Of all of Austen<&trade>s works, Lady Susan tends to stand alone in style and character development. The titular character of the novella in particular presents a literary conundrum for critics and readers of Austen. In an attempt to understand the character and why Austen wrote her, Lady Susan has been considered as a œmerry widow (Lane), a Machiavellian power figure (Mulvihill), and an indication of Austen<&trade>s familiarity with gossip and adultery (Russell). Despite these varied and colorful readings, critics have failed to fully resolve the differences between Lady Susan and Austen<&trade>s more beloved, maidenly heroines such as Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliott.This paper delves into one explanation that has hitherto been overlooked”Lady Susan<&trade>s relationship to the Restoration rake character trope. In light of Lady Susan<&trade>s philandering, independent, and mercenary ways, as well as her likeable yet reprehensible personality, the connection to the Restoration rake is readily apparent. Reading Lady Susan as a rake better informs critical understanding of this character and sheds new light on Jane Austen<&trade>s own perspectives on gender, while also forming a dialectic for critics and audiences for their own perspectives on gender, gender roles, and acceptable behavior. To accomplish this task, this paper explores Austen<&trade>s own early experiences with theatre and her predilection for theatrical allusions, the rake character<&trade>s genealogy and influence on literature, and a close reading of the novella in context of Restoration comedies.

This dissertation investigates the identity of Lady Wisdom, the enigmatic figure in Proverbs 8:22–31. The presupposition of this investigation is a widely shared expert interpretation, namely, that Lady Wisdom is a multifaceted female divine figure whose origin and characteristics are interwoven with those of a number of ancient Near Eastern goddesses. The main contribution of this project is to argue that the Ugaritic goddess Anat be considered a possible precursor of Lady Wisdom. According to the author, a fluid and complementary relationship exists between Lady Wisdom’s depiction in the Hebrew Bible and Anat’s depiction in ancient Near Eastern religions, especially since certain aspects of their origin, status, and function are similar. The project also sheds light on the pivotal role of Lady Wisdom as a co-creator and mediator of the heavens and the earth. She should be regarded as a co-creator who is an active and mobile participant in God’s creative work; she is found not only in Proverbs but also in other biblical and deuterocanonical traditions. Moreover, she is a perfect mediator not only between the creation traditions and wisdom literature but also between the divine and human realms. Her mysterious identity is manifested in her own words and in others’ descriptions of her. Humans can either accept or reject Lady Wisdom, but only those who recognize and appreciate her divine knowledge are able to embrace truth in their lives.

The purpose of this study is to see how gender is produced in one music video, chosen by a stratified, purposive sampling. This is done partly by studying the visual and linguistic dimensions of the text, partly by defining its discourse. The analysis is conducted by using MCDA (Multimodal critical discourse analysis). To study the material, the video was segmented into smaller sections based on the parts of the song (chours, verse etcetera). The semiotic resources that is considered in this analysis is participants, gaze and poses. The result of this study shows that, in this particular music video, gender is portrayed in similar ways through the resources. The gender of the dominant and strong woman is mostly portrayed through hands placed in the waist, legs placed wide and a neutral face combined with eye contact or hidden eyes/gaze. The innocent, emotional woman is portrayed through a including gaze towards the viewer. The gender man on the other hand is portrayed as dominant and strong through a intense, observing gaze and a relaxed body in combination with a broad-legged position. It also became clear that women were more sexualized that men in the video, even though they both established dominance through the same use of the resources in the bigger part of the video. The discourse for the material was connotated to be mostly a sexual discourse with a hint of and emotionaland/ or love discourse.

Coccinella septempunctata L. (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) has been introduced to North America in recent decades, raising concerns of adverse impacts on native lady beetles, including the congeneric C. transversoguttata richardsoni (Brown). The central focus of my dissertation is to understand the importance of reproduction, in particular, in promoting invasion of C. septempunctata and its replacement of native lady beetles in alfalfa fields of western North America. Studies were conducted to compare reproductive tactics of the invasive C. septempunctata and the native C. transversoguttata, by addressing: 1) maximum rate of reproduction of overwintered lady beetles, 2) population dynamics of the invasive and native lady beetles and their aphid prey, and seasonal reproductive patterns, over a 3-year period (2004'2006) in alfalfa fields, 3) reproductive tactics and plasticity in response to various prey availabilities, and 4) ovarian dynamics and observation of oosorption in response to prey removal. The invasive C. septempunctata gained a reproductive advantage over native, North American lady beetles from its larger body size when feeding on abundant prey. The invasive species gained additional advantage by its allocation of prey to larger numbers of relatively small eggs. In alfalfa fields, females of C. septempunctata reproduced more readily and laid more eggs than females of C. transversoguttata even at low prey density. C. septempunctata females collected from the field were also more successful in approaching their maximum body weights and reproduction, as observed under ideal conditions, than were females of native C. transversoguttata. In the laboratory, C. septempunctata females produced larger numbers of relatively small eggs, and they maintained their body weights even as they were producing eggs at low rates when aphids were provided in limited numbers. More immediate adjustment of reproductive effort with prey removal, and higher recovery of reproductive rate when prey again became available, were observed in C. septempunctata, compared with C. transcersoguttata. These reproductive abilities of C. septempucntata may contribute to its invasion success and dominance in alfalfa fields. Further studies are needed to determine why females of C. septempunctata are in better physiological condition than are females of C. transversoguttata in spring alfalfa fields.

The purpose of this study is to illustrate the power image of Henry James's female protagonists through a Readers Theatre adaptation of his novels, Daisy Miller, The Wings of the Dove, and The Portrait of a Lady. Chapter I includes an introduction and defines the purpose of the thesis. Chapter II briefly examines biographical information on James. Chapter III includes the analysis of the three selected novels in relation to preparation of a performance based script for Readers Theatre. In the Appendix is the Readers Theatre script with the inclusive transition and introductory material. The illustration of a typical Jamesian woman reveals a philosophic view of the human possibilities in freedom, power, and the destructive elements that limit an independent spirit.

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The works of Henry James are renowned for their dense sub-text and the manner in which he leaves his reader to elucidate much of his meaning. In the field of adaptation theory, therefore, James presents somewhat of a problem for the film adaptor: how does one convey on screen James' delicate implications, which are formative to the text without actually existing on the printed page? This project not only works to answer that question, but it also addresses a more serious question: what does adaptation have to offer to the student of literature? In the case of Henry James, the film adaptations of his novels expose the trope of voyeurism which functions as one of the central operative mechanisms in the novels, allowing both authorial omniscience into the minds and lives of the characters, as well as the creation of a voyeuristic character through whose perceptions the reader's knowledge is filtered. In examining recent film adaptations of The Portrait of a Lady. The Wings of the Dove, and Washington Square, it becomes apparent that the key to adapting James is careful attention to this trope of voyeurism, which ultimately becomes more important to a successful adaptation (an adaptation which most closely reproduces James' observations and biases rather than those of the director) than exact fidelity to the plot itself. With these considerations in mind, I have indicated that Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of The Portrait of a Lady most successfully achieves James' purposes, highlighting both the on-screen voyeurism of Ralph Touchett, then using techniques (lighting, camera angles, editing, sound) to similarly construct the viewer as voyeur. Agniezka Holland's Washington Square, however, ignores James' careful positioning of Catherine Sloper as an object of visual amusement to her father and creates an insipid film that plays the drama as a mercantile transaction gone awry. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Iain Softley's The Wings of the Dove bloats the construct of viewer as voyeur into ineffectuality through his use of full nudity to capture the eye of the audience, ensuring that the film's images, rather than its story, are all that is remembered.

This thesis explores the roles of widowhood and sympathy in Henry James's short and long fiction. By the time James established himself as a writer of fiction, the culture of sentiment and its formation of sympathetic identification had become central to American and British writers. Critically, however, sympathy in James's fiction has been overlooked because he chose to write about rich expatriates and European nobility. James's pervasive use of widowed characters in his fiction suggests the he too participated in the same aesthetic agenda as William Dean Howells and George Eliot to evoke sympathy in their readers as a means of promoting class unity. In this thesis I show how James's use of widowed characters places him in the same sympathetic tradition as Howells and Eliot not by eliciting sympathy for themselves, but, rather, by awakening a sympathetic response from his readers for his protagonists seeking love. In chapter one I explore why James may have used so many widowed characters in his fiction. I cite the death of his cousin Minny Temple as a defining moment in his literary career and argue that he may have experienced an "emotional widowhood" after her early death. I also discuss the role of widows in his short fiction, which I suggest, is different from the role of widows in his novels. This chapter is biographical, yet provides important background for understanding why, more than any other author, James's fiction is replete with widowed characters. Chapter two explains the culture of sentiment of which James has been excluded. It explores the theories of David Hume and Adam Smith and their influence on the aesthetic principles defining Howells and Eliot's work. In this chapter I contend that James is indeed part of this sentimental tradition despite his renunciation of sentiment in his fiction because he tried to promote sympathy among his readers through his widowed characters. In chapter three I do close readings of The Portrait of a Lady (1881) and The Wings of the Dove (1902) and argue that these two texts best represent James's attempt at sympathetic writing.

The following is a case study in contemporary cancel culture through three cases of it in the nineteenth century. Lord Byron, Lady Caroline Lamb, and Harriet Beecher Stowe serve as three prominent cases of cancel culture in their time period that are all closely linked to one another. Cancel culture changes the way that we study these figures and their writing in the modern day. This shows that although we believe that cancel culture is a new phenomenon with the rise of social media that is not the case. Cancel culture has been happening through time as a way for the public to enact social justice without getting the court involved. Cancel culture is a lesson in the public court of opinion. / Master of Arts / The following is a case study in contemporary cancel culture through three cases of it in the nineteenth century. Writers, Lord Byron, Lady Caroline Lamb, and Harriet Beecher Stowe serve as three prominent cases of cancel culture in their time period that are all closely linked to one another. Cancel culture changes the way that we study these figures and their writing in the modern day. It highlights how cancel culture is not as black and white as people initially believe while also showing an unbiased explanation of what transpires when a person is canceled. This shows that although we believe that cancel culture is a new phenomenon with the rise of social media that is not the case. Cancel culture has been happening through time as a way for the public to enact social justice without getting the court involved. Cancel culture is a lesson in the public court of opinion.