This study contrasts four distinct discursive responses to (or even accidental remarks on) the Victorian concept of individual and/or social improvement, or progress, set forth by the preeminent social critics, writers, scientists, and historians of the nineteenth century, such as Thomas Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Macaulay Matthew Arnold, Charles Darwin, and Herbert Spencer. This teleological ideal, perhaps the most prevalent ideology of the long nineteenth century, originates with the Protestant Christian ethic during and in the years following the Reformation, whereupon it combines with the Enlightenment notions of rational humanity's boundless potential and Romanticism's fierce individualism to create the Victorian doctrine of progress. My contention remains throughout that four nineteenth-century writers for children and adults subvert the doctrine of individual progress (which contributes to the progress of the race) by chipping away at its metaphysical and narratalogical roots. George MacDonald allows progress only on the condition of total selflessness, including the complete dissolution of one's free will, but defers the hallmarks of making progress indefinitely, due to his apocalyptic Christian vision. Lewis Carroll ridicules the notion of progress by playing with our conceptions of linear time and simple causality, implying as he writes that perhaps there is nothing to progress toward, no actual telos on which to fix our sights. Oscar Wilde characterizes moral development as nothing short of self-inflicted cruelty, consigning his most scrupulously moral-minded characters to social subversion or untimely death (the dark reflection of MacDonald's compulsory selflessness). And finally, Rudyard Kipling toys with historical substitutes for conventional progress, such as repetitive cycles, deviating from historical unidirectionality and linear development. He often realigns his characters with their intractable fates at the conclusions of his narratives, echoing Carroll's suggestion that perhaps our goals are delusional. I conclude that while each individual author fails to holistically undermine the doctrine of progress, taken collectively, these four fantasists represent a heretofore unexamined repudiation of the Victorian era's most enduring metaphysical conceits.

Since horror is so prevalent in Bierce's fiction and since no concentrated study of this important element has been attempted by critics, it is proposed here to examine carefully the sources and nature of the horror in Bierce's fiction in an attempt to arrive at a better understanding of his literary technique and his contribution to American literature.

This dissertation analyzes four twenty-first-century Catalan novels which present the complex positions occupied by mothers in the last seven decades. Its conceptual framework posits motherhood as both a changing social construction and a political institution in a constant state of flux. In Inma Monsó´s Todo un carácter (2001), Eva Piquer´s Una victoria diferente (2002), Carme Riera´s La mitad del alma (2004), and Najat El Hachmi´s El último patriarca (2008) motherhood is explored as a metaphorical act, a gender-constructing experience, as well as the locus of expression with regard to gender and power relations. During the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), the majority of women were excluded from public spaces, and forced to stay home to care for their husbands and children. Furthermore, the state criminalized abortion, made contraception and divorce illegal, and promoted an ideal of femininity based on silence, sacrifice, and self-denial. The political changes of the late 1970s allowed women greater personal autonomy, and many women writers began to challenge stereotypical views of women’s social roles. Yet in the 70s and 80s, the narratives of Esther Tusquets, Ana María Moix, and Montserrat Roig represent the mother as a repressive figure whom the daughter must reject in order to liberate herself and regain her voice. It is not until the 90s when the novelists Mercedes Abad, Maruja Torres, Carme Riera, Imma Monsó, Eva Piquer, and María Barbal rehumanize the mother figure, recovering their matrilineal heritage. However, far from suggesting a unified trend in representations of motherhood in Catalan fiction, the diverse points of view of the novels under discussion here reveal that differences in attitudes among women authors about mother-daughter conflict are far from resolved. The theoretical background for this dissertation draws mainly on the work of Adrienne Rich, Nancy Chodorow, and Julia Kristeva. It includes psychoanalytic studies as well as sociologically based essays by Anna López Puig, Amparo Acereda, Jacqueline Cruz, Barbara Zecchi, Ángeles de la Concha, and Raquel Osborne, among others.

SOUTH ROAD, a novel told in third-person limited, follows Adrienne Harris as she navigates the trials of her coming-of-age summer and then must deal with the aftermath. 1997: seventeen-year-old Adrienne Harris wants nothing more than to flee her eccentric grandmother’s rule and leave Harbor Point and never look back. When she meets her new neighbors, Adrienne knows her life will never be the same. Adrienne quickly falls in love with the charismatic Quinn Merritt. They decide to keep their relationship a secret since both families disapprove. This secret starts a chain reaction that seemingly leads to the suicide of the troubled and poetic Lucas Merritt. The summer culminates with Adrienne running away, pregnant and heartbroken. 2011: thirty-one-year-old Adrienne is an out of work line cook and single mother. The story opens as Adrienne reluctantly returns home to Harbor Point to care for her ailing grandmother. Once home, Adrienne has to confront the things that haunt her—the summer she met and lost both Merritt brothers, and also her dysfunctional relationship with her grandmother—in order to heal and repair her own life and her relationship with her daughter. In the end, Adrienne discovers many truths that alter her perception of her past in Harbor Point. Adrienne is finally able to move forward and start to build a life for her and her daughter. Harbor Point, the last place in the world Adrienne Harris wanted to be, turns out to be the only place she wants to call home.

從來小說中的環境描述，都是小說創作中一項具體而重要的細節與象徵。小說 作者往往藉由對場所/環境的選取與陳述，建構舖陳出小說中的情調與氛圍，其 中蘊涵著作者個人對現實的感懷與情緒的投射。在不同的年代裏，都有作者以 香港為小說的場景，他們透過不同的主題與角色，或頹靡，或抒情，或狂亂， 或純真，或虛或實；所帶出的香港故事，與時俱變。如果都會的變貌是香港這 座城市的本命，那麼它是如何影響及反映在以香港作為場景的小說之中？而這 些以香港為場景的小說，又如何呈現了香港的氛圍與面貌？本論文嘗試以小說 的「空間」 及「場景」──也就是香港──為探索主題，從文本中歸納勾勒出 「文學中的香港」的面貌，並對照不同作者的共通描述。 論文共分六章。第一章為導論，主要介紹論文的研究範圍、方法及目的。第二 章討論香港小說中的豪宅、半山洋房與大酒店；這些「空間」呈現了上流社會 和中產階級，主要來自「外來作家」的描述。第二章討論香港小說中的木屋區、 板間房和床位；四、五十年代從國內南來的作家，他們的小說總離不開他們對現實生活的憤慨與生存的苦苦掙扎，木屋區、板間房與床位就成為他們描寫現 實生活的重要場景。第三章討論香港小說中的大廈；居住環境的擠迫，已經成 為香港社會裏無法逃避的一種現實狀態，這樣的題旨都曾經出現在劉以鬯、也 斯和西西的小說裏，不過他們態度迴異，構成了不一樣的城市氛圍。第五章討 論香港小說中正在消失的城市；九十年代的小說作者有意無意地，把小說中城 市的面貌意象化，現實從具體變得抽象，而其中的焦慮不安與不捨卻因而顯得 更加真實。第六章為總結及檢討。

香港作家舒巷城（1923-1999）被文學史家稱為香港的「鄉土作家」。「鄉土文學」 在中國內地及台灣有不同的定義及發展，香港特殊的地理環境、政治因素，令香港 文學的發展吸收、融合多方面的思潮、技巧，形成跟中國內地、台灣的文學同中有 異、異中有同的特色。本文主要把舒巷城放在時代背景中，分析香港「鄉土文學」 和其他兩地作品特色之異同，同時對舒巷城的作品按時序作一整理，嘗試整理出作 家在特定寫作環境下，作品所呈現的特色及作者文學觀的轉變。

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Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This collection consists of a critical preface exploring the similarities between serialized comic books, realist fiction and the author’s own writing. The principle discussion concerns continuity, the connecting tissue between ancillary works of fiction, chronology, the function of time in the narrative of related stories, and the function of characters beyond the stories they inhabit. The stories within the collection revolve around an eccentric ensemble of suburban youth whose demoralized and violent actions are heavily influenced by defining moments of their past.

This creative thesis collects five fictional stories, as well as a critical preface entitled “Fractals and the Gestalt: the Hybridization of Genre.” The critical preface discusses genre as a literary element and explores techniques for effective genre hybridization. The stories range from psychological fiction to science fiction and fantasy fiction. Each story also employs elements from other genres as well. These stories collectively explore the concept of the other and themes of connection and ostracization.