelle les différents archétypes et réfléchit à l'aspect tantôt universel tantôt particulier de cette écriture constitue le dernier temps de ce parcours interprétatif. / As we have noticed for some years the rise of a literature called “fantastic” in Peru, which is hardly compatible with traditional approaches and definitions of this writing, we propose, throughout this work, an interpretation that considers three aspects. First, through a scalar perspective, we create a phylogenetic tree which enables us to distinguish the different universes that surround the fantastic expression, and to determine some features of an apomorphic fantastic way of writing. Then, a detailed analysis of how the passage which creates the fantastic effect operates in the text helps us to explore the devices of an original rhetoric. The last part of this work focuses on the dimension of reception of the text throughout three elements : the influence of the “arrière-texte”, of poetry and dreaming on creation, and then, the effects of the text on the reader. The elaboration of a constellation which outlines the different archetypes and makes us reflect on the universal or particular aspects of this way of writing is dealt with in the last part of this interpretive process.

The preface, " Performing Brain Surgery: The Problematic Nature of Endings in Short Fiction," deals with the many and varied difficulties short story writers encounter when attempting to craft endings. Beginning with Raymond Carver and Flannery O’Connor and moving to my own work, I discuss some of the obscure criteria used to designate a successful ending, as well as the more concrete idea of the ending as a unifying element. Five short stories make up the remainder of this thesis: "In-between Girls," "Crocodile Man," "Surprising Things, Sometimes Amusing," "Good Jewelry," and "The Angular Degrees of Freedom."