No description available.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of English

Universiẗat, Diss., 2007--Hamburg.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2005. / Advisor: Susie O'Brien. Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-262). Also available via World Wide Web.

In this dissertation I attempt an evaluation of Barbara Pym as a feminist writer. I study the central protagonists in Pym's twelve novels in the context of British society in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. I have drawn on feminist critical paradigms in my reading of Pym's novels in order to highlight my insights into her women characters. Chapter One examines Pym 's use of comedy and subversion in relation to her main protagonists. Chapter Two explores the 'Excellent Woman' figure in Pym's fiction and the issue of spinsterhood. Chapter Three scrutinises Pym's use of satire and tragedy in relation to her heroines. Chapter Four investigates the emergence of the 'fallen' and 'formidable' women figures in Pym's novels, and analyses the ageing spinster figure. My conclusion is that Barbara Pym is a humanist feminist of some importance, who succeeds in illuminating her heroines' struggles against patriarchy in the context of a changing British society. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Winnie Verloc's role in "The Secret Agent" has received little initial critical attention. However, this character emerges as Conrad's hero in this novel because she is an exception to what afflicts the other characters: institutionalism. In the first chapter, I discuss the effect of institutions on the characters in the novel as well as on London, and how both the characters and the city lack hope and humanity. Chapter II is an analysis of Winnie's character, concentrating on her philosophy that "life doesn't stand much looking into," and how this view, coupled with her disturbing experience of having looked into the "abyss," makes Winnie heroic in her affirmative existentialism. Chapters III and IV broaden the focus, comparing Winnie to Conrad's other protagonists and to his other female characters.

No description available.

No description available.

A self-educated shepherd, Scottish writer James Hogg (1770-1835) spoke from a position outside the dominant discourse, depicting issues of his age related to gender, class, and ethnicity by giving voice to people from the margins and, thus (either consciously or unconsciously), revealing gender politics and Britain's imperial aims. Hogg’s contemporary critics received his work rather negatively, viewing his subjects such as prostitution, out-of-wedlock-pregnancy, infanticide, and the violence of war as violating the principles of literary politeness. Hogg’s obstinacy in addressing these issues, however, supports the thesis that his aim was far more significant than challenging the expectations of his contemporary readers. This project shows that pragmatics can be applied productively to literature because its eclecticism offers the possibility of developing a detailed discussion about three aspects of literary communication—the author, the reader and the text—without prioritising any of them. Literature is an instance of language in use (the field of pragmatics) where an author creates the texts and a reader recreates the author’s message through the text. Analysis of Hogg’s flouting of Grice’s maxims for communication strategies and of his defying the principles of politeness enables a theoretically supported discussion about Hogg’s possible intentions, as well as about how his intentions were perceived by the literary establishment of his time; while both relevance theory and Bakhtin’s socio-linguistics enriched by a historically contextualised politeness shed new light on the negative reception of Hogg’s texts.

L’objet de notre recherche a été précisément de démontrer que des éléments historiques et mémoriels ont joué un rôle primordial dans la construction des héroïnes méditerranéennes. Notre but était donc de souligner ces éléments, d’étudier leurs manifestations dans les œuvres et d’interroger ces dernières afin de trouver les raisons pour lesquelles les écrivaines ont choisi ces éléments parmi d’autres dans la création de leurs personnages. Nous avons donc démontré que ce sont le patrimoine, la mythologie et les traditions orientaux et méditerranéens qui sont revendiqués par nos écrivaines tout en faisant appel à la référence et à la culture occidentales. Nos recherches nous ont permis de découvrir également que les évènements historiques et les traditions culturelles et religieuses ne sont pas les seules à influencer la représentation du personnage féminin ; Il nous a fallu démontrer que ces écrivaines ont nourri leurs œuvres en puisant dans leurs expériences personnelles et leurs souvenirs d’où s’ajoute le rôle de la mémoire individuelle dans la construction des personnages, ce qui nous a offert des pistes afin d’explorer l’inconscient de ces écrivaines en révélant les empreintes de ce dernier dans les textes. Cette étude, a l’ambition, de plus, de démontrer que les œuvres choisies sont des exemples indéniables de la rencontre entre les cultures et les langues, de décrire les différents défis auxquels font face les héroïnes mais aussi les femmes écrivaines et de contribuer à montrer que ces dernières expriment, à travers leurs écrits, leur humanisme et leur révolte contre les violences et les misogynies meurtrières. Ne pouvant nier, in fine, que ces écrivaines engagées et unies par l’amour de la langue et de la culture françaises insistent sur le rôle fondamental de l’écriture. / The object of our research was precisely to demonstrate that historical and memorial elements played a key role in the construction of mediterranean heroines. Our goal was to emphasize these elements, to study their manifestations in the works and to question them in order to find the reasons why the writers chose these elements among others in the creation of their characters. We have therefore demonstrated that it is the heritage, the mythology and the Eastern and Mediterranean traditions that are claimed by our writers while appealing to Western reference and culture. Our research also allowed us to discover that historical events and cultural and religious traditions are not the only ones to influence the representation of the female character; We had to demonstrate that these writers nourished their works by drawing on their personal experiences and memories, and added the role of individual memory in the construction of the characters, which offered us avenues to explore the unconscious of these writers by revealing the imprints of the latter in the texts. This study also aims to demonstrate that the selected works are undeniable examples of the encounter between cultures and languages, to describe the different challenges faced by heroines and women writers, and to contribute to show that the latter express, through their writings, their humanism and their revolt against violence and murderous misogyny. Not being able to deny, in fine, that these committed writers united by the love of French language and culture insist on the fundamental role of writing.