Though some work has been done on the relationship between the series and its audience, most notably Tjardes's examination of the audience's constructions of Faith the Vampire Slayer, little has been written about the ways in which power relationships within the series contribute to the discursive construction of the audience, specifically the female audience. In order to examine power relationships within the series and their impact on the discursive construction of the female audience, I use the fields of rhetoric and critical discourse analysis to frame my discussion. Initially in Chapter 2, I present an overview of major critical perspectives on audience, specifically delineating the essentialist and socially constructed conceptions of audience. Synthesizing scholarship on the construction of audience and tools from critical discourse analysis, I outline three principles for examining the construction of the television audience. Next in Chapter 3, I discuss levels of social organization and the subject positions available in Buffy, examining specific character interactions, paying particular attention to the ways in which power relationships develop within and through the interactions. Then in Chapter 4, I consider the impact of the cultural context and the text's medium on the series. Finally in Chapter 5, I expose the problematic nature of constructing the female television audience, revisit Buffy and how the series interacts with dominant ideologies, offer potential for multiple audiences, and propose avenues meriting further exploration.

A collection of five original stories.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how native Greeks and first-generation Greek-Americans identify or disidentify with ?Greek-ness,? ?American-ness,? or both in their struggle to achieve an ultimate, successful balance of a third ?space,? one that expresses their Greek-American identity. In order to come to certain conclusions regarding the formation of Greek-American identity, I examine Greek-American life from a historical overview that spans as early as the first Greek-American communities of the early 1900?s, to Greek-Americans of present-day society. I look at how Greek-Americans perform ?Greek-ness,? ?American-ness,? or ?Greek-American-ness,? through language choice and the altering of traditional gender roles, in an attempt to achieve the third ?space? of ?Greek-American-ness.? I discuss their use of Greek and English languages in the first chapter of the thesis from a qualitative, sociolinguistics study I conducted in spring 2003. In addition I examine females? and males? altering of traditional gender roles, and their implications, in several Greek-American texts, including Helen Papanikolas?s novel, The Time of the Little Blackbird, and her story collection, The Apple Falls from the Apple Tree, Nia Vardalos?s film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nick Gage?s memoir, A Place for Us, and Eleni N. Gage?s memoir, North of Ithaka: A Journey Home through a Family?s Extraordinary Past, for the purposes of this thesis. These texts most effectively illustrate the altering of traditional gender roles and the affects of interethnic marriage. I found that the definitions of Greeks and Greek-Americans have always been ambiguous. Furthermore, Greek-American identity continues to be so in contemporary America, as a result of white, American socio-historical and socio-cultural constructs of race and ethnicity. Other findings include the fact that American-born and Greek-born Greek-Americans consider themselves different from other Americans, as well as from the Greeks who live in Greece. Both groups express their ?Greek-American-ness? through language choice, altering of traditional gender roles, and lifestyle patterns characteristic of American life. Both males and females successfully achieve the third ?space? of Greek-American identity in contemporary America. However, from a historical perspective, males assimilated more easily, and more often, than females. In addition, it took females much longer than the males to achieve this third ?space,? because of Greek traditional gender roles, which automatically allowed males more freedom for self-definition than the females, as a result of Greek patriarchal society in which these original roles were constructed. Finally, contemporary Greek-Americans are assimilating more than ever before, since influx of Greek migration patterns has significantly slowed down, from the last working class group who came in the early 1980?s. This is probably the last group of first-generation Greek-Americans, so assimilation will become even more prevalent amidst later generations with the passing of time, unless Greek-Americans find ways to preserve their history and culture. This is why it is important to unearth Greek-American immigrant literature currently out of print, and to continue to write about the Greek-American experience, so future generations have a way to connect to their cultural origins and embrace the history that sets them apart as distinctively Greek-American.

Although James Merrill and John Ashbery approach poetry from very different stylistic angles, the themes that emerge from their work have numerous similarities. Each poet illustrates how classic form has evolved to fit into contemporary context in poems such as ?Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape? and ?To a Pocket Calculator,? as well as commenting on this evolution in works such as ?Watching the Dance,? ?Litany? and ?The Songs We Know Best.? After laying the groundwork of formal change, Merrill and Ashbery discuss how this stylistic evolution is mirrored in the day to day life of our fast-paced contemporary society. In poems such as ?Eight Bits? and ?Self-Portrait in Tyvek? Windbreaker,? James Merrill expresses disgust and skepticism with the state of society today, while John Ashbery addresses the need for rebirth in an oppressive landscape in ?It Was Raining in the Capital.? Both poets reveal their own feelings of insecurity and self-doubt in ?Business Personals? and ?Family Week at Oracle Ranch,? poems that are simultaneously nostalgic for the past and optimistic about the future. Exploring these themes sheds new light on postmodernism?s blending of high and low culture. The examination of each poet?s work from a formal and contextual perspective is essential in understanding the need for preservation of both artistic and emotional values of the past in order to have a successful future.

This original screenplay is a musical drama about three main characters in a small Southern town. The story begins as a mute, eighteen-year-old boy goes to live with a lonely, troubled young woman and her obstinate grandfather. Through the course of the screenplay, these three withdrawn individuals struggle for connection in their attempts to not only cope with the past, but also find hope for the possibility of creating a better existence.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is well-known for her tender poems about love, but one aspect of her poetry that has remained largely ignored is her specific depiction of marriage. In fact, from the time she was a teenager until the day she died, Barrett Browning consistently demonstrates through her poetry that she was largely skeptical, if not cynical, about the idea of marriage as it was commonly practiced in Victorian-era England. In a majority of her poems, Barrett Browning depicts wives or brides-to-be as plighted victims or doomed slaves, and harshly characterizes husbands and grooms as dull, unsympathetic philanderers. In poems such as ?A Romance of the Ganges? and ?The Romaunt of the Page,? the balance of power within marriage is consistent with Victorian ideals, since the wives are subservient to their husbands. These husbands are tyrannical figures, and the unreasonable demands they place on their wives ultimately lead to tragic consequences. When Barrett Browning does portray a ?successful marriage? in her poetry, such as that between Aurora and Romney at the end of Aurora Leigh, or between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in ?Crowned and Wedded,? the traditional gender roles of the time have been reversed: the woman is in a position of uncontested authority over the man. This inversion of what constitutes a happy union was fairly radical for the time, but it remains a consistent theme throughout Barrett Browning?s work, challenging Victorian society to reconsider the merits of the popular marital ideal.

Critics often point out the incongruity between Flannery O?Connor?s grotesque humor and her self-proclaimed Christian purpose. This paper uses Mikhail Bakhtin?s conception of the carnivalesque to argue that O?Connor?s use of grotesque humor is essential to her purpose. Both O?Connor and Bakhtin distrust all-encompassing ideologies that claim to authoritatively categorize and explain existence. In the carnivalesque laughter created by the grotesque realism of Rabelais, Bakhtin finds a way to undermine worldviews that claim ultimate authority. Similarly, O?Connor uses concrete and grotesque, but humorous images to displace her readers? expectations and undermine their natural desire to explain existence at the expense of mystery. By opening her readers up to mystery, O?Connor prepares them to see the world, and the people in it, as they truly are: complex, flawed, and beautiful.

This thesis identifies the severe impact of compulsory heterosexuality in the African-American community. In particular, I explore the ways in which compulsory heterosexuality is tied to the legacy of slavery and how it damages Black female subjectivity as well as Black love relationships. I focus on three novels by African-American women ? Gayl Jones?s Corregidora (1975), Opal Palmer Adisa?s It Begins with Tears (1997) and Pearl Cleage?s What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (1997) ? to illustrate the struggle that Black women face when subjected to sexual and emotional restrictions. I submit that the opposition to compulsory heterosexuality is elective bonding, in which women demand agency in all relationships. Chapter one discusses the authors? portrayals of how compulsory heterosexuality causes a repression of female desire, particularly when women structure their sexual lives around male satisfaction and reproduction. Chapter two focuses on the power of compulsory heterosexuality to obstruct female bonding from women?s lives, mainly by promoting female competition for the male gaze. Finally, chapter three outlines the steps necessary to escape the limitations of compulsory heterosexuality and to enter into elective bonding. My research suggests that effective elective bonding depends largely on building female community. Elective bonding ultimately prepares women to be active agents in all relationships, particularly those with men, in which they denounce compulsory heterosexuality and demand reciprocity. In this project, I posit that female bonding is the medium through which women can escape the sexual and emotional limitations of compulsory heterosexuality.

Shakespeare?s second tetralogy is framed by various biblical types, images and allusions in order to dramatize a specific period in history in terms of divine history. Shakespeare develops the tetralogy?s structure using the structure of the Bible, beginning with an image of Genesis and ending with an image of Revelation. The first play, The Tragedy of Richard II, portrays England as a fallen ?demi-paradise,? reminiscent of Eden, and Richard as a fallen man, a type of Adam whose tragic fall creates the need for a redeemer of England, as reccounted in the providential history of Genesis. This redeemer comes to life in his next two plays, The History of King Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2 in the character of Prince Hal, who is depicted later to be ?the mirror of all Christian princes.? Henry IV, Part I dramatizes Hal?s gradual ?revelation? as that ?redeemer? and also introduces Apocalyptic images in order to foreshadow the hardships portrayed in the next two plays. Henry IV, Part 2 ?mocks [our] expectations? raised by Hal?s success as one who will ?Redeem?time? by allowing the play to linger on as we wait for Henry IV?s imminent death. The tetralogy presents the Fall of man and need for a redeemer, the waiting time (chronos) that must be endured, and the season and fulfillment of that time (kairos) in order to show the audience how to seize their own kairos and live a life worthy of imitation, as Henry V did. An analogical reading of Henry V thus shows Henry to be a character created not to represent Christ, but to remind the audience that Christ is on His way and to provide them with a mirror of how to live according to His word, specifically as revealed in Revelation.

"The Humane Society: A Fable" Is the fanciful existential saga of a chicken named Charlie who is taught to read by an idealistic young woman named Niniane, an ardent vegan and animal rights advocate. Hopelessly in love with his human protectress, Charlie sublimates his passion by concieving a desire to be baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, thus setting in motion a course of events that leads to inevitable rejection by that ecclesiatical body.