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published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In this thesis, I argue that the question of ethics, despite claims to the contrary, is a central concern in Cormac McCarthy’s fiction. My principal contention, in this regard, is that an approach that is not reliant on conventional systems of meaning is needed if one is to engage effectively with the moral value of this writer’s oeuvre. In devising such an approach, I draw heavily on the ‘immoralist’ writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. The first chapter of the study contends that good and evil, terms central to conventional morality, do not occupy easily definable positions in McCarthy’s work. In the second chapter, the emphasis falls on the way in which language and myth’s mediation of reality informs choice. The final chapter focuses on the post-apocalyptic setting of The Road, in which normative systems of value are completely absent. It argues that, despite this absence, McCarthy presents a compassionate ethic that is able to find purchase in the harsh world depicted in the novel. Finally, then, this study argues that McCarthy’s latest novel, The Road, requires a reconsideration of the critical claim that his work is nihilistic and that it negates moral value.

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Argentine literature at the close of the twentieth century is characterized by a marked interest in the themes of dictatorship, marginality, and exile. Given the shifting of public and private spaces in the country's recent history, a "sinister" space has appeared in the collective subconscious, where all that was negated, prohibited and repressed is now (re)surfacing with tremendous energy in a constant probing into the collective memory effectuated from still present traumas without closure. / The purpose of this dissertation is to analyse the "social tics" which flourish in various art forms, as well as in the underpinnings of Argentine society, and come from the fact that collective suffering has created a defined present which controls the past, and, inevitably, influences the future. In turn, certain themes thus emerge from subjective and fragmented spaces of enunciation where memory plays a crucial role. / In order to do this, I concentrate here on alternative cultural productions to the official propaganda produced during and after the period of dictatorship, paying special attention to women's narratives and testimonies or memoirs of repression. Finally, I undertake an analysis of certain selected cinematographic productions which, like the contemporary literature analysed here, also form part of the movement that demonstrates the need to question Argentine reality---present and past---by foregrounding collective and individual memory in opposition to the generalized trend of amnesia/anaesthesia to point up the very real danger inherent in such "historic amnesia." Taken together, these works reveal the existence of a past that must be recaptured and redeemed, but which, given the existence of the negated and silenced "sinister" space in contemporary reality, forms only a small part of Argentine history still under construction.

Many American novels of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries discuss prostitution. Some works like Reginald Wright Kauffman's The House of Bondage, (1910) exaggerate the threat of "white slavery," but others like David Graham Phillips's Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise (1917) more honestly depict the harsh conditions which caused many women to prostitute themselves for survival. Contemporary critical interpretations of novels addressed in this dissertation began before major shifts in women's roles in the workplace, before trends towards family planning, before women could respectably live on their own, and especially before women won the right to vote. Yet, a century of progress later, this vestigal criticism still influences our study of these texts.Relying on primary source materials such as prostitute autobiographies and vice commission reports, I compare fictional representations of prostitution to historical data, focusing on the prostitute's voice and her position in society. I examine actual prostitutes' life stories to dispel the misconception that prostitution was always a lower-class business. My chapters are ordered in regards to the prominence of the prostitute characters' voices: in Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) the heroine seldom speaks for herself; in two Socialist novels--Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) and Estelle Baker's The Rose Door (1911)--prostitutes debate low wages, political corruption, and organized vice; and in Phillips's Susan Lenox, the title character is almost always allowed to speak for herself, and readers can see what she is thinking as well as doing. As my chapters progress, I demonstrate how the fictions become more like the prostitutes' own autobiographies, with self-reliant women telling their stories without shame or remorse. My conclusion, "Revamping `Fallen Women' Pedagogy for Teaching American Literature," suggests how social history and textual scholarship of specific "fallen women" novels should affect our teaching of these texts. / Department of English

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LD2668 .T4 1947 G75 / Master of Science

Text in Afrikaans / Die doel van hierdie studie was om vas te stel hoe die Afrikaner in literere tekste van die veertiger- en tagtigerjare uitgebeeld word, en of 'n vaste beskouing oor die begrip Afrikanerskap by die skrywers van die verskillende tekste bestaan. Omdat die verhouding tussen die gekose tekste en die geskiedenis telkens ondersoek is, is die Nuwe Historisistiese benadering as geskikte teoretiese model gevolg. Waar hierdie benadering die klem op die realiteit plaas, stel die lmagologie die beeld voorop, en die lmagologiese werkswyse is dus aanvullend gevolg. Omdat die tekste van veertig hoofsaaklik as koloniale literatuur beskou kan word, en die tekste van tagtig as postkoloniaal van aard, is die koloniale en postkoloniale literatuur in Afrikaans kortliks ondersoek. Die studie het verder gepoog om deeglik verkenning van die begrippe Afrikaner en Afrikanerskap te doen aan die hand van verskillende narratiewe tekste wat nie noodwendig literer van aard is nie. Alhoewel daar by die herlees van die vier en twintig literere tekste van die veertigerjare gevind is dat die tekste hoofsaaklik nog as koloniale literatuur beskou kan word, is die interessante insig verwerf dat sekere tekste wat nie deel van die kanon vorm nie, 'n ander realiteit oor die Afrikaner en oor Afrikanerskap aan die leser voorhou as wat tradisioneel die geval was. So is byvoorbeeld bevind dat die strukture wat die Afrikanermaghebber sedert die veertigerjare geskep het, die belange van die Afrikanerdom moes dien. Deur die herlees van die tekste kon die gegewe opnuut ge'interpreteer word en kon nodige aanpassings dus by aanvaarde opvattings gemaak word. Die ondersoek het verder aan die lig gebring dat veral die tekste uit die tagtigerjare verruimend ingewerk het op bestaande, geykte opvattinge oor die Afrikaner en Afrikanerskap en dat sulke opvattinge deur die tekste ondermyn, ontluister of bloot ontken word. Ten slotte het dit duidelik geword dat daar geen eensydige of stabiele betekenis oor die begrippe Afrikaner en van Afrikanerskap uit die verskillende tekste afgelei kon word nie / The purpose of this study was to determine how the Afrikaner was depicted in the literary texts of the forties and the eighties, and to determine whether the authors of the different texts expresses fixed views of the concept Afrikanerskap. As the relationship between the chosen texts and history had been investigated several times, the New Historisistic approach was adopted as a suitable theoretical model. As this approach places the emphasis on reality, and the lmagology sees the image as the most important, lmagological procedures were used additionally. Because the texts of the forties can be seen as mainly colonial of nature and the texts of the eighties as post colonial, the colonial and post colonial literature in Afrikaans was briefly investigated. The study further attempted to thoroughly investigate the concepts Afrikaner and Afrikanerskap with reference to different narrative texts which are not necessarily literary of nature. Although the rereading of twenty four literary texts of the forties confirms that the texts could mainly be seen as colonial literature, the interesting conclusion was made that certain texts not included in the canon gave the reader another reality of Afrikaner and Afrikanerskap than was traditionally the case. It was found, for example, that structures created by Afrikaner authorities since the forties were created to serve the needs of the Afrikanerdom. The rereading of these specific texts led to new interpretations and the necessary adaptations could be done to previously accepted views. The research further indicated that texts from the eighties especially had a broadening effect on existing hackneyed conceptions of Afrikaner and Afrikanerskap and that such views are undermined, clouded or simply ignored by the texts. In conclusion it became clear that no onesided or static interpretation of the concepts Afrikaner and Afrikanerskap could be derived from the different texts / Afrikaans & Theory of Literature / D. Litt. et Phil. (Afrikaans)