This dissertation explores the ambiguous nature of the social criticism in Charlotte Brontë’s novels — Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette and The Professor — particularly pertaining to patriarchal ideology and its associated power relations. I shall explore how, through her novels, Brontë sought to redefine subjectivity and the feminine ideal, and in so doing, reconfigure patriarchy’s gender norms and its ideologies which were oppressive to women. However, Brontë’s varying contestation of and acquiescence to female Victorian stereotypes, along with her equivocal representation of ideology, identity, gender, and the self, undermine her efforts to create a new model of womanhood and female empowerment. Nonetheless, through Brontë’s intimate depiction of her characters’ struggles between their desires and patriarchal prescripts, she offers a novel, more indirect and significant challenge to the patriarchal status quo. In this way, Brontë’s social criticism is confined by her conservatism. / English Studies / M.A. (English Literature)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In his novels Slaughterhouse-five and The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut explores issues of cultural identity in technologically-advanced societies post-World War II. With the rise of globalization and rapid technological advancements that occurred postwar, humans worldwide were mitigating the effects of information overload and instability in cultural identity. The influx of cultural influences that accompany a global society draws attention to the fluidity and inevitability of cultural change. A heightened awareness of cultural influences—past and present—creates anxiety for the generation living postwar and before the dawn of the Information Age. This generation suffers from “cultural schizophrenia”: a fracturing of the psyche characterized by anxiety over unstable cultural identities and agency. With the characters of Billy Pilgrim and Winston Niles Rumfoord, Vonnegut explores the different reactions to and consequences of cultural schizophrenia. His unique writing style is an effective hybrid of science fiction conventions and the complexities of human culture and society. Ultimately, Vonnegut explores the dangers of detachment and the complicated nature of agency with novels that are both innovative and accessible.