This project asserts that male Naturalist authors were not “hypermasculine” acolytes of strident manhood, but instead offer alternative constructions which they portray as less traumatic and more cohesive than prevailing social notions of normative male behavior. I maintain that the rise of the concept of manhood advocated by Theodore Roosevelt in the early decades of the twentieth century contributed to this misconception, for it generated a discourse of “manly” individualism which became equated with socially acceptable performances of masculinity for many Americans. My first chapter illustrates the gradual evolution of an individualistic, violent, and strident concept of manhood, which I label “strenuous masculinity,” through the rhetoric of Theodore Roosevelt. The second chapter explores the ways in which Stephen Crane’s fiction illuminates the trauma and confusion inherent in strenuous concepts of manhood. Many of Crane’s stories, like “Five White Mice,” demonstrate the failure of individualism, while others, like “The Open Boat,” document a more positive construction of what I call “homosocial manhood.” In my third and final chapter, I attempt to prove that Richard Wright’s early texts showcase a range of possible outcomes of black male attempts to stand up to racial oppression. I document that Uncle Tom’s Children and Native Son both depict a continuum of confrontation, with individual violence on one end of the spectrum and non-violent group protest on the other. Furthermore, because individual resistance is consistently equated with the suffering and death of the protagonists, my project implies that strenuous manhood also fails to provide a site for effectual and sustainable opposition to the negating forces of racial oppression. / Theodore Roosevelt and the transformation of American masculinity -- "The youth leaned heavily on his friend" : alternative constructions of masculinity in Stephen Crane's fiction -- Richard Wright's early fiction as a rejection of the racial oppression of strenuous manhood. / Department of English

The present project sets out to discover what the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan ('A Tale of Marriage Destinies that will Bring Society to its Senses'), an anonymous novel of manners from seventeenth-century China, can tell us about life in the world out of which it emerged. Seventeenth-century records depict China on the verge of modernity as a world torn between the traditional agricultural society and the new challenges of urban life, commerce and a money economy. The shifts from conventional norms and values gave rise to concepts of Utopia and anti-utopia: to nostalgia for the lost paradise of the past and to apocalyptic satire on present conditions. Scholars have noted the prominence of utopianism in seventeenthcentury fiction but no detailed study has been undertaken so far. Utopianism is here explored in terms of the indigenous Chinese traditions. The text of the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan is analysed to see how it perceives and reflects the seventeenth century Chinese world. Utopia serves as an analytical construct to recreate a glimpse of society and the moral evaluation of the world through the eyes of a contemporary observer. The body of the thesis analyses three major motifs in the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan: the healers, the elite and the mother. Critical comparison with other contemporary literary and historical sources attempts to place the novel into its context. The visions of Utopia and anti-utopia provide insight into the dreams and nightmares as seventeenth-century Chinese minds may have perceived them, shedding light on the vernacular culture as opposed to the officially recognised and imperially ordained culture of China.

Finally, I have tried to establish a causal connection between Oriya identity and the political process of Orissa during the period of study.

No description available.

The focus of this thesis is on Xhosa oral and written poetry. The discussion in the thesis is based on the information from existing literature, the responses from the questionnaires and the interviews with some Xhosa iimbongi (person who sings praises) who have reflected on their personal experiences. In addition to this, S.E.K. Mqhayi is at the centre of discussion because as a prominent Xhosa imbongi he features in both the oral and the written world.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-258) / 258 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Presents readings of six novels which depict something of the nature of war trauma. Collectively, the novels suggest that the attempt to narrativise war trauma is inherently problematic. Traces the disjunctions between narrative and war trauma which ensure that war trauma remains an elusive and private phenomonen; the gulf between private experience and public discourse haunts each of the novels. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 2001

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / The eras of colonial expansion and the era designated the modern have been both chronologically and philosophically linked from the commencement of the Renaissance period and Enlightenment thought in the 15th century. The discovery of the New World in 1492 gave impetus to a new type of literature, the colonial novel. Throughout the development of this genre, in both its narrative strategies and the depiction of the colonist’s relationship with the foreign land he now inhabits, it has been both informed and formed by the prevailing philosophical atmosphere of the time. In the context of this discussion it is particularly interesting to note what might be termed the level of regression of the modern ideal, and how it is reflected in the colonial novels written at the time. Commencing with the essentially optimistic Robinson Crusoe and The Coral Island, and progressing through the far darker imaginings of Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies, and eventually Apocalypse Now and Blood Meridian, it is possible to trace the effects of the declining power of Enlightenment thought. Whereas earlier texts deal quite unambiguously with the issue of the Western subject’s subjugation of both the foreign environment and the foreign subjects he encounters there, and the relation between subject and object remains quite uncomplicated, in later, more self-reflexive texts the modern subject’s relationship with both the alien land and alien people becomes far more problematic. Later texts such as Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies depict a world where the self-assurance of early texts is strikingly absent. Increasingly, as the initial self-confidence of modernism is eroded, secular moral values, too, come to be questioned. It is here that the works of Nietzsche come to play a prominent role in the analysis of how such a decline in modern confidence is reflected in later colonial works. Even later works such as Apocalypse Now and Blood Meridian provide a view of the colonial enterprise that is in striking contrast to the optimism of early texts. The chronological progression of texts dealt with here, spanning an era of almost three hundred years prove to be reflective, to a large degree, of the decline of modernity and the effects of this on the colonial enterprise as depicted in the colonial genre.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-01-13Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:55:24Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 santos_ds_me_assis.pdf: 605411 bytes, checksum: fb21af2dfba3823cc51651cc8c0d1b3e (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / A presente dissertação centra-se no estudo de A América Latina e Ariel, dois ensaios importantes no contexto latino-americano da passagem do século XIX para o século XX. Seus autores, o brasileiro Manoel Bomfim (1868-1932) e o uruguaio José Enrique Rodó (1871- 1917), revelam pontos de convergência e pontos de divergência ao longo de suas análises. Enquanto o primeiro se detém com maior atenção nas características e consequências da colonização ibérica em solo americano, o segundo se volta contra um possível processo de recolonização via Estados Unidos da América. Contudo, apesar dessa focalização distinta, ambos os autores tecem, em seus ensaios, relações de base antitética. Assim, Ariel/Caliban, para José Enrique Rodó, e os parasitas/parasitados, para Manoel Bomfim, são representações antagônicas que simbolizam alternativas desejáveis e indesejáveis para os povos latinoamericanos. O intuito inicial do trabalho é traçar uma breve apreciação biográfica dos autores, seguida de um exame da recepção crítica das obras, de uma análise das questões mais centrais de cada ensaio e, por fim, de uma investigação dos personagens simbólicos criados ao longo das narrativas. Com base nesse cotejo entre as obras, pretendemos compreender melhor o quanto elas contribuem para a construção identitária do imaginário latino-americano / The presented dissertation revolves around the study of A América Latina and Ariel, two important essays in the Latin American context of the passing of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. The writers of these essays, the Brazilian Manoel Bomfim (1868-1932) and the Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó (1871-1917), reveal convergence and divergence points all over their analysis. While the former dwells on the characteristics and consequences of the Iberian colonization in American ground, the latter turns against a possible process of resettlement via the United States of America. However in despite of this distinct focalization both writers draw, in their essays, antithetical-based relationship. Hence, Ariel/Caliban of Rodó and parasite/parasitized of Bomfim are antagonistic representations that symbolize desirable and undesirable alternatives for the peoples of the Latin America. The first purpose of the text is to draw a brief biographical appreciation of the authors, followed by an examination of the critical reception of their works, an analysis of the most central questions of each essay and, at last, an investigation about the symbolic characters created along the narratives. Based in the confrontation of the two texts, we shall understand better how much they contribute for the identity construction of the Latin American imaginary