My Heart is With You in This Sad Time is a collection of first-person narratives with female protagonists set in the Florida panhandle. While their ages, educations, socioeconomic levels and domestic circumstances vary greatly, they are alike (and like many women) in this way: they are caretakers. As such, they are used to being put in positions where they must sacrifice their own welfare for the welfare of those they love. These narratives focus on times in their lives where this role is more burdensome than ever before, and where the consequences for their actions (or inaction) are tremendous. A soon-to-be-mother discovers her husband has returned to an old habit. A mistress can't make reparations after a car accident because she could expose her married boyfriend to his family. A sister has difficulty enlisting her twin's help in caring for their dying mother. A disenchanted wife remembers better times. A widow has trouble adjusting to single-parenthood. A fourteen-year-old has to care for her mother's friend's developmentally disabled son. A young mother seeks comfort when her husband rejects her and her new son proves to be exceptionally challenging. In the end, some will change, and some will stay the same, but all will have a greater sense of just how much weight they can bear. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2003. / October 10, 2003. / Creative Writing, Fiction / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert Olen Butler, Professor Directing Thesis; Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Committee Member; Ned Stuckey-French, Committee Member.

This thesis examines the ways that Augustinian and Petrarchan poetics and philosophy both influenced and frustrated the author of Paradise Lost, for John Milton's works in many ways represent a culmination of the linguistic and moral angst of Augustine and Petrarch, especially in their obsession with the power of rhetoric, a desire for linguistic permanency and power, and the divided consciousness of Western male subjectivity. Indeed, the enduring rhetorical command of Milton's Satan in particular, 350 years after his literary creation, attests to the cultural and psychological potency of the model of suffering masculinity. The first chapter locates both Augustinian and Petrarchan influence and religious anxiety in Milton's shorter, earlier poems including his Italian sonnets; the second chapter explores the ways that Milton's elegy, Lycidas, both imitates and rejects Petrarchan and classical tropes; the third chapter explores these ideas in Paradise Lost, especially the ways that the character of Satan embodies Milton's views on rhetoric and poetry. The end result will be a fuller appreciation of the anxiety that a modern, Christian poet, heir of Augustinian and Petrarchan poetics, displays through his art, especially the conflict between the desire for linguistic glory and permanency and a conviction that such ambition is inherently sinful according to Christian morality. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2005. / July 20, 2005. / Renaissance, Christianity, Augustine, Petrarch, Milton, poetry / Includes bibliographical references. / Bruce Boehrer, Professor Directing Thesis; Daniel Vitkus, Committee Member; R. M. Berry, Committee Member.

This thesis consists of five short stories written during 2000-2003. Three of the stories were written in fiction workshops, and two were written after I completed the coursework for my M.A. All but one are written in first-person. "Refugee" was written for Elizabeth Stuckey-French's spring 2001 fiction workshop, and is in its fifth draft. It is the story of a man in his mid-thirties, restless, yet passive, a stay-at-home drifter, whose life so far is one big missed opportunity. He visits his brother's perfect suburban home and finds himself in a situation in which action is required—a life and two children depend upon it. "Hail Mary, Full of Lies" was also written for Elizabeth Stuckey-French's spring 2001 workshop. In this story, a young girl who knows the rules of the Catholic Church but does not understand them covets the role of Mary in the Christmas mass, and will say anything to get the part. This story is in its fourth draft. "Faster than the Human Mind" and "Lynne's Grooming Corner" were written in summer and fall 2002 and have not been workshopped. "Faster" grew from a story a friend told me about a patient with an unusual case of delusional disorder. The story touches on the struggle between reason and emotion, thinking and feeling, responsibility and freedom. "Lynne's" is currently more a slice of life story, a peek into the world of a v dog groomer born and raised deep in Cajun Louisiana. These stories are in second draft stage. "I'll Have the Past Your Prime Rib" was written for Elizabeth Stuckey-French's spring 2000 workshop, the first fiction course I ever took. This story was my first attempt at writing fiction, and in this fourth draft, a cynical young woman and her fading boss square off in the wake of their PR firm's disintegration. Themes many of the stories share are alienation, worlds colliding, tiny quirky obsessions, life altering obsessions, and most of all, the question, "What if your life turns out drastically different than what you hoped for?" What if you waste it with inaction? Or what if you burn so hard in one direction that you neglect other parts of your life and wind up at a lonely dead end? You will carry the weight of some decisions throughout your life—but which ones? The answers certainly aren't here in the stories, but the questions are. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2003. / April 2, 2003. / Short Stories Of Alienation And Obsessions / Includes bibliographical references. / Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Professor Directing Thesis; Janet Burroway, Committee Member; Mark Cooper, Committee Member.

In 1992, Susan Herring investigated the claim that computer-mediated discussion groups affect participation in electronic discourse spaces. She analyzed the participation patterns of messages from the LINGUIST listserv and found that the conversation was dominated by men. Her aim was "to determine whether gender-based differences were present in the language employed by the participants" (3). "Feeling intimidated" ranked as the highest reason for non-participation for both males (51.6%) and females (61.9%). The members responded that they were intimidated by the adversarial rhetoric present on the listserv. In her discourse analysis, Herring identifies three different styles of communication: adversarial, attenuated, and unmarked or neutral. Herring's analysis shows that all but one of the women regularly employed the attenuated personal style and that the adversarial style was employed predominantly by men, "especially those male participants who dominated the discussion in terms of frequency and length of contribution" (8). As a result of the men's adversarial writing style, the tone of the discussion was overwhelmingly adversarial, which affected how women participated in the discussion. Herring's analysis is evidence that the assumed, idealistic logic associated with the egalitarianism narrative of computer-mediated discussion spaces requires more critical attention to the consequences. Since some composition teachers are inclined to use a class blog, I want to determine if the gender issues that presented a concern almost twenty years ago in Herring's study are still relevant, and if so, what this might mean for the teaching of composition. The purpose of my research, therefore, is to determine if the gendered discourse patterns that Herring identified are replicated today in the class blog as explored through a classroom case study. I use Herring's study as a framework for my own research. During the Fall 2009 semester, I set up a fifteen week study. I conducted the study with an ENC1102 first-year composition course, approved through FSU's IRB process. At the beginning of the semester, I created a class blog where all students had equal access to post their responses and comment on their peers' posts. Each student was asked to complete a survey at the end of the semester. In addition to analyzing the answers to the survey, I also conducted a discourse analysis of three of the blog posts. In my analysis of the blog posts and responses, I employ the same coding scheme established by Herring in her study. In each of the students' posts and comments, I identify key features of the "adversarial style" including strong assertions; imperative forms of verbs; impersonal, presupposed truths; exclusive first person plural pronouns; rhetorical questions; sarcasm; self-promotion; and representation of opponent's view as ridiculous (7). In addition, I also look for the key characteristics of the "attenuated/personal style": attenuated assertions; hedges and qualifiers; exhortations phrased as suggestions; speaker's feelings/experiences; inclusive first person plural pronouns; questions as a means to elicit a response; and apologies (7). Similar to Herring, I use both quantitative data from the discourse analysis and the students' survey responses to report my findings and investigate the results. The results of my research paint a portrait of the gendered communication styles in a first-year composition classroom. This study's implications affect the assumptions and expectations of composition teachers, the field of study on gender and discourse, and those who advocate using a blog in the composition classroom. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2010. / November 1, 2010. / composition, blog, blogging, gender, communication / Includes bibliographical references. / Kathleen Yancey, Professor Directing Thesis; Kristie Fleckenstein, Committee Member; Michael Neal, Committee Member.

Liminality is a feature of all five stories in this collection; the main characters must engage with a crisis of initiation. The title story is a re-telling of "Little Red Riding Hood," in which Sweetie, eager for the journey, embraces her initiation and embellishes it. This most overtly metaphorical jaunt contrasts with the turbulence of the other initiation struggles. The other main characters are male, their trials involving an imperative to transcend a state of being which is no longer appropriate, into the next, more useful phase of life. The imperatives involve identity and self-definition, and perception is crucial. Dismemberment is another theme explored, by the literal surrendering and receiving of vital organs, the ingesting of animal organs, or the psychological castration of the male by women, by animals or by other males. Intimacy in some stories is achieved only with animals, and the dynamics of human/animal relationships have an intensity that seems integral to the survival of the humans. All animals are sympathetic, and function in almost spiritual roles as helpers to the humans. In "Animal Nature," the potential initiation of a young librarian is into healthy sexuality. He appears to have made a selfless gesture in donating one of his kidneys to the mother of a child library member whom he hardly knows. But for this exemplar of goodness and altruism, obsession is revealed to be the true instrument of decision, a secret obsession with chastity that warps and destroys his rlationships. Albion's life is filled only with women, all of whom he uses in a variety of abusive ways. His perceptions are skewed, his dismemberment psychological, as well as physical. This dismemberment theme is echoed in "Change of Heart," in which Frank Miller is the recipient of a donated heart. His ensuing psychic distress also alludes to themes of identity and self-definition. He has been given new life, and his task is that of acceptance, but he has descended into mental chaos. He believes himself to be changing, taking on an unfamiliar, perhaps undesirable character. He is haunted throughout by the knowledge that the heart is a foreign body that belongs, not to him, but to someone else. His initiation trial is to make the adjustment into a new life. In "Threshold," young Michael is also confronted with a tricky new phase of life. By a fluke he gets his first job as an insurance salesman, in which he is on trial. His mother borrows money to help him pay for the car he is driving on approval. On his first day, he calls at the house of Mrs. Porter, a sweet old woman who lives in a house full of antique furniture. Standing against him is Boris, a very large dog, who protects his mistress and monitors Michael's every move. At the same time, Mrs. Porter is not all she seems to be. Like Albion, Michael is on a turning point of maturation. His task is to make the enormous leap into responsible adulthood. In contrast to Frank Miller, but like Albion, his identity crisis takes place below his own awareness. While "On The Mountain" deals with a similar pivotal moment of change, the contrasting relationships with animals are more starkly drawn. Sam, an American hostage in his final hours of captivity by tribesmen in Afghanistan, leads an isolated life in the mountains amongst goats. For him the animals become a refuge, for his captors they are chattels. The extremity of his condition causes Sam to reappraise his identity, but the physical and psychological conditions of his existence distort his perceptions: In a weakened state and under armed guard, he measures his strength and masculinity against that of the tribesmen. His initiation dilemma is more sharply focused than those of Albion, Frank and Michael, with conscious, reflective examination of role and self hood. With all males, the Strong Man of Success myth is absent; instead frailty threatens failure In "Sweetie and The Wolf," the self is ripe for change and the human/animal relationship is symbiotic. In contrast with the other stories, the struggle here appears easy. This ironic retelling of an old fairy story presents an idealized initiation in the context of the uses for, and effects on the community, which in this case includes almost the whole of creation at its most basic level. The story is metaphorical but also literal. Human interaction with a wild animal is the vehicle for an emergent adult identity and self-definition. Female/male archetypes are redefined, along with the old myths of the female victim/initiate, and the initiation-by-ordeal. A more survival-oriented initiation myth is affirmed, and the wolf is presented as a sympathetic and beneficent character who is crucial to the survival of Sweetie, but who has his own vulnerabilities. Importantly, Sweetie takes notice and returns the favor. By going beyond her happy engagement with the wolf in the forest, Sweetie affirms a new dimension of her own survival myth: the real dragon she must slay is not so much the overtly big bad male beast, but the secretly big bad female grandmother/mother figure who has lurked "innocently" in her bed for centuries. In terms of the other struggles, this concluding story suggests that danger can be a matter of perception and that initiation crises can be fun. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2003. / March 17, 2003. / A Crisis Of Initiation / Includes bibliographical references. / Sheila Ortiz-Taylor, Professor Directing Thesis; Janet Burroway, Committee Member; Karen Laughlin, Committee Member.

Set in Maddley, Connecticut, The Fictionist tells the story of Henry Riordan, a young man unable to come to terms with loss. As Henry pursues a series of unattainable dreams in order to recover an unalterable past, he learns that love, hope, and life reside in the present. The Fictionist is a story of memory, imagination, and myth. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2003. / April 28, 2003. / Imagination, A Story Of Memory, and Myth. / Includes bibliographical references. / Mark Winegardner, Professor Directing Dissertation; Neil Jumonville, Outside Committee Member; Janet Burroway, Committee Member; Robert Olen Butler, Committee Member; Anne Rowe, Committee Member.

The stories collected here are primarily about belief, especially irrational belief. In each piece, a character struggles with rejecting cherished ideals. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Spring Semester, 2008. / April 7, 2008. / Illustrated, Short Stories, Fiction / Includes bibliographical references. / Mark Winegardner, Professor Directing Thesis; Robert Olen Butler, Committee Member; David Vann, Committee Member.

The aim of this project is to conduct analyses of twelve American novels and one short story collection published between 1920 and 1936 and to demonstrate their effect in scripting cultural memory and in shaping public sentiment toward military intervention in the United States during that period. Specifically, these novels, all dealing directly with the First World War or its fallout/aftermath, provided a rhetorical framework within which pacifist, isolationist, and anti-militarist elements were ultimately able to influence legislation directly regarding the role America would play in the world's conflicts until 1941. Furthermore, following years of official propaganda and press censorship and in the absence of any modern mass media, they represented for the post-war public nearly the sole outlet through which the experience of the war could be "accurately" or "authoritatively" rendered. As a result, American public feeling toward military intervention turned increasingly negative during the interwar period, mirroring in many ways the fictional works' own bitter and disillusioned (if not outright horrified or defeated) tones. Highlighting the theories of Vincent J. Roscigno's and William Danaher's 2001 study on the "shaping" ability of music on the goals and aims of striking textile workers in the 1930s South, I will demonstrate a parallel effect of these selected American World War I novels during the 1920s and 1930s. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.. / Summer Semester, 2005. / April 29, 2005. / Lost Generation, Pacifism, War Fiction, World War, American History / Includes bibliographical references. / John Fenstermaker, Professor Directing Dissertation; Neil Jumonville, Outside Committee Member; Anne Rowe, Committee Member; Joseph McElrath, Committee Member.

This work is a collection of short stories entitled The Way of Mothers. This collection consists of four stories that were originally produced in writing workshops and two stories that I wrote on my own. I have heard many times a quote attributed to Flannery O'Connor which states that if you survive your childhood, you have enough writing material to last your entire adulthood. I have found in my time in Florida State University's writing program that my childhood not only affects the content of my writing, but also the way I see things as a writer and as a person. That is, the things that are important to me and stir me to write are the very things that played an important role in my life as a child. I am an only child who was raised by my single mother and her family. This extended family was ripe with strong women: two aunts, my grandmother, and both older and younger cousins. I was continually aware that the bonds between sisters, mothers, and daughters shaped every aspect of life. As I approach my final semester in the writing program, I am not surprised that most of my writing (and more importantly all of my best writing) explores the relationships between mothers and daughters. The stories that I have chosen to revise and include in The Way of Mothers celebrate how varied and dynamic the relationships between mothers and daughters can be. Each story took me in a different direction to a pocket of life that fascinates me. What unites the stories is their reliance on the mother-daughter bond to shape character, action, or point of view. The title story takes place in Baltimore in 1915 and tells the story of a pregnant teenager who seeks refuge in a maternity ward run by nuns. In this story I would like to concentrate on language use, especially musicality. The relationship between the Mother Superior and the teenage girl is entwined in their mutual love for opera music. Six-Chambered Heart reveals the emotional turmoil of a mother who must make decisions regarding the health of her conjoined twin babies. In Parts, a rape survivor moves back in with her parents and finds it difficult to reconcile her life at home and the life she creates in therapy sessions. The Card Store Owner shows how a mother's obsession to control her family can reach to every part of her life. I have been told many times to "write what you know." In some sense, one could say I have not followed this advice, seeing as the aforementioned stories involve situations and places I can only imagine. However, I believe it is the intense love and loyalty a mother feels for her daughter and vice versa that drives the characters and actions in these stories, and that is something I know a lot about. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2004. / March 22, 2004. / Parts, Conjoined Twins, Fiction / Includes bibliographical references. / Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Professor Directing Thesis; Robert Olen Butler, Committee Member; Andrew Epstein, Committee Member.

Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot struggled against conventions and endured criticism as authors. Despite personal turmoil, each eventually civilized some of her rebelliousness, and in her life and writing embraced the symbol of conventional wisdom and lifestyle – marriage. Tracking the evolution of a conventional social vision – the civilizing of powerful passions – in the life and major works of three renowned nineteenth-century British women writers is the subject of the following essays. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2003. / June 24, 2003. / Three Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers / Includes bibliographical references. / John Fenstermaker, Professor Directing Thesis; Barry Faulk, Committee Member; James O’Rourke, Committee Member.