The poems in A Rat-Shaped Tear consider wide-ranging ideas of otherness using character and voice. Through misdirection, understatement and unexpected imagery I confront ideas of animal and female otherness in playful ways as a means of subverting traditional impressions of both. The othering effects of grief are also examined in poems that reflect on bereavement and mortality. Human-animal interaction is used to further explore the effects of death and disappointment, though overtones of cartoonish extravagance, dark humour and the surreal temper the more serious themes of loss, disillusionment and loneliness that recur within the collection. In the accompanying thesis, I focus on the work of three poets - D.H Lawrence, Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop - each of whom confront animal otherness in their work. Through close examinations of their individual works, I explore the differences in approach to human-animal interaction, and the ways in which these poets draw meaning from animal otherness. It is suggested that although they engage with the concept using varied poetic techniques, they are drawn together by the intimations of spiritual transcendence that permeate each of their animal poetics.

In storytelling, one of the most important functions of dialogue is to create characterisation. Character voice is each character's unique style of speaking, which can impart explicit or implicit information about characters, such as their personality, age, or gender. Japanese language texts are known to use gendered language and role language (yakuwarigo) as a way of creating characterisation and character voice.This case study examines the English dialogue and the Japanese subtitles of four characters (Tissaia, Yennefer, Geralt, and Jaskier) from the series The Witcher. The aim was to categorize the strategies used to recreate the original character voice, to mark the differences in the character voices, and to examine their possible impact on the overall characterisations. The study concludes that the main strategy in creating character voice was gendered language and role language. Overall, the English and Japanese character voices were roughly equivalent with each other, and the used gendered language was supported by the characters’ personalities or appearance. The character Jaskier had the most differences between his English and Japanese dialogue, most likely due to the difficulties in recreating his brand of humorous tone in subtitle form.