Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 1985. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-142).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 158-162).

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Washington (D.C.)--George Washington university. / Bibliogr. p. [164]-165. Index.

This thesis explores aspects of Melville’s presentation of both the whale and the human bodies in Moby-Dick and human bodies in other important novels. It argues that Melville uses his presentation of bodies to explore some of the versions of confinement those bodies experience, and by doing so, analyses the psychology which subtends that confinement. Throughout Melville’s works bodies are confined, both within literal spatial limits and by the psychology which creates and/or accepts these spatial limits. The thesis argues that perhaps the most important version of bodily confinement Melville addresses is the impulse to conquer bodies, both that of the other and one’s own. It adopts a largely psychoanalytic approach to interpreting bodies and their impulse to conquer, so that the body is seen to figure both in its actions and its external appearance the operations of the inner psyche. The figure of the body is equally prevalent in Melville’s exploration of nationalist conquest, where, as with Manifest Destiny and antebellum expansionism, the psychological and physical lack experienced by characters can be read as motivating factors in the ideology of conquest. A final important strand of the thesis is its argument in favour of a gradual shift in Melville’s interpretation of the value and possibility of genuine communion between human beings and between humans and the whale. One may read Typee as an attempt by Melville to explore the possibility of a this-worldly utopia in which human beings can return to a version of primitive interconnectedness. This exploration may be seen to be extended in Moby-Dick, particularly in Ishmael’s attempts to find communion with others and in some moments of encounter with the whales. The thesis uses phenomenology as a theory to interpret what Melville is trying to suggest in these moments of encounter. However, it argues, finally, that such encounter, or ‘intersubjectivity’ is eventually jettisoned, especially in the works after Moby-Dick. By the end of Melville’s life and work, any hope of an intersubjective utopia he may have harboured as a younger man have been removed in favour of a refusal actually to assert any final ‘truth’ about social, political or even religious experience. Billy Budd, his last body, is hanged, and his final word is silence.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis has two purposes. The first is to trace the gradual transformation of certain Gothic traits, primarily those of the veil and the Doppelganger, from their original form in the historical Gothic to the manner of their use by Joseph Conrad. The second is to interpret Moby-Dick. Lord Jim. The Secret Sharer, and Benito Cereno in terms of Gothicism, and by this interpretation both to strengthen some common interpretations and to indicate how certain others have resulted from the authors' careful and successful attempts to hide from their critics the moral beliefs and dilemmas in their works. When Coleridge wrote the Rime, he was introducing a new and very important setting into Gothic literature: the sea. Because of the formlessness of the sea, because of the suddenness of its change in appearance from serenity to malicious killer, and because its glassy surface hides unimaginable unknowns, it is obviously well-suited to Melville's purposes in Moby-Dick. He makes use of his readers' acquaintance with Gothic tales in portraying Ahab and Ishmael, who struggle for self-knowledge by facing the sea and its terrors. In Lord Jim, Conrad uses the same initial situation: the unseen agent of destruction which takes all security from Jim's life, and prompts in him a quest like that of the Ancient Mariner or the Wandering Jew. He exists behind a veil which represents, as it does in Moby-Dick, Benito Cereno, and most Gothic novels, the inability to clarify moral issues and act according to personal moral beliefs. This moral ambiguity is often phrased in other terms, namely the duality of being, the "good"-"bad" dichotomy, where two aspects of the same person are often separated by a veil of some sort; this can be seen in such stories as Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Wilde's Dorian Gray, and Poe's William Wilson. It is also the case with The Secret Sharer. In this story, Conrad makes a point of showing how the moral dilemma which Leggatt's presence evokes is dealt with by the captain--but not, I feel, to the captain's credit. The veil and the double motifs in these stories reveal an interesting transformation; though in early Gothic they are little more than plot devices, they become in Conrad central concerns, through which the interpretations of his stories may be effected. Thus, as I have tried to show, Gothicism, far from being a minor and short-lived type of fiction which died out in the early part of the last century, exerts a potent and central influence in such literature as Melville's and Conrad's. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

M.A. / This mini-dissertation deals with Herman Charles Bosman's depiction of racial prejudice among the different racial groups in South Africa in the period of the 1930s and 40s. The overarching issue of the narrator's racism forms the focus of discussion. Oom Schalk Lourens's storytelling techniques are a matter of cardinal importance that colours the entire interpretation of Mafeking Road. The introductory section of this study provides some biographical details about the author himself. This is followed by an exploration of Bosman's treatment of race and racial issues in three stories. Bosman's exploration of race relations involving blacks, Indians, whites as well as other minority groups is a reflection of his genuine concern for South Africa's future society as a whole. In the course of this study a brief analysis is also made of the author's portrayal of female characters. In the conclusion Bosman's overall achievement in terms of the major theme, race relations, is assessed. It is argued that the overt racism of Bosman's narrator Oom Schalk Lourens cannot be ascribed to the author himself; that it is the case, rather, that the author manipulates his narrator to achieve an ironic effect. In the final analysis, Bosman is critical of the racist attitudes his characters display, but his method is to satirise and debunk these attitudes gently and obliquely.

The purpose of this thesis is to point out explicitly the rather startling fact that each of these three writers in a novel which is representative of his own art and world view had developed the hunt-quest theme in a pattern and manner which are almost identical.

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