In this dissertation I examine a variety of modern and postmodern texts by applying the theories of French philosopher Henri Bergson. Specifically, I apply Bergson's theories of time, memory, and evolution to the texts in order to analyze the meaning of the poem and novels. I assert that all of the works disrupt conventional structure in order to question the linear nature of time. They do this because each must deal with the pressures of external chaos, and, as a result, they find timeless moments can create an internal resolution to the external chaos. I set out to create connections between British, Irish, and American literature, and I examine the influence each author has on others. The modern authors I examine include T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner. I then show the ways this application can elucidate the works of postmodern authors Toni Morrison and Michael Cunningham.

In Toni Morrison’s Jazz and Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter, extreme opposition is prevalent as the authors describe the makeup of each character, as well as the setting and plot in these novels. What are they accomplishing by portraying such opposition? By using Jacque Derrida’s deconstructive theory and Julia Kristeva’s definition of abjection as theoretical guides to navigate these novels, examples of how both authors use extreme opposition in each element of their works are cited and explored. Through this process, the realization that opposing extremes can harmoniously lie side by side and have as many similarities as differences is discovered. By the conclusion, the unifying quality that love plays in both novels, as well as the authors’ intents to change their readers traditional concept of love, is evident.

Using a number of structurally innovative novels from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s as a basis for study, this dissertation examines the representation of communities in postmodernist American fiction. While novels have often been critically studied from the standpoint of the individual and society, here the often neglected category of community is put under scrutiny. Yet rather than considering it from a sociological point of view, which can potentially favour historical, economic or political grounds for community, this study focuses on the ontological binds formed between individual and community. On one level this study connects formal qualities of postmodernist novels to a representation of community – especially literary conventions from the past that are foregrounded in the present texts. On another level it interrogates the limits of the individual in relation to others – how we emerge from others, how we are discrete from others, how much we can actually share with others, at what cost we stay or break with the others who have most influenced us. The primary novels studied here, each of which is deeply invested in the community as a locus for ontological interrogation, are Robert Coover’s "Gerald’s Party" (1985) and "John’s Wife" (1996), Gilbert Sorrentino’s "Crystal Vision" (1981) and "Odd Number" (1985), Harry Mathews’s "Cigarettes" (1987), Joseph McElroy’s "Women and Men" (1987), and Toni Morrison’s "Paradise" (1997). Despite their varied representations of and attitudes toward the individual in community, these texts share a common spectre of American Romanticism that inflects how we read the possibility of community in the postmodernist period.

Cette étude porte sur le corps noir et l'intersubjectivité dans Ceux de July de Nadine Gordimer (1981), Tar Baby de Toni Morrison (1981) et Tu t'appelleras Tanga de Calixthe Beyala (1988). Dans chacun des récits, la représentation du corps noir est le pivot des relations qui unit les personnages noirs et blancs. L'évolution des différentes trames narratives dépend de la réinscription permanente de la figure du Noir dans les rapports intersubjectifs entre les Noirs et Blancs. Le premier objectif de ce mémoire de maîtrise est donc d'exposer la mise en scène littéraire de cette figure, avant tout, discursive, à travers les déplacements poétiques qu'effectue chacune des auteures. Cette analyse se fait principalement à partir de trois approches: organique, narratologique et sémiologique. Elle met aussi à contribution certaines notions relatives à la subjectivité dans l'énonciation. D'une part, cette analyse illustre les moyens par lesquels les personnages parviennent à construire des dichotomies qui, de prime abord, sont présentées comme étant indépassables à travers une série d'espaces où les différences sont démultipliées. D'autre part, ce travail de mémoire cherche à rendre compte de la nature intimement fictionnelle et sociale des corps, tout en démontrant une différence notoire de l'articulation du corps noir constamment chargé d'un « poids » métaphorique péjoratif qui efface le sujet. À travers leur écriture, les trois auteures parviennent à mettre en évidence les lieux communs de la représentation du corps noir, tout en réinscrivant ces derniers dans une polysémie déroutante et éclairante sur les communautés de sens qui enferment ou qui ouvrent les sujets sur eux-mêmes et sur les autres. En ce sens, les trois microcosmes déconstruisent -chacun dans son contexte respectif -la représentation du Noir. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Figure du Noir, Corporéité, Intersubjectivité, Stéréotype, Altérité, Roman, Mythe.

The text of Beloved will be analyzed with a Kleinian and Freudian approach in order to show how the characters see each other as good or bad objects. This essay begins with an explanation of terms and a short presentation of psychoanalysis and object relations theory. Thereafter, each main character and their relation to Beloved will be examined and discussed as well as their relation to each other.

This dissertation intends to study the haunting power of the past¡Xthe legacy of slavery and the trauma of racism¡Xon the lives of African Americans in Toni Morrison fiction. In this dissertation, I attempt to examine how the aftermaths of historical and individual trauma affect the formation of ethnic identity and black subjectivity, how the traumatic history is haunting across generations, how the memory of the traumatic past is mediated and imaginatively portrayed through fictional characters and in what ways those characters respond to racism and imposed shame. Based on the theories of trauma, I view African American history as a prolonged history of trauma which haunts generations of blacks. The impact of the past is always present in a variety of ways. Among Morrison¡¦s fiction, I will only choose four of her novels as my major concern to elaborate the fundamental issues that Morrison consistently highlights. The first chapter attempts to investigate aesthetics, ethics and black female subjectivity in Morrison¡¦s The Bluest Eye and Beloved. In the novels, Morrison discloses the racist biases of white aesthetics, as well as its damaging impacts on reshaping the subjectivity of black women. For Morrison, the aesthetic judgment is inseparable from ethics. The second chapter tackles the problematic of racial haunting and the possibilities of working through historical trauma in Beloved. The writing of Beloved not only serves as a reminder as well as a symptom of historical trauma but also offers a way to heal collectively historical trauma. The third chapter is concerned with the issue of postmemory and the crisis of fatherhood in Song of Solomon. The main protagonist, Milkman, still has to work through the multi-ethnic past of his family which, though not directly his, yet haunts him nonetheless. Morrison emphasizes the need for African Americans to forge productive links between past and present. Unless Milkman confronts his past, both personal and collective, he will not know how to appreciate the beauty and power of African-American cultural heritage. The fourth chapter engages with the problematic of black manhood and black nationalism in Paradise. In this chapter, I endeavor to explore how the wounded black manhood is formed in response and in reaction to the historical oppressions of black men as a whole. Set in the sixties and seventies of America, Paradise is a critique to the biased gender politics of black nationalism at that time. It reveals Morrison¡¦s persistent concern with the plight of black men and the continuous victimization of black women.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. Maxine Montgomery, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Apr. 9, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Le présent mémoire s'intéresse aux représentations de la colère dans la littérature des femmes africaines-américaines du 20e siècle. Il cherche à comprendre de quelles manières cette émotion taboue et honteuse investit Passing de Nella Larsen, Sula de Toni Monison et Push de Sapphire, trois œuvres écrites à différentes époques-clés de l'histoire littéraire noire états-unienne au féminin (les années 1920 et la Renaissance de Harlem; les années 1970 et l'émergence du féminisme noir et de sa critique littéraire; les années 1990 et la consécration institutionnelle des black women's studies). Il s'agit de voir comment, dans ces romans où prédominent des enjeux liés aux oppressions de sexe, de race et de classe, la colère joue le rôle de moteur textuel, d'émotion-source : elle dirige les actions et propos des personnages, dirige les intrigues, dirige l'écriture. Elle semble ainsi constituer une impulsion, un paradigme traversant la tradition littéraire féministe noire. L'étude d'un corpus diachronique permet d'entrevoir une évolution singulière : le passage d'une colère nommée et thématisée à une colère-discours. La colère constituant une émotion du désordre et du spectaculaire, j'analyse les stratégies narratives qui permettent de faire surgir l'excès et le théâtral dans les œuvres à l'étude. Ma réflexion se décline en quatre temps. Je me penche dans un premier chapitre sur les articulations entre rapports d'oppression et colère. J'interroge les liens entre sexe et colère, puis entre race et colère, pour enfin présenter les fondements théoriques du féminisme noir et les écrits de féministes noires sur la question. Les trois autres chapitres sont consacrés aux romans analysés : le deuxième traite de Passing et de la colère qui prend possession de l'intrigue grâce à quelques stratégies du double; le troisième montre que la colère, dans Sula, se manifeste selon deux mouvements simultanés (une transmission entre plusieurs générations de personnages et un détournement dans la narration) et par le recours à la métaphore du feu; le quatrième s'intéresse à Push et à son esthétique de l'excès, laquelle imprègne à la fois les corps des protagonistes et la narration. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : colère, excès, violence, littérature afro-américaine, littérature américaine, féminisme noir, Nella Larsen, Toni Morrison, Sapphire.

"Naming and Vocation in the Novels of J. R. R. Tolkien, Patricia Kennealy and Anne McCaffrey" discovers in recent works of fantasy and science fiction a pattern of authority which is rooted in the existence of namers and characters who are called to specific tasks. Each of these authors portrays individuals who are called to their own particular and unique roles by other figures whose knowledge of them is deeper than their own. The Biblical account of Samuel's life provides a paradigm for both namer and named that is informative in recognising this pattern in each of the works studied. The virtues essential to living out the call of a namer are faith and obedience; and personal fulfilment as well as heroic feats can only be achieved if those virtues are cultivated.

Using a number of structurally innovative novels from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s as a basis for study, this dissertation examines the representation of communities in postmodernist American fiction. While novels have often been critically studied from the standpoint of the individual and society, here the often neglected category of community is put under scrutiny. Yet rather than considering it from a sociological point of view, which can potentially favour historical, economic or political grounds for community, this study focuses on the ontological binds formed between individual and community. On one level this study connects formal qualities of postmodernist novels to a representation of community – especially literary conventions from the past that are foregrounded in the present texts. On another level it interrogates the limits of the individual in relation to others – how we emerge from others, how we are discrete from others, how much we can actually share with others, at what cost we stay or break with the others who have most influenced us. The primary novels studied here, each of which is deeply invested in the community as a locus for ontological interrogation, are Robert Coover’s "Gerald’s Party" (1985) and "John’s Wife" (1996), Gilbert Sorrentino’s "Crystal Vision" (1981) and "Odd Number" (1985), Harry Mathews’s "Cigarettes" (1987), Joseph McElroy’s "Women and Men" (1987), and Toni Morrison’s "Paradise" (1997). Despite their varied representations of and attitudes toward the individual in community, these texts share a common spectre of American Romanticism that inflects how we read the possibility of community in the postmodernist period.