Global ETD Search

1	"She is waiting" : political allegory and the specter of secession in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a yellow sun Coffey, Meredith Armstrong 08 October 2014 (has links) Though the Nigerian-Biafran War has been the subject of numerous literary and other artistic representations in the four decades since its conclusion, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2006 novel Half of a Yellow Sun has recently received tremendous international attention for its treatment of the 1967-1970 conflict. Contrary to the assertions of many critics, the novel’s complex representation of the war functions as much more than a setting for a series of family dramas at the foreground. Providing a counterargument to such readings, which emphasize the personal over the political in Half of a Yellow Sun, this paper will propose and trace a political allegory legible within the characters’ personal relationships and historical circumstances. Specifically, I will argue that the relationship between two protagonists, the twins Olanna and Kainene, aligns with the relationship between (Northern) Nigeria and the Eastern Nigeria, known as Biafra between 1967 and 1970, during its attempt to secede. In the way that Kainene grows emotionally distant from Olanna, eventually stops speaking to her, and suddenly disappears, so Eastern Nigeria increasingly clashed with Northern Nigeria during the early 1960s, seceded as the Republic of Biafra in 1967, and eventually “disappeared” at the end of the war in 1970, as it was absorbed back into Nigeria. Rather than indicating a sense of finality, however, Adichie’s text refuses closure in ways that ultimately suggest an alternative both to the notion that the novel has an apolitical, purely tragic ending, and to dominant narratives about the Biafran secession’s “inevitable” failure. This reading thus intervenes in critical conversations about Half of a Yellow Sun, the Biafran state, and secession and self-determination throughout Africa. If Kainene’s disappearance does not only testify to the tragedies of war, and if her character allegorically corresponds to Biafra, then what political possibilities might her disappearance allow? Does Biafra—and in turn, the possibility of secession—remain at large too? Far from the prevalent scholarly and political rhetoric that relegates Biafra to a narrow three-year time frame, Adichie’s novel conceives of a Biafran existence beyond the pages of some finalized history. / text Nigerian-Biafran War Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Secession Political allegory
2	The Poison Umbrella Effect Alesbury, Carolyn January 2007 (has links) Thesis advisor: Susan Michalczyk / After the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the United States became the one remaining superpower at the head of a unipolar international system. This new position and the repercussions of its power led to the rocky international stability of the 1990s. The Poison Umbrella Effect is a political allegory which explores this historic transition period through the relationships of college students. Anna Bennet is a freshman at Warren College who, after being elected Hall President by default, must find a balance between her friendships and her sense of power and responsibility. Her first year of college is marked by drama, disillusionment, and progress as she develops into the person she will be for the rest of her college career. With her friends representing other countries, and all of their actions representing political events of the 1990s, Anna's experiences demonstrate America's progression from a leading power in a bipoloar world, to the domineering superpower it is today. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. Language, Rhetoric and Composition political allegory political fiction post-cold war fiction
3	Queer Chinese Postsocialist Horizons: New Models of Same-Sex Desire in Contemporary Chinese Fiction, "Sentiments Like Water" and Beijing Story Shernuk, Kyle, Shernuk, Kyle January 2012 (has links) This thesis represents an investigation into the strategies used by postsocialist Chinese male subjects to articulate their subjecthood and desires. The introduction explains the choice for using a phenomenological methodological approach in addressing the issue and also lays out the simultaneous goal of this thesis to inaugurate a move away from political allegorical interpretations as the standard for reading contemporary Chinese literature. The body chapters look at two different contemporary Chinese works to help illuminate the arrival of the Chinese subject. Using Wang Xiaobo's novella "Sentiments Like Water" and the anonymously penned online novel Beijing Story as case studies, this thesis investigates the ways alternative epistemologies and uses of history can undo pathological understandings of queerness and create new identities for Chinese subjects. The thesis concludes with thinking about the direction of the queer and Chinese studies fields and offers future points of investigation. Beijing Story/Lan Yu Contemporary Chinese Literature Heteronormativity Political Allegory Queer Phenomenology Sentiments Like Water
4	Reframing the Metamorphoses: The Enabling of Political Allegory in Late Medieval Ovidian Narrative Gerber, Amanda J. 05 January 2012 (has links) No description available. Literature Middle Ages Ovid's Metamorphoses Middle Ages rhetoric political allegory Chaucer Gower Lydgate
5	Political Atheism vs. The Divine Right of Kings: Understanding 'The Fairy of the Lake' (1801) Post, Andy 30 April 2014 (has links) In 'Political Atheism vs. The Divine Right of Kings,' I build on Thompson and Scrivener’s work analysing John Thelwall’s play 'The Fairy of the Lake' as a political allegory, arguing all religious symbolism in 'FL' to advance the traditionally Revolutionary thesis that “the King is not a God.” My first chapter contextualises Thelwall’s revival of 17th century radicalism during the French Revolution and its failure. My second chapter examines how Thelwall’s use of fire as a symbol discrediting the Saxons’ pagan notion of divine monarchy, also emphasises the idolatrous apotheosis of King Arthur. My third chapter deconstructs the Fairy of the Lake’s water and characterisation, and concludes her sole purpose to be to justify a Revolution beyond moral reproach. My fourth chapter traces how beer satirises Communion wine, among both pagans and Christians, in order to undermine any religion that could reinforce either divinity or the Divine Right of Kings. / A close reading of an all-but-forgotten Arthurian play as an allegory against the Divine Right of Kings. John Thelwall (1764-1834) Romanticism Romantic literature Romantic poetry Romantic nationalism Romantic medievalism Romantic antequarianism Saxon antequarianism Norse/Viking antequarianism Celtic antequarianism Whig history Jacobinism political allegory closet drama Early Modern Christianity Church of England Anglicanism Loyalism Germanic paganism Anglo-Saxon England Britain Wales French Revolution Glorious Revolution English Civil War King James I &VI John Milton Algernon Sidney Samuel Taylor Coleridge William Wordsworth Robert Southey Edmund Burke Simon Cottle Torquato Tasso Edda Northern Antiquities King Arthur Arthurian Sir Walter Scott Classical republicanism republicanism radicalism anti-monarchism fire water beer cwrw wassail Eucharist Communion Gothic Divine Right of Kings Political atheism Judith Thompson Michael Scrivener

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