Playboy is a magazine that, for more than a half century, has been mostly known to the wider audience for its stylized pictures of naked women. What a lot of people do not know is that the magazine, with its editor in chief Hugh Hefner in the lead, has been frontrunners in human rights. Playboy has been fighting protecting the right of freedom of speech, fighting for equal rights for all people during the civil rights movement and supported the feminist movement by funding precedent cases on abortion rights.   According to a series of text analyses by Beggan & Allison (2000, 2002b) Playboy’s editorial direction contradicted conventional definitions of masculinity. Also, the magazine portrayed its Playmates with complex identities that, in many cases, contained a number of traditionally masculine abilities. In this thesis we have done a critical discourse analysis of the Playboy interview and how the gender of its subject is portrayed by the magazine. Also, we have studied how seriously Playboy takes the journalistic mission in educating its audience, criticizing the power, and let a diversity of opinions be heard in the interview.   We found that, even though it’s easy to repudiate Playboy as a magazine for unsophisticated men that prefer objectified naked women, the Playboy interview presented a number of different people in different ages and of different gender that in many ways contradicted the traditional ways you tend to see the gender portrayed in interviews. The female subjects tends to be portrayed in ways that you normally se male subjects are portrayed, and the male ones tended to be given a complex identity that included both traditionally male and female abilities. We also found that Playboy takes the journalistic mission seriously, letting a diversity of opinions be heard even though they contradict what the magazine stands for.

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Inaug.-Diss.--Bern. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 4-7. Also issued in print.

Inaug.-Diss.--Bern. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: p. 4-7.

Inaug.-Diss. phil.-hist. Fak. Bern, 1951.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Inaug.-Diss.--Leipzig. / "Literaturnachweis": leaf preceding text.

The title of Walter Houghton's recent article, "Arthur Hugh Clough: A Hundred Years of Disparagement", could not fail to strike any reader familiar with the general tone and subject matter of the major criticism which has appeared on Clough to the present day. Most of the studies have been in the nature of personal appreciations and have dealt primarily with Clough as a man. Even the more scholarly and objective studies which have been published lately have failed to treat his poetry in any comprehensive way, but have tended, rather, to emphasize one aspect of Clough and then have referred briefly to certain poems which support a thesis. There has been no noteworthy attempt to subject his poetry to a close textual analysis in order to determine if any general principle underlies it. For this reason, I have been primarily concerned in this study with examining the poetry of Arthur Hugh Clough to assess the presence in it of what I have called the dialectical principle—the way in which his most characteristic approach to experience is carried over into his poetry and finds expression in theme, mood, tone, form, imagery and characters. Chapter II discusses the presence of the dialectical element in the theme of Clough’s poetry—particularly in the poems which deal with religion, in those which attempt to answer the unanswerable questions, why man is here, how he should live while here, and if he will continue to exist in some form after death, and in those which probe the nature of love. Chapter III examines the way in which the dialectical principle is reflected in juxtaposed moods, in the tone, and in the external form of Clough’s poetry. And, finally, Chapter IV considers imagery and characters, the imaginative and dramatic embodiment of the dialectic in themes dealt with in Chapter II. The study concludes with the suggestion that Clough, for the most part, did not succeed in solving his intellectual and spiritual problems and in conveying the solution through his poetry. For the poems here analyzed, with perhaps the exception of "Easter Day, Part II," record his failure to cross "the darkling plain" and find some new light of truth which would satisfy him both emotionally and intellectually. In many of them, the dialectic exists as unresolved debate when Clough, unable to find an intellectual synthesis, concludes with an admission of defeat or with the decision to wait for some further revelation of Truth. At other times, when his desire for certainty will not permit him to let the dialectic end in an impasse, he is forced to shift the terms of the debate and to "synthesize" his intellectual difficulties in a realm of pure feeling or on an ideal plane. Thus, the conclusion becomes an emotional, rather than an intellectual solution—usually one in which Clough ends by trusting an undefined "larger hope," when he is unable to answer the problem posed by rational means. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this essay is to determine the use to which Hugh MacLennan has put his knowledge of classical literature, especially myth, in writing three of his novels. The novels are first considered individually and are then related to one another to indicate the development of their structures and themes, MacLennan's technique and thought. The first chapter shows MacLennan's affinity for classical literature, indicates the general critical awareness of classical elements in his novels, and also shows how mythic analysis is of use in interpreting the novels. Central to MacLennan's use of classical myth is Homer's Odyssey, and the basic plot and characters of the Greek epic are described, indicating what MacLennan chooses from the classic for his own purposes. The importance of myth, as such, is considered, and it is suggested that MacLennan himself has attempted to write a "myth" appropriate to modern Canada. The second chapter is a consideration of Barometer Rising, indicating mythic parallels and relevant structures of imagery. The plot structure is examined and is compared to the mythoi or archetypal plots suggested by Northrop Frye in Anatomy of Criticism. The novel is shown to be a comic-romance in which the romantic hero is dominant, although there is an ironic hero present. The main theme appears as a search for national identity. The third chapter is a consideration of Each Man's Son, again indicating mythic parallels and relevant structures of imagery. Examination of the plot structure reveals a growing stress on the ironic hero and an unstressing of the romantic hero. The theme appears as a more personal search for identity. The fourth chapter is a consideration of The Watch that Ends the Night, again indicating mythic parallels and relevant imagery. Here, the ironic hero comes to full dominance over the romantic. The theme has become almost entirely a personal search for internal identity. It is shown how, in this novel, MacLennan resolves the conflict explored in the other two novels by submerging it in a larger (basically mystical) pattern. The fifth chapter shows how MacLennan’s techniques and themes have developed, how his final religio-philosophic resolution is related to classical humanism (particularly the philosophy of Heraclitus), and how his use of myth is relevant and valuable to the modern world. It becomes clear that the farther MacLennan moves from a direct representation of the classical myth, the closer he moves to creating a meaningful myth of his own. MacLennan is related to other modern writers and is shown to be in a main stream of modern thought, following a major theme in western literature that has been particularly important since the Victorian Period. He comes to a synthesis of classical and Christian thought which results in an affirmative philosophy. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate