In her book The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing, Margot Livesey uses the phrase "the hidden machinery" to refer to two different aspects of novel making: on the one hand, how certain elements of the text characters, plot, imagery work together to make an overarching argument; on the other hand, how the secret, psychic of life of the author, and the larger events of his or her time and place, shape the argument (29). To me, the interconnected craft elements of fiction remains an ongoing enigma. I will delve into the hidden machinery of two authors with whom my own stories feel in alignment, Claire Vaye Watkins and Denis Johnson. Specifically, I will argue that Watkins subverts reader expectation and compose stories that are raw and peculiar and beautiful. Denis Johnson writes with such masterful control of voice, and expertly navigates unreliable narrators throughout his stories.

Not long after the release of his first novel, Everything is Illuminated, critics and authors alike began showering Jonathan Safran Foer with both praise and disparagement for his postmodern style. Yet, this large body of criticism ignores the theoretical work taking place within Foer's fiction. This thesis attempts to fill this gap by highlighting specific aspects of Foer's theoretical work as it relates to the creation of meaning in a text and to explore what this work might imply for the broader literary community. Much of Foer's work toys with the capacity of language to express meaning, indulging in the playfulness of language throughout his work to highlight the place where at written language blurs the line between word and flesh, or language and experience. In this playfulness, Foer seems to assert that meaning is created in the space between language and experience through the act of metaphor. This theory of metaphor places the individual, the author, and the critic all in a creative position and the narrative content of Foer's works examines how this creative power is used by individuals to create a world of meaning out of experiences that seem to have none. In this way, Foer argues that the creative act of metaphor is a redemptive act—an act of saving one's self from the void. Such a conclusion can be applied to all who use the word to create, particularly authors and critics, wherein the creative act as well as the interpretive act become acts of redemption.

Beginning in 1911 with Jennie Gerhardt and continuing through the publication of The "Genius" in 1915, all of Dreiser's major fiction is curiously marked by the same recurring narrative pattern. The pattern is always triangluar in construction and always contains the same three figures-- a vindictive and vengeful parent, outraged by an outisder's violation of personal and societal values; an enchanted offspring; and a disrupted outsider who threatens established order. In spite of each work's different characterization, setting, and episode, the narrative conflict invariably arises from the discovery of an illicit relationship between offspring and outsider, and the narrative climax involves a violent clash of wills, with victory sometimes going to the parent and sometimes to the outsider. The denouement is consistently sorrowful and pensive in tone, with a philosophical epilogue which speculates on man's melancholy and puzzling fate. As both a guide to personal therapy and a key to the work with which Dreiser established his artistic identity, the recurring narrative pattern is important. Its examination (1) illuminates an obscure period in Dreiser's life, (2) reveals his personality priorities as he turns the kaleidoscope of introspection to observe the Cudlipp crisis from various angles, and (3) offers to the discerning reader a reliable clue to the developing system of aesthetics of one of America's greatest artists.

Utgångspunkten för mitt projekt är sex väggmålningar som finns i centrala Nässjö. Projektet innehåller sju texter som på något sätt har koppling till varsin väggmålning och skildrar livet i staden på olika sätt, men inte det verkliga utan det som pågår i det fördolda, i någon slags värld bakom alla fasader. Förutom texterna finns åtta dikter i en mer prosaisk stil som speglar minnen och upplevelser av staden. De är inte inspirerade av väggmålningarna utan är fragment av det vardagliga som präglar oss och lämnar spår inom oss. Jag har försökt att krypa bakom och innanför och utanför bilderna, och låta historierna leva sina egna liv utan krav på sanningshalt eller koppling till konstnärens intention med sitt verk. En av målningarna förekommer två gånger. Det beror på att den väggmålningen (Barnen och vargen) vandaliserades och även kritiserades starkt av en person i media. Min text till den vandaliserade målningen är min kommentar till detta. Målningen är numera restaurerad. Min tanke med projektet är att skildra olika saker som skapar minnen och ärr i oss. Texterna får göra det på sina sätt och i sina genrer, vilka huvudsakligen är fantastik, medan dikterna får skildra livet med mer realism. På det sättet är min tanke att projektet ska ge en slags tredelad version av staden; väggmålningarna och hur de skapar berättelser i det fysiska Nässjö, texterna som skildrar livet i ett annat slags Nässjö – det bakom och under, samt dikterna som får vara små prosaiska reflektioner över hur livet kan te sig. Namnet på mitt projekt är Ärrbildningar (Scarrings), vilket är det sammanbindande temat för projektet.

Last Kind Word is a novel that explores the ways people seek control and power in the face of the unknowable. Set in the fictional town of Thorpe, South Carolina, the story follows four main characters-Donna Neese, Melissa Burnside, Anthony Washington, and Jill McManus-struggling in the aftermath of biracial teenager Micah Burnside's disappearance. They search for a replacement for the lost connection to Micah and for a sense of control at a time when their lives seem to lack it, when other forces, be they people or circumstances or spirits, hold power over them. In the midst of this, the four of them must decide what life will look like going forward. In Thorpe, theories about what happened to Micah range from the plausible to the fantastical. Those closest to him have their own theories, too, although they are less inclined to share them with the gossip-hungry townspeople. Micah's mother Melissa, reeling from the equally mysterious loss of Micah's father Dan eighteen years earlier and the intense mood swings from her untreated bipolar disorder, is convinced that her son is alive, searching for his father in San Diego. Meanwhile, Micah's grandmother Donna believes that he is dead, murdered by Nick and Nathan Goff, Thorpe's not-so-secret meth dealers who come from a long line of rowdy and dangerous men. Jill, Micah's ex-girlfriend and a recent college drop-out, worries that a prank they played on a hoodoo practitioner is somehow to blame not only for the dissolution of their relationship, but also Micah's disappearance. Jill seeks the aid of a hoodoo conjurer to set things right in the spirit world and, hopefully, her life. Anthony is a black country and blues musician and small-time drug dealer. His work forces him into a tenuous and volatile friendship with the Goffs, one that could explode into anger and violence at any moment. Anthony also thinks the Goffs have something to do with Micah's disappearance, but he believes his friend is alive, just laying low after a lie leads to the Goffs' arrest. These four characters must grapple with long-standing feuds, secrets, and family discord as they try to solve the mystery of Micah's disappearance and come to grips with the possibility that he may never be found.

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This thesis examines NieR: Automata, a video game published in 2017 on PlayStation 4 from a narratological perspective to see how it composes its narrative elements to make an excellent argument about existence. The director Yōkō Tarō argues that, we could and should exert our agency to make the choice in our life, thus this is how we grant our life meaning. This thesis aims at providing a relatively comprehensive analysis on Automata’s profound understanding and presentation of Sartre's existentialism, its ingenious narrative construction, and the close association between them, through a contextualization on Sartre's existentialism, and a game components analysis. Yōkō takes his works as exploration on the usual themes and elements in the video games like violence and life, and Automata becomes his answer to one's life. From a comprehensive demonstration involving Automata’s game and narrative structure, we could clearly see that these two aspects are built so closely – all the game components are all associated with its central argument about existence and agency, and affirming or enhancing it from different perspectives, including its game systems, playthrough process, maps and stages, et cetera. Automata's argument shows a reflection on Japanese's collective recognition of self, which evidently received much influence from Sartre's Existentialism, a western philosophy view, suggesting a globalizing trend in the Japanese cultural context. Automata also gives a fine example for narrative game and illustrates that video game could be a persuasive lesson of argument in reality as well. By applying this literary study on Automata, this thesis also aims to provide an example for similar narrative studies on video games in the future. / Graduate

In my thesis, I engage with recent scholarship in Mad Studies directed towards introducing a Mad reading practice or Mad theory to the discipline of English and academia more broadly. I utilize Mad theory and feminist literary criticism in order to frame my analysis of two forgotten queer Madwomen—British author Ann Quin (1936-1973) and American author, artist, and activist Kate Millett (1934-Present). I consider how Quin’s novel Three (1966) and Millett’s autobiography Flying (1974), as experimental texts exploring bisexuality and polyamory que(e)ry heteronormative monogamy and patriarchal literary convention. I also posit that Quin’s “The Unmapped Country” (1973) and Millett’s The Loony-Bin Trip (1990) deconstruct a perceived tension in feminist literary criticism surrounding whether the figure of the Madwoman is a subversive or silenced figure. In using a Mad reading practice, my analysis focuses on the intersections of sanism with other forces of oppression, as well as how sanist epistemic violence dissuades critically analyzing Mad individuals’ creative or personal narratives as theoretical and political texts. Moreover, I gesture towards the overlooked social exclusions produced by sanist epistemic violence, such as forced institutionalization, unemployment, criminalisation, and homelessness, which suggests the ethical importance of incorporating Mad theory into everyday practice. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Taking up Henry Giroux’s call for an “enobling [sic], imaginative vision” and a “language of possibility” with which to generate hope and a plan for improving education in North America, this thesis presents Lev Grossman’s fantasy series – the Magicians trilogy, consisting of The Magicians (2009), The Magician King (2011), and The Magician’s Land (2014) – as providing this ‘vision’ and ‘language’ through its representations of education. Using a close reading practice alongside the method of thematic criticism outlined by Farah Mendlesohn, key passages in the series are analysed to explicate an “imaginative vision” of an ideal, alternative education and present this vision – alongside a plan for achieving it – to educators. I argue that the series can be a pedagogical tool to serve educators in recognising the issues inherent in the current North American education system and the need for reform, in facilitating and motivating the implementation of an ideal alternative in their classrooms – an autonomous education practice based on the theories of Paulo Freire and John Holt – and in aiding with explicit instruction on the concept of agency to foster student success within the new classroom practice. Through a process of literary analysis, the Magicians series is presented to educators to help them understand and implement theories such as liberating and dominating praxis, banking education, and autonomous education. Rather than waiting for institutional-level or school-level reforms, this thesis helps educators reform their classrooms immediately, improving education outcomes for students and demonstrating the possibilities and benefits of adopting an autonomous education practice. In addition to presenting the Magicians series as a pedagogical tool to address the issues in education, this thesis also posits fantasy fiction as a valuable body of literature for seeking solutions to real world problems by demonstrating the applicability of fantastic representations of education to solving real world issues. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / This thesis presents Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy as a tool for teachers, scholars, and students to use in addressing the problems in education in North America today. Starting with Henry Giroux’s research and writings on the problems with North American education, the Magicians is presented as the “imaginative vision” Giroux says must be located in order to inspire hope and present a plan for addressing these issues and modifying education to improve the outcomes for every student. Combining the theories of educators Paulo Freire and John Holt with the practice of literary analysis, this thesis examines the Magicians and argues that a critical reading of this fantasy series can serve educators by identifying the current problems and the need for reform, by introducing a new autonomous education practice that can be used in individual classrooms, and by supporting students in this new system through teaching the concept of agency directly.

Essän Gesternas klichéer - ett möte med machojournalistiken är en undersökning av machokulturen inom grävande journalistik, och villa formulera nya förhållningssätt. Hur kan jag hitta nya vägar bortom de stereotypa sätten att spela på manlighet och kvinnlighet som präglat min yrkesverksamhet som journalist? Hur ser ett kvinnligt respektive manligt sätt ut att spela på stereotyper. I essän vill jag undersöka hur stereotyper påverkar arbetet och undersöka hur jag kan frigöra mig från könsrollerna. Hur ser en motbild till den stereotypa machorollen som grävande journalist ut? I essän använder jag den feministiska teoretikern Sarah Ahmed och filosofen Hans-Georg Gadamer som ingång till ny perspektiv och synsätt.) / The essay is an investigation into the machoculture within investigative journalism, and strives to articulate another approach. How can I find a mode beyond the stereotypical play on masculine and feminine that has informed my professional work as a journalist? How can a typical feminine versus masculine ”working style” be characterized? I search to put into words how stereotypes affects the profession and look into ways to liberate myself from stereotypical gender roles. In the essay I use Sarah Ahmeds feministic theory as well as Hans-Georg Gadamers philosophy to find new perspectives.