This exegesis examines the landscape of heaven depicted in the contemporary novel, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I examine the various characteristics of the heaven (or 'afterlife') depicted in Sebold's novel, with the aim of ascertaining the narrative effects of using this device. Using Ingrid Daemmrich's analysis of the paradisiacal motif in literature as a framework (Daemmrich, I 1997, Studies on Themes and Motifs in Literature: Enigmatic Bliss, The Paradise Motif in Literature, Peter Lang, New York), I reveal characteristics in The Lovely Bones that are both consistent with and challenge traditional literary representations of heaven and which therefore demonstrate that the text utilises the established literary motif of heaven for symbolism and meaning, but in a contemporary context. I explore the growing trend of contemporary literary heavens by reviewing two other literary heavens that are relevant to this scholarship. I examine where as writers and readers, we ascertain our concept of heaven (in society's religious foundations and from prior literature), and for the relevance of the key text, I briefly discuss the author's likely cultural influences. Having established the novel's lack of alignment with a religious version of heaven, I then examine the nature of and the narrative effect of, the personalised heaven depicted in the novel, The Lovely Bones. In doing so, I explore one of the new portraits of heaven in literature, an example which represents a growing trend away from portraying a classic edenic heaven shared by all humanity (and traditional to literary representations of heaven), toward a contemporary, personalised heaven that seeks to meet the wants and desires of the individual in our modern society. With reference to literature's ability to reflect back to us, our society's beliefs and values, I examine what this new portrait of heaven reveals about society. Access to the project examined in conjunction with this exegesis has been restricted due to copyright.

This exegesis examines the landscape of heaven depicted in the contemporary novel, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I examine the various characteristics of the heaven (or 'afterlife') depicted in Sebold's novel, with the aim of ascertaining the narrative effects of using this device. Using Ingrid Daemmrich's analysis of the paradisiacal motif in literature as a framework (Daemmrich, I 1997, Studies on Themes and Motifs in Literature: Enigmatic Bliss, The Paradise Motif in Literature, Peter Lang, New York), I reveal characteristics in The Lovely Bones that are both consistent with and challenge traditional literary representations of heaven and which therefore demonstrate that the text utilises the established literary motif of heaven for symbolism and meaning, but in a contemporary context. I explore the growing trend of contemporary literary heavens by reviewing two other literary heavens that are relevant to this scholarship. I examine where as writers and readers, we ascertain our concept of heaven (in society's religious foundations and from prior literature), and for the relevance of the key text, I briefly discuss the author's likely cultural influences. Having established the novel's lack of alignment with a religious version of heaven, I then examine the nature of and the narrative effect of, the personalised heaven depicted in the novel, The Lovely Bones. In doing so, I explore one of the new portraits of heaven in literature, an example which represents a growing trend away from portraying a classic edenic heaven shared by all humanity (and traditional to literary representations of heaven), toward a contemporary, personalised heaven that seeks to meet the wants and desires of the individual in our modern society. With reference to literature's ability to reflect back to us, our society's beliefs and values, I examine what this new portrait of heaven reveals about society. Access to the project examined in conjunction with this exegesis has been restricted due to copyright.

This thesis seeks to understand how we read and understand the use of depictions of violence by examining its rhetorical presentation. Although the media gives us a mixed understanding of the way that experiencing violence secondarily (that is, through all types of media) affects us, scholarship in this area has proved clear connections between viewing/experiencing depictions of violence and raised levels of aggression. On the other hand, there is a clear difference between gratuitous depictions of violence and socially useful depictions of violence (i.e., the difference between a slasher movie and a holocaust movie) that that area of scholarship does not expressly take into account. I argue that the language of trauma studies has the ability to evaluate the impact of violent texts on audiences and that Kenneth Burke's Dramatistic Pentad has the ability the examine depictions of violence to uncover explicit and hidden ideologies that affect the presentation of the violence and, thus, our reception and interpretation of that violence. Working in conjunction, these two theories can help audience's understand depictions of violence on an ideological level and help them to assess the violence's potential traumatic impact on themselves and others within certain contexts. To demonstrate this theory of understanding violence, I make two short analyses of Native Son and The Lovely Bones and demonstrate an in-depth analysis of Fight Club and Blood Meridian in order to give an example of the type of reading I am advocating and its potential for understanding and interpreting depictions of violence in ways that uncover both social benefit and harm. In the end, I hope that this theory of reading violence might extend beyond the sample readings I have done and into other types of media, so that we can all understand the ways that violence is used rhetorically for social and political purposes and be able to both use it and interpret it responsibly.