In the thesis "Gender Literary Analysis of the novel Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates" a qualitative interpretative analysis with aspects of discourse analysis is used to interpret the plot and characters from a gender perspective. These interpretations are based on the "resistant reading" method introduced by Judith Fetterley. The literary analysis concepts introduced by Pam Morris and Elaine Showalter are also used as a point of reference. The aim for the application of Gender as a methodological category is to reveal and find new potential meanings and interpretations of the whole story and its characters with respect to their gender identity. The key areas that are focused on are motherhood, emancipation.

The problem of this study was to develop a simplified Spanish teaching guide for analytical commentaries about contemporary short stories in Spanish. To realize this study, major approaches in analytical commentary of short story instruction in classes of Spanish in American colleges and universities were identified through intensive research and have been incorporated into the guide. Consequently, general principles for the analysis and explication of the contemporary short story in Spanish are identified. The objectives in these major principles found in the literature are concepts which meet the needs of the present-day student in an ever-changing society. The analytical commentary on the short stories focuses on specific and essential elements of the short story. It is based on four selected representative authors from the Hispanic world—Juan Rulfo, Ana Maria Matute, Sabine R. Ulibarri, and Horacio Quiroga—and four short stories of their respective authors from anthologies used in Spanish classes in the United States of America. The linguistic analysis and commentary on the short story are basically limited to the linguistically cultural aspect. Those educators of the Spanish language and Hispanic literatures having a personal interest on the subject may find useful the reference list constructed. It was compiled from resources obtained through a computer search and the card catalogs in their respective places: Biblioteca Municipal de Salamanca, Espana, Biblioteca Nacional de Espafia, Madrid; Dallas Public Library; ERIC; Fondren Library, Southern Methodist University; Texas Woman's University; and Willis Library, University of North Texas. Recommendations for instructional evaluators and educators in Spanish are enumerated in Chapter V. Also, based on the results of the development of the teaching guide, recommendations for further research and studies are suggested.

This study investigated the approximations of disciplinary literacy in high school English Language Arts students’ writing. To study the development of these disciplinary conventions, the portfolios of written literary analyses were examined from fourteen twelfth-grade students over their last two years in high school. The conceptual framework for analysis of data was informed by a developmental approach. Intermediate forms, approximations, or incremental moves students made as they progressed toward the more expert or conventional forms of literary discourse were identified. Analysis focused on macro-characteristics of literary analysis, adapted from the literature on literary studies, rhetoric and composition, and systemic functional linguistics, including Appreciation, Interpretation, Textual Evidence, Warrant, and Response to Literature Genres. Analysis included a cross-case descriptive analysis of macro-characteristic scores on a rubric designed for the study and a cross-case analysis of literary discourse approximations as seen in students’ writing portfolios. Analysis of scores on midterms and finals found that students’ scores increased from Year 1 to Year 2, with Appreciation scores increasing the most. Analysis of literary discourse approximations resulted in several findings: 1) Development in Interpretation was characterized by increasing accuracy of comprehension, logical consistency, and depth of interpretative meaning; 2) Development in Appreciation was characterized by a growing awareness of the role of the author in a literary text; and 3) Response to Literature Genres demonstrated a range of genres, including Character Analysis, Thematic Interpretation, Thematic Analysis, Critical Response, and alternative or hybrid genres. Thematic Analysis is a proposed new genre that differed from the Thematic Interpretation on the elements of subject, audience, and purpose. Additional analysis of student writing portfolios found a growing awareness in many students of the values and beliefs of the academic literary community, or habits of mind of literary disciplinary literacy, including 1) Increased level of familiarity with the audience’s common knowledge in the field, as demonstrated in use of definitions; 2) Understanding of the value of multiple interpretations of literature, as demonstrated in use of graduation resources, such as epistemic hedges or epistemic boosters; and 3) Ability to engage with multiple voices, as demonstrated in instances of intertextuality.

In the diploma thesis Gender Literary Analysis of the novel Němci by Jakuba Katalpa focusing on the motherhood and the parenthood is a gender literary analysis of the novel Němci by the Czech writer Jakuba Katalpa. The thesis focuses on the motherhood, fatherhood, respectively parenthood and how are these phenomenon established within the concrete society: as essentialist, that means biologically, versus the constructivist, therefore socially constructed paradigm. In my thesis I use qualitative interpretative analysis with aspects of discourse analysis and feminist literary theory. Using gender as a analytical cathegory as a methodological category, I try to find and uncover new interpretations and meanings of the book Němci and try to find alternative interpretations of plot and characters. Methodological-theoretical part on the basis of literature introduces the basic terms in use (gender, patriarchy, literary canon, feminism, feminist literary theory), with the help of several writers and authors (Terry Eagleton, Pam Morris, Elaine Showalter). The next part of the thesis pays attention to the concepts of motherhood (Zuzana Kiczková, Sara Ruddick, Elisabeth Badinter, Hana Hašková) and fatherhood (R. W. Connell, Ann Oakley, Elisabeth Badinter). I use the method of so- called resistant reading...

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This essay explores the use of young adult literature, primarily the young adult novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008), and how it creates an educational potential for learning and discussing ethics and ethical dilemmas for upper secondary school students. First, the curriculum for upper secondary school in Sweden is examined and confirms literature as important content of communication in the English subject and what the role of literature can be. Further, the curriculum’s ethical aspects are analysed, and it is affirmed that ethics has a significant part in the Swedish school and the English subject. However, the curriculum does not state how ethics should be taught. Additionally, research is presented and displays the connection between ethics and literature. Suzanne S. Choo’s thoughts and ideas on teaching ethics through literature are the framework of the analysis, and by analysing the ethical themes and issues in The Hunger Games, the aim is to prove the educational potential of teaching ethics with the use of the novel. The novel contains multiple ethical themes and topics suitable for an upper secondary school class, both broader themes regarding social and political issues, and internal ethical dilemmas. In conclusion, the novel appeals to many of the qualities requested in a book by young adults, and the educational potential is promising.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze various texts from Japanese literary history and extract the instances of trans-gender performances from those texts. I define “trans-gender” behaviors as actions that are culturally expected of the gender opposite that of the gender assigned to the performer at birth. In each text, I identify which character or characters perform actions that go against the expectations of the gender they were assigned at birth. I analyze how their performance is portrayed within the narrative, as well as how other characters in the narrative react to their performance. In this way, nuances are extracted that relate to the trope of gender play in these four historical eras. The literary representations of this trans-gender play respond to the needs and values systems of the time periods within which they exist. In the Heian period, this play is caused by external forces and ends due to sexual acts. In the Muromachi period, the character chooses to perform, but eventually revokes the world. By the Edo period, performance is more widely accepted and culturally ingrained because of the availability of spaces where trans-gender performance is allowed. The performers in Edo period literature usually perform in the context of receiving privileges or being allowed into gendered spaces. Finally, In the Meiji period, heteronormative gender roles are strictly enforced, and the literature reflects negative reactions to non-normative behavior. Trans-gender performers in the Meiji period are often punished in the narratives they inhabit.

Al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ b. Yūsuf al-Ṯaqafī est considéré par l’historiographie médiévale musulmane comme l’archétype de l’homme de pouvoir tyrannique. Ayant fait face avec succès à de nombreuses révoltes, il a posé un problème moral aux historiens musulmans, dans la mesure où il est mort de mort naturelle, sans avoir été puni par Dieu. Comment donc rendre compte de sa période mouvementée, de ses actions, de sa défiance vis-à-vis des symboles religieux, des massacres qu’il a commis ? Nous tentons de démontrer qu’en recourant entre autres à la satire et à l’ironie, les historiens et les hommes de lettres qui ont écrit sur lui ont répondu, chacun à sa manière, à cette question épineuse, en dressant de lui un portrait noir, qui touche à tous les aspects de sa personne. En nous appuyant sur les projets de Paul Ricœur et surtout de Hayden White, nous démontrons également que les historiens musulmans intervenaient de façon notable dans la composition de leurs œuvres pour orienter leurs récits selon leur conception morale et « idéologique » propre, offrant ainsi des portraits différents d’al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ. Le résultat en est des lectures sceptiques (al-Ṭabarī), ironiques (al-Balāḏurī) ou satiriques et très pro-‘alide (al-Mas‘ūdī). Le contre-point offert par l’étude de trois textes non historiques permet d’élargir cette vision et de prouver si besoin est la proximité entre histoire et adab à l’époque médiévale. Par la même occasion, nous pensons avoir trouvé de nombreux exemples réfutant la thèse d’une histoire canonique écrite sous le califat ‘abbaside. / Al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ b. Yūsuf al-Ṯaqafī is considered by Islamic medieval historiography as the archetypal man of tyrannical power. Having successfully dealt with many revolts, he posed a moral problem to Muslim historians, to the extent that he died of natural causes, without being punished by God. How then to account for his turbulent times, his actions, his distrust vis-à-vis religious symbols, massacres he committed? We are trying to demonstrate that by using satire and irony, historians and writers who have written about him have responded, each in its own way, this thorny issue by drawing a black portrait of him, touching on all aspects of the person. Building on the accomplishments of Paul Ricœur and especially Hayden White, we also show that Muslim historians intervened significantly in the composition of their works to guide their narratives according to their moral conception and “ideological” own, offering portraits various al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ. The result is skeptical (al-Ṭabarī), ironic (al-Balāḏurī) or satirical and very pro-‘alide (al-Mas‘ūdī) readings. The study of three non-historical texts broadens the vision and demonstrate if necessary proximity between history and adab in medieval times. At the same time, we believe we have found many examples refuting the thesis that a canonical history was written under the Caliphate Abbasid.

The esteemed French author, Marcel Proust, revolutionized the way that literature fuses with visual art. Through the detail of his novella Un Amour de Swann, Proust creates a world in which the idolatry of a painting destines one man to a life void of fulfillment in love. This thesis explores the intrinsic connection of painting and literature to love through Proust’s treatment of the Botticelli fresco, Les Épreuves de Moïse, and the carefully crafted lesson that Proust teaches to integrate art into the fabric of life. Proust’s advice reaches far beyond the constraints of his own words, and through an analysis of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, Proustian guidance is brought to a universal scale. For Proust, art truly was a way of life, this thesis seeks to embody just that.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis finds its epistemological basis in two related motives: the re-conceptualisation of white writing in Zimbabwe as a sub-category of Zimbabwean literature, and the recognition of white narratives as necessarily dialogic. The first motive follows the realization that writing by Zimbabwean whites is systematically marginalized from “mainstream” Zimbabwean literature owing to its perceived irrelevance to the postcolonial Zimbabwean nation. Through an application of Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory, this thesis argues for a recognition of white writing as a literary sub-system existing in relation to other literary and non-literary systems in Zimbabwe’s polysystem of culture. As its second motive, the thesis also calls for a critical approach to white Zimbabwean narratives built on the understanding that the study of literature can no longer be left to monologic approaches alone. Rather, white narratives should be considered as multiple and hence amenable to a multiplicity of approaches that recognize dialogue as an essential aspect of all narratives. The thesis attempts, by closely reading nine white-authored narratives in Zimbabwe, to demonstrate that white Zimbabwean literature is characterized by multiplicity, simultaneity and instability; these are tropes developed from Bakhtin’s understanding of utterances as characterized by a minimum of two voices. To consider white writing in Zimbabwe as a multiplicity is to call forth its numerous dimensions and breadth of perceptions. Simultaneity posits the need to understand opposites/conflicts as capable of existing side by side without necessarily dissolving into unity. Instability captures the several movements and destabilizations that affect writers, characters and the literary system. These three tropes enable a re-reading of white Zimbabwean narratives as complex and multi-nuanced. Such characteristics of the literary system are seen to reflect on the experiences of “whiteness” in postcolonial Zimbabwe. The white narratives selected for examination in this thesis therefore exhibit crises of belonging that reflect the dialogic nature of existence. In sum, this thesis is meant as a dialogue, culminating in the proposition that calls for a decentred and redemptive literary experience. / AFRIKKANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis vestig sy epistemologiese basis in twee verwante motiewe: die herkonseptualisering van skryfwerk deur wit skrywers in Zimbabwe as ’n sub-kategorie van Zimbabwiese letterkunde, en die erkenning van wit narratiewe as onontkombaar dialogies in aard en wese. Die eerste motief volg die argument dat die skryfwerke van wit Zimbabwieërs stelselmatig gemarginaliseer is uit “hoofstroom” Zimbabwiese literatuur, as gevolg van dié skryfwerke se beweerde irrelevansie tot die koloniale Zimbabwiese nasie-staat. Deur Even-Zohar se polisisteem teorie toe te pas, pleit hierdie tesis vir die erkenning van letterkunde deur wit skrywers as ’n literêre sub-stelsel wat bestaan in verhouding tot ander literêre en nie-literêre sisteme in Zimbabwe se polisisteem van kultuur. As sy tweede motief, vra die tesis ook vir ’n kritiese benadering tot wit Zimbabwiese narratiewe, gebou op die verstandhouding dat die studie van letterkunde nie meer suiwer aan monologies benaderings oorgelewer behoort te word nie. Inteendeel, wit narratiewe moet as veelsydig beskou word, en dus vatbaar vir ’n verskeidenheid benaderings wat dialoog as ’n noodsaaklike aspek van alle verhale erken en verken. Deur nege wit outeurs se verhale in Zimbabwe noukeurig te lees, dui hierdie tesis aan dat wit Zimbabwiese literatuur gekenmerk word deur veelvuldigheid, gelyktydigheid en onstabiliteit; hieride is teoretiese konsepte wat ontleen is aan Bakhtin se begrip van uitsprake (“utterances”) as bestaande uit ’n minimum van twee stemme. Om wit lettere in Zimbabwe as veelvuldig te verklaar is om die talle dimensies en breedtes van persepsie in letterkundige korpus te erken. Gelyktydig postuleer die tesis die moontlikheid dat teenoorgesteldes/konflikte langs mekaar kan en móét bestaan, sonder om noodwendig in ’n eenheid te ontaard. Onstabiliteit, soos dit hier verstaan word, omvat die verskillende bewegings en ontstuimige roeringe wat skrywers, karakters en die literêre sisteem beïnvloed. Hierdie drie konsepte laat ’n herlees van wit Zimbabwiese verhale toe wat as kompleks en multi-genuanseerd bestempel kan word. Sulke kenmerke van die literêre sisteem moet in ag geneem word om die ervaring van “witheid” in post-koloniale Zimbabwe effektief uit te beeld. Die wit verhale wat gekies is vir herlees in hierdie tesis beeld dus krisisse van bestaan uit wat die dialogiese aard van die menslike bestaan omvat. Ter afsluiting is hierdie tesis bedoel as ’n dialoog wat kulmineer in ’n oproep vir gedensentraliseerde en verlossende ervarings van die letterkunde in sy geheel.