It is the purpose of this thesis to trace the influence on the development of Tolstoy as a literary genius of several women with whom he came in close contact during his long life. The first woman considered is Countess Mary Tolstoy, the saintly mother who died when her son was less than two years old. All that he knew of her, he learned indirectly from her letters and diary, from old servants, friends, and relatives, and more especially from "Aunt" Tatyana Yergolskaya. However, her influence was so great, inspite of the fact that he never remembered her personally, that she must occupy a prominent place in this work. She became for her famous son an ideal, a seeker for truth, a mother-image and a standard of self-sacrificing womanhood against which, throughout his life all women were measured and fell short. Another woman whose influence on Tolstoy was somewhat indirect was his "Aunt" Alexandra Andreievna Tolstoy, to whom he wrote and in whom he confided from his early manhood till her death in 1903, but whom he rarely met. His correspondence with her has been used in this thesis. The woman who had the most direct influence on Tolstoy during his early formative years was Tatyana Yergolskaya. It was she who not only kept always before him the image of his saintly mother, but who herself became its reflection. It was she who created the warm nest, protecting him from the cold realities of life and making his future adjustment so difficult; who through, her loving self-sacrifice developed his egoism; and who first inspired him to write. Amongst the women with whom Tolstoy fell in love, Valeria Arseniev held a unique position. It was not that she influenced him directly, but indirectly she contributed to his development, in that during his courtship, while weighing the advisability of marriage, Tolstoy crystalized his ideas of what a wife should be, and what role she should play in his life. Valeria fell short of his ideal of womanhood and his conception of a help-mate. He searched elsewhere. The greatest influence on his genius was undoubtedly his wife, Sophia. Having found the woman who, he felt, measured up as closely as possible to his requirements of a self-sacrificing worker, an intellectual companion and literary helper, a loyal, dedicated loving mother, he married in haste. Prom 1862-1877 Sophia's influence was paramount. Believing in her mission, to.be nurse to his genius, she created the atmosphere conducive to his writing; she gave him the stable home life with a large family that he wanted and needed as anchor; she encouraged him to write by her unflagging belief in his talent and her adroit use of flattery, cajolery, and gentle prodding; she made it possible for him to devote all his powers to purely creative work by tirelessly transcribing and intelligently criticizing his work; and she cared for his physical and mental wellbeing by taking off his shoulders, as far as she was able, the weight of mundane matters to do with family, estate, business, and publishing. But even she fell short of the mother-image. In later life the moralist and the seeker transcended the creative artist. Here, Sophia would not, and indeed could not, follow her husband. She could not see the god for the feet of clay. With his last artistic work, Resurrection, her influence ceased and her work ended. She who had been his help-mate in his literary work became his cross in his moral labour. Tolstoy owed a tremendous debt to the women who had influenced his life, but for once, the seer was blind — he could not see the forest for the trees. At seventy-one he said that his opinion of women had been falling for seventy years — this enigmatic statement can be explained. Each woman in his life fell short of his ideal mother-image. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

Through a second look at the now twenty-five-year-old literature on guanxi, a form of reciprocal relationship making and using in China, I examine how the kinds of opportunities and challenges possible for young people intersect with who they know and how this has changed (with its own set of reflections on and consequences for a still-rapidly changing China) since China’s rural to urban transition. My dissertation project examines how young people in contemporary urban China form and produce guanxi ties (resource-full relationships) through the theoretical lens of practice and possibility, inspired by de Certeau’s conceptualization of practice, productive consumption, and strategies versus tactics (1984). Drawing on qualitative data gathered through participant observation and unstructured interviews, I sought to both describe and analyze when, where, and how social networks became consequential. Central to my methodology is an emphasis on people and their practices rather than the common sense categories used to describe them. The people in my field research were predominantly aged 18-30 and came from a range of ethnic, professional, and education backgrounds. In so doing, I was able to examine the moments and contexts within which some people have opportunities and others do not, as well as when some are vulnerable while others are less so. I found that social networks can be formed in a variety of spaces, and sometimes most saliently in moments of serendipity. Chance encounters in spaces of play, without the artifice of traditional and structured gift-giving practices of building guanxi, provided people with opportunities and potential alternatives outside of more stringent work hierarchies. Ultimately, who people knew – their social networks – shaped the ways in which they experienced circumstances of precarity, instability, and possibility.

This thesis examines Walt Whitman's friendships with many of his contemporaries in New York, Boston, Washington and Camden, and highlights the differences among them.

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The purpose of this study is to determine what effect six real women in Jack London's life had upon the development of fictional women found in thirty-eight of London's short stories. The six women were Flora Wellman London, Bess Maddern London, Charmian Kittredge London, Anna Strunsky, Mabel Applegarth, and Ina Coolbrith. The study will reveal previously unpublished information about these women based on letters, interviews with people who knew them, and previously uncited newspaper and magazine articles. It will also offer, in most cases, the first chronologically organized in-depth biographical profiles ever recorded of these women. The major attributes of these women were scrutinized, their behavior patterns and physical appearances were chronicled, and their relations both with and independent of Jack London were analyzed. The effect the above mentioned six women had on Jack London was that they significantly helped cause him to portray women in a particular (and unusual) way.Thirty-eight of London's short stories which feature female protagonists were analyzed. These fictional females were studied for attributes, behavior patterns, and appearances. The final step was to correlate the attributes and characteristics of the fictional women to those of the real women.An overview of the entire study reveals three key points: (1) although usually portrayed as very masculine and independent, Jack London was a person whose philosophies, educational development, and political viewpoints were greatly influenced by the six women focused upon in this study; (2) strong evidence suggests that twenty-eight of the fictional women in the thirty-eight short stories which featured major female protagonists were modeled upon either the six real women focused upon in this study or upon other real women (Freda Moloof, Mrs. Hans Nelson whom London knew during his lifetime; and (3) although the general critical opinion regarding London's failure to create a series of believable fictional women is still valid, it is not absolute; some of the women whom London created in his short stories were modeled upon real women in his life, and their reflected real characteristics are vivid enough to make them powerful, three-dimensional, believable characters.

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It is the scope and purpose of this study to investigate the Whitman-woman relationship and to attempt to answer, so far as this Whitman puzzle may be answered, the question of the effect of women on the Whitman philosophy and the nature of that philosophy concerning women.

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Nicolas Poussin's two Self-Portraits, painted in 1649 and 1650, have been the subject of countless art-historical investigations, but remain only incompletely understood. This study attempts to draw the meanings of the self-images into clearer focus. To this end, the relationships between Poussin and the eventual recipients of the two portraits, Jean Pointel and Paul Freart, Sieur de Chantelou, are examined more probingly and are positioned centrally in the analysis of the works. A careful exploration of the web of associations among the three men reveals that Poussin's caution in dealing with Chantelou, his often jealous and emotional patron, was a factor of great consequence to the development of the Self-Portraits. Bearing this in mind, both Poussin's letters and the scholarly accounts which accept his written statements at face value, may be approached with a more critical eye. This practice, in turn, leads to a broadened range of possibilities for the interpretation of the two Self-Portraits, and to a greater appreciation of the extent to which Poussin's creations were affected by human dynamics.