This study attempts to present Molly Bloom, the major fem.ale character in Joyce's prose-satire, Ulysses, as an intentional fourfold corrective for the traditional interpretation of the female principle. Her speeches and actions are examined to reveal her positive significance as part of the Stephen-Molly-Bloom triad, and through her various manifestations of the female principle she comes to represent a major force in the world of Ulysses. Specifically, Molly's role as the new poetic muse and her ability to reinterpret both Christian and Eastern female religious figures are probed. Although Molly may be seen as a corrective on all four levels, she is considered here primarily concerning literal and anagogical significance.

The growth of an individual into mature selfhood is the primary basis of the Lawrentian relationship. Lawrence describes a mystical kind of rebirth of the self into a deeper level of the unconscious. He says that one should explore the impulses and desires of the unconscious in order to find a deeper, more fulfilled self. Ursula of The Rainbow and Paul of Sons and Lovers are the characters who most successfully begin this growth into separate selfhood. According to Lawrence the journey into the unconscious is to be accomplished through sensual experiences. He mistrusts the intellect because he feels that the mind distorts reality. The bodily sensations are more concrete, and therefore more real. Lawrence demonstrates in Walter Morel of Sons and Lovers, Birkin and Ursula of Women in Love, and Connie and Mellors of Lady Chatterley's Lover that spontaneous, sensual experiences are necessary to live a fully sensual life. For Lawrence, the failure to discover the deepest, sensual self results in the need to control others. Characters who embrace abstract intellectualism and modern industrialism are the ones who attempt to force every living thing into submission to their egos. The compulsion to dominate others gives the characters a temporary feeling of fulfillment but is ultimately destructive. Gertrude, Miriam, Gerald, and Hermione are destructive characters who strive to control others. They are weak and dependent, needing another person's strength of self to feel complete. The acknowledgement of a separate self is crucial to Lawrence's philosophy of relationships. According to his philosophy a person discovers the separate, fundamental self at the unconscious level through sensual experiences. Abstract intellectualism and industrialism are responsible for causing man's alienation from himself; his failure to discover and acknowledge a deeper self generates destructiveness which is manifested in his domination of other living beings.

Although Updike has been recognized as one of the few contemporary writers worthy of serious consideration, critics and reviewers are not in accord about the acclaim that he has received. They cannot agree that Updike has anything worthwhile to say about the fundamental questions basic to contemporary fiction. Updike has been accused of dealing in sentimentalities and trivialities, while touching only slightly problems important to the human condition. Most critics agree that his style is excellent, but some feel that Updike is using this particular skill to cover up the shallowness of his thought. However, throughout Updike's novels major themes are apparent. This thesis treats two of them: the themes of the decay of love relations and of the decay of religious life, which are conspicuous in his fiction. In handling both themes, Updike is especially conscious of the past and its relation to the present. The past for Updike signifies the time when man believed in the Vorican Dream and lived by the inspiration and guidance of the ideals embodied in it. Updike's major statement of this concept appears in The Poorhouse Fair, but is evident in all his novels. A primary concern in Rabbit, Run, The Centaur, Of the Farm, and Couples is the disintegration of love and religion. In general, Updike believes that the positive and necessary values realized in love and religion were strong and efficacious in the past, while modern life has witnessed their decay and corruption. Apparently Updike envisions modern love as an antidote to the boredom of the modern society. It is entirely selfish, a for-the-moment-only encounter, not meant to lead to a lasting relationship. Modern love contains none of the qualities of honor, respect, or fidelity that once were so binding in a union of man and woman. Lost also is familial love and the sense of responsibility involved in it. In treating the decay of religion Updike seems especially interested in the loss of significance of traditional religious thought. The ideas and rituals of the past have no place in modern society. Religious symbols are meaningless; they offer no comfort or basis of redemption to modern man. Morality does not exist; God has become a nobody, and death is a finality. Updike has written many outstanding short stories in which the germs of his thought can be found. However, since Updike is a recognized novelist, only his five novels will be considered in tracing the general context of the relation of present to past, and within that context, two particular thematic centers of interest: the decay of love and the decay of religion. Implicit in Updike's concern for the decline of older idealisms is a very urgent and very serious appeal to a world that is in danger of forgetting what ought to be cherished.

Lewis repeatedly revealed himself to be concerned with effect: in his statement that he desired to increase effect by heightening the color of The Monk and in his statements concerning his goal in The Castle Spectre there is the recurrent theme of desire to horrify. This desire has been shown to grow out of the aesthetic ideal of sublimity which was developed in years preceding The Monk. The implicit defect in this concept is that it may be used to justify sensational works which lack lasting merit, as was largely the case with The Castle Spectre, not to mention the mass of chapbook romances and inferior plays which were produced at the tie. As has been shown, however, there have been many misconceptions which have grown up around Lewis, prejudicing his biography, and blocking a clear assessment of his literary worth. As has been shown also, Lewis displayed throughout his productions a versatility and occasional brilliance which cannot be attributed to temporary popular appeal.

Examining the modes of characterization and the types of personalities evident in the first seventeen cantos of The Cantos of Ezra Pound, one can perceive that Ezra Pound felt he was composing an epic which was to revitalize for the present the best minds of the past. Pound's method of revitalization has a close affinity Co the doctrine of effluences in Longinus on the Sublime, a classical work of literary criticism. The personalities Pound employs in The Cantos fall into three broad categories: gods (deific), legends (archetypal), and men (historical). By applying Pound's neo-Platonism to their organization, one can further divide the gods into levels of spiritual ascent--Circe and the Sirens (the lowest), Persephone and the gods of the Underworld, Diana and the gods of land, Dionysus and the gods of the ocean, and Aphrodite and the gods of light. Similarly, the legendary figures can be further grouped into the archetypes of advisor, questor, midonz, and metamorph. Historical characters--the primary historical character in these early cantos being Sigismundo Malatesta--represent actualizations and "facts" which support the literary, sociological, and personal values Pound establishes through his presentation of the gods and legends.

There have been a number of books and articles written about the theological underpinnings of the novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville and about the symbolic characters which he created. Several critics have brought some of this material together, but no one has really attempted to correlate the basic studies. This thesis will not only endeavor to do this, but it will add, as well, a personal interpretation of the theological content of the work.

The following study deals with that phase of the life of Irvin S. Cobb that had direct bearing on his creation of Judge Priest; with the causes that influenced him to write the Judge Priest stories; with the life of William Sutton Bishop, who was the original of the fictitious character Judge Priest; and with the stories of Judge Priest and his people.

An effort is made in this study to consider the important factors in the field of medicine that are repeatedly referred to in Shakespeare's plays: practitioners, diseases and infirmities, drugs and herbs, physiological processes of the body, and mental disturbances and psychological therapy. The purpose is to examine these extensive references to medical matters in the dramatist's comedies, tragedies, and histories and to show his profound knowledge in the field. Special emphasis is placed on the accuracy of his portrayals in depicting the true practice of medicine in the Elizabethan Age and his far-reaching vision in anticipating medical theories of later years.

As a social critic, Charles Dickens carries an attack against the mistreatment of children throughout his career. At first reacting in the defense of wronged children, he develops a view of the process of social breakdown that results from mistreating children. Adults fai3 in their duty to children because they fail to recognize the needs of children as children and even fail to recognize the human rights of children. This mistreatment is implemented by social institutions that are supposedly dedicated to caring for children. The family fails to bring up the child with love and care. The child's education rarely teaches him anything of use and often abuses him. An orphaned child, if he has no friends or relatives to take him in, may receive empty gestures of support from an institution but most often does not and is ignored or openly mistreated by society. Indeed, whether cast upon themselves or not, most of the children in Dickens have lost one or both parents, and this loss symbolizes the lack of care they receive. In his early novels, Dickens uses philanthropy to bring about happy endings, and in later works philanthropy continues to be the only alternative to the failed social institutions; however, Dickens later sees that society's failure is too great to be neatly corrected by individual philanthropy. In destroying its young citizens, society is slowly destroying itself. This study examines the breakdown of the family, education, and care for orphans in Dickens's novels Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, and Great Expectations.

The affinities which appear in writing styles of Stephen Crane and manifest themselves in their works. raised in religious homes, rebelled the life styles and Ernest Hemingway Both writers were against their religious backgrounds, began newspaper careers as teenagers, traveled and reported war for their respective newspapers, believed that life was filled with violence, confirmed that belief through their experiences and observations, and developed corresponding literary credos. Both Crane and Hemingway believed the writer should experience present manner. the story Both men and observe what he wrote and should in a simple, direct, and truthful used short sentences, irony, dialogue, dialect, repetition, and vivid, impressionistic description to voice truth in a realistic way. Violence, which serves as man's initiation and test in life, is the common and dominant theme in Crane's and Hemingway's work, and the two writers developed a parallel and special kind of hero who reacted to this violence with courage or controlled panic and who sometimes was able to find an inner peace. The Crane hero and the Hemingway hero are often embodiments of their creators in spirit and action. Both writers' characters frequently appear in naturalistic situations to which they react existentially. Through examination and evaluation of specific works of Crane and Hemingway along with the examination of their life styles and writing styles, the affinities become apparent.